Searching For Umami

No, not 'your mammy', 'oomaaaahmy'.

Umami is alleged to be the fifth taste, after salt, sour, sweet and bitter, and it's a Japanese word that is variously translated as 'savoury' or 'deliciousness'. Before we go any further, I should explain that 'taste' is what we can detect with our tongues. This is augmented by many thousands of aromas that our noses can experience. It's all a bit complicated.

I've always adored 'savoury' food, and so I've been looking out for 'umami' ever since I first heard of it a bit over a year ago while reading something about molecular gastronomy.

I was given a Heston Blumenthal book and DVD for my birthday in October, and another of his cookbooks for Christmas. There's a good deal of stuff about umami in these books, and it set me off trying various things.

One of the more startling of these things is what I've been reading about MSG (MonoSodium Glutamate). I've always just assumed that MSG was right up there with heroin, crack and PopTarts as something that you really should not be putting into your body. But I realised I had no idea why I thought that. I just knew that it was commonly used as a 'flavour enhancer', especially in the Far East. A bit of Googling came up with 'Chinese Restaurant Syndrome', which I've never really heard of before. It turns out that some people claim to get headaches after eating in Chinese restaurants, and without any formal research ever being done, MSG was singled out as the culprit and instantly demonised. To get the full background on this, read 'If MSG is so bad for you, why doesn't everyone in Asia have a headache?'

Some of the natural sources of umami have certainly surprised me - I would have expected to see onions and their mates (leeks, celery, etc) in the list, but