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Judy’s Springtime Dinner Party – MyDish Menu #27

Thursday, May 3rd, 2012

This dinner party menu is dedicated to Moody Judy as although the main course is under her husbands profile (Ivor) it was originally Judy’s and she chosen these recipes and put them together.

Starter

Crispy Duck and Watermelon Salad

Main Course

Greek Lamb

Greek Potatoes

Avocado and Papaya Salad

Lychee Salad

Dessert

Lemon Meringue Pie

Pineapple and melon with mint

The duck salad is made using a quarter of duck roasted – best as leftover if you are ever having roast duck – or just make some extra for the weekend salad!  Shred the duck and scatter it on a bed of herb leaves (basil, corriander, parsley and mint leaves).  Then  throw some cashew nuts on top and died watermelon.  The sauce is based on a Thai dressing called Green Nahmjim – only becareful you dont pour it all on as it is VERY spicy.

The key to the main course is to marinate the lamb the night before or early in the morning leaving the juices to infuse for a good few hours.  Shoulder or lamb shank is a good cut to use as after it has been cooking slowly for 4 hours it just falls apart and is so delicious and tender.  This is served with roast potatoes, Judy chose Nicola Greek potatoes just to keep with the Greek theme and the flavours complimented each other really well.  Then for those warm muggy evenings (remember them?) a selection of salads -

If you have room to move dessert is a slice of lemon meringue pie – tangy, sweet and very moorish – and for those guests who don’t do puddings after such a delicious meal – a platter of cubed melon mixed with pineapple and topped with a springly of mint and sugar pummeled together with a touch of rum for good measure to make a mojito salad.

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Top Ten Most Popular UK Foods

Wednesday, November 16th, 2011

What is your favourite food? Perhaps it’s something you remember from childhood, a treat your grandma made for you or even the much maligned school dinners? School dinners – seriously? MyDish recently ran a nostalgic online food nostalgia thread on Facebook and a competition on the Mydish Website that generated many happy memories of family recipes, a surprising number of apparently tasty school dinner meals and instances of our first baking experiences.  Rose tinted spectacles were nowhere in sight but the tremendous feedback from over 2000 entries sparked so much interest that we have put together at list of the top ten favourite foods as voiced by the UK respondents.

10. Toad-in-the-Hole and Fairy Cakes
Beginning with the tasty combo of toad-in-the-hole and fairy cakes for afters these foods are firmly blasts from the past. You need a crispy batter and plenty of toad for the best taste experience.

 

 

And who hasn’t baked fairy cakes as a youngster? Taking off the top, halving it into ‘wings’ then returning them to a butter icing bun was always favourite hands-on experience.

 

 

9. Jam Roly Poly & Jelly and Ice Cream
Hot on the heels of toad-in-the-hole is the perennial favourite of school kids and big kids too: the jam roly poly. What better pud is there to keep you warm inside as winter begins to bite?

 

Scorned by la-di-dah foodies who turn up their snooty noses at such a ‘kid’s dessert’, the chances are that, behind closed doors, they secretly love a hearty dish of jelly and ice cream. Not that they’d admit it of course.


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8. Boiled Egg and Soldiers & Gypsy Tart
Soft boiled egg and soldiers is a blast from many adults’ past. Nutritious, filling and a nostalgic reminder of simple childhood days, the eggy food is one that can be enjoyed again and again.


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Fortunately for waistlines but unfortunate for sweet-tooths, the gypsy tart largely disappeared from school dinner menus in the 1980s. This high calorie tart is gorgeous in a (very) naughty but nice way.

 


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7. Shepherd’s Pie and Semolina
Getting the right amount of browning to the mashed potato puts the crowning glory to this popular family meal.

 


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Going to show that our favourite meals are still firmly entrenched in happy childhood memories the smooth milk pudding of semolina, with or without a spoonful of runny jam, is a heart warming afters.

 


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6. Corned Beef Hash and Eggy Bread
A first for the list – a meal usually the sole purview of adults, the delicious corned beef hash is a fulsome feast of meat and veg; another flavoursome meal for anyone at any age.

 


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This nutritious, high protein breakfast is also a traditional Christmastime dessert in Portugal and Brazil. Not a lot of people know that. Something to think about as you tuck into your next helping.

 


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5. Tomato Soup and Arctic Roll
Best served hot and enjoyed most with some crusty granary rolls, tomato soup gives you a healthy dose of cancer-unfriendly lycopene in a more digestible form than the raw fruit. Plus it’s absolutely scrumptious.

 


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Back in the shops by popular demand, how many kids had this as their staple dessert back in the 1970s and 80s?

