Final Meal 2016 - Piri piri Croque Monsieur

It's an interesting feature of life that we often blame our own failures and shortcomings on bad luck, while simultaneously failing to acknowledge the huge role that the hand of fate plays in things beyond our control.

I'm not going to play the 'yet another disgruntled Remainer banging on about Brexit' card, given that I felt the campaign waged by both sides was pretty appalling and have no strong views either way. But, hubris aside, if we've learned one thing from this sorry referendum malarkey it is that wholesale, irreversible constitutional change should not be determined by a one-off poll requiring only a simple majority to pass.

It just shouldn't. Because it really is a fucking fucktarded way of doing things.

52:48 is hardly a clear mandate at the best of times, but several of the 52% expressed remorse almost immediately, and several more claimed they only voted Leave because they didn't think they'd win. Duh. Then you have this 'ere London. The strongest area in the country for Remain, with turnout badly affected by the weather and transport issues preventing folks from getting to the polls.

Piri piri Croque Monsieur - the dish of the Euro 2016 final

You could've held the EURef a week later and got a different result. Hold it five times, and it might end up 3-2 one way or t'other. It's effectively so close as to be a coin-flip, and the fact that we could easily have a different result simply because a few people changed their minds on a whim or couldn’t get to the polling station because their train home was cancelled simply proves that this is no way to decide the future of the country.

I'd be saying the same thing if Remain had won by such a small margin too, though obviously the status quo would've had less impact on the economy'n'shit. I was always more concerned that a close result either way would cause chaos in the Conservative Party, and so it's proven to be - I'm sorry to see David Cameron go, but lack of attention to detail has been arguably his biggest weakness in office, and so it's proven again with his failure to think properly about the rules of the Referendum and the part that luck can play if we don't take steps to ensure against it. Insist on a 60% majority - robust enough so as not to vulnerable to human whim, hailing storms or cancelled trains.

Anyway, having said I wouldn't play the disgruntled Remainer card (honestly I'm not!) I'll shut up in case people think I am.

Let's talk about football instead

It isn't just politics either. Euro 2016 has shown how fortune can have a massive and long-lasting impact on outcomes.

Two deserving finalists?

Hosts France might just about be one of the two best teams in the tournament, though they were very lucky to get past Germany.

But also in the final we have a desperately average Portugal side who struggled to finish third in their group, and didn't even win a game in regulation time until their semi-final win over Wales.

England were universally slated after losing to Iceland in the last 16, with Roy Hodgson going the same way as Cameron - but lets not forget that in the past year, England have beaten Wales, Portugal, Germany and France - all four semi-finalists. Again, it just illustrates how the fickle hand of fate makes a mockery of sport just as it does politics.

Will the winner of tomorrows Euro 2016 final be the best team in Europe in 2016? It's possible but tournament football is scarcely better at determining this than picking straws.

'Piri piri' is Portuguese for 'scraping through by drawing every game'

Anyway, a major final means that I create a recipe that combines the respective cuisines of the two finalists. There's a bit of luck in this too, as you never know quite how it's going to turn out.

I've done this a couple of times before though, with Black Forest Churrasco the dish of the 2014 World Cup Final between Germany and Argentina and Gnocchi Bravas when Spain took on Italy in the Final of Euro 2012.

This time we're going for a lunchtime classic, with a bit of a kick (how much will depend on how hot your Piri piri spice mix is, I go with good old reliable Swchwarz, tasty but not overpowering with chilli heat).

Piri piri Croque Monsieur

A French classic with a Portuguese twist!


Ingredients - serves two:

Bread, four slices, ideally French rustic style
Cheese, four generous but slender slices - I used French Comte
Ham, decent quality, four slices or so
French butter, you'd be surprised just how much! 
A shallot, very finely chopped/blitzed 
Piri piri spice mix
Madeira
Tomato puree
Salt



Method:

The first step is make the hot sauce - melt a little butter in a small saucepan and fry off the shallots until very soft, then throw in a generous pinch of the Piri piri mix and a squirt of tomato puree.

I know which side my bread is buttered - both!

Finish with a dash of Madeira to achieve the desired liquidity, and leave on a low heat - you might want to taste it, add a little salt to taste and maybe more Piri piri if desired. Obviously for this project we want some robust, though not overwhelming heat and a bit of sweetness from the Madeira too.

The sauce should take about half an hour to reduce to where we want it to be - it's basically a sort of warm chutney.

In the meantime we can start prepping the rest of the meal - slicing the bread and cheese and so on. (If we had weeks of preparation we'd commission a specially-cured ham with Piri piri spices, but we'll make do with a normal Wiltshire cure for now.)

