Toasties Episode 2 - The Desserts

The more I thought about toasted sandwiches, the more combinations I realised were possible. In fact, perhaps the £5 toasted sandwich maker is the only cooking equipment you really need to own!

Here are three dessert ideas - whether you're an impoverished student, a brave food adventurer, or just a twisted wierdo like me.

Apple Pie

My first dessert toastie was apple pie themed. Apple sauce and slices of apple, sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon.

As an experiment, I removed the sandwich halfway through cooking, coated it with butter and sugar, and put it back in the toasting device. This created a rather pleasing sticky coating. It almost ruined the sandwich toaster, but I think it was worth it.

The first dessert sandwich was a resounding success.


Double Decker

I was wondering whether a two-layer toastie would be practical, and if so, what fillings I should use. Well, how about a double decker toastie - based on the chocolate bar of the same name?

Marshmallow fluff on the bottom (in lieu of nougat), chocolate and coco pops on the top layer, and an extra slice of bread in between.

OK, so the photos are a little blurry... I'd had a couple of drinks at this point. To be honest you need a little sharpener before tackling something like this. But I'm pleased to say that the twin layer toastie actually worked pretty well!

Hmmmm. Delicious!


Treacle Tart

I'm sure everyone knows that treacle tart filling is not made from treacle at all - it's made from golden syrup and breadcrumbs. Luckily I had a lot of spare bread lying around...

After making the breadcrumbs in a blender, I mixed in the syrup, and proceeded to make the sandwich.

Just for fun, I turned the sandwich round halfway through cooking, to create four small triangles instead of the standard pattern. And I must say, it turned out pretty well. And it went down a treat with a scoop of ice cream.

Taste

Classification



Student Special - Tasty Toasties

The start of the new academic year is upon us, and as we speak a new generation of students will be leaving home, settling down in grim Northern cities, and starting the transition into adult life. Although many freshers will be staying in catered halls, they find the meals unappeizing - or simply feel that their time is better spent in the pub. And of course, there's always the need for post beer snacks. So I thought I'd share some wisdom with the younger generation.

The sandwich toaster is a wonderful thing. Small, cheap, and capable of producing delicious hot "parcels" of whatever molten contents your heart desires - no student should be without one. And at this price, there is simply no excuse for not owning one.

Cheese is obviously the classic filling, and baked bean is also popular amongst the more forward thinking students. But I think we can do better. However, we must remember that students in halls often have no real cooking facilities, so no pre-cooking of fillings will be possible. And of course, preference should be given to fillings which are cheap and cheerful...

Meatball

Tinned meatballs in tomato sauce make a great toastie filling, and they're pretty cheap. They do taste a bit crap, but a layer of cheese really helps, along with some pepper. Be careful not to over-fill the sandwich...

Curry

Takeaways are a luxury for a student - after all, a takeaway curry with trimmings probably costs about the same as 6 pints from the student union. But we all need our treats now and again. I like to mix my leftover curry together (rice, veg, everything) for later consumption. Perfect in a toastie for a hungover Saturday lunch.

Hawaiian Pizza

Ask any Italian what their favourite pizza topping is, and you'll always get the same answer - Hawaiiiiian. The combination of tropical fruit and fine charcuterie is a firm favourite from Naples to Milan. Here I've recreated this slice of Italy with a dollop of pasta sauce, topped with cheese, ham, and pineapple. Sprinkled with a little dried oregano for the gourmet student. Like-a-mama-used-to-make-a.

-----------------

Needless to say, the curry filling was my favourite, but I can heartily recommend any of these to today's struggling students. There are endless filthy fillings just waiting to be discovered.

Taste

Classification

Monster Chicken Sandwich

There are exciting times on the horizons, as FishBiscuits HQ is moving to a new premises! Unfortunately, the future Fishbiscuits Mansions is currently in a bit of a state, and needs a hell of a lot of work before it is fit for human habitation. Therefore my current weapons of choice are the hammer and drill, rather than the whisk and frying pan.

Nevertheless, I still had time to put together this rather special "dish". First stop - KFC. I think most people like a bit of fried chicken now and again, whether it's a post piss-up snack, a Friday lunchtime guilty pleasure, or just a crap dinner. But today I wasn't looking for the Colonel's traditional drumsticks/thighs - I was after the "Boneless Banquet". This consists of three mini breast fillets, fries, and small box of "popcorn" chicken. You also get a drink, one side, and a dip. The price for this little lot is around £6.50, which I don't think is particularly cheap.

I needed a bread roll big enough to hold the boneless banquet (minus the pepsi, of course... I drank that on the way home). The best I could find was a large ciabatta from Asda. So I don't want to hear any nonsense about ciabatta being too posh... if you can suggest a better vessel large enough to hold the chicken and fries, I'm all ears.

There was a reasonable amount of food to start with, but when placed inside a sandwich, the banquet becomes a feast of gargantuan proportions... and I'd be lying if I said I didn't struggle to finish it.

