Frankenbeans!

Which is what hubby dubbed this dish, the minute he saw its given name - that of "Franks & Beans & Bacon".

He found it, first, on Pinterest where it shone out from amongst the crowd as being something that he thought we'd all like.  The original recipe is on www.heythattastesgood.com.  It got so close to being something that we'd all like, too.

We used great ingredients for it - including our butcher's bacon, Levi Roots Reggae Reggae Sauce, Maile Cider Vinegar and our favourite Bockwurst instead of hot dogs.  Maybe we overdid the quality?

The thing was, that the flavour was great.  Really, really great.  For the first three mouthfuls.  Then, and thereafter, it got increasingly intense until - by the end of the plate - you were begging for mercy, or a bowl of custard - or something to relieve the intense tomato-bacon-mustard-sugar effect.

We came to the conclusion that we were wrong in serving potato wedges with it (which have a mildly spicy flavour) - and it would have been much better to have been served with plain white rice or a jacket potato & some sweetcorn.  Although for the rice to have worked, would have required the sauce to have been wetter than it turned out.  So there were some tweaks required - which I have taken account of in the recipe below, if you should decided to give it a go.

Prior to baking

I would like to give it another go and serve it with a jacket potato and some corn on the cob.  I think the two would give your tongue time to calm down in between each mouthful.

One thing that you definitely need to take into account, is the saltiness of your bacon.  As such it's worth having a little taste before you include it in the dish - and if it is really salty, you might want to not put quite so much in.

I have slightly reduced the amount of brown sugar involved, too.  I think this will give much more of a savoury sense to the dish, whilst still retaining its sweet and sourness.  I often find that recipes from America (which I believe this is) will use way more sugar than I would.  Of course, having a diabetic in the family helps to encourage you to reduce the amount of sugar in foods, too!

After baking and just waiting to attack your tastebuds!

The other thing to remember where the sweetness is concerned, is the chilli sauce that you are using.  So very often, these pre-prepared chilli sauces can be devilishly sweet - which is okay if you're using it on its own or as a marinade - but needs to be taken into account when used as an ingredient.

Son & heir thought the recipe was great just as it was and happily polished off the remains of his Dad's dinner.  Hubby had to stop when he was beginning to feel over-sugared, which was a shame - especially considering he'd spent all the time and effort cooking it!

It would make a great Bonfire Night dish - with potatoes cooked in the embers of a bonfire and anticipation of fireworks going off all around!  Trust us to decide to cook it in May!

FRANKENBEANS    (serves 3)

Ingredients :

8 slices back bacon
1 onion, diced finely
1 red pepper, de-seeded and diced
2 cloves garlic, minced (or grated)
three-quarters of a cup of Barbecue Sauce - hot, spicy ones are great
1 tbsp brown sugar
a quarter of a cup of cider vinegar
1.5 tbsp Dijon mustard
2 cans baked beans
a jar of bockwurst or frankfurters, sliced.

Method :

1.  Fry the bacon on low until most of the fat has rendered.  Set the bacon aside and keep just enough fat in the pan to cook the onion, pepper and garlic, which should be added next.

2.  Cook until they are softened.

3.  Add the Barbecue sauce, brown sugar, cider vinegar and mustard and stir into the onion mixture.

4.  Add the beans, stir in the bockwurst pieces and decant to a casserole dish.

5.  Lay the bacon on top and bake at 180degF/350degC/Gas4 for around an hour and a half.


6.  Serve with rice (in which case you may wish to let the sauce down a little with a touch of boiling water), or with a jacket potato and corn on the cob.


Printable version
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Bockwurst & Bean Pasties : a Germano-Mexicano-Cornwallo fusion!

Okay, so - think of a Cornish Pasty.  Now instead of the usual filling, when you bite into this pastie, you get a rich combination of baked beans, red kidney beans, black eyed beans and pinto beans, plus slices of Bockwurst, all carried by a gently barbecued, tomatoey sauce that has a hint of chilli warmth.

Doesn't sound quite so odd now, does it?  Or does it?