Toast the bread to sub-toast toastedness, if that makes sense - basically don't toast it for too long - and then butter on both sides. That's right, both sides. Like you used to have to do in those old Breville sandwich toasters back in 1989 before your mum married Biff Tannen.

Looking good...

Whack the slices of semi-toast in a hot griddle pan, flipping them over periodically to ensure they achieve a golden colour and crispy texture.

Layer a slice of cheese on top of each slice of toast - if the residual heat isn't enough to turn them gooey, knock them off momentarily with a spatula until they start to gooify, then slide them back on. Finally, add the ham to each slice, just allowing it to warm slightly atop the squidgy cheese.

Plate up immediately before serving, assembling the two halves of toasted bread, ham and cheese into sandwiches, with a good dollop of your Piri piri sauce spread inside.

Bon Appetit / Vamos a Comer!

Final meal 2014 - Black Forest Churrasco

The super-sharp amongst you will recall that, when Italy faced Spain in the Euro 2012 final, I created an awesome new recipe - Gnocchi Bravas - combining the respective cuisines of the finalists.

The super-curious will now be wondering if I've done something similar for Argentina vs Germany in the World Cup, and the answer is: Yes. Yes, I have.

The super-cautious can probably look away now, as it's a bit, well, left-field. Think of it as an inspired tactical substituion.

Footballfish

So, England's chances of advancing beyond the group stages in Brazil suffered a predictable setback at the hands of Italy, but nobody seems to be particularly disheartened by the result.

Maybe it's because everyone blithely expects Uruguay and Costa Rica to bend over for us so we can continue the ancient English custom of squeaking through to the quarters and losing on penalties.

But maybe it's just because it was Italy. And people don't really mind losing to Italy. Because they don't mind Italy?

I've long thought that the reason that England struggle in World Cup finals is that while they may be consistently good enough to dispatch the weaker nations, there exists a core of national teams that, for various reasons, are more or less invincible to us, even on their bad days.

And Italy are one of those teams that we're simply incapable of beating. Along with Germany, Brazil, Argentina, France, Spain and Portugal. A somewhat lengthy list, which in itself pretty much explains why we never fucking win anything.

The thing is, if it had been Germany or Argentina or one of those other teams that we never beat no matter how well we play, we'd all be right, royally fucked off about it, but because it's Italy, we just, well, sort of accept it. Così è la vita.

50% off all naked goose-fat massages - today only

So, it's nearly Christmas then, and I've been feeling like I ought to write some sort of a seasonal bloggette.

You know, festive spirit and snowflakes and goodwill beaming down upon the glans of humankind. That sort of thing.

But the sorry truth is that I haven't really come up with any new Christmassy recipes yet, and I already used the puntastic title 'Yule Blog' a few years back, and can't think of anything anywhere near as clever.

So you'll have to amuse yourselves and just pretend that I said something hilarious about cloves.

The food of Kings(meadow)

It's a little odd, but although I've been to over 100 different football grounds supporting the mighty Sky Blues, I'd never once experienced match day hospitality - until last night.

I know what you're thinking. 'B-but, you're a world-famous food blogger and Coventry City's highest profile fan after Richard Keys, Jon Gaunt and that guy from Westlife. Surely you get the red carpet treatment every time you attend a game, with only the very hottest of the players' spouses feeding you truffles, bare-breasted, from a golden plate?!?'

Sadly, while this probably should be the case, it isn't. And in any case I usually prefer to be in with the real fans and have a half-time pie. Directors' boxes always seemed bit stuffy and sterile and detached to me.

The closest I'd ever come to stroking the big Corporate Hospitality Cash-cock was one Christmas, about 8 or 9 years ago, when I was living and working in Ipswich and the office party was held at Portman Road stadium.

The FA Cup

As far as I can recall, the food was your standard overpriced, turkey-and-trimmings-and-house-red set menu, but the facilities looked quite impressive. A private dining room that led directly out onto an almost-as-private balcony overlooking the pitch where you could watch the game from the comfort of a leather armchair-style seat. Barely relevant, obviously, as this wasn't a match day, but I got the impression, such an experience would be pretty luxurious.

But that was Ipswich, who have a Premiership-quality ground even though they've been out of the top division almost as long as we have.

Last night, on the other hand, was a first round FA Cup tie against AFC Wimbledon, who currently groundshare with non-league Kingstonian FC. I was surprised that the Kingsmeadow stadium even had hospitality facilities, and given that it only cost about 20 quid more than a standard match ticket, I was interested to see exactly what you get for your money.

