badgerbadgerbadgerbadgerMUSHROOMS! MUSHROOMS!

www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/badgers/  if you're interested. I was pretty seriously addicted to this site in 2004. 

On Monday evening I had another go at that old chestnut - chestnuts. This time around I scored them emphatically and decided to try the boiling route on the (somewhat flawed) premise that an explosion would be more contained. No explosions which was just as well given that they now would have included boiling water. The only tricky bit was peeling the chestnuts. Stephanie advises that you should only remove one nut at a time from the water so that they're easier to peel. Probably so, but now the fingerprints on half my hand are moderately obliterated - it's the time to start a life of crime. Having peeled the nuts I followed another of Stephanie's recipes; I put a large, flat mushroom in a baking dish (trust me, it's under that stuff in the photo) and packed it with the cut up chestnuts which had been simmered in chicken stock and a mixture of mushroom, parsley, garlic and bread-crumbs. Then a little stock on top and into the oven - the photo isn't fuzzy, it's steam rising off the finished product. Earthy flavours from the mushroom with the spicy sort of parsley taste, the smell of garlic and the sweet, bready taste of the chestnuts. There were lots of good juices to dip pieces of sausage in as well. No badgers though. Apparently, badgers are at their most flavoursome in October and November, taste like baby pigs and can be cured in the same way. If served hot, they're best with parsley or cider sauce and broad beans according to Henry Smith's The Master Book of Poultry and Game. Hmmm... while looking for other badger recipes (eating badgers is illegal btw) I stumbled onto a long discussion about eating badger roadkill on a hunting website. Just remember people, McDonalds is always an option. 

And the last thought for today comes from D.H. who sent me this fetching picture of an appropriate outfit for me to wear while cooking:

N.B. (the abbreviation, not the person) this is a jpeg so it might not appear on some computers...