I'll be perfectly honest with you and say that I was extremely dubious about this one.  Extremely dubious.

To begin with, it committed the most heinous of crimes which is to include something else with a Bockwurst other than a kartoffelsalat.  Now that is a cardinal sin, in my book.

Secondly, it put Bockwurst with baked beans.  Now that is getting way too close to "Heinz Beans & Sausage" territory for me.  Not that I dislike said beans and sausages, I just have to be in the right mood for them - and it rarely happens.

Thirdly, it involved a barbecue sauce.  Now I'm not the best person to be faced with a barbecue sauce.  Take Macdonalds barbecue sauce - I dislike it intensely.  Hubby loves it.  I have yet to enjoy any of the "cook-in" sauces that involve barbecue and actively dislike Heinz barbecue baked beans.  So maybe you can understand my caution.

However - and prepare to be as amazed as I was - I really liked these pasties.  I know!  Who knew, eh?

In making the contents of the pasties, I took a large can of the abomination that is Heinz Barbecue Beans and added a half a can of chilli bean mix (not one that was in sauce).  I heated this combination up and included a knob of butter (which hubby reliably informs me, creates a "refried beans" type of texture), a half a teaspoon of smoked paprika, a good quantity of freshly ground black pepper and a flat teaspoon of chilli powder.

Once all those flavours had married up, I added the Bockwurst slices and hoped for the best.

The end result tasted (amazingly) as though I'd added a heaped teaspoonful of ground cumin - but I hadn't, honest!  In the saucepan, I continued to be extremely dubious about the wisdom of this combination but hubby seemed content with the flavours (although he did comment that I'd been a bit heavy handed with the cumin!  See?  I told you it tasted like I'd added some!).

So, once it had all cooled down a bit, I sallied forth and put the pasties together.

Ready for baking - awsome egg colour!

As you'll see from the "ready to bake" photograph, the egg yolk that I used to glaze them with was an amazing colour!  You honestly would think that I'd used a Burford Brown or other exotic breed of egg, but no.  The egg came from the box of 24 free range eggs of mixed sizes that all the other (normally coloured) eggs came from.  The shell gave no indication that it would be so glamorous, either.  I can't wait to see whether there are going to be any others like that in the same box!

The pasties baked up beautifully and we served them with some shop bought potato wedges, for simplicity's sake.

It's only a shame that I forgot to get a photograph of the filling for you to see, which would have given you a far better idea of how the combination worked.  I'd made sure that the sauce was quite thick before using it as a filling, so there wasn't runny sauce escaping everywhere.  The pastry seemed to mute the barbecue flavour a tad, but the Bockwurst was still able to be heard, in amongst all the other flavours.

On the whole, I'd make these again.  Maybe not on a regular basis (after all, just look at the amount of pastry involved!) but when we've got a Bockwurst glut, they'll definitely feature.

Oh, and speaking of pastry - have you seen how much the price of pastry has escalated just recently?  Unreal!  We found the two packs of puff pastry that were required in the money off section for 60p each as they were about to go out of date - the same amount in frozen pastry would have cost a quite ridiculous £2.25.

I can't help but think we're going to have to learn how to make rough puff in the future!

BOCKWURST & BEAN PASTIES  (makes 3-4, depending on size)

Ingredients :


1 x 390g can of Baked Beans in barbecue sauce
half a 400g can of mixed beans in water, drained
a knob of butter
half a tsp of smoked paprika
a good quantity of freshly ground black pepper (to taste)
a flat tsp of chilli powder
5 Bockwurst sausages, sliced
1kg puff pastry
an egg, separated, yolk retained - for glazing.

Method :

1.  Into a small saucepan, empty the barbecue beans.  Add to them the half a can of mixed beans and stir to combine.

2.  Begin to warm the beans through, on a low heat.

3.  Add the knob of butter and the smoked paprika, black pepper and chilli powder and stir gently to combine.

4.  Add the sliced Bockwurst and continue to heat and stir.

5.  Do not let the mixture boil, but if it appears very juicy, simmer until the consistency is correct as a pasty filling.

