EGGS IN A DITCH
Ah, this is the one that started it all. Not started this blog, obviously, as this is some weeks in and I don't possess a time machine. No, the first recipe that I came up with years and years ago to be served in my deliberately terrible restaurant designed to fleece rich morons.
So what is eggs in a ditch, I don't hear you ask as you're not in the room with me? (Unless you are, in which case speak up and also get out from under my desk please.) Well the 'ditch' is a Yorkshire pudding cooked in a loaf tin, and the 'eggs' are, err, eggs. Specifically, fried ones. And even more specifically, hen's ones - though I'm sure you could use the ovum output of another bird if you wanted. The theory being that this meal would be an overpriced, stodgy, charmless and bloated lump - a bit like a Rolls Royce, and thus a status symbol for vainglorious dimwits if I charged £300 a pop for it and gave it a poncey name.
As an added bonus, this is also the first recipe I've done that's vegetarian. If you're a vegan though, you can use vegan eggs instead - which isn't even a joke. Admittedly it was meant to be a joke, but then I looked them up and - unless I've made a horrible contextual error and they're literally the eggs of a vegan - they actually exist. Look here: EGGS. As a disclaimer I should add I've never eaten them and they may well taste repellant (like an ad in an estate agent's window that only shows you the street and garden, the fact they only show you the box rather than the contents may not be a good sign...), but on the plus side anyone coming to this blog looking for tasty treats is in entirely the wrong place anyway so the worse the better!
6-8 eggs
This is another dead easy week. Particularly for me, as I didn't even make the Yorkshire puddings as Mrs H. is rather good at them so I left that bit to her. If you don't have the benefit of my wife on hand who knows how to make Yorkshire puddings successfully (because let's face it, we can all probably make them unsuccessfully - heck, the contents of your bin are arguably an unsuccessful Yorkshire pudding, albeit an exceptionally unsuccessful one), the process is as follows:
Well the good thing this week - for me at least - is that I did at least know it wouldn't be unpleasant. Not necessarily delicious, but certainly not stomach churning. What it was, as it turned out, was stomach filling. While not as greasy as I'd feared, the combination of a lot of protein and a lot of carbohydrates made me feel like I'd eaten a brick after about 10 minutes. A particularly sulphurous brick at that. Some ketchup helped things immensely, because by crikey it's filling, claggy and thus felt never-ending. So much so that if fictional magic-powered caterer Jesus H. Christ had made this instead of loaves and fishes to feed 5000-odd people, you'd have no problem whatsoever believing he could make it stretch that far. He'd probably have ample leftovers, in fact.
Context-wise though, this fits perfectly. You can imagine some awful, stuck-up arrogant oaf of a retired colonel or smug git of an MP sitting down to one of these and a couple of bottles of expensive red for lunch in some dreadful London gentleman's club before spending the whole afternoon asleep in an armchair. On full expenses. All you'd have to do is say it costs about 1000 times more than it does, imply buying it demonstrates their fine taste, adventurous palate and capacious bank account, and then get them to pay the bill before they either (a) pass out or (b) have a heart attack from all the cholesterol.
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| 3 of your 5 a day. As long as your 5 a day is '5 different things'. |
So what is eggs in a ditch, I don't hear you ask as you're not in the room with me? (Unless you are, in which case speak up and also get out from under my desk please.) Well the 'ditch' is a Yorkshire pudding cooked in a loaf tin, and the 'eggs' are, err, eggs. Specifically, fried ones. And even more specifically, hen's ones - though I'm sure you could use the ovum output of another bird if you wanted. The theory being that this meal would be an overpriced, stodgy, charmless and bloated lump - a bit like a Rolls Royce, and thus a status symbol for vainglorious dimwits if I charged £300 a pop for it and gave it a poncey name.
As an added bonus, this is also the first recipe I've done that's vegetarian. If you're a vegan though, you can use vegan eggs instead - which isn't even a joke. Admittedly it was meant to be a joke, but then I looked them up and - unless I've made a horrible contextual error and they're literally the eggs of a vegan - they actually exist. Look here: EGGS. As a disclaimer I should add I've never eaten them and they may well taste repellant (like an ad in an estate agent's window that only shows you the street and garden, the fact they only show you the box rather than the contents may not be a good sign...), but on the plus side anyone coming to this blog looking for tasty treats is in entirely the wrong place anyway so the worse the better!
Ingredients and stuff:
6-8 eggs
140g plain flour
200ml milk
Cooking oil
A loaf tin
A frying pan
Some sort of regulated heat source - the traditional oven/hob combo ideally, but with practice you could probably use a very small volcano
Cooking instructions:
This is another dead easy week. Particularly for me, as I didn't even make the Yorkshire puddings as Mrs H. is rather good at them so I left that bit to her. If you don't have the benefit of my wife on hand who knows how to make Yorkshire puddings successfully (because let's face it, we can all probably make them unsuccessfully - heck, the contents of your bin are arguably an unsuccessful Yorkshire pudding, albeit an exceptionally unsuccessful one), the process is as follows:
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| It's p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-pancake day! (Except: it's not.) |
Heat your loaf tin with oil in it in the oven until it's ABSURDLY hot. Probably top of the dial on your oven hot. Then mix the flour, 3-4 of the eggs (depending on size) and the milk into a batter and pour it in to your dangerously thermally charged loaf tin. Return it to the oven for a length of time between not long enough and too long. This will be about 25 minutes, but you'll need to keep an eye on it after about 20 or so, or you'll be eating eggs in soot instead. Similarly, take it out too early and it'll be eggs in batter. Mmm.
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| If I'd wanted it to rise like crazy, it would of course have been as flaccid as a wet tissue. |
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| ...still, having to dig out the interior did at least make it more authentically like constructing a ditch. |
In the meantime, fry all the other eggs to your liking. If you're feeling adventurous, you could even try your own variations and go for some scrambled and some poached. Boiled might be overdoing it, however - it's not a bastardised gala pie, after all. What you want to end up with though, in case you haven't grasped this by now, is a pile of eggs. Then, when the Yorkshire is done lob the eggs in the middle and voila! Ouefs dans une fosse (to continue the French theme of the previous word).
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| Man 1: Why do the French have just 1 egg for breakfast? Man 2: I don't know, why do the French have just 1 egg for breakfast? Man 1: Because 1 egg is 'un oeuf!' Man 2: But you've got 4 eggs there? Man 1: Shut up. |
The results:
Well the good thing this week - for me at least - is that I did at least know it wouldn't be unpleasant. Not necessarily delicious, but certainly not stomach churning. What it was, as it turned out, was stomach filling. While not as greasy as I'd feared, the combination of a lot of protein and a lot of carbohydrates made me feel like I'd eaten a brick after about 10 minutes. A particularly sulphurous brick at that. Some ketchup helped things immensely, because by crikey it's filling, claggy and thus felt never-ending. So much so that if fictional magic-powered caterer Jesus H. Christ had made this instead of loaves and fishes to feed 5000-odd people, you'd have no problem whatsoever believing he could make it stretch that far. He'd probably have ample leftovers, in fact.
 |
| Claaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag. |
Context-wise though, this fits perfectly. You can imagine some awful, stuck-up arrogant oaf of a retired colonel or smug git of an MP sitting down to one of these and a couple of bottles of expensive red for lunch in some dreadful London gentleman's club before spending the whole afternoon asleep in an armchair. On full expenses. All you'd have to do is say it costs about 1000 times more than it does, imply buying it demonstrates their fine taste, adventurous palate and capacious bank account, and then get them to pay the bill before they either (a) pass out or (b) have a heart attack from all the cholesterol.
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