Bank Holiday Comfort Food

Ahh, Bank Holiday Mondays, eh?! A time for doing the gardening, and watching James Bond films and nursing a hangover… well, I’ve not done any of these. My dad decided to be a massive cliché and do gardening… for a change, but me, did I have a hangover to nurse?, alas not. I think the last time I went out was December last year, and the last time I was hungover?, not a clue. And as for James Bond, I once watched a James Bond film when I was a nipper, didn’t like it, and it’s never appealed to me. It’s a bit macho I think, and I’m far from being macho.

So I spent most of today in bed, and I’ve spent all of today in my PJ’s, surely that’s what bank holidays are for? Lazing about the house?

After being a bit of an accidental vegetarian over the weekend, having a Beetroot and Wild Garlic Risotto on Saturday, and home made Egg Fried Rice last night, I decided I needed to eat an animal, and the options were sausages (with a dubious pork quantity, my dad tends to buy crap sausages), or tinned tuna. So, tinned tuna it was. As I’ve already established, bank holidays are made for lazing about, and comfort food is the best when in this mood, so I knocked up a Tuna Pasta Bake! Hooray!!

Tuna Pasta Bake

Ingredients :

• 1 tin of tuna chunks in oil
• 200g pasta
• 1/2 a pint of milk
• 100g mature cheddar cheese, grated
• handful of chives, chopped finely
• Worcester sauce
• Salt
• Pepper
• 20g butter
• 20g flour
• Grated Parmesan cheese
• handful of crushed Soured Cream and Onion Kettle Chips (optional)

Method :

1. Boil the pasta as to the packet instructions, but cook a few minutes under
2. Make a roux, by gently melting the butter, and then adding the flour to the butter. The molten butter should not be too hot. Beat the roux for a few minutes with a wooden spoon, to cook out the flour.
3. Gradually add the milk to the roux, starting with a little splash to let it down, eventually adding more each time.
4. Allow the white sauce to thicken, and then add salt, pepper and  dash of Worcester sauce to taste.
5. Add the chopped chives and grated cheese, and stir into the sauce.
6. Stir the tuna through the pasta, and then add the cheese and chive sauce.
7. Transfer the tuna pasta bake mixture into a suitable baking dish.
8. Add a handful of crushed kettle chips, crushed for a cheeky bit of crunch, and a grating of Parmesan cheese, and bake for half an hour at around 150 degrees centigrade.

And there we go, for me the real comfort food aspect of this dish is the crushed crisps on the top of the bake!

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Cheese on Toa….Welsh Rarebit

Cheese on toast is a great meal, isn’t it? You get hungry, you bung some bread under the grill, slice some cheese and throw it on. It’s one of those brilliant suppertime dishes! And that advertising campaign by Cathedral City cheese couldn’t have been more true “You see it, you want it”… but I’m not just going to give you a recipe for cheese on toast, nahhh, here’s a recipe for Welsh Rarebit.

Welsh Rarebit

Ingredients

• 20g Butter
• 20g Flour
• A good splsh of ruby/dark ale
• Loads of good quality mature cheddar, grated
• Egg yolk
• Worcester Sauce/Hendersons Relish (for the veggies amongst us!)
• Salt
• Pepper
• Bread, toasted

Method

1. Melt the butter in a pan, and add the flour to make a roux.
2. Add the ruby/dark ale to the pan, and stir until the roux has broken up into the ale.
3. Add the cheese, and stir until thick, and gloopy.
4. Take off the heat, add the egg yolk, stir thouroughly so as the egg doesn’t scramble from the heat of the cheese.
5. Add a splash of Worcester Sauce, and the salt and peppper.
6. Generously spoon over toast and put under the gril until browned.

Of course, that’s a very simple recipe. You can make the Welsh Rarebit even more Welsh, by adding finely chopped, and sweated (in some butter, let’s not be healthy, this is comfort food for crying out loud!!) leek and then added after you add the cheese to the roux and ale mixture. Chives are great in this recipe too, to give it a bit of colour and a mild oniony flavour. For those who want a bit of spice in their life, a teaspoon of Colemans English Mustard is good too!!

If you don’t want to go to the effort of making the roux and adding ale, or don’t the ingredients, I suggest you melt the cheese in a pan with a splash or milk, and worcester sauce, and then continue the recipe from stage 4!!

I’ll be honest, I’m really hungry after typing all of this out, but my bed is so warm and cosy, and I don’t feel in the mood for moving too far!!

Hope you enjoy the recipe!!

Kris

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