6.  Allow to cool while you sort out the pastry.

7.  Pre-heat your oven to 180degC/350degF/Gas4.

8.  Divide the pastry up into four (or however many you want) evenly sized pieces, then roll each out until 2mm thick.  You will probably find it easiest to do the next few stages individually, rather than try to deal with them all at once.

9.  Cut a circle out the size of a tea plate (I use a tea plate and press it into the pastry to give me the shape).


10.  Brush a little egg around the edge of the pastry, then place spoonfuls of the filling into the centre.


11.  Quickly fold one side of the pastry over the filling and press down around the edges to create a join and prevent any filling from escaping.


12.  Either run a fork around the edge, pressing down, so as to "cement" the join, or crimp the edges as you would for a Cornish pasty and cut two lines into the top, to let out the steam.

13.  Place onto a baking tray and brush each pasty with some egg wash.

13.  Bake for 30-40 minutes, or until the pastry is puffed and golden.

Serve.

Bockwurst und Kartoffelsalat (or German Sausage with Potato Salad)

I may have mentioned in the past, my enduring love for Bockwurst und Kartoffelsalat.

When my Dad was in the Army (Royal Engineers) and we were stationed in Germany, whenever we went out to eat anywhere I would immediately scan the menu for Bockwurst und Kartoffelsalat.  Thus began an eduring love affair with potato salad - but if I could ever lay my hands on any good Bockwurst, then it just didn't get any better than that.

Now, what makes a good Bockwurst good?  Well, for me, it is the complete lack of whatever it is that the manufacturers put into hot dogs, that makes you feel nauseous after eating two of them.  I never feel nauseous when eating Bockwurst - and to my shame, could happily down an entire jar full in one sitting, without any ill effects.  The same could never be said for hot dogs!

For all that they are similar to hot dogs, a good Bockwurst has a more robust texture and a milder flavour.  You know how, if you cut through a hot dog with a fork, it doesn't put up a fight but just kind of mushes beneath your fork?  Not so with a Bockwurst.  It should resist the fork - not as much as a pork sausage would - enough to let you know that this sausage is firm.

Now as for cooking them, I admit that such is my keenness to get them down my throat, that I haven't ever done anything more than pop them into a saucepan of simmering water for as long as it takes to assemble some cooked potato in a potato salad.  However, I gather that they are lovely griddled - and knowing how much I love my griddle pan, I can see how that might be.

We found our Bockwurst in our local Aldi store.  I am sure a good Delicatessen would also be able to source them for you.

As for the potato salad, well, I gather that a true Kartoffelsalat falls into two camps depending upon where in Germany you are.  If in northern Germany, you can expect your Kartoffelsalat to be dressed with mayonnaise.  However, if in southern Germany, it takes the form of a vinegar dressed salad, with accompanying smoked bacon pieces.

All I can say, is that I only ever experienced the mayonnaise version.  Although, I have to say that the vinegar version sounds interesting!

Where serving the dish is concerned, I can remember sitting down to an enormous sausage on a plate with a mountain of potato salad - and that's it.  However, hubby seemed appalled at that idea (can't imagine why! *chuckle*) so we also had some mixed salad with the sausages. 


The "Jelly" potatoes from Greenvale Farm Fresh (which I have used up and had to go out and buy some more), are particularly brilliant for this dish.  Being a lovely combination of 80% waxy and 20% floury, they are able to be boiled without fear of their dissolving, yet they retain a lovely tender texture that goes so well in a salad.

I think that the recipe for my Kartoffelsalat might not be strictly true to the original, but it is certainly how I remember the potato salad tasting - which is all that I was interested in, in this case!

BOCKWURST UND KARTOFFELSALAT (or German Bockwurst sausage with potato salad)

Ingredients :

A jar of Bockwurst or two (a jar usually contains 5 sausages)
4-5 waxy potatoes, peeled and cut into quarters or less ("Jelly" is a brilliant type for this)
2 tbsp greek yoghurt
2 tbsp mayonnaise
2 tbsp fresh chives, snipped
1 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped fine
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.


