Our offering now the action in SW19 is hotting up. It also hotting up in SW1 and W12 with Downing Street and Shepherds Bush slugging it out well not on the Centre Court but on centre stage at this stage. There have been some Mcenroe type tantrums on both sides but hopefully we won have to call the tournament referee. When this happens the smart ones slip out to Ascot, Wimbledon or the Test Match and keep their heads down. The course of modern UK politics once hung on the outcome of visit to the dentist in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire. Who knows what would have happened if those wisdom teeth hadn't chosen to cause an uncomfortable pain at the wrong moment. John Major went on to become Prime Minister and win an election in his own right. The old joke says that he was actually having his wisdom teeth put in. And we love old jokes.
And now for something more modern - our tribute to Andy Warhol and maybe one day someone will write a huge cheque and save it for the nation but before you laugh too much think how many foreign tourists the Tate Modern has attracted. Calculate the VAT and airport tax, alcohol duty they have paid on average given that they tend to be older and spend more money and the nation has got a good deal. But who the hell writes the inscriptions ? When I went shortly after it opened a couple of Australian tourists were laughing their heads off but the classic was the older woman who said that putting Worhol's soup can in a glass case was an excellent statement when really it was to protect the painting from attack or theft.
The cornflour is to thicken the sauce and has been imported though it is possible to get this sort of thing in Holland I personally haven't seen any in a Dutch supermarket.
The fish are very cheap rainbow trout which are bred on fish farms but local brown trout has more flavour primarily because it has to swim against the current. The best river in England for trout is the Test which runs from North Hampshire, near Watership Down a famous book written by Douglas Adams into Southampton Water but if you are in the English Lake District home of English poet William Wordsworth locally caught trout is available on some pub menus. The milk and cheese is for the sauce for a fuller flavour use mature cheese say Cheddar as we are in the Middle of the all-England Championships in Holland oud kaas is fine. Out of shot are the mushrooms and green beans. As we said the wine is a 2001 Muscadet recommended for fish - at least we think it was as the label was in French.
The shot above was spoilt a bit by strong sunlight shining in through the kitchen which we partially equalised using a black and white gradient layer we could have done more but we are still experimenting with this technique so left it.
The fish on their own.
We kept this one in - an attempt at art - we are still trying to master our new camera features though we've got the hang of the outdoor shots.
Enough of the art - your guests have arrived and admired your collection of oils, water colour and sculptures it but are hungry so it time to get going leaving your partner to keep them entertained. Once again the trick is to pop your head round the corner every five minutes with progress reports as this add to the theatre.
Wash the fish under cold tap water thoroughly as shown. Don't worry about the fish slime as someday soon you'll have children. Keep the head on and if they eye blinks knock the fish firmly on the head with something hard like a rolling pin.
Preheat the grill at around three quarters of the maximum though no two cookers are the same of course. If you have more time bake the trout in tin foil for twenty minutes or so that way you can have them with baked potatoes at the weekend.
Once again leave the green beans in to soak for an hour or so though this is optional.
Uncork the wine though be careful as the later stages require so coordination.
Cut and boil the potatoes - we keep the skins on for the fibre.
Lay the fish on the grill pan brush with olive oil ...
And squirt with lemon. You could always use butter instead of the oil.
Pour around 300 ml of full milk into a saucepan.
Warm a little and then melt in a spoon full of butter, slowly. We used margarine here and got away with it as the flavour of the cheese is strong.
Stir in so that the whole thing is liquid.
And now the tricky bit. Keep a very close eye on the pan and when it come to the boil immediately lift the pan off the heat so the milk doesn't boil over. Doubly tricky if you have an electric hob. This is one of the reasons why it is better to bake the trout if you have time.
Reduce the heat to a minimum then Add the grated cheese and around 100 grammes of cornflour
Give a good stir then get the lumps out with a whisk - we couldn't find ours so used a fork which made it hard work. Once the lumps are all out leave the sauce slowly bubbling away string often but you can relax a bit. There is a better way of doing this but our memory escaped as our hour of need.
Fry the mushrooms. We made a mistake here so for two people use around double the mushrooms we have here - the sauce was fine though but could have done with some more texture.
When the mushrooms are cooked add them to the sauce and stir in.
You can see the trout is just about done. Slice a small piece of meat off and see if it has turned white all the way through to check.
We added a large glass of wine at this stage but although we could taste the wine when it was cooking we could not at the end - perhaps because it was too delicate. Worth thinking about
Everything is coming together so we fetch the trout out first.
Then the potatoes and beans.
Still a minute or two for the sauce but this give you time to arrange the fish and vegetables.
The consistency we are looking for is slightly less wet than cement and with no lumps. It should fall off the spoon.in a blob.
And that all there is to it but incredibly I got the timing wrong but got away with it as I could keep everything on a low heat. The potatoes take around 15 minutes once they have boiled with the fish and the sauce around 10, mushrooms 2 minutes once the oil is hot. Adding the wine added around 7 minutes to the cooking time of the sauce.
As we said in the preview a bottle of Muscadet was the perfect choice.
Cut gently down the middle of the fish - look for the line known as the lateral line then lift the meat away from the bone and it will slide off leaving the bones all in one place
As it is Wimbledon we've splashed out on some strawberries for desert.
And here they are in an imitation Delftware bowl
A classic Summer dish but much harder though more rewarding than the others. An alternative it to oven bake the potatoes and use sour cream or cream cheese instead of the sauce which make the whole thing incredibly easy. The sauce is very difficult on an electric hob but I have done it so not impossible oh and if you have a small amount of left over bacon fry it up with the mushrooms and throw it in the sauce for some more texture.
Just about everything English except of course the units of measurement but we do aim to roll out our updated conversion software in the next day or two.
