POST 9, PART II: AMERICAN PIE

So, pecan pie...

INGREDIENTS

120g plain flour
60g cold butter, diced
1 tbsp maple syrup
2 tbsp ice-cold water

2 eggs, beaten
50g butter, melted
100g soft dark brown sugar
4 tbsp golden syrup
2 tbsp maple syrup
175g pecan halves

METHOD

1) Pulse the flour and butter in a food processor until they resemble breadcrumbs. Add the syrup (just to sweeten the pastry) and add the water one tablespoon at a time until it binds together. Cover the ball of pastry in clingfilm and pop in the freezer for one hour.

2) Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.

3) This is going to sound odd, but coarsely grate the frozen pastry and then press it out into a 9in/23cm pie tin with your fingers. I came across this pastry method in the wonderful Waitrose magazine and it really is worth trying – it’s much lighter and more delicate than other pastries. The uneven, ‘frilly’ edges also give your pie a certain rustic charm.

4) For wetter pies/tarts like this, I’ve found it’s best to blind-bake the base for about 10 minutes until the base is just cooked through, so do that while you make the filling. No need for baking balls or any of that as it won’t puff up. But word to the wise, here – don’t use a pie tin with perforated holes at the base as it will leak!

5) Melt the butter for the filling over a gentle heat until it just turns a light golden brown (not burnt!). The technical term for this is beurre noisette and it gives the pie a nice toffee-nutty taste, if that makes sense. Set aside.

6) Mix the sugar and two syrups into the beaten egg. Loads of pecan pie recipes call for three eggs, but I find that’s one too many and leaves you with too much of an eggy taste, hence I omit one. And I like using a bit of maple syrup as it’s the perfect partner to pecans, IMHO. Stir in the butter.

7) Arrange the pecans in the pastry case, pour the liquid on top and transfer to the oven. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes before turning down to 180 degrees for a further 15 to 20 minutes. Turn out the tin when slightly cooled and serve warm or cold (when it’ll be even stickier!) with ice cream, cream or crème fraiche.

Ahh... One of the best things about writing this blog is that I get to whip up treats like this pie for no particular reason and then pig out. There’s a slice of the States on a plate, y’all! Now, I wonder how difficult it is to create an authentic Dunkin’ Donuts experience in my own kitchen? Or get a pretzel inside an M&M..? Both delicacies I didn’t eat while in New York. I did, however, enjoy my very first Subway and a dinner consisting entirely of crisps, thanks to my brother’s gastronomic discerning.

But before you go thinking we had an entirely terrible time, we did manage to pack in plenty of fun stuff around the, er, hiccups... Up the Empire State Building. Circle Line boat tour to see Lady Liberty. Central Park, even though we got lost for a further hour after I said I had to go home and thought my feet were going to fall off. Having a wee at the United Nations knowing I was on international soil. Oh, and ogling all the True Blood season three billboards. So all good, cultural stuff.

I guess we got off to a bad start, is all... On our first night at the hotel, I woke up around 3.00am after having a bellyful of Diazepam, beer and no sleep for some 24 hours in an effort to beat jet-lag to find our bathroom completely flooded. There was a good inch of water on the floor, which was seeping out onto the bedroom carpet – all a bit Fear and Loathing. No sooner had I sleepily tossed a towel down – about as much use as bailing out a sinking ship with a teaspoon – than hotel staff were banging on our door. Water was dripping down into the room below, so they promptly moved us.

All of which I apparently found hilarious at the time, judging by the photos I took to document the whole sorry affair. ‘Their leak, their problem’, I figured. The next morning, not so much... The hotel manager rejected our leak theory in favour of a tap left running. My brother had no recollection of the night’s proceedings. But, to me, a leak seemed the only logical explanation. So we tried to carry on our holiday regardless. Which isn’t easy when your brother’s secretly worrying he had the bright idea of running a midnight bath in a highly litigious society. And so, at the end of a hideous day spent trailing solemnly around the Financial District contemplating the atrocities of 9/11 in between my throwing up with heatstroke, I realised that my life movie more closely resembled The Hangover.

A review of the evidence – photo times, a pair of wet socks and the fact that we are a couple of British binge-drinking buffoons – revealed that we were guilty as charged, m’lord. The likelihood being that one of us (ie, my brother) left the tap running for some three hours til it overwhelmed the overflow before he finally turned it off without doing a thing about the water, all while I was sound asleep. I think his soggy socks would be enough to convict him in a court of law.

So I phoned the manager and fessed up. And cried. Because I’m good at that. And after leaving us to stew for a few days that lovely, lovely Ace Hotel let us off the hook without charging us a penny! Which was the best un-30th-birthday present I could have wished for!

Plus has also stopped me filing for divorce from my drunk and disorderly brother. The end.

POST 6, PART II: TIME TO BRING OUT THE BIG GUNS

Now, where were we? Oh, yes – scotch eggs. Here’s how I made ‘em...

