HaRpi How To Cook! New Recipes Added 29/6!

[Si Hunt]

Hurrah! After a short hiatus for stomach pumps and irrigation, HaRpi and junior trainee chef Dame P-Bal return with two more mouthwatering recipes from Gary Downie's infamous tome...



For the uninitiated, many many centuries ago, HaRpi launched a quest. Our aim was to work through the Doctor Who Cookbook to make and sample every recipe where-in, no-matter how much brandy and double cream it involved. Our mission remains to reach the end ahead of the onset of obesity.

Newcomers may check out the Official HaRpi How To Cook Website which documents many previous misadventures, including such favourites as Sarah Sutton's Brandy Fingers and the unforgettable Decider's Dessert. One guest on that day has NOT BEEN BACK SINCE! It's a fact you can't deny.

But for today, we have Shobagan Stew to make! Bring on the Dicks!

Terrance Dicks' Shobagan Stew



Some meat. And a confession. We originally set out to make Sarah Hellings Rani Casserole, before realising as we left for the shops that we'd ALREADY MADE IT! Yes, if we can have a wibbly flashback please...



That was back in the day. It was the same day we made this:



Which may explain how it's got overshadowed. Anyway, Dicks lazy recipe basically invovles chucking some "meat scraps" into a stew with some tomatoes and vegetables. So we decided to go with this, and cannily tailor it to our own design.



Here's me dicing some carrots.



Next, a big hat is donned and the meat is fried. We watched highlights from "An Evening With Mark Ayres" while we cooked, which (I kid you not) is actually a real DVD. You wait, oh lucky people, for the next fun-filled HaRpi bash.



P-Bal pretends to open a tin of tomatoes, at the same time smelling faintly of tuna nicoise. Actually, it's all for the photo and the can-opening task was taken from him swiftly in the moments following.



Mmmm. The tomatoes are slopped over the browned meat, and HaRpi's moist oven warmed. It's just like the Rani Steak Casserole in fact, except slightly less complicated.



Vegetables are heaped on top and it's ready for the oven. Actually, probably oweing to the fact that it's barely a recipe at all (and there's therefore no enforced addition of spirits, cream or coffee) it's actually mightily healthy! Just look at all those vegetables!



P-Bal knocks up some rice to accompany the dish...



And here it is!

The Verdict

I thought it was great, largely oweing to an adventurous flash in the middle of Sainsburys - we did courgettes and leeks with it to add a bit of variety. It's quite apt that this wholly unoriginal dish came from the pen of Dicks though - he probably pinched it from Mac Hulke.
"He always said all you need is a good recipe... it doesn't necessarily have to be YOUR good recipe..."

Anyway. On with...

Carole Ann Ford's Apple Thingy!



With a demon look in his eye, and fresh from robbing her of a days work (which is a story for another time, scandal fans) P-Bal and Lady Si grab Carole Ann's apples and begin the preperation.



This is actually quite a simple desert, though we suspect that knowing Carole "Cup of Tea and a Simple Sandwich" Ann, the exact combination of ingrediants involved somehow makes poison. We slice the apple and add sultanas.



Someone aloof and wearing Mrs Beckham glasses steps in to ladel some honey onto the concoction. It's the cheapest honey money can buy.



What is an "apple thingy" anyway? Typical, everyone else thinks up a witty Doctor Who name, but this old bag can't be bothered. Knobs of butter are added to the honeyed apple. I can't be bothered to dirty the scales, so I just chuck in half of what we bought.



On go the sultanas and it's ready for the oven!

We should note here that, this being the Doctor Who Cook Book, Carole requested LIQUER to be added to the top, but seeing as how we couldn't find anywhere that sold miniature bottles of contreau, and we wern't prepared to pay 22 to make the old bags recipe, we ditched that idea. P-Bal suggested Tia Maria as a replacement, but we smiled politely and let that idea be quietly forgotton.



Out it comes, add some ice cream and we have Carole Ann's hot honey'd thingy. Yum!

