Coming together

I love it when things just seem to come together in the right way and its one of the things that I'm starting to love about blogging and tweeting. You swirl around the blogosphere, you play about on Twitter and suddenly a whole bunch of influences collide to make you spot a new dish that resonates for you or triggers fond memories of something you haven't had in simply too long.

And so it was earlier this week that the influences of Browners' National British Sandwich fun, Fran39's watercress post and the #livelocal challenge came together to make me think of a lunch I hadn't had in probably 10 years (yes really)  - chicken and watercress with mayo on really good bread.

So I plotted a treat, my husband is not a fan of watercress he pulls a face at the very word, the ideal opportunity was to have said sandwich on a day when I was working from home. Mmmmm. I made fresh bread rolls yesterday to have with burgers and I'd found some red watercress in the supermarket and at 11am I was roasting 2 chicken legs with a dousing of lemon and olive oil.

At the appointed lunch hour I moseyed to the kitchen, sliced open a couple of rolls, slathered them with my favourite mayo, piled in freshly roast chicken and topped with watercress, squidged on the top.

And tucked in. Heaven in a bun.

Just for the record

Those who have been following carefully might wonder where the very last of the roast chicken went.

You’ll be please to know that the cat didn't get it but instead it ended up as a quick lunch in a fresh white lovely soft floury roll with lemon mayonnaise (or salad cream for one of us) and tomato. It was breast meat – perfect.

So in these credit crunch times lets see whether overall we got value from the chicken. We had 4 meals (for 2 people each time) using the meat (roast, curry, pie, sandwich) and about 5 pints of stock, which will make 10 potions of soup or risotto or whatever. The chicken cost £11.32 – you can do the maths anyway you want but that means it cost £1.42 per portion if you ignore the stock and 63p if you don’t.

Not bad going whatever angle you peer at it from.

The dangers of dreaming of burgers

Sometimes you just NEED to have a burger in a bun for your supper. Well yesterday that was me.

A quick search in the freezer revealed some organic beef burgers that seemed to fit the bill - each quite small so it wouldn't count as sheer greed but only mild gluttony to have two. 

So out they came to be defrosted during the day and sit winking at me from the counter each time I passed. I thought carefully about what condiments and sides should accompany them to add to the experience.  I spooled through ideas in my head remembering previous winning combinations and all the while the anticipation was building.

At last I settled on an 'open burger'  - only 1 bun between two burgers so there would be no 'lid'. Off I set to get some buns, choice was limited and I had to settle for wholemeal floured rolls (perhaps at this point I should have spotted that things might be about to go wrong but no I continued to think I was building the dream burger I craved).

Back home the burgers were cooked on very hot chargrill pan for about 5 minutes per side, each of the two sides of the bun was given a different treatment - one had mayo, one ketchup (find both of them at the Stokes brand of Essfoods) - and the side orders of saute portobello mushrooms and grilled baby plum tomatoes duly prepared. Then the whole things was rapidly assembled and whisked to the table to be greedily devoured.  

But something had gone wrong - perhaps not very wrong - after all I still managed to eat everything but some how it just didn't cut it. The bread was tasteless and dry, the burger tasteless and kind of watery - its texture was fine but there was just nothing to the whole thing - no zing, no nice beefy flavour, no soft but fresh tasting bread effect. To be fair the mayo and the ketchup and the sides were great but instead of supporting a strong main act they were left to hold up the whole show on their own!

So the problem - well I can only think that the burgers didn't stand up to the freezing very well on this occasion.  I've had the same burgers before both fresh and defrosted and they have been pretty good - not as good as if you made them yourself but there isn't always time for that kind of thing.  And as for the buns well maybe wholemeal just doesn't work with burgers - I love wholemeal bread but it doesn't seem to do it on the burger front.

Or just perhaps, the fact I had been dreaming of perfect burgers all day meant nothing would live up to the expectation!