Experiments with HelloFresh #1: Greek Easter Ragu with Almond, Aubergine & Basil Couscous

Around the time I was making a start on my trio of Gousto posts, I was planning my first foray into HelloFresh. On the surface, both offer much the same sort of service, with a different range of recipes and a very different style of presentation. From the moment of delivery (quite late in the day, on their 0900-1700 delivery 'slot'), HelloFresh appears to be more of a brand, with a personalised box containing not only ingredients and recipes but a welcome booklet introducing the HelloFresh team and their suppliers, as well as offering hints and tips for getting the most out of the service. There was also a copy of their monthly newsletter, The Fresh Times, and a whole slew of advertising flyers offering discount codes for clothing, beers and a 'smoothie starter pack' courtesy of partner companies... some of whom also seem to share the design agency used by HelloFresh, as the style of their flyers is more than a little similar.

But, while I may work in publishing and occasionally spend my days creating such flyers, I'm not here to critique that aspect of the product. Hell, I'd need a whole new blog if I wanted to get into that...

The original Grand Plan for trying out HelloFresh was that I'd put the order in so that my first delivery would arrive while I was taking time off work, and then cook every weeknight during my holiday - not only to give my girlfriend a rest, but to keep up my culinary confidence and give myself a little more to write about on this little foodie blog of mine. Naturally, this being real life, things didn't quite work out that way and, rather than ordering five nights of meals I ordered only three. On the upside, this probably makes for a more balanced comparison with Gousto. Also, since I chose the vegetarian option, all three recipies were for dishes both my girlfriend and I could enjoy equally, without having to find substitute ingredients for anything.

Since Easter was only a few days ago, the first recipe I tried was the one featuring the word 'Easter' in the name... not that I have any idea why...

I made my first mistake before even starting to cook, in that the recipe cards arrived in a cardboard wallet and, clearly having a bad day, I failed to notice on which side the wallet was open, and so I tore it open via the glued flap. You could say that sets the tone for the entire experiment but, as I write, I've only tried two of the three recipes, and I'm hoping the last will go better.

Each recipe card is digitally printed on an oddly-sized sheet of light card, with a nice, large photo of the finished dish - as it's intended to look - along with a pictorial list of required ingredients and an estimated preparation time. The back of the card features the ingredients list - including notes on potential allergens - a nutritional breakdown and, of course, the instructions. There are also photos, but only four running down the lefthand side of the card, so not every step in the process is accompanied by a photo. That's not necessarily a problem, as some steps hardly require illustrating. I know I said I wasn't going to critique the design but, if I can complain about holes being punched through timing instructions on one of the Gousto cards, I feel it is within my rights to complain about a terrible and avoidable text orphan on one of these - the last word in one of the steps sits, on its own, at the top of the second column, looking a bit silly.

This 'Easter Ragu' was supposed to take only 35 minutes but, as usual, it took me a hell of a lot longer because I'm terrible at chopping and didn't organise myself very well. I'm not sure how much longer it took, but I'd guess the total time can't have been much short of an hour.

Part of that would be the difficulty I had in locating some of the ingredients. At first, I thought at least two - the tomato purée and feta cheese, specifically - were missing, but my girlfriend found one and I later found the other myself. Some of the ingredients - particularly those coming in plastic sachets - are branded products, and therefore very easy to identify... others are plain bagged and labelled with little stickers... still others are just plain bagged. The feta was the only content of a cool bag which I'd assumed was included to keep some of the loose veg cool and fresh, while the tomato puree just looked remarkably like one of the ingredients for another recipe, as both were reddish substances in plain sachets.

The first instruction is to pre-heat the oven, but the oven only comes into play - for 20 minutes - at the end of the third step. My oven tends to heat up quickly enough that I rarely, if ever pre-heat... though that's more because I know I'm going to be slower than the recipe expects on the intermediate steps.

I also groan inwardly whenever the instruction 'chop finely' or 'finely dice' appears in a recipe because my knife-wielding skills are pretty dire. 'Fine' is something I have yet to achieve... 'haphazard' is more my style. This recipe calls for just about all the veg to be 'finely diced', from the garlic to the aubergine, while the basil was to be 'finely chopped'.

