A promise

no, not the echo and the bunnymen song but a promise that i made to three ladies who were interested in the buddhs'a delight recipe. i'll get to that in a moment but as i'm on the subject of echo and the bunnymen i might as well tell you a story. i went to see them at the birmingham hippodrome (hopefully pulled down) in december 1985 and the most memorable thing about the gig is the fact that we had to sit down throughout or be beaten by the very large and overly-aggressive bouncers.

i went with a good friend of mine at the time, one ian cock. an unfortunate name i think you'd agreed, apologies to other cocks who might be offended by that. i lost touch with ian several years after leaving poly, although a group of us had met up regularly for quite some time. with the advent of the internet, one can often find old acquaintances with a simple web search, so i thought i'd give it a go. ian used to live in burgess hill or hayward's heath near brighton so, and let this be a warning to you, i searched in google for 'ian cock brighton'. suffice to say, i didn't search for very long.

recipe: buddha's delight

start with a small buch of fresh coriander, one small onion and some minced garlic and ginger

then add roughly equal quantities of

lime juice
lemon juice
rice vinegar
free from worcestershire sauce
double (or to taste) some sweet chilli sauce
agave nectar or honey to taste
a little plum sauce

blend the lot in a jug until well combined. you're looking for a balance between sweet, hot and sour.
now add some kecap manis, dark soy, light soy, or tamari depening on what you have and your allergies. you need some dark stuff. if you are coeliac the tamari is thick enough anyway.
taste for the salt now and then season. fry off your veg etc add your noodles then the sauce and cook to allow to coat everything.

i'll re-edit this when i remember the stuff that i've left out.

cheers

wayne

Italian Biscuits

The new menu does not present too many problems for delivery, we've done the dishes once before, however it does require some thought in widening the options available to our customers who are gluten intolerant or vegan. today we made a couple of breakthroughs and i'd like to share them. I've been trawling through American vegan and coeliac cookbooks in a bid to make a decent biscotti and amaretti biscuit.we tried a few recipes, had some success with one for biscotti from 'my sweet vegan' but the resultant biscotti didn't look as nice as they tasted. today we adapted our own recipe for biscotti and had some success. here's the recipe for anyone interested. it suits both vegans and coeliacs.

100g cornflour

100g polenta

120g doves farm gluten free bread flour

1 tsp baking powder

150g golden caster sugar

150ml soy yogurt

50ml veg oil

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp almond extract

80-100g chopped almonds

Mix dry ingredients and wet ingredients separately, then bring together and form a dough. it should not be too sticky.

Using some more flour split dough into four and roll into sausage shapes. bake at 170C for 20 minutes or so on greaseproof paper, until still slightly soft. remove from the oven and cut each sausage at an angle to make biscuits. place back on the greaseproof and bake for a further five to ten minutes, turning the biscotti once. this will dry them and lightly brown the insides.

The amaretti, whilst not as crispy as those on sale, were redolent of Farley's rusks, bringing back memories of childhood. i must admit to still buying the occasional box in to my twenties. here's the recipe.

Follow the instructions on the orgran egg substitute box to make the equivalent of two stiffly beaten egg whites. this takes some beating so use an electric whisk unless you need the exercise. once beaten add sugar, 100-150g, and ground almonds, 150g, and beat in. then add enough doves farm gluten free bread flour to make a sticky dough. it should not come away from the sides of your bowl. using wet hands takes teaspoon measures and shape into balls, then place on a tray covered in greaseproof. bake at 170C until lightly browned, take out, turn over and dry the bottoms for five minutes. these were tasted by one of our chief tasters, Theresa, who gave them the thumbs up.

Have to go now to watch the man u game. happy baking.

Wayne