ramtops

(sapo is Spanish for toad)

We had some snacking chorizos left from this month’s Discover Unearthed tasting box – they’re the first thing we’ve had from them that we didn’t really like, so after the first taste, we decided to cook something with them. And thus a chorizo toad in the hole was conceived.

I made a batter from 3oz wholemeal flour, 1 egg, good pinch of salt, 5oz of semi-skimmed milk. This batter was in itself an experiment – I’m trying to cut down on white flour – and it worked very well. Cooked down the chorizos in a little oil on the hob first and drained off the excess, then added the batter, and bunged it in the oven at gas 7 for about 30 minutes – came out lovely!

While it was cooking, I bunged a finely sliced onion in the Remoska with a little olive oil, then at the end turned it into onion gravy with the aid of some cornflour and a beef stock cube. Consumed it all with steamed cabbage.

Mirrored from Reactive Cooking.

“What’s this?” you cry; “two posts in one day? You’re spoiling us.”

We are going to a meeting tonight at 6 p.m. and thought we’d eat our main meal at lunchtime, and just grab a sandwich before we go out. I bought a bunch of English asparagus at the greengrocer yesterday – don’t suppose there’ll be much more this year, so must gorge while we can. We have a handful of standard recipes we cook with it, but fancied a change. So:

Trimmed the asparagus and put it in a baking tray lined with foil – I generally do this now, as the washing up is so much easier. Drizzled it with a generous quantity of olive oil, and sprinkled some sesame seeds on it. Pete finely chopped a couple of cloves of garlic, which were duly added, then I mussed it all up with fingers; sometimes that’s the only way to do it.

It went into the oven at 180C for 15 minutes, while I cooked some fusilli to accompany it. Then further inspiration struck, and I whipped up a dressing of olive oil and lemon juice.

Pasta, covered with asparagus, covered with the dressing. It really was rather nice, and there’s still half a bunch of asparagus left!