Let's just say I chopped them all... OK?

The aubergine was a particular trial as my kitchen knives - seriously in need of sharpening at this point - had great difficulty penetrating the aubergine's skin, and yet came perilously close to penetrating mine, with alarming ease, on a couple of occasions.

My problems with the aubergine didn't end there, though, as the 20 minutes of baking was probably a little too long in my oven, any the coating I gave them of olive oil was inadequate to prevent large amounts of it sticking to the foil on my baking tray.

The remainder of the recipe went smoothly enough, even though I had to substitute a tablespoon of tomato purée from my own stock, as the sachet supplied didn't become visible to me until the next day. I did wrestle with the quantities specified, as they tend to use 'cups' as a measure, but their website states that they use a 300ml coffee mug as their 'cup', which is larger than the 'standard' US cup size (not that I'm especially familiar with them) and so somewhat confusing. Bizarrely, the recipe specifies '2 cups' of chopped aubergine, but only one aubergine was supplied, and I'd say that amounted to substantially less than 2 cups, by their measures. It also specifies '1 cup' of tomato passata, but two 200g cartons were supplied and I didn't feel like trying to be precise about measuring out part of a carton, potentially letting the remainder go to waste.

Also, in my humble opinion, any recipe that measures green olives by tablespoons (when 2 sachets were provided) is just insane.

Nevertheless, the process was fairly simple, if a little messy at times, and I was genuinely and pleasantly surprised to find that the couscous had behaved exactly as it should have - soaking up the stock - in the time it had taken me to breeze through the complicated parts of the recipe.

As I was getting ready to serve it all up, I forewarned my girlfriend that it would be coming without the feta as it appeared not to have been supplied. Thankfully, she fished it out of its hiding place within about five seconds, because she was a bit more thorough in her investigation of the packaging than I had been. Swiftly and inexpertly crumbling the soft cheese over our portions, adding a few more bits of basil ripped from the remaining sprigs, our first HelloFresh vegetarian dinner may not have been pretty, but the end result of a fairly confused period of flailing in the kitchen was completely delicious.

Aside from the couscous, which I found quite bland... and I wonder if I should have used the entire stock pot, rather than the half specified. Then again, couscous tends to be intentionally bland, and one wouldn't want it to overpower the ragu. I'll definitely try this recipe again, probably doing certain things a little differently, to see if I can improve upon my first attempt.

Definitely not the same colour as the photo on the card,
and certainly not as tidily-presented, but very tasty.

I am utterly flummoxed by the name of this dish, and how it relates to 'Easter'... but also the structure and punctuation of the name seem misleading to me - the almond and aubergine are part of the ragu, not the couscous, so surely it should be "Greek Easter Ragu with Almond & Aubergine, served with Basil Couscous"?

If you think you might fancy giving HelloFresh a try (and are within the UK mainland), please feel free to use my referral code MPMDQT for an introductory discount. Yes, that also gets me a discount on my next order, but further deliveries are currently on hold while I complete this first set of recipes and consider how this system fits in with my current... erm... 'lifestyle'.

Feta & Griddled Peach Salad (BBC GoodFood '101 Veggie Dishes' Recipe)

This one may sound a bit weird, but bear with me. It was actually one of the first recipes my girlfriend and I tried from BBC GoodFood's '101 Veggie Dishes' book, but I completely forgot to write it up and left it aside for months on end. Oddly, I cannot find this exact recipe on the GoodFood website (the two recipes that are up there both include chicken in one form or another), so hopefully I can get away with listing the ingredients and details of how it's made. We didn't follow the recipe precisely as specified anyway (it was written to serve four!) and it's not as if I'd be reproducing it word-for-word...

Ingredients:

• 1 Lime
• 2 Peaches
• 1 Red Onion
• 1 Bag Mixed Salad
• Approx 250g Penne Pasta
• Approx 150g Feta
• Fresh Mint (enough for approximately 1 tbsp once chopped)
• 1 tbsp Olive Oil

Preparation Time: about 15 minutes

Tools Required:

• Griddle Pan
• Medium Mixing Bowl
• Kitchen Knife

The Process:
Start the pasta off as per your preference. This should take about 10-12 minutes, so you can safely leave that going while getting on with other bits.

