Baked Scotch Eggs

It was, apparently, Eleanor Roosevelt that said "Do one thing everyday that scares you".

Do I agree that this is a basis for a life well-lived? I think, on balance, yes. I scare myself every day, in negative (driving too fast down narrow country lanes to get the kids to the bus in the morning) and positive (putting myself out there for work - in fact, being freelance scares me low level all the time in a "what if no one wants me to work for them" kind of way then realising that people do want me to work for them) ways, and on balance, I think scaring yourself in a positive kind of way is a good thing. The negative kind of scaring, where nothing positive comes out of it at the end (apart from getting the kids on to the bus, thereby avoiding an additional 20 minutes drive) is not so good.

But this is all fairly pointless pondering for the moment. I don't have to scare myself any more for at least 6 months, because last weekend, I went coasteering and scared the complete bejesus out of myself - in an exhilarating and positive "definitely do it again" kind of way. And this kind of scaring yourself is something I'd totally recommend, and makes me understand exactly what Eleanor Roosevelt was talking about. About stepping out of your comfort zone - in this case, quite literally: 12 m jump into the Blue Lagoon anyone - and surviving. Feeling the fear and doing it anyway never felt so real or so amazing. And when your 9 year old daughter has done it first, really, there's no option...

(this is me, btw, not the daughter)

As I've wittered on ad nauseam on here, the coastline where we live is completely stunning, and what better way to enjoy it than kitted up and with the full immersion of clambering over swimming round, leaping off and generally enjoying the coastline a little bit further away from the madding crowd. Abereiddy, Pembrokeshire was our destination

Celtic Quest Coasteering our amazingly fun, competent, utterly confidence-inspiring guides as we donned wetsuits, helmets, bouyancy aids, gloves and set off for one of the most brilliant and terrifying afternoons I've had for a long time, albeit that I had to spend quite a lot of time trying not to lose my contact lenses....

And to fuel this afternoon of adrenaline, baked scotch eggs: lovely eggs from our new neighbours' chickens, sausage & bacon from the butcher, my latest chilli sauce discovery, from Estelle's Gower Goodies and some homegrown chives... And because they are baked, they are healthy. Or less bad for you than the deep fried variety. Not very scary, but hey, you can't have anything.

Baked Scotch Eggs

for 5 Scotch eggs

5 large eggs - free range, organic, from your neighbour, if possible...
2 shallots, finely chopped
5 fat pork sausages, skinned (about 350g sausage meat)
1-2 tablespoons chilli sauce
1 slice of brown bread, turned into breadcrumbs
good handful of chives (or parsley), finely chopped
3 slices of streaky bacon

You also need a muffin tin - one with deep holes.

Hardboil your eggs - I do this by putting the eggs in a pan and covering to about 1 cm depth with cold water. Bring the water to the boil, then simmer the eggs for around 6-7 minutes. If you over cook them you start to get horrid black lines round the yolk, and also I like the yolks being not quite solid. But if you're pregnant or cooking for babies or small children, you probably wan to simmer for 8 minutes. 

Once cooked for the requisite time, plunge the eggs into cold water to stop them cooking, and leaving the shells till needed.

Turn your oven on to 200C/180 fan.

Gently sweat off the shallots in a little olive oil for 10-15 minutes, then set aside to cool a little.

Combine the sausage meat, cooled shallot, chilli sauce, breadcrumbs, chopped chives and a good grind of pepper until well mixed.

Peel the hardboiled eggs (one of my favourite cooking things to do).

Divide the sausage mixture into 5 and then flatten  a portion of sausage into your hand and wrap an egg in it, squidging and shaping as you go.

When all eggs are wrapped, cut the rashers of bacon in half, then stretch each half with the back of a knife and wrap each sausage-coated egg in a piece of bacon.

Pop each bacon wrapped, sausage coated egg into a hole in the muffin tin and bake for 25-30 minutes.

Remove from the muffin tin onto some kitchen paper to get rid of any more fat which hasn't drained into the bottom of the muffin tin, then leave to cool and enjoy as if it were your last meal, before heading off for adventure...

Linking this up with the Simply Eggcellent challenge on Belleau Kitchen where for June, 'anything goes'...

Salmon on a board

Food, like music, is something that can instantly transport me to a time or place, intricately associated with feelings - usually happy ones, I have to say - I don't have many bad memories associated with food (apart from tripe).

My memories of 2 trips to the States, for example, are chiefly those of the $10 lobster dinners, corn dogs, and frozen margaritas the Husband and I enjoyed on our first proper holiday together to New Orleans, and of a fabulous salad with deliciously cold white wine my friends and I ate on a roof top garden in Manhattan - very Sex and the City, although we were none of us searching for love, only enjoying each others company for a long weekend...