INGREDIENTS

100g white bread crumbs (that’s about four average-sized slices, to save you getting the scales out)
1 tsp paprika
Pinch of ground white pepper

400g sausages – ie, pack of six (buy the very best quality you can)
4 rashers sweet-cured bacon
1 tbsp fresh or dried herbs (to complement what’s in your sausages – ie, sage and parsley)
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

8 medium eggs

Flour for dusting

Oil for deep frying

METHOD

1) Blitz the bread, paprika and pepper into crumbs in a food processor. You can use fancy bread if you like, but I don’t think it makes all that much difference myself.

2) Place six of the eggs in a pan of cold water and bring to the boil and bubble away for four minutes. Don’t do what my mother always does at this point and leave them boiling away for hours as they’ll end up hard and rubbery, with a nasty grey around the yolk. Remove and plunge into cold water.

3) Pulse the bacon in the food processor with some fresh herbs if you’ve got some. Choose your herbs according to what’s in your sausages by checking the pack – sage and parsley are good with pork if you’ve got plain ones. Transfer the mixture to a bowl.

4) Split the sausages with a knife and ease the meat out the skins and into the bowl with the herby bacon. If you’re not using fresh, sprinkle some dried herbs in at this stage. Add seasoning to taste. Mix together with a fork. Divide the mixture into six balls.

5) Shake some plain flour into a bowl. Break the remaining two eggs into another bowl and whisk together. Place the plate of breadcrumbs followed by a clean plate beside them – this is your scotch egg production line!

6) Crack the cooked eggs and peel off the shells. Gently does it – they’re soft-boiled, remember! (Unless you’re my mother.) Rinse and dry on kitchen-towel. Toss in flour and shake off any excess.

7) Working one egg at a time, take a ball of sausage meat and flatten it out in the heel of your hand. Place an egg in the centre and then gently envelope in meat, wrapping and pinching the meat until the egg’s completely sealed. Give it a gentle final roll to ensure even coverage.

8) When all of your eggs are covered in pig, roll them in flour, dip them in the beaten egg and then roll them in breadcrumbs. Place them on the clean plate as you complete each one. It’s also advisable to wash your hands each time or your fingers will end up a floury, eggy, bready mess.

9) Heat enough oil in a fryer or pan to just cover the eggs. (Incidentally, I have an electric wok that doubles as a fryer – well worth investing in one of these if you have a crap hob and/or are in denial about your regular deep fat frying needs, as am I.) To test the oil is hot, tear a bit of bread off and drop it in – it should turn golden and crisp in about half a minute.

10) Cook the eggs, I’d say, no more than two at a time for about six or so minutes until they’re golden and crisp all over. Drain on kitchen-towel. Leave to cool if you’re taking them to a picnic or eat warm if you can’t wait.

So as it turned out, it wasn’t him. Or me. It was some girl called Sophie. She’d been on the scene for some time, it seemed. She rocked up at this picnic... And, whaddyaknow, she couldn’t get enough of my scotch eggs – she ate two, I’m told. My memory is a bit hazy if I’m honest, as I spent most of the evening getting angrily drunk from afar watching her and Dom flirt. Coz she couldn’t get enough of Dom either, you see.

Dom didn’t make pains to save a scotch egg for himself before they were all scoffed and was perfectly content with the Asda sausage rolls Sophie had brought (Asda!). Clearly, had Dominic sampled the delights of my scotch eggs rather than Sophie’s reconstituted pig paste in pastry he would be mine, all mine. But some things, children, are simply not meant to be. Unlike Sophie and Dominic, who have been happily dating for the past three years, I believe.

Still, those were some bloody good scotch eggs. ‘Yeah, you can be proud of yourself,’ I reflected as I downed my gazillionth glass of Pimms and revenge-flirted with some random by the name of Stu (also a big fan of the scotch eggs, BTW). ‘Just look at what he’s missing,’ I mused. As I vomited in a bush, cried and had to be escorted home by my mate... Good work, Amy. Good work.

Illustration by Bex Barrow.

POST 2, PART I: HOW DO YOU LIKE YOUR EGGS IN THE MORNING?

Actually, I’m way too much of a coward to cook eggs for someone I’m attempting to impress. Boiled or fried, I have a knack for cocking up the apparently foolproof tasking of cooking an egg. Scrambled is always over-cooked. Soft-boiled is hardboiled. Fried ditto. Omelettes – see scrambled.

Poached is by far the worst. I’ve tried all the tricks – shallow pan versus deep saucepan of water, a dash of vinegar and/or swirling the liquid around before dropping the egg in. Whatever, I wind up with the white parting company with the yolk, leaving me fishing for a lonely yellow ball amidst the froth of white that I just know I’m gonna burst before I get it on my toast.

What is the secret to successfully poaching an egg?! Answers on a postcard please...