Cut the peaches into wedges and squeeze the lime juice over the pieces. Since I don't have a griddle pan, we had to make do with basically toasting our peach wedges under the grill. The peaches we picked up weren't especially ripe (typical supermarket stuff), so they didn't work out very well. They're meant to go on a high heat for only two or three minutes a side, which should leave them "nicely charred". This is probably easier to accomplished with a griddle pan and with ripe peaches.

Slice the onion thinly, cut the feta into manageable pieces and chop the mint. Mix them all together with the salad leaves, pasta and olive oil in your bowl. Serve up, topping with a little pepper if you wish.

The Results:
Mixing fruit with any kind of traditionally savoury dish always sounds wrong, but gammon has been served with pineapple for years, and my local pizza place offers both pineapple and peach as toppings, so maybe I need to open my mind to fruit in my main course.

This certainly turned out more pleasant than I was expecting. The mint softened the bite of the feta and rocket, either of which can be overpowering under some conditions. The pasta component was not a part of the original recipe, and was included here to bulk up the dish, as it just seemed a bit too light and salad-y... Though perhaps that's because we cut the quantities of the ingredients. We didn't mix everything up quite as well as we could, essentially ending up with a very layered salad topped with pasta and peach, but it's certainly a good dish to try during the warmer months of the year

Mojito Lime Quorn

This was a bit more experimental than some stuff I've done, but still on the simple side, because it used a ready-mixed Mojito Lime marinade, a ready-prepared salad, and ready-to-bake seasoned potato slices.

The marinade mix came from the Schwartz 'Grill Mates' line, but I chose not to follow the instructions completely (a) because this was Quorn, not meat, (b) because we didn't have all of the ingredients as listed and (c) because I'm like that, so there.

Note that these details are for the preparation of the Quorn fillets only, any accompaniment would be dealt with separately, according the the instructions on its own packaging.

Ingredients:

• 1 sachet Schwartz Grill Mates Mojito Lime Marinade Mix
• 50ml Oil (I used olive oil rather than plain cooking oil)
• 50ml White Rum 
• 2 tbs Balsamic Vinegar (original recipe specifies white wine vinegar)
• 2 Quorn Fillets

Preparation Time: about 30 minutes, including 15 minutes marinating time

Tools Required:

• Wide, shallow bowl
• Frying Pan
• Spoon (for mixing and basting)

The Process:
Pour the oil, rum and vinegar into your shallow bowl, then add the contents of the marinade mix sachet and stir thoroughly. Add Quorn fillets to the bowl, ensuring all surfaces are covered, spooning the mixture over the fillets where necessary, then leave for at least 15 minutes to marinate. I started with frozen fillets (all I could get my hands on at the time), and the marinating time allowed them to thaw slightly before being cooked, thus reducing their cooking time slightly.

Set the hob to a medium heat, then transfer the fillets into a frying pan. Fry for about 5 minutes a side, generously spooning over more of the remaining marinade after turning. The oil in the marinade is sufficient, so no more need be added to the pan.

The seasoned potato slices I mentioned at the start were baked according to the instructions on the packaging, and were put into the oven at the beginning of the process... the salad, obviously, didn't need cooking.

The Results:
The instructions for the marinade suggest discarding all but two tablespoons of the marinade, which is used for basting halfway through the cooking time. This strikes me as rather wasteful... then again, frying the Quorn fillets made it far easier to pour on additional marinade during the cooking process, so I was probably a bit trigger-happy with it. What can I say, I like a good, thick coating on meat, so I figured it'd be especially important on Quorn, which has very little discernible flavour of its own.

The results would be very different on any kind of meat or seafood, with much of the eventual flavour coming from the meat, regardless of how long it's marinated. With Quorn you get a sweet, sharp coating that isn't quite 'mojito' because the rum doesn't come through very well - either it doesn't mix in well or it was just burnt off in the frying pan. It's possible that balsamic vinegar has too strong a flavour in its own right for this recipe, but it certainly did the finished product no harm.