Taste








Classification

Double Prawn Cocktail Sandwich

Once upon a time, prawn cocktail was considered the king of sandwich fillings. Prawn cocktail sandwiches took pride of place on buffet tables, M&S chiller cabinets, and - I imagine - eighties power lunches.

This is not the case any more. The noble prawn sandwich struggles to compete against today's offerings of jamón serrano and manchego cheese on artisan sourdough, let alone hay-baked swan thigh with foraged woodland herbs and owl's egg mayo on freshly baked pain de campagne. More often than not, you can find a prawn cocktail sandwich, limp and soggy, reduced to 50p in Boots at 7:45pm.

But I have never lost faith in the prawn cocktail sandwich, and I think I've found a great way to boost its fortunes. I bring you the double prawn cocktail sandwich. Containing prawn cocktail AND prawn cocktail crisps.

Of course, I had to taste a few crisps first, just to check they were up to the high JerryFishbiscuits standards. When the time came to assemble the sandwich, I found that a layer of green stuff was necessary to prevent the crisps from getting soggy (creating "food barriers" is a complex subject which has been touched upon by Mr Noodles here). I wouldn't want anyone thinking that I was going all health conscious.

 

I honestly believe that the 'Double Prawn Cocktail' could become my new sandwich of choice.

 

Furthermore, I think many other sandwiches could benefit from the addition of crisps. I'm thinking cheese and pickle sandwiches with a layer of cheese and onion crisps. Or BLT with a layer of smoky bacon crisps. So many possibilities...

Taste

Classification

 

 

DIY Smoking - Pulled Pork

Each year, along with the first glimpse of spring sunshine, comes the great British barbecue. I will always have a soft spot for cheap burgers and sausages, drunkenly cremated for ten minutes over red hot coals, before being stuffed into a bread roll with ketchup and cheese slices.

But there's another - altogether more serious - side to barbecue. Slow cooking, tender meat, smoke, and lots of flavour. And arguably the classic American barbecue food is pulled pork. It's become a popular dish of late, but unfortunately that means that there are a lot of bad versions out there doing the rounds. It's not hard to do it properly, it just takes a bit of time and patience.

I started off by making a dry rub mix - brown sugar, paprika, cayenne pepper, cumin, chilli powder, salt and pepper. I rubbed it into a pork shoulder joint, and left in the fridge for a few hours.

Barbecuing is not an easy thing for me to do, as I don't have a garden (I always feel a pang of jealousy when I sniff the air and realise that the neighbours are having yet another barbecue). Even a disposable foil barbecue is beyond my reach - let alone a full sized drum smoker. But luckily, it is possible to smoke food indoors... so it was time to prepare the Jerry Fishbiscuits (tm) custom smoker.

I took some hickory chips, and soaked them in Southern Comfort and a little water. I put the chips in the bottom of a foil tray, put the meat over them on the wire rack, and wrapped the whole thing tightly in foil, creating a sort of parcel.

I'll tell you what NOT to do next... don't put foil directly over a naked flame, no matter how gentle, because it will burn right through it. You need a proper metal roasting tin between the stove and your foil parcel. It might sound obvious to you - but it wasn't obvious to me.

This thing takes a long time to cook... I left mine for a couple of hours, before replacing the smoking chips, and then smoking again for another two hours. I'd say that four hours is the bare minimum duration, but the meat was pretty tender by then, and disintegrated quite easily.

I doused the meat in a delicious mixture of barbecue sauce and smoked chilli paste, and ate it in a giant bread roll with lots of coleslaw.

This sandwich is, quite possibly, as good as it gets. So the next time I see my neighbours chucking sausages onto the barbecue, I'll remind myself that perhaps it is them who should be jealous of me...

Taste

 

Classification

Cookie Ice Cream Cookie Sandwich

Chocolate Chip Cookies

+

Cookie Dough Ice Cream

=

Cookie Ice Cream Cookie Sandwich

Taste

Classification

Easter Eating pt1 - Creme Egg and Bacon Sandwich

The internet is awash with recipes featuring Cadbury's Creme Eggs. Of course there are deep fried Creme Eggs (come on, who hasn't had one of those), but also creme egg doughnuts, milkshakes, brownies, and even creme eggs benedict (I really, really wish I'd thought of that first). It was a real challenge to come up with an original recipe, but I think I've done it. I give you, the creme egg and bacon sandwich.

No ordinary bread would have sufficed for this sandwich. I used french toast - two slices of white bread, soaked in egg, and fried until brown and crispy. And then spread with a generous layer of peanut butter.

I used streaky bacon, because it crisps up much better than back bacon. I brushed the slices with lots of maple syrup, and put them under a hot grill until ultra crispy.

Finally the egg. I simply chopped it up, melted it down, and then poured it over the bacon.

I was a bit concerned about the combination of bacon and sickly sweet creme egg - despite the fact that bacon desserts/cakes seem to be all the rage these days. But to tell you the truth I could hardly taste the bacon through all the sweet stuff, apart from a hint of saltiness. Which I decided was probably a good thing.

Taste

Classification