 


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4. Bubble and Squeak & Angel Delight
Get those yesterday’s leftovers heated up in a frying pan to make one of the cheapest and popular meals as nominated by our respondents. It’s a whole new taste experience.

 


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Screaming ‘Childhood dessert!’, the humble Angel delight is yummy, moreish, easy to digest and packed full of calcium for your healthy teeth and bones. More adults should eat it or work it into family desserts. No shame in eating delightful Delight.

 


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3. Bangers and Mash & Fish Fingers
Keep in mind not to buy any sausages that the packaging proudly boasts as ‘bangers’ and you won’t get taken in by manufacturers’ cunning way of getting round the minimum meat requirements. Bangers and mash is a much-loved savoury meal.

 


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Fish fingers are great way of working mini portions of fish into children’s diets. Can you look yourself in the mirror and say you didn’t used to remove the breadcrumbs coating off and eat it separately?

 


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2. Beef Stew & Bread and Butter Pudding
Leaving greasy burgers behind and the fast food pizzas, it’s gratifying to see that here, towards the peak of the most popular UK foods, that good, wholesome British fare still reigns supreme in the eyes of the people. Big chunks of tender beef, gorgeous gravy and seasonal vegetables make a nostalgic joy that can be enjoyed as a weekly winter warmer.

 


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Bread and butter pudding is another of those dishes designed to use old ingredients and reduce waste. The fact that it’s mouth-wateringly moreish is neither here nor there is it?

 


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And finally…
1. Roast Dinner and Rice Pudding
There can be only one! At the very peak of our epicurean’s delight is the seasonal vegetables and roast chicken or belt-straining roast beef dinner. Its popularity is no doubt due in part to the cosy family atmosphere that would typically be part and parcel of the Sunday Lunch.

 


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And, if you could still find space for afters then good old rice pudding completed the perfect meal. The second milk pudding on our list was overwhelmingly the number one pud. Packed with good complex carbohydrates, vitamins and calcium the rice pudding seems set to stay as favourite in our hearts, minds and tums!

 


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You can still join in our competition here to win £100 Marks and Spencer vouchers

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The Top Five Classic Meals For Kids

Wednesday, November 2nd, 2011

Childhood may be over in a flash but certain experiences stay with us until the end. School meals, for instance, will be with us throughout our lives for all the wrong reasons. These bad food memories are unfortunate, but as a wise man once said ‘the sweet just isn’t as sweet without the bitter’. With this in mind, it is therefore a necessity for us food lovers to experience some of the poorer quality nosh out there.

Fortunately, for every poor quality dish we were subjected to as children, most of us would have also had some greats they can remember too.  It was this, and the current Birds Eye competition that MyDish is partnered with, that got the team thinking and inevitably asking, ‘what are the classic childhood meals that most people absolutely loved?’

Well, after much research conducted by the research arm of the MyDish team, we are pleased to say that we have this nicely wrapped up for you.

The top five classic meals for kids:

Fast-food

Kids are kids, and pretty much all kids love fast-food. Whether it is the taste of the food or early signs of deep rooted consumerism, it doesn’t really matter. The fact is, kids would probably eat junk food all day if they could. Pizza Hut, Happy Meals, chips, french-fries and burgers are all good. Hosting a birthday party at McDonalds is the height of sophistication for a six year old and could lead on to big things in the playground.

Rice Krispies Treats

A true classic in every sense. Not only are Rice Krispies Treats so widely loved, but access to these tasty treats is strictly for children. As an adult these beauties are rarer than a Dodo. You could even go as far to say that the main motivation of having children is Rice Krispies Treats. Classic.

Alphabet Spaghetti on Toast

Only as a child could eating pasta shaped letters improve the taste of a dish considerably. Hours of fun were had eating those little letters. Some kids got so into it they even discriminated against parts of the alphabet. The letter J always did taste a little funny.

Jelly

Jelly, like Rice Krispies Treats, is another one of those dishes you just cannot eat as an adult. Picture the scene, restaurant, hot date, things going well, and then the object of your desire orders the jelly. Ouch. It is a dish strictly for children and any adult partaking in it is at risk of irreparable image/reputation damage. Children have no such worries though, and hovering down a wobbly jelly was, in the words of the north, ‘proper champion’.

Aeroplanes/Trains

Generation after generation of UK kids have lived on an early diet of aeroplanes and trains. Strange in consistency and never tasting the same, young children all over would eagerly gulp down fast approaching, low flying food. It may be hard to recall, but in those days, if food wasn’t coming in at speed and making comical noises, we just weren’t interested. It’s hard to know if at that age, a child understands they aren’t eating a plane, but the arrogance of youth suggests to me they deemed the plane and train easy mechanical prey.

 

 

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