It turned out very well for such a simple process, and I'm very likely to try this again using Quorn nuggets, or possibly using the alternative recipe, for 'Honey Lime Marinade', which switches the vinegar for lime juice and the rum for honey. At the very least, the next time I try this mix, I'll try leaving the Quorn to marinate overnight, so it absorbs more of the flavour. Quorn, being rather more porous than most meat, will most likely end up completely saturated... which shouldn't be a bad thing...

More-ish Mushroom & Rice (BBC GoodFood 'One Pot' Recipe)

One of the things my girlfriend and I are trying to do as much as possible at the weekends is properly cooking our meals rather than relying on takeaways, restaurants and ready meals. The trick is that I'm a carnivore and she's vegetarian, so it has to be something that can have meat thrown in at the end, or something with enough flavour that I can live without meat. To make things easier, we both have a selection of recipe books - some veggie, some not - so there are plenty of existing recipes we can try before getting all experimental.

This recipe comes from BBC/GoodFood's '101 More One-Pot Dishes', which is why I'm linking to that rather than doing my usual list of ingredients, then all the details of how it was made. Instead, I'll just deal with a few brief bits, then end on a nice, large photo.

Making this from scratch was probably the first time I've had any significant exposure to the concept of using fresh herbs rather than dried and, while I could certainly taste the difference, the fact that fresh herbs start wilting within a couple of days of purchase means I'm unlikely to start buying them regularly. I did have a small herb basket hanging outside my kitchen window, but haven't replanted since the first crop died, unharvested, and it's now overgrown with weeds. It's also worth noting that I'm not a fan of tinned tomatoes of any kind, so it was pretty strange - I won't glorify my neuroses by using a word like 'daring' - for me to try this recipe.

The end result is very sticky rice which has absorbed plenty of flavour from the veg while leaving the peppers, onion and mushrooms with enough texture that you don't feel like you're eating a very thick rice-based soup. I'm not sure that the specified amount of rosemary is quite enough unless you get creative with other spices, but it certainly adds something to the few mouthfuls it turns up in, and the parsley garnish brings a welcome crispness. It's also surprisingly sweet - or possibly not surprising considering it contains fried onions, peppers and tomato - so that should be kept in mind if adding anything to the mix, particularly with meat.

It's a ridiculously simple recipe - the most complicated part is seeding and slicing the peppers - takes less than an hour (particularly when made by two pairs of hands), and creates about four portions worth, so any spare can be refrigerated for another time. It's also very adaptable - you can start with multi-coloured peppers, add other herbs and spices, some meat or, as we tried for lunch the next day, stir-fry it with some egg for a bit of extra protein.

Grilled Halloumi & Mushroom Burgers

One of the most interesting things about having a vegetarian girlfriend is the clever and creative spin that gets applied to food whenever we cook together. It's tempting to think that vegetarians 'must be missing out' on certain kinds of foods but, even without the likes of Quorn and Tofu, there are many ways to get the feel of common dishes with all manner of wholesome substitutes. Some I'm familiar with, having gone through an almost vegetarian phase myself but, coming from a family of unabashed carnivores, most meals were very meat-oriented.

I'm familiar with several different kinds of 'veggie burgers', too, but I'd never considered the humble mushroom as the main player in a quick, simple and very tasty variation on the cheeseburger.

Ingredients:

• 2 Crusty Bread Rolls
• 2 Large Flat Mushrooms (ideally Portobello)
• Small pack of Halloumi
• Small pack of Spinach
• Olive Oil
• Herbs/Spices/Seasonings, as preferred

Preparation Time: About half an hour

Tools Required:

• A Sharp Knife (to cut both the bread rolls and the Halloumi, and to lop off the mushroom stalks if they're too long)
• That's about it

The Process:
This one's fairly simple, relying mostly on looking in on the grill regularly to check the progress of the mushrooms and halloumi. Mushrooms, it should be noted, will release an awful lot of moisture while grilling, and may need to be drained/squeezed (by pressing down on them with a fish slice or tongs, for example) to ensure the burger buns don't end up as soggy lumps.

