Travelling to... erm... England

N's Uncle Steen arrived today from Denmark. He's only been to England once before, approximately 30 years ago. So we thought we'd celebrate with some good old fashioned English fare.

To be honest, it was also a bit of a dilemma - on one hand feeling like we hadn't been 'travelling' for a


while so wanting to do one, but also feeling like I wanted an easy, nice, friendly evening with our guest. So, England was a bit of a compromise. But I couldn't quite bring myself to do something completely easy - we have toad in the hole and fish pie soooo often already that it seemed too much of  a cop out to do that sort of English.

THE DISH
I plumped for Lancashire Hot Pot in the end, thinking at least the boys might be swayed by the crispy potatoes on the top!

I went for a Waitrose recipe. It was minus kidneys, which suited me, and had a few extra veg than most other recipes. Waitrose lancashire hotpot recipe Hope it's OK to give a link. It's rather late and I can't be bothered to do all that cut and pasting etc. ... (added at a later date for completeness' sake... )

Ingredients

• 4 tbsp plain flour
• 1kg Waitrose English Diced Lamb
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 500g tub Joubère Organic Chicken Stock
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 2 large onions, sliced
• 2 carrots, sliced
• 1 Waitrose Cooks' Ingredients Bouquet Garni, for meat
• 800g Maris Piper or other floury potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced

1. Preheat the oven to 150°C, gas mark 2. Season the flour, then toss with the lamb until well coated.
2. Place a large frying pan over a high heat. Add 1 tablespoon of the oil and half the meat, and cook for 3 minutes or until well browned. Transfer to a 3.5 litre casserole dish. Add another tablespoon of oil and repeat with the remaining meat. Return the pan to the heat and add the stock and Worcestershire sauce. Stir for 1-2 minutes then pour over the meat in the casserole.
3. Wipe out the pan then add half a tablespoon of oil, the onions and carrots and cook for 4 minutes or until they are starting to colour. Tip the vegetables in with the lamb, add the bouquet garni and season well.
4. Arrange the potato slices on top, seasoning between each layer. Drizzle over the remaining half-tablespoon of oil and season again. Cover with a lid and place in the oven for 1½ hours. Remove the lid and cook for a further hour. Serve with Waitrose Red Cabbage (available ready shredded, in a pack).

THE RESPONSE
Well... the 242 was delaying our visitor somewhat and the kids were getting a bit desperate. So the immediate response of Mr Middle was a little disappointing. I had told him that I had also done some good old English mash to soften the blow of lamb stew ("I hate lamb!") but when I dished it up he saw that I had mixed it with (not exactly English) sweet potato, he burst into tears! I think he gets very hungry and then completely panics that he'll be going to bed hungry if he doesn't think he'll be able to eat much. But I had sneakily cooked the kids' meals in swanky separate pots so he was a little bit distracted by that development and then Steen arrived with N and so the tears were soon over without anyone (ie me) getting too stressed. The Smallest seemed pretty sanguine about the idea he was going to have to eat lamb stew... which in itself is an amazing development. Especially given that he was so super hungry.

THE VERDICT
By the time I had dished up for our guest and we'd sung our thanks and tucked in, Mr Middle was almost finished. "I love lamb mum!" (!!!) "M, I want you to write that down for me, in black and white, so that I can remind you next time we have it" I say.  "And get K to sign it too" I add, noticing that the smallest, though he did wrinkle his nose and say "Are you sure this isn't beef?" a couple of times, had also polished off his little pot. The Eldest wasn't quite so sure about her mushroom veggie version. She likes mushrooms (thank the Lord) but I think they get a bit boring. And to be honest I probably don't work too hard at the options I give her. Must do better.

THE PUD
Gosh, what a choice. I guess that's the problem when you choose somewhere you're familiar with. Or maybe England does just do the best puddings. Went for the treacle tart option. I fancy my pastry making skills since I discovered it's pretty easy to do a 'flakey' version of my normal shortcrust, and the pastry always goes down with the kids. Pastry plus syrup seemed a no brainer.

BBC food recipe - Treacle Pud

It looked fancy. But I would say it was a bit lemony really. Not quite sickly enough for my liking! The smallest caned it, but the other two were decidedly sniffy. They had been promised ice cream on this, their first day back at school, and treacle tart was just not cutting it. Lucikly both N and Steen had two helpings, so at least we won't be eating it every day into next week!

Cutting and pasting it here at a later date... and I'm reminded that it seemed a bit long winded. Some recipes are a bit OTT with minute instructions don't you think? I prefer a broad-brush stroke approach. Or maybe I quite like the minute detail so I can confidently ignore some of it! All that egg wash for example. Nah!

Ingredients

For the pastry

• 250g/9oz plain flour
• 130g/4½oz butter, plus extra for greasing

For the filling

• 400g/14oz golden syrup
• 150g/5½oz fine fresh white breadcrumbs
• 2 lemons, zest and juice
• 1 free-range egg, beaten, to use as egg wash

1. First make the short crust pastry: measure the flour into a large bowl and rub in the butter with your fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs (alternatively, this can be done in a food processor). Add about three tablespoons of cold water and mix to a firm dough, wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for about 20 minutes.
   
2. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6 and put a heavy baking tray in the oven to heat up. Grease a deep 18cm/7in loose-bottomed fluted flan tin with butter.
   
3. Remove about 150g/5½oz of pastry from the main ball and set aside for the lattice top.
   
4. Roll the rest of the pastry out thinly on a lightly floured work surface and line the prepared flan tin with the pastry.
   
5. Prick the base with a fork, to stop the base rising up during baking.
   
6. Place the reserved pastry for the lattice top on cling film and roll out thinly. Egg wash the pastry and set aside to chill in the fridge (the cling film makes it easier to move about). Do not cut into strips at this stage. Do not egg wash the strips once they are on the tart as it will drip into the treacle mixture.
   
7. To make the filling, heat the syrup gently in a large pan but do not boil.
   
8. Once melted, add the breadcrumbs, lemon juice and zest to the syrup. (You can add less lemon if you would prefer less citrus taste.) If the mixture looks runny, add a few more breadcrumbs.
   
9. Pour the syrup mixture into the lined tin and level the surface.
   
10. Remove the reserved pastry from the fridge and cut into long strips, 1cm/½in wide. Make sure they are all longer than the edges of the tart tin.
    
11. Egg wash the edge of the pastry in the tin, and start to make the woven laying lattice pattern over the mixture, leave the strips hanging over the edge of the tin.
    
12. Once the lattice is in place, use the tin edge to cut off the strips by pressing down with your hands, creating a neat finish.
    
13. Bake on the pre-heated baking tray in the hot oven for about 10 minutes until the pastry has started to colour, and then reduce the oven temperature to 180C/350F/Gas 4. If at this stage the lattice seems to be getting too dark brown, cover the tart with tin foil.
    
14. Bake for a further 25-30 minutes until the pastry is golden-brown and the filling set.
    
15. Remove the tart from the oven and leave to firm up in the tin. Serve warm or cold.