Method :


1.  Bring a large saucepan of salted water to the boil and add the potato pieces, which should still be in large chunks - you will cut them to salad size once cooked.


2.  Allow the saucepan to simmer in lively fashion until the potatoes easily accept the point of a knife.


3.  Drain.


4.  Turn the potatoes onto a plate and allow to cool completely.


5.  Half fill a saucepan with water and bring to the boil.  Once boiling, turn the heat right down until at a gentle simmer.  Add the sausages from the jar, discarding the brine.


6.  While the sausages are heating up, take the cooked, cooled potatoes and cut into small dice.  Add them to a large bowl.


7.  Add the yoghurt, mayonnaise, chives and parsley and mix gently, to combine.


8.  Add some freshly ground black pepper and salt to taste.  Mix again, lightly, to combine.


9.  To serve, remove the sausages from the pan and place onto kitchen paper to drain.  Add them to your plate, together with the potato salad - and some additional mixed salad, if you so desire.


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"Turn the meal plan for this week over to me" he said ...

... and because I don't particularly like Bernard Matthews Turkey Steaks, I didn't.  *chuckle*

However, I did let hubby take the lead on this week's menu plan - only reserving the right of veto over things like putting two major carbohydrates together in a tart case.

My very favourite meal when we lived in Germany

I think we've wound up with an interesting combination of meals.  Although, our first choice for Tuesday (Bockwurst & Kartoffelsalat - a german sausage with german potato salad) had to be dropped at the shopping stage.  For starters, we couldn't find the Jelly potatoes that we've been lapping up (they're only available in some Tesco stores, which obviously weren't the four we went to) and secondly, the supermarket(s) we were in hadn't ever heard of Bockwurst.  ~rolls eyes~

So we wound up with pizza.  Desperation struck, I'm afraid.

Retro - but flipping gorgeous!

Regrettably, I think we're going to have to re-think Sunday's Beef Olives, too.  We weren't sure what cut of beef to get - and decided upon Sirloin - but the price for the quantity we're going to need - even downgrading the cut - is just prohibitive.

I'd quite like to do a pot roast of Brisket or maybe a Chicken, but done in the Slow Cooker.  I'm really not sure about that one yet, I will have to ponder it further - but I've got time for that.

So, what does the menu plan look like?  Why, like this ...

Tue : was Bockwurst & Kartoffelsalat, became pizza

Weds : Rissoles, baked Sweet Potatoes with chilli lime cream, plus peas.

Thurs : Hearty Pasta Soup and Soda Bread

Fri : Smoked Haddock & Fennel Tart with Greek salad

Sat : Chicken kebabs with salsa & greek yoghurt in pitta bread

Sun : Beef or Chicken with potatoes of some kind, broccoli, carrots & peas.

Mon : Meatballs and pasta.

Because the majority of the dishes are hubby's ideas, he is inevitably doing a fair amount of the cooking.  It is difficult to take an idea and not convert it to your view of "how it should be" as he will obviously have a picture in his mind of how he wants the dish to turn out.  As we don't have the technology to be able to download these pictures for public consumption, he's going to have to cook them!

How I imagine Rissoles to look

Case in point being tonight's Rissoles.  Now I can't ever remember eating a Rissole.  Not the kind of Rissoles that he has been speaking about - made with lamb or beef mince, coated in seasoned flour and fried.  For hubby, however, this is part of his childhood and not only does he have a picture in his head, but also the memory of a flavour - which I have neither.  I'm intrigued to find out about these Rissoles, having heard a fair amount about them over the years!

Because of their potential for being high fat, we've decided on having a baked sweet potato with the lovely chilli/lime cream dressing.  For all that it's sour cream based, I'm quite sure there's less fat involved than using a great dollop of butter - and with the green peas to accompany them, hopefully a balance will have been struck.