To begin, preheat your grill to about 200C. Wash the mushrooms, chop off the stalks, then lightly score the domes of the mushrooms. Drizzle olive oil over the mushrooms and rub it in. Cut the Halloumi into slices about 1cm thick, ensuring there's enough to cover each burger.

The Halloumi will need about 5 to 10 minutes under the grill, while the mushrooms tend to need 15 to 20 minutes and will need to start dome-upwards. Both will need to be turned about halfway through their grilling time. Once flipped, sprinkle over whatever herbs, spices and seasoning you feel like adding to the Halloumi, noting that salt shouldn't be required as it's a fairly salty cheese as standard.

While the grilling is in progress, cut the rolls and prepare them with your desired salad, condiments and whatever else you like to add to a burger. One suggestion was to add spice mixes made by a certain chain of chicken restaurants into mayonnaise, or even use the spice mixes on the mushrooms/Halloumi themselves.

Once the grilling is complete, pile the mushrooms and cheese slices into the buns and devour mercilessly.

The Results:

There's no doubt in my mind that large mushrooms such as the Portobello are meaty enough to serve as a burger. These were made with only the barest additional seasoning, so the flavours of the mushroom, cheese and spinach were clean and prominent in every mouthful. Crusty rolls are preferable simply because, however well you drain your mushrooms during and after grilling, a certain amount of fluid will remain, and it will begin to soak into the buns. Standard burger buns would end up saturated and dripping far too quickly.

It's not often I'll cook something entirely vegetarian when I'm eating on my own, but this is quick and simple enough - as well as tasty and filling enough - to experiment with when I'm otherwise stuck for ideas for a straightforward and satisfying lunch.

Vegetarian Toad in the Hole

No, strangely, this is not a ready-made dish... though, given the ingredients, it might as well be. It has been previously noted that I'm a bit of a fan of Toad in the Hole, but the Iceland variety is not something I can serve up as a quick evening meal when there's a vegetarian in the house. Except, these days, there are vegetarian sausages, such as those that were used in S&M Rodeo #11, meaning that if I get a hankering for Toad in the Hole, but need to make a dinner suitable for a non-carnivore, this is still a quick and satisfying option. Additionally, being a home-made dish, it can be made large enough for two and leave at least one portion for an even quicker snack lunch the following day.

Ingredients:

• 1 six-pack of Linda McCartney Vegetarian Sausages
• 1/2 sachet of Aunt Bessie's Homebake Yorkshire Pudding Mix
• Cooking Oil

Preparation Time: approximately 30-35 minutes

Tools Required:

• Small Mixing Bowl
• A Stirring Implement, such as a Whisk or Fork
• Large Baking Dish

The Process:
I'll start this off by mentioning the big mistake I made in preparing this first attempt at a proper, full-size home-made Toad in the Hole: The vegetarian sausages are in the freezer section of the supermarket, are stored in the freezer at home... and I put them into the batter pretty much straight from the freezer, as if I was grilling them normally. For future reference, it's probably best if you let them thaw in advance.

So, to begin, lightly oil the interior of your baking dish - just pour a little in, then spread it around using kitchen roll - then place it into the oven.

Preheat the oven and baking dish to 200C (220C if not fan-assisted), then empty half the sachet of Yorkshire Pudding mix into a small mixing bowl, and add about 125ml (something in the region of a quarter of a pint, half the amount used for a full sachet), stirring thoroughly. Once the oven and dish are up to temperature, take the dish out and pour in the batter. The base will begin to cook instantly - this is a good thing, as it means your toads will have a solid base to their hole. Or something.

Line up the sausages at regular-ish intervals within the dish, then just dump the dish back into the oven for about 25-30 minutes, checking regularly to avoid accidentally burning it. The batter will rise around the sausages and will be golden brown when ready, but it won't take long after that for it to start to burn.

The Results:
The reason I warn against using sausages fresh from the freezer cabinet is that, being rather cold, they interfere with the proper rising of the batter around them. From the photos below, it is possible to discern that the batter rose very well around the edges, but spectacularly failed between the sausages.