The Verdict

Mr Rayner is non-plussed.
"It tastes just like someones chucked lots of ingrediants in a bowl," he says. Mr Hunt agrees it's a tad on the sweet side, perhaps oweing to the extra butter chucked in. Still, a hit and not much is left when we're done! Hurrah!

That's about it for this time, but join us next time for two more recipes from the Doctor Who Cook Book!

Si.

[Pip Madeley]

Si Hunt's got the same t-shirt as me. We nearly looked like twins at the MHT recording.

[SiHart]

Personally I think I'm sticking with Mary Berry!

Si xx

[Si Hunt]

What's Merry Berry?

Si.

[SiHart]

You know that's the second time in two days I've been asked that question.

Mary Berry is a top cook, especially of cakes. Her Ultimate Book of Cakes is very popular in our house.



Si xx

[Dirk Gently]

Nice to see this make a return. These actually look good enough to eat, as do all your efforts...although I'd want the Stew to be a bit wetter.

[Jon Masters]

An excellent guide to some recipes to try, although there wasn't enough Gordon Ramsey style swearing for it to be a hit.

I have to take Mr Dicks to task though - I believe a stew is cooked on top of the hob, whereas a dish like this cooked in the oven is officially a casserole

(cue a huge Stew vs Casserole OG style slanging match )

[Si Hunt]

It's true, twas odd that he called it a stew, the stupid horse.

Si.

[P-Bal]

I just wanna say one thing Dallas, P-Bal can open tins. And I did! TWO OF THEM. TWO. Not, one. And I poured the tomatoes.

And wotnot notwotnot.

[Captain Tancredi]

Grand Marnier is the logical substitute for Cointreau.

[P-Bal]

We don't drink at HaRpi.

[Si Hunt]

WELCOME BACK!



For the first time in what seems like several aeons and the odd Time War or two, HaRpi are back in the kitchen to continue their epic crusade through Gary Downie's mighty Doctor Who Cookbook!

Today we tackle a light starter and a robust main course, as we let heaven shine a light down on our attempts to make deceased Doctor Who producer Dame Verity's Hot Potato Salad and unveil some dried up flaps of beef in the form of Ingrid Pitt's Zraza - aka Russian Meatrolls (it says here). Almost everyone involved in this How To Cook is dead (except HaRpi themselves of course. And Ingrid Pitt) so there was double the usual sense of someone from high above looking down on us and cackling.

Key Ingrediants: beef, salad, potatos, bacon, mayonaisse, mustard, onions, salad, soured pickles, cornflour, SOURED CREAM!



Yes, only in Cookbook land could mustard entwine itself with mayonaisse. All those vegetables wern't used, by the way.

HaRpi's "Get Out Card" for today is the soured pickles which quite literally DON'T EXIST!



Today's celebrity guests were P-Bal and Dexter Fletcher. Dexter, not used to the ways of HaRpi, foolishly assumed when he accepted a dinner invite that he wouldn't be made to cook it himself. And filmed. HE WAS WRONG! Here he is chopping bacon, while P-Bal homages Dame Billie Piper in his own subtle way.



Anyway, on with the recipe. The mustard is smeared over the beef curtains, and the bacon sprinkled on top. So far, so quite-normal-sounding.



The beef slices are then rolled up into nice little parcels with cocktails sticks which we forgot to remove later. Dexter was later observed choking to death with a cocktail stick stuck in his throat.



The beef parcels are then fried. It's at this point that some alarm bells begin to ring. As Pitt demands the fried beef be SUBMERGED IN BOILING WATER FOR TWO HOURS! How will this help? What's she on about? I frantically google Zraza and, indeed, Russian Meatrolls on t'internet to find out that the bloody thing doesn't exist! She's made it up!



Mwahahahaha! Cackled the lion. Who does she look like? Oh yes.



Well, I think so. Anyway, debate rages until the very last moment whether we should plunge our nice browned £6 worth of meat into boiling water or do the sensible thing and USE THE OVEN!



