Hugh's Bloody Mary Beef Burgers

It's barbecue season! (...and we forgot to take a photo)

By Chris
Main Ingredients

• 800g Premium beef mince
• Tabasco
• Worcestershire Sauce
• Horseradish
• Tomato Paste
  

With the current heat-wave drawing us Brits outside like the devoted sun-worshippers we all are, I though it was high time to dust off the trusty barbecue for another year of seriously grilling some meat. I turned to Hugh's range of homemade burgers in the hope of repeating the success I had with his delicious spiced lamb patties. The double-barrelled one commanded that high-quality meat was to be used, suggesting asking your butcher to mince some topside. Now I have two problems with this: firstly I don't have a butcher and secondly, what a waste of topside beef!

For these twofold reasons, I opted for 800g of Tesco's premium Scotch beef, which was spiced up with a generous teaspoon of horseradish sauce, a few glugs of Tabasco, half a teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce, a tablespoon of tomato puree, a pinch of salt, and a grind of pepper. 

This mixture was much less work than the lamb burgers, which require toasting your spices and grinding them up first, but as a result the flavour wasn't exactly inspiring. The burgers held together well on the barbecue and the suggested horseradish/creme fraiche dressing was lovely, but overall it wasn't a very memorable quarter-pounder.

We served these in tiger rolls with Delia's cheese and herb fritters on the side for the veggies, as well as some lamb burgers for good measure, all for just £2.34 a head, based on seven sharing.

Best for... An easy barbecue twist for those with a mild palette

Taken from... Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall - River Cottage Every Day

Helen says... Remarkably restrained - perhaps barbecues could be about quality of food after all!

Jamie's Summer Veggie Lasagne

By Helen

Main Ingredients:

• Asparagus
• Frozen peas and broad beans
• Fresh lasagne sheet
• Cottage cheese
• Tomatoes

After last week's 'challenging' effort, the theme of living dangerously continued as I attempted a summery veggie lasagne for none other than Chris' parents.

Once again the sheer quantity of food (a kilo and a half of green veg alone) threatened to overwhelm me and the kitchen, but thankfully nothing was too fiddly. Spring onions and asparagus were chopped and fried, quickly joined by a large volume of frozen beans and peas. With lemon, mint, cream, cottage cheese and a little stock this made the basis of the lasagne - refreshingly different from the more standard tomato/courgette/aubergine version.

This was then layered up in a large dish (or two) with lasagne sheets and parmesan, and topped with cottage cheese and thyme. Under the grill it went for long enough to melt the cheese - and that was pretty much it. The Tuscan salad of tomatoes, jarred sweet peppers, basil and capers added some welcome sharpness and colour, even though I managed to create my very own mushroom cloud by incinerating the first batch of croutons under the grill.

Overall I was pleasantly surprised by this one - broad beans are one of my least-favourite ingredients but they were perfectly palatable (and could easily have been left out in favour of more peas and asparagus). Plus if I hadn't felt under pressure to make the 30-minute mark I might have planned ahead a little better and avoided some of the mess in the kitchen which Chris is valiantly battling now. Per head cost: £2.61 - but easily could be made a lot more cheaply by reducing the amount of asparagus.

Best for... A tasty supper when you've been sent an allotment food parcel
Taken from... Jamie Oliver - 30 Minute Meals
Chris says... Not really my cup of tea, if I'm honest, but much preferable to the aubergine/courgette version

Delia's Three-Cheese Semolina Gnocchi with Herby Salad

We have the first flop of the year...

By Chris

• Semolina
• Gorgonzola, Parmesan and Ricotta
• Eggs, Milk and Nutmeg
• Rocket salad

I think it's fair to say that this week my ambition caught up with me at last. Having only ever eaten gnocchi in restaurants I was curious to see how it was made. Delia's recipe substituted potatoes for coarse semolina. Not knowing the difference and not exactly blessed with a range of semolinas to choose from in my local Tesco, I went for fine semolina. A small, but critical, mistake.

The recipe required preparing the night before, which was a bit of a faff, but worth a go I thought. The semolina was simmered for a few minutes with milk, water, nutmeg, salt and pepper until it was 'thick enough to stand a spoon up in'. Then two eggs and a tonne of parmesan were added to thick it up further. The resultant mix was left overnight in the fridge to toughen up.

The cookie cutter wasn't really up to the job...

The next day I was meant to turn out the firm mixture onto a board and chop it up into rounds with a cookie cutter. However, the gloop that plopped out was incredibly
disappointing. I couldn't cut it at all, so I just threw it in the oven for 30 minutes and hoped for the best. I decided not to chuck the ricotta and gorgonzola on top of it, instead saving that for my emergency back-up, which was a simple three-cheese pasta.

Jamie's Herby Salad from the Wonky Summer Pasta 30-Minute Meal made for a tasty diversion, but the 'gnocchi' resembled a slightly charred yellow cowpat and tasted fairly dull. Not a recipe to be repeated by any means. 

Cheap? At £1.27 per head, yes. Worthwhile? Not at all.

Best with... A back-up plan in the wings!

Taken from... Delia Smith - How To Cook: Book Two

Helen says... So near but yet so far. One mess out of 15 isn't bad though!

Delia's Cheese and Herb Fritters with Sweet Pepper Marmalade

By Helen

Mmm cheese doughnuts...

Main Ingredients

• Feta, Gruyere and Cheddar cheeses
• Basil, thyme and parsley
• Red peppers
• Onions
• Cider and cider vinegar

"If you want to serve a meal without meat or fish, this is just the thing," Delia claimed, so it seemed rude not to try it.

A batter of egg, flour and cayenne was combined with a frankly staggering amount of grated cheese (who knew you could grate feta?) and lots of chopped herbs, then formed into patties. I wasn't sure what to expect here as the nearest things I could compare them to were fishcakes - except without any fish or mashed potato. Thankfully the cayenne and herbiness stopped them from becoming overwhelmingly rich, even when deep-fried.

The pepper marmalade was pretty tasty too - red onion and red peppers, garlic, brown sugar, cider and cider vinegar were simmered quietly until the liquid evaporated and the vegetables were soft and sweet. This time we didn't have any leftovers but I would happily have combined a fritter and some of this marmalade in a bun as a veggie burger substitute.

That didn't seem quite enough on its own so we had a green salad with onions roasted in balsamic vinegar too (possibly unnecessarily). For habitual meat eaters like myself who are used to treating vegetables as extras, it's difficult to decide just what is the central feature of a veggie meal and how many sides you actually need!

Overall, creamy, tangy and probably incredibly bad for you but not half bad. At £2.94 a head it was expensive for a veggie meal but reasonable in the grand scheme of things. Plus with the addition of some boiled potatoes it would have gone a lot further - or a half batch would have made a very impressive starter.

Best for... A more creative take on the veggie burger
Taken from... Delia Smith - How to Cook: Book Two
Chris says... Eating deep-fried cheese never felt so healthy!