That said, it all ended up tasting pretty good, and I do have a thing for not-fully-cooked batter, so I had no complaints. The sausages are fairly well seasoned as standard, and taste excellent in this. For serving, this was cut into three - meaning two good-sized sausages each for my girlfriend and I, and one portion left over - but it could be equally well quartered if the accompaniment is substantial enough.

Served with a bit of veg, this made a pretty decent, quick evening meal and, considering it takes about the same time to prepare as the frozen, ready-made kind I often pick up from Iceland, I'm half tempted to make this my default method of making Toad in the Hole in future.

And, if I'm cooking for myself, I could even use meat-based sausages.

In the righthand picture, note the way the batter has risen and turned golden brown around the edges, but stayed quite anaemic - and really not cooked very well - in between the sausages.

Adventures in Omelette #6 & 7: Spinach & Feta / Mozarella & Olive Frittatas

A dual post, possibly to make up for another very long break - I honestly didn't think it had been two and a half months since my last post, but at least I've been otherwise occupied rather than just being completely lazy.

I mean, I've been completely lazy as well, but managing to get a few things done - including some cooking - along the way.

These two were quick Frittata experiments with my girlfriend, who's vegetarian and so not very interested in the meaty/fishy kind of thing I normally throw together. Naturally, the process is the same, so I won't go into details... you may simply revel in the photographs and read the brief comments which accompany them.

This one in particular is essentially one of my normal frittata concoctions without the meat. Spinach and feta can go along with salmon or tuna, certainly, so it was nothing unusual, really.

If I remember correctly, this one ended up being either five or six eggs, simply because I was using the larger frying pan to ensure two decent portions. Many ready-made things one tends to find in shops consider a 20cm pan adequate for serving two... I do not. I prefer a proper portion, thank you very much.

Of course, many of those ready-made things assume you're going to be serving the frittata with something additional - a salad, perhaps... I do not. I prefer omelettes and frittatas to be the whole meal, in and of themselves, perhaps accounting for my preference for larger portions.

The end result was just as tasty as it would have been with the addition of meat or fish, just that little bit lighter, and without all the fuss of scooping out the suspicious-looking meaty/fishy bits. An excellent, quick, light lunch.

---

Mozarella and Olive, meanwhile, was a semi-deliberate attempt at something even lighter. Mozarella is a very soft, creamy cheese, so it seems as ideal for omelettes and fritattas as it does for pizza topping. Olives provide a little bite.

This frittata seemed to rise a little more (and a little more evenly), possibly because I turned it under the grill a few times - looking at the way my grilled food comes out, it sometimes appears that one side is more effective than the other.

There were two downsides to using mozarella as the cheese component in this particular fritatta. First, its tendency to form long strings when pieces are cut off and separated. Second, it's an incredibly light, mild, creamy cheese... so it didn't add much by way of flavour to the end result. Not to say this wasn't tasty... just that the olives and the eggs were really the only things providing any actual flavour. I suspect that a mixture of black and green olives, or some other additional component, would have been worth considering for this version.

Both of these turned out well, and certainly filled a lunchtime hole but, in purely flavour terms, the former is the clear winner. Both the spinach and the feta offered the most bite, not to mention a little more variation in texture. The latter recipe certainly needed a little something extra, whether it be something as simple as seasoning, an additional cheese, or more chunky ingredients to supplement the olives in the otherwise creamy mass.

This calls for some experimentation!

Quorn Bacon Style Slices

Without intending it, the latter part of this month has become something of an exploration of Vegetarian food. There are a couple of other things I'm intending to write up in future but, for now, I'm going to finish the month with one of two Quorn products I picked up recently in Waitrose.

The one I'm going to gloss over is their 'Ham Style Slices', affectionately know as sHam. Those slices don't smell like ham, they don't taste much like ham, and the texture is a bit spongy... but if you're a Vegetarian, yet unaccountably hankering after a ham sandwich, they're probably about the best you can do.

The one I'm going to go into more - but not much more - detail about is their 'Bacon Style Rashers' because, being a fan of both bacon and puns, I decided to make myself a very basic all-day-breakfast for dinner this evening... So I give you... Scrambled Eggs & Faken (Facon? I'm not sure of the best spelling for a contraction of 'fake bacon').