Still, the song seemed kind of apt... But my staple boyfriend breakfast is, in fact, the bacon sandwich. Now, while I believe a bona fide bacon sarnie should be made with perfectly fresh white bread – with that pleasingly crisp crust and preferably still slightly warm from the baker’s oven – if you’re buying the constituent parts the day before (as this is the morning after, remember) you are better off, in my humble opinion, investing in a nice, sliced brown bread. Something malted and seeded. Not just boring wholemeal.

A risky move, you might think – but hear me out...

The unusual choice of brown bread, you see, allows you to conduct a crucial boyfriend test – a little something I like to call The Bacon Sandwich Test. I developed this a few years ago when I was dating someone I can only loosely describe as a ‘man’ a couple of years younger than myself – well, four to be precise. ‘Getting some cash back’ as a mate of mine calls it. Names have been changed to protect the innocent, so I’ll refer to him as ‘Don’. (But as he’s not that innocent, I will tell you that ‘Don’ is only one vowel away from this real name. And since no one is called ‘Den’, ‘Din’ or ‘Dun’, you will doubtless deduce that his name is ‘Dan’. Well done, Sherlock.)

Now, I knew full-well Don, 24, was immature – that was a given. Boys lag a few years behind us girls, so I figured he’d be around the 19- or 20-mark in female years. I had my reservations, but I think I’d recently read a magazine article in the hairdressers – let’s blame Cosmo – about how refreshing and baggage-free younger men are. And I must admit I liked the idea of training someone up to suit my specific requirements. So when he asked me out after what I’d chalked up as yet another ill-advised one-night-stand, I decided to give him a go.

However, I soon started to suspect Don was especially childish. The fact that he didn’t have a bed when we first met was a dead giveaway, in hindsight. Just a broken futon, a duvet with no cover and an old sleeping bag. I really don’t know what I was thinking. Standards, Amy! Standards! There were also the World of Warcraft sessions that lasted late into the night (though not while I was there, I hasten to add). His grotty bathroom that never seemed to be stocked with items such as toilet roll, soap or towels. Oh, and the shower didn’t work either. Not that this bothered him, because personal hygiene is overrated. He was in a band, too. Yawn.

And then there was the food thing. I want to say he ate like a baby, but that’s not quite true. He liked to please me by taking me to fancy-ish restaurants and trying new things, but I suppose, to my mind, he put food together in a totally random and unrefined way. But what bugged me about this was the ballsy way he’d pass off his God-awful creations and combos as delicious and superior, subjecting me during the course of our five-month relationship to some of the worst meals I’ve ever ingested. In short, he believed he was a better cook and foodie than me, the cocky little sod.

This was war.

Cooking is my thing, see. It’s what I quite literally bring to the table. And, in this case, I’d clearly demonstrated to Don, time after time, that I’m a kick-ass cook while he, on the other hand, was not. But rather than roll over and accept defeat, dear obstinate Don kept on cooking for me. I can chart our relationship’s demise through three truly hideous meals he made for me, all of which I’ll share with you some day. But, for now, here’s by far the best/worst...

I turned up to Don’s one week night after work, tired and hungry. I’d been bugging him about what he planned to cook as the last time he’d had the genius idea of making lasagne, from scratch, at 7pm on a Wednesday... Which we didn’t eat until gone 11pm, and even then the pasta was still crunchy. But he was insistent it was a surprise. His treat.

“You can help me get it ready,” he told me on arrival. ‘Geez, thanks’, I thought, wondering why we couldn’t just get a takeaway if that was the case. “I’m making chilli prawns with mango and red onion salsa,” he boasted as I rolled up my sleeves.

Red onion..? For two people with a passing interest in kissing later on..? R-i-g-h-t... Another fine choice, Don. He gathered his ingredients – a packet of pre-cooked prawns and, um, that was about it. “I couldn’t get a mango,” he muttered. “Or a red onion,” he added, passing me an ordinary onion. An ordinary onion? There. Are. No. Words. Any rational person would have abandoned this recipe when they realised the shop was all out of mangos. But not our Don, no. Here was a man happy to chow down on raw – raw!­ – onion rather than admit he was a total halfwit when it came to cooking.

“So you’re planning on serving us pre-cooked prawns with some raw, white onion?” “Yeah.” “Raw onion?” “Yeah. It’s the same. They’re just different colours. They’re the same thing.” “No, they’re really not. You’re seriously telling me you’re going to eat raw onion? Really..? Where’s the chilli?” He presented me with some chilli powder. I scowled. “Maybe we could fry the onion?” he offered.

At which point I stormed to Tesco for a pizza. And that, boys and girls, was the last time Don was allowed to cook for me.

As I have spectacularly failed to get to the bleedin’ point, I will have to tell you how Don fared in the bacon sandwich test in my next post. And I also promise to put up a proper breakfast recipe for my favourite smoothie as my random thoughts on bacon sandwiches really don’t count. Sorry!

Next post: recipe and conclusion...