(Also, I have to admit I was just a little concerned that, given CCFC's current fine form, we wouldn't be able to get standard tickets in the away end and I'd miss out on ground no. 102!)

Do they have Vanuatuan takeaways in El Salvador?

I remarked the other day that it was almost impossible to find food that identified as 'United Arab Emiratean' in Dubai. (Which is in the United Arab Emirates if you needed reminding!)

This got me thinking.

Think, think, think went my brain, like some sort of vast, organic thinking machine.

And I came to the conclusion that this criticism is possibly a bit harsh, if only because the UAE is far from alone in having a dismally flaccid presence in the World League of Food.

Want to know what I'm banging on about? Hold tight for some Gastro-geopolitical discourse.

Break Fast

One thing my diet of intermittent fasting has taught me - along with the satietal importance of soup, obviously - is the value of breakfast.

Yeah, I know the etymology; the whole thing about breaking ones fast'n'shit, but this is the first time that's really made sense on any kind of practical level.

See, for many years I've generally only partaken of a big cooked breakfast in the morning when either getting up early to travel somewhere (typically having a full English in an Airport Wetherspoons) or while staying in a hotel (on the morning of New Years Eve I had a fairly decent plateful at the Mortimer Arms near Romsey - first time I've had fried bread for many years, which in itself probably isn't a bad thing!)

A bad breakfast is an unpleasant thing, whether you're hungry in the mornings or not. During in the early-Naughties I lived for some time above a pub in Ipswich where a greasy and unpleasant full breakfast was served every morning. Sometimes the fried egg even had cigarette ash in it. After a few months of this I told them I'd go without. None of the other guests seemed to mind much, but then they consisted almost exclusively of builders from Teeside.
 
Anyway, I have been known to fry up a fry-up at home occasionally, but this would be our main meal of the day and probably eaten sometime well North of midday. During normal, everyday, stay-at-home life, I'd never think 'ooh, let's get up early and go out for breakfast!'

But this might be the year where that all changes.

On the mornings following fasting days I'm often ready for something substantial and assuming I stick to the diet for a while, 2013 could well end up being the year I seek out the best breakfast in London.

10 things you may not have known about Switzerland and York

I know, I know. I’ve not done a whole lot of blogging lately. Been out and about you see. Riding panthers, slaying  dragonflies, tormenting chickens, that sort of thing.

Actually that’s all a shower of vicious lies, apart from that last one, but last week we were in fact in York, watching the mighty Sky Blues winning 4-0, and the week before we took a little trip to Switzerland (no, not to the Dignitas clinic – things aren’t that bad!)

I’d never been to either Switzerland or York before and there was plenty to do and see and eat and drink. But given that I’m lacking the time and inclination to carefully sculpt vast blogs about either of these places, I’ll just shower you with a dixtet of factoids:

Gnocchi Bravas - your Final meal

So, it's Spain vs Italy in tonight's Euro 2012 final, and so I'd better deliver on my recent promise to devise a recipe based on the respective cuisines of these nations.

Food of champions!

Both countries are centres of foodie excellence in their own ways, and there were lots of combinations that would have worked, some more obvious than others.

But in the end, I avoided the obvious pizza- and paella-based hybrids and decided to do something based on one of my favourite tapas dishes - Patatas Bravas.

Instead of the usual mini roast potatoes, I brought in the Italian connection by using gnocchi, and then added meaty representatives from both nations by topping it with seared chorizo and some Parma ham.

Eagle-eyed followers will realise that this preperation of the gnocchi also appears in my recipe for Gnocchi-stuffed peppers - and I shan't apologise for that as it's a great way to cook the stuff!

The official meal of Euro 2012?

The thing about Euro 2012 - and indeed many other major sporting events - is that you get used to having at least one match to watch every day.

Today is the first day with no game since the tournament started, and I feel at a bit of a loss, even though it's only one day without football and the Quarter-Finals begin tomorrow.

Who hates all the pies?

It's strange. By my reckoning I've only been to Manchester about four times in my life, and then generally only fleetingly. 

I'd never before had to spend a night in the city centre - until Tuesday this week, which just so happened to be the evening the riots kicked off there. What are the chances of that?!?

Mrs B-V and I had been watching Coventry City losing pathetically to Bury and were hoping to head back to Manchester city centre on the Metrolink to drown our sorrows, but the police in their infinite wisdom had decided to close the system down. 

Great.

Well done, chaps - while you're advising everyone to stay indoors, you close down transport systems so people who are already out and about can't get back to where they are staying?!? Really sensible, that.