What you get in the pack is eight rectangular slices of flavoured, coloured mycoprotein that just don't look like food. Certainly not like bacon. I can understand why they wouldn't go to the trouble of marbling the colour, to look more like streaky bacon, but if the idea is to replicate bacon as closely as possible, they're certainly missing a trick.

Another issue with this stuff is that it has to be fried... No grilling allowed (though I'll probably give that a try, just to be sure). OK, frying is an option with regular bacon, but there are several other options too. Add to that the fact that the instructions state that the frying pan should be 'lightly oiled', when bacon - technically - needs no additional oil since it's own fat will generally suffice. The other drawback to frying-only is that if, like me, you're aiming to serve these strips of meat substitute with scrambled eggs, you basically need two frying pans, and need to be simultaneously operating two burners on your hob. Still, it's very quick - the instructions reckon only one minute per side, or until it's lightly browned.

Once it's done, what you have is a bunch of strips of a very strange substance that looks uncannily like a cross between leather and cardboard. Appetising it ain't. It doesn't crisp the way real bacon does, so it just as floppy cooked as it is when 'raw' but, equally, it doesn't dry out... Swings and roundabouts, I guess.

Flavour-wise, it's very subtle. Compared to your average supermarket-own-brand bacon flavour crisps, there's very little flavour at all, but what's there tastes more like real bacon than the aforementioned baked snacks. That said, just to give you an idea of how subtle the bacon flavour is, I served these up with basic supermarket eggs - the kind which are never renowned for their flavour - and yet the flavour of the eggs overloaded the bacon substitute in each and every mouthful.

That said, what it lacks in immediate flavour, it makes up for (if you can call it that) in aftertaste and... er... repeat value.

Overall, this is a bit of a failure... it doesn't emulate bacon well enough in any area, least of all strength of flavour. The fact that it's molded in a shape that's not dissimilar to streaky bacon, yet is coloured a solid pink means that it looks completely (and suspiciously) artificial. It might fool someone who turned vegetarian many years ago and misses bacon - just not enough to, y'know, cook up some bacon - but it's a pale imitation in every sense.

Well... at least the eggs look appetising...

S&M Rodeo #11: Linda McCartney Vegetarian Sausages

I can remember trying vegetarian sausages many years ago, during my 'vegetarian' phase, and not really liking them. There's something unique about the humble sausage which necessitates that they contain meat. It doesn't even have to be pork, just some form of meat. In many ways, it's the fat, not the meat, that makes the sausage... depending on recipe, and your mileage may vary ;)

Vegetarian sausages, back in those days, were made from a fairly dry and dense mycoprotein which was packaged as a substitute for anything from chicken to beef, with varying degrees of success. The early attempts at sausages looked, felt and tasted like something you might use to get a log fire started. I steered well clear of them after that.

Cut to earlier this year, out shopping with my girlfriend (who's vegetarian). She pointed out some meat-free Lincolnshire sausages, noting that they were "a bit dry". While I was nonetheless tempted to give them a try - not least because the vegetarian sausages I tried all those years ago weren't made with any particular recipe in mind, let alone the illustrious Lincolnshire recipe - they were not among the products in my basked at the checkout.

That must have stuck with me because, while doing one of my semi-regular spins around my local Iceland, I espied their (very slim) offerings from the Linda McCartney range of meat-free foods and, in particular, the sausages. In the photo, they look fantastic - succulent, well-browned... and tossed in with lots of onions.

And it was only a matter of time before S&M Rodeo tried batting for the other team, so to speak.

Like most Iceland products, these are to be cooked from frozen, yet still only require the same time and temperature as normal sausages, purchased fresh. Moreover, they can be grilled or baked, though baking somehow takes longer, and requires a higher temperature (which reminds me - why do baking instructions always specify a precise temperature, while grilling is either "low", "medium" or "high", when lots of conventional oven/grill combos use the same kind of temperature dial for both?), so I took the usual route of grilling my sausages.

