For Willy, England and Saint George!

While the very subject matter of this blog means that my posts pay little attention to when food is in season, I do nonetheless quite like to link what I cook and write about to the time of year, and specific calendar events. So I have sampled tins to try out recipes for Christmas and Easter, hearty Scottish fare for Burns Night, and Welsh and Irish dishes for St David's and St. Patrick's Days. So, two weeks ago, I felt it was high time that merrie olde England had a look-in too, with some tins to celebrate St George's Day on 23rd April. Which it just so happened was also the 400th anniversary of the death of Shakespeare, hence the title of this post.

One possibility being offered by a bar in Stoke Newington was this "Full English" cocktail - a somewhat dubious-sounding spin on a bloody mary, with HP sauce, Marmite, bacon, toast and a quail's egg adding to the traditional vodka, tomato juice and Worcestershire sauce, all served in a baked bean tin. Alas, it was only available for a very limited time around the 23rd April, so I didn't get the chance to experience it for myself. Perhaps for the best - while this creation might be a low-sugar option compared to some cocktails, I think this benefit is probably cancelled out by the addition of salt, fat and cholesterol in the added elements.

The chicken tikka masala has reportedly been topping the polls of England's favourite favourite foods for over a decade now, but I felt something a little more traditional would be more appropriate. Few things could fit the bill more than a good old roast dinner, with roast beef feeling the most suitable - the French don't refer to the English as rosbifs for nothing, after all. I had just the tin for it too, with these Beef Slices in Gravy.

The manufacturers couldn't have gone for much more of an English name for their company; the lion of course is one of the emblems of England, but did you know that 'The Red Lion' is also the most common pub name in the UK? And what could be more English than a pint and a Sunday roast in a good old-fashioned pub? (The Wetherspoons chain doesn't seem to think so though, as they recently removed Sunday roasts from their menus. But then again, you couldn't really call them good old-fashioned pubs - a lot of them are pretty bland, with little to distinguish one from the next one in the next town. Apart from, unexpectedly, their carpets - apparently every single one of Wetherspoons' 900-odd pubs in the UK has a unique, custom-made carpet. Fascinating stuff.)

But I digress. Red Lion also get extra marks on the patriotism front, as 100% of their profits go to UK Military Charities - you can read more about that on their website. They also do a tinned chicken tikka masala, among other products.

It looked like a good rich gravy when opening the tin up, with quite a reddish hue, which I thought was safe to assume was from the tomato puree in the ingredients, rather than the beef being rare. Indeed, as I pulled apart slice of the beef, it was clearly very well cooked through, to the point of being a bit dry, even slightly chalky in texture. Sampled cold, neither beef nor gravy were particularly flavoursome, but I suspected it might improve on heating.

While everyone has their own preference when it comes to how well done they like their beef, few would argue that some roast potatoes to go alongside it are more or less essential. Fortunately I still had some of the goose fat left from Christmas, long since decanted from its tin, but still perfectly happy sat in a jar in the fridge. So I was able to recreate those fabulously crisp roasties from the end of last year (cooking plenty of them just case the beef didn't get any better).

As for the accompanying vegetables, I must admit I failed a little on this front, in that the only tin I had in the cupboard was not a delightful medley of English garden peas and carrots, but instead of petits pois et carrottes - yes, a French tin of French veg! Still, it would have to do - England and France could battle it out metaphorically on the plate through the veg and the beef, recreating Agincourt with gravy in place of mud. Or something.

At first it looked like the makers, Cassegrain, had forgotten the carrots - but no, they'd just sunk down sous les petits pois. But there was more lurking beneath the peas than I had been expecting - a tiny little onion, and a very small amount of some other form of vegetal matter, which closer examination (and translation) of the ingredients list revealed to be lettuce. I can't believe that would have brought much to the party in terms of flavour, but it's always nice to find something you've never seen in tinned form before.

 

Cassegrain are apparently quite renowned in France as superior canners of vegetables, but I can't say I was overly impressed with these. The tin claimed they would be "tendres et fondants" (tender and melting) - the first was true, with both carrots and peas still retaining a hint of bite, unlike some tinned veg I have tasted, but 'melting' was pushing it somewhat. With sugar having been added to the brine they were tinned in though, they were far too sweet for my liking.

But no matter; the vegetables are hardly the most important part of a roast dinner anyway. You simply can't have roast beef without a decent Yorkshire pudding though. I think it may be a law, but don't quote me on it. To my knowledge, it is not possible to buy tinned Yorkshire pudding, which is probably a good thing, as I can't believe they would be anything less than abysmal. But what about making your own puds in food tins? Surely worth a try...so I whisked together a quick batter, rinsed out the beef and vegetable tins and put them in the oven with a bit of goose fat in them. When that was nice and hot, I poured in the batter, shut the oven door, and waited for the magic to happen.

 

And happen it did - a couple of corkers came out of the oven 15 minutes later, and with meat and veg heated through, I was ready to serve. Horseradish sauce would have been my condiment of choice, but only being available in jars, I went for the next best thing instead - English mustard, made from a tin of Colmans' finest powdered stuff.

All in all, it wasn't a bad meal - both beef and gravy had definitely benefitted from being warmed through, with the rich, tomatoey flavour of the latter coming through much more, and the meat softening in texture. Don't get me wrong, we're not talking meltingly tender slices here (or even "tendre et fondant", if you prefer) but it was certainly an improvement - the heating had appeared to "unstiffen the sinews", to misquote Henry V's famous speech. The vegetables seemed even more sweet than they had when sampled straight from the tin, though that was probably accentuated by being eaten alongside a load of very savoury items.

The Yorkshire was a success - lovely and crisp on top, but soft and pillow-like in the middle, just as it should be. The tins hadn't quite produced the crispy sides and bottom you might wish for, but this may have been due to whatever the insides of them were coated with not conducting the heat as well as a normal pudding tray. To be honest though, I was just glad the coating hadn't melted and ruined the puds - a worry that had only occurred to me halfway through their cooking time.

It was those goose-fat potatoes that stole the show though, with an even more satifysingly crunchy exterior than I remembered from last time. I should really have kept some for leftovers, but they're never as good the next day, so I ate them all there and then. The French Yorkshire (cooked in the vegetables tin) did make a comeback the next day though. Turned out of its oblong tin, it looked more like a loaf of bread (or brioche, even) than your standard Yorkie, so inspired by that, I went for a slightly less traditional approach, warming it through, slicing it like bread and having it with jam as a dessert. And very nice it was too!

A short aside: only a couple of weeks earlier, I had been sent another tinned roast beef dinner, of sorts, by my good pal Emily in the US (a delightful birthday gift, along with a limited edition Campbells soup tin, now serving as a pencil pot on my desk at work). This one was a three course TV dinner in confectionery form, featuring a trio of flavoured gumballs - buttered corn, roast beef and apple cobbler. Only a very mildly savoury taste to the main course, thankfully, but the sweetcorn and apple flavours were pretty much spot on, the former actually being quite moreish. Could this be the future of food, reducing meals down to pellets of gum, to be chewed until the flavour is gone and then discarded? A cost-effective way of feeding astronauts, perhaps? Nah - I think it's just a bit of fun. Thanks, Em!