Meanwhile, you're probably thinking we've forgotton about Verity's Hot Apetiser. We haven't. While the beef is being...er.... prepared to be boiled (I'm adamant this won't work! P-Bal says we should "trust Ingrid". But this is the woman that once tried to tell us she'd worked with Jon Pertwee on Doctor Who before "The Time Monster"!) we start frying the rest of the bacon, and set the potatoes to boil.



We're going for it! The beef parcels are set onto the boil!



Meanwhile Verity asks that we 'grease a baking tray with mayonaisse' (only in the Doctor Who Cookbook!) and Dame Rayner slices up the boiled potatoes and arranges them in a dish with the rest of the jar of cheap Asda mayo and the fried bacon.

Verity wants us to peel the boiled potatoes again, but we fear she's just cackling at us from up in lesbian heaven. Have you TRIED to peel hot, moist boiled potatoes? She can go to hell with that one. Er... God rest her soul.



Here's me! Caught adding cream and cornflour to the vile looking sauce which the meat rolls have left behind. And here, dear reader, is where things fall apart.

HaRpi commonly has trouble with sauces. Dunno why. But they steadfastly refuse to go all smooth and creamy and instead just look like old cooking fat. Here's another one to add to the collection!



Mmmm. The cream has turned all bitty, and there are droplets of fat mixed in with the old bits of leftover beef.



This secret pap shot shows someone secretely sieving the sauce to get rid of all the crap.



Yum! Meanwhile the potato salad has finished cooking, and joins the beef (which has surprisingly cooked, but now gone dry) on the finished plate. Ta-ra!



The Verdict!

It's actually better than we thought. Verity's hot salad is the winner, a simple but flavoursome side-dish. Ingrid's old russian recipe is reasonably good, but a bit dry like an old woman's rag.

"You should have covered it over while it was boiling." pointed out P-Bal, before jogging up the wall. Everyone knows how to do it AFTER the event!

"At least I haven't been sick yet." reported Rayner helpfully. It's almost like he's HaRpi How To Cooked before.

In the end, Riverside Pizza remained untroubled, which counts as a success in my book.

JOIN US AGAIN! For more culinary mayhem with history's finest Doctor Who chefs!



The last four recipes have now been uploaded onto HaRpi's How To Cook Website. Check it out!

[Dirk Gently]

Excellent stuff, Si. I really should try one of these recipes one day.
The Soured pickles, might they not have meant picked gherkins? Sliced, they would have been nice with the bacon & mustard.
Boiling meat is a normal thing, bacon joints are usually boiled.

Keep up the good work.

[Si Hunt]

might they not have meant picked gherkins?

Goodness knows what Ingrid's Pitt was on about. We did without her gherkin anyway.

Si.

[Dirk Gently]

You might have preferred her Mirkin?

[SiHart]

The secret of a good sauce is a low heat and a lot of stirring. Warm the butter/ marg, then add the milk and stir. Make sure the flour is sifted before it goes in (which should be before the milk/ fat boils) make sure the quantities are right, and if in doubt add a little more milk.

Si xx

[P-Bal]

It is a weird old beast that cookbook. I'm determined to ask one of these people if they have ever read it, let alone contributed a recipe.

[Simon R]

What’s not to like? Custard? Good. Jam? Good. Meat? Gooooood.

This was one of the more tolerable recipes but it felt like a lot of effort for something that was really just an undercooked steak with some bacon n'ting.

I fear this was the last of the edible dishes in that stinking book.

[P-Bal]

We have much more from Ingrid's pit to savour.

[Pip Madeley]

Another enjoyable 'How To Cook' from HaRpi & Co! Is Dexter Fletcher that guy's real name? Isn't he that bloke from Press Gang?

[Si Hunt]

I don't know what his real name is.

Si.

[P-Bal]

I've never seen him before in my life.

[Pip Madeley]

Did you meet him in Harlow ASDA?

[P-Bal]

He's not from Lundun yer noh!

[Jim]

Wot no deciders dessert?