Here's where it gets a bit weird, though. Normal sausages will tend to be packaged in sixes or eights... Linda McCartney sausages are boxed in fives. This is highly irregular, and causes a significant problem in creating the right portion size: Normally, I'd have either three or four sausages - half a pack - but that option wasn't open to me with a five-pack. The package even defines a portion as 2 sausages, but that's the sort of portion my niece gets. No matter how many times I crunched the numbers, no matter which complex formulae I chose, I still came up short...

...So I cooked all five.

What I noticed during the grilling was that these sausages, like their meat-filled cousins, were giving off fat and, yes, the ingredients list vegetable oil. This suggested to me that the dryness issue had been solved, though these sausages are wheat protein-based, rather than mycoprotein, so there's likely a difference anyway.

After about 15 minutes, I served up my five meat-free sausages with a nice portion of mash and, just in case, a small serving of gravy. As it turned out, the gravy wasn't necessary but, as with plain sausages, it was a source of more flavour as opposed to the source of all flavour.

The texture of these things isn't quite what one would expect from a sausage - it kind of reminded me of spring rolls in that, when dipped into the gravy, bits of not-sausagemeat dropped out, needing to be mopped up later. They cut very well, however, and are without the tough, occasionally rubbery skin that can often ruin an otherwise excellent sausage. The flavour isn't particularly sausage-like either or, at least, I couldn't pin down a particular variety they tasted like. As far as the ingredients go, flavourings are listed as containing dextrose (AKA sugar), salt, onion, yeast extract and, just for fun, iron oxide (AKA rust) as the colouring. These sausages also contain what's called 'rusk', which is used as a cheap filler in all kinds of sausages... So... Fairly authentic, even if they don't really taste that much like a proper sausage.

I must admit that I really enjoyed these and, for £1 a box, it's nice to be free from any concerns about meat quality while eating a plateful of sausages. Quantity is certainly a issue, as I'd basically have to buy two boxes to ensure a proper portion each time but, then, at only £1 a box, that's hardly going to be a problem.

STOP PRESS: a brief perusal of the shelves at my local Tesco revealed that, weirdly, 5-packs are an Iceland exclusive. The more widely available 6-packs are vastly more expensive, however. £2.25 at Tesco, £1.89 at Sainsbury's, £1.75 at Waitrose (who, strangely, have an alternate entry on their website, listing as £1.99). This means that's it's more economical to buy two of Iceland's 5-packs than it is to buy from any of the 'big three' alternatives and while Asda are, at this moment (29/1/13), offering 2 for £3, it's still more economical to buy from Iceland, as your £3 there will obtain 15 sausages, versus 12 at Asda... and that's a whole extra portion!)

Taiko Wrap Sushi - Vegetarian Wrap

You know when I said that my Filet o'Salmon Fish Fingers was the Lord of all Snack Foods? Yeah... well... I may have been a little hasty.

I've so far only come across these bundles of unmitigated sushi joy in certain branches of Waitrose, in their ready-made/snack/sandwich chiller cabinets but, at a mere £3 a pop for a full size sushi wrap, these are truly awesome. I shall attempt to illustrate:

Imagine, if you will, a long strip of Tamago, large slices of Shiitake mushroom and masses of fresh, crisp spinach wrapped up in a roll of sushi rice which is, itself, wrapped in a thin yet not insubstantial layer of Tamago. This roll is then cut in half and packaged with a sachet of pickled ginger, a sachet of wasabi, and one of those cute little fish-shaped containers of Shoda-branded soy sauce.

They are intended either as a quick snack, or as something to be eaten on the move and, potential complications arising from wasabi, soy sauce and perambulation aside, perform admirably in either function. They are quite tasty without the condiments and, perhaps surprisingly, the mushroom and omelette components offer the greatest contribution to the flavour. The ingredients list isn't particularly specific, but I'd guess the mushroom is either pickled or, at the very least, has been marinated in something - it has a kind of crunchiness and a subtle flavour that is not natural to raw, sliced Shiitake mushroom.

Dipped into the wasabi/soy mixture, of course it becomes a completely different, more powerful experience, and would probably work very well as a main component in either a full-on vegetarian sushi meal, or a mixed platter with fish, tempura and vegetarian options.