Picture c/o BBC Good Food website

The Hearty Pasta Soup is my choice and it is a BBC Good Food recipe that I've known about for (literally) years and have put on the menu a couple of times, but each time it's been bumped off and I've never got to make it.  So, I'm having another go.  I was hoping to be able to get some of the walnut & blue cheese tortelloni (which is double yum) to be included in the soup, but  - probably because I was after some - there was none in the shop.  I settled on a spicy sausage tortellini that I'm hoping will have some flavour.  So many of these filled pastas are just little knots of flavourless Plasticine, but I'm hoping that due to the "spicy" aspect these will be different.  I'm looking forward to it - and I will be making some soda bread rolls to eat with it.

Eggs, versus ...

Friday's Smoked Haddock and Fennel Tart is a concept that came about through exhaustive brainstorming one evening.  I do so enjoy making tarts and can't quite decide - in this instance - whether to go down the "eggy quiche" route with it, or deviate into a "white sauce" route.  I know both the fish and fennel will be happy in a thick white sauce that has the fish poaching milk used in it along with maybe some herb or another (possibly parsley & the ferny fronds from the top of the fennel) and perhaps a light sprinkling of cheddar over the top that will melt when baked in the oven (sounds gorgeous).  However, the eggy quiche route is a much more reliable route to the final product.  You know, I can feel an inexorable pull towards the white sauce going on.

....... white sauce?

I think (hope!) that it would be nice when paired with a Greek salad of large sliced tomatoes, cucumber, olives and red onion with a sprinkling of Feta cheese - but is that too much cheese for the fish?  Hmmn, possibly.  We might have to lose the Feta, if so!

Saturday's Chicken Kebabs is another brainchild of hubby's.  He's envisaging strips of chicken that have been marinaded in lemon, thyme & olive oil, laced onto skewers with alternating pieces of courgette, cherry tomatoes, mushroom, aubergine and possibly apple.  He's proposing to grill them (maybe in the char grill pan, I'm not sure) and then once done, release them into a pitta bread.  Slosh on some Greek yoghurt and some suitably tasty salsa and you're done.  Sounds pretty darned yummy, to me.


I touched on Sunday's dinner earlier - and since then I notice that our local butcher is doing whole chickens for around £2.50!  Even if they're tiny little things, for that price we could get two.  I'm contemplating having a crack at jointing the chicken(s), which is something I've never done but would be interested at having a go at.  I'm assuming it'd be easier with a smaller chicken and I know my "Big Knife" (as it's known) is man enough for the job, it just depends on whether I've got the oomph to push it through a chicken!

Monday's meatballs and pasta is going to be an interesting one.  Yes, I've been having a bit of a meatball fest just lately - but I spotted a bag of frozen meatballs in Asda the other day, for a very affordable £1.55 for 500g of cook from frozen.  Now my guess is that these are going to be parlous as best and inedible at worst, but they've just got to be tested.  They purport to be 80% beef and have an encouragingly short ingredients list that doesn't appear to contain anything that would make your eyebrows lift in horror.


I'll be making a lovely powerful tomato sauce (possibly with a little chilli) to put them in and we'll have some grated cheese to sprinkle over the pasta.  It's rather like having your favourite curry the first time you use a new Indian takeaway, just to test what they're like.  Before I try doing anything startling with them, let's try them with a bog-standard sauce and get their measure.  I'm sure you'll hear, whatever the results are!


Apart from that, I still have three types of packeted rice pudding to try out (we tried the chocolate one the other day) and report back on.

I am STILL intending on cooking the Dorset Apple Cake - and had better get cracking on it, because the Bramleys I bought for it are slowly getting older and older!


I've also entered a Watercress Soup competition - so I'll soon be trialling a few recipes before deciding on my potential competition winner.  It's a good job son & heir is out for 5 lunches out of 7, as he'd probably leave home if faced with successive bowls of watercress soup for lunch!


Something else that's going to require some thought is what to cook for National Pie Week!  I'm considering steak and kidney, at the moment.  I do love a good steak & kidney pie, but it needs to contain loads of lovely pieces of kidney as well as be in a luscious rich beefy gravy.  Goodness, I've just made my own mouth water!  It is just such a good job that you can't put weight on by just thinking about food - I hope.

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