France is enmeshed with a series of memories for me - lusciously ripe peaches and tomatoes purchased from road side stalls on the south west Mediterranean coast, the freshest tower of fruits de mer eaten in a restaurant on a harbour wall somewhere on the Cherbourg peninsula - the crabs being fished to order out of the sea, snails eaten in various guises, the first - and only - meat fondue I've ever had, at the age of 16, the day after I arrived for an exchange visit with a family that I am still in touch with nearly 30 years later... And salmon, nailed to a board and cooked over a fire, Finnish style, when I was an au pair in my late teens, early 20s.

The salmon always fascinated me. The family I was helping out had moved to an old farmhouse that was being renovated. The kitchen was out of action and we were BBQ-ing most days. The father of the family, Bruno, would appear home from work with various delicacies, and one evening, announced we would be having saumon Finlandais. I can't remember what it tasted like (unusual) but the mere fact that it was cooked in such an unconventional manner and was edible, amazed me. At that point, I hadn't done much in the way of camping...

So it's always been on my mind to recreate this, and it turns out the Husband wanted to try it too, and eager to create some memories (not necessarily food-related) for the kids, we headed down to our local beach, Mwnt, for some late afternoon bodyboarding and a cookout on the beach. I'd like to say we caught our fish but we didn't, but you can't have everything, can you...

And literally, all you do is get a decent piece of wood - we had some oak board, nail your piece of salmon to it,

and wedge it next to your fire while it cooks.

You can always cook some sausages while you're waiting...

I'd love to be able to include beautiful shots here of the food on the beach, perfectly styled, but this is what really happened, - beach food, that we ate...

And another food memory - 6 months pregnant with Blue, in Winchester with the Husband's amazing Great Aunt visiting from Australia, eating juicy cherries in the Cathedral grounds on a blazing hot day. Every time I've eaten cherries since, I've thought of that moment. But we had cherries this evening, after the salmon, bought from a local market garden, Glebelands, this morning. We ate them as the sun finally dropped behind the 'mwnt' itself...

I think perhaps cherries will trigger a new memory from now on.

HamperGifts picnic hamper - a review

I have a dream – a dream in soft focus, where the sun is shining, the children are smiling, and we’re sitting on a beautiful rug in countryside so picturesque, it would make you cry. There's a shady river nearby. We’re dressed stylishly, everyone’s getting on, the dog is frolicking in the shallows with the children, but gives no hint of legging it to maul any local wildfowl that might be lurking on the lush riverbanks, and there’s a chilled bottle of white to be quaffed....

Did I say a dream? Mmm. May be a wildly unattainable hallucination, but you know, it just got a little closer.

And no, the dog is no closer to behaving like the civilised, well trained creature of my fantasies, and stylish is never a word that’s going to be applied to me, but in my dream, there is a beautiful picnic hamper full of luscious treats, and there, well, on that score, there’s a little reality creeping in.

I was approached by Hampergifts to see if I would like to write a review, and was allowed to choose a picnic hamper for 4 , which retails at £115. It arrived very promptly, and made me thrill with anticipation as I unpacked the contents.

A bottle of rather delicious looking Vipra Bianca wine from Umbria

Tin of Lewis & Cooper Savoury Biscuits

New English Teas English Afternoon tea

The wooden spoon preserving company High Dumpsie Dearie Jam

Wholegrain mustard

Olives et Al olives

Karyatis red pepper & feta mezze

Cottage Delights Aubergine & Mango chutney

Sesame & Tomato bites

Pearls Cafe flapjacks - honey baked and cherry & coconut

Traditional handbaked chocolate biscuits in a little hessian bag

2 boxes of chocs – truffles and mint chocolate sticks

All very exciting. Good quality products. Obviously if you were going for a picnic, you’d need to include your beautifully cut sarnies (smoked salmon and cucumber?), may be a handmade pasty to go with the mustard or chutney, a hunk of lovely cheese to go with the crackers, but that’s no problem because there’s loads of room in the hamper to include it all. We haven’t yet had the opportunity to try all the goodies, but what we have eaten has all been great: tasty, good quality, definitely a treat to eat, and I’d be happy to add in the extras that couldn’t come delivered in the hamper (the sandwiches etc).

The hamper itself is lined with suitably rustic, striped cotton, and includes plates, mugs and cutlery for 4 . It’s pretty sturdy and I think will last – you can purchase the hamper itself empty, so it’s not simply a vehicle for the food that comes in it, if you see what I mean.

As they say on the website – everything you need for a proper family picnic. Except may be the well behaved dog, stylishly dressed mother, non-bickering children...

If you’re interested in more hampers from Hampergifts, do check out the website, and click here for more food hampers.

 

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Disclaimer: I agreed to provide a review, and was allowed to choose a product to review, but I was not required to provide a positive review, and the views expressed here are my own.