Tony Tobin - Back with a banger
Above: Tony Tobin cooks up some seasonal treats
Originally published in Surrey Life magazine November 2008Kitchen Diaries - Our resident celeb chef Tony Tobin aims to create a new seasonal Surrey trendOn visiting Turkey recently, and being treated to a dish inspired by a particular festival day, it struck me that seasonal and festival meals are not a great speciality of ours in Britain.
Sure, we have Christmas lunch and everyone knows the ingredients for that but then there’s a yawning gap in our legacy and our imaginations. I suppose Burns Night is a contender if you have Scottish blood in the family and, at a push, one might consider counting Shrove Tuesday (flour and milk anyone?) but otherwise there’s a sad lack of culinary involvement in Britain for the remaining 363 days of the year.
So, as you might have come to expect from me by now, I’m going to spend a few minutes putting that right. I think people need occasional dishes tied to days, holidays and celebrations to inspire them and force them away from the well-trodden staple diet. Do you recognise the following conversation from your own household: “What shall we have for supper tonight? I don’t fancy X, shall we get a takeaway?”
Let’s start lining up some candidates for days when we could propose a signature dish that the chefs and cooks of Britain will all create by way of celebration.
Festival fare How about St George’s Day? A top contender if ever there was one! Who’s for starting a new trend that we’ll start in Surrey (and claim that we’ve always done it) and then spread across the whole country? I propose that we mark our national saint’s day every year with an evening meal of beef Wellington, followed by sherry trifle and washed down with the most robust red wine that Denbies in Dorking can muster up? Any takers?
Next, midsummer night – the summer solstice. Surely, this is the best day of the year for an evening dish of British-caught freshwater fish baked in salt and served with new potatoes and asparagus. The added corollaries to this are that your Midsummer Supper must be eaten outdoors and that people are not allowed to consume any-thing solid between 9am and 9pm that day!
So, next up, the vernal equinox, the spring day when night and day are exactly the same length. We could mark this with a two-course meal that combines a sunny starter such as a rich onion tart with sunblush tomatoes, yellow peppers and golden melted cheese with a dusky main course like blackened chicken and cavello nero cabbage.
Finally, (and at last Tobin edges towards the real reason for this particular flight of fancy), Bonfire Night. It will be on us soon, scaring nervous dogs and providing firework shops with their one truly busy period of the year. Surely, though, it should not just be about bangs and flashes but food, too. While history never records that Guy Fawkes was a culinary type, the whole smoky feel of the night we commemorate the failure of his gunpowder plot lends itself perfectly to some appropriately themed food.
On the right, I have included two Bonfire Night recipes that are easy enough for everyone to try. Meanwhile, for anyone not sure of where to get hold of the giant Catherine Wheel Cumberland sausage shown opposite, just nip down to Robert & Edwards, the wonderful butcher in Reigate, who created the one in my picture for me.
Add a bit of fizz There is one recipe idea that I haven’t put in the recipe box because it relies on both your sense of humour and that of your guests on Bonfire Night. Do you remember when you were young (at least when I was young, so hopefully it’ll ring true with a few of you) there was a craze for little sachets of a sugary sherbety substance that would start popping when you put it in your mouth? Well, you can still buy it via a Ye Olde Sweets website by the name of www.aquarterof.co.uk, a repository for all those cornershop sweets from your childhood that are still being produced somewhere.
This magic ingredient can be added at the last minute to trifles, sorbets and jellies to give your Guy Fawkes dessert some extra fireworks. Just be careful with your quantities because I’ve seen people think that their filling is exploding when caught unawares.
Enjoy your Bonfire Night and please drop me a line if you have any other proposals for special meals for special days. It’s the way ahead, believe me.
Tony Tobin seasonal recipesBattered Toffee Apples
Ingredients - 6 firm apples l 225g cup of plain flour (maida)
- 2 tablespoons cornflour l 1 teaspoon of baking powder
- 300g brown sugar l 4 tablespoons of cooking oil
- 1 tablespoon of toasted sesame seeds
- Oil for deep frying
Method - Mix the plain flour, cornflour and baking powder in a bowl.
- Add water and stir into a smooth, thick batter.
- Peel, core and cut the apples into bite-size pieces.
- Coat the apple pieces evenly with the batter and deep fry in hot oil until they are golden brown. Drain on absorbent paper.
- Then put the brown sugar, oil and 1 cup of water into a pan and cook over a high flame until the mixture starts to bubble.
- Reduce the flame and allow it to caramelise without stirring. If required, shake the pan gently to prevent the sugar from burning around the edges of the pan.
- When the syrup is light brown in colour, remove it from the flame, add the sesame seeds and mix well.
To put it all together...
- Fill a serving bowl with chilled water and keep aside.
- Dip the fried apple pieces in the caramel syrup and coat evenly.
- Remove and immerse them in the bowl of chilled water
- until caramel coating hardens then drain and serve all the pieces in a bowl immediately.
Bonfire Mustard SkinsIngredients - 4 large baking potatoes
- Butter
- Wholegrain mustard
- A chunk of mature cheddar
- Salt
Method
- Bake your potatoes until the skins are crispy
- Cut each potato in two and empty out the skins, putting
- the mash to one side
- Mix the mash with a tablespoon of butter, a pinch of salt and two tablespoons of good wholegrain mustard
- Refill the skins with this mixture and grate the mature cheddar over the top of them
- Pop these into a pre-heated oven at 170 degrees for 20 minutes
- Serve with a lit sparkler in each!
Tony Tobin has been a regular on the BBC’s Ready Steady Cook for over a decade and runs two acclaimed restaurants in Surrey: The Dining Room in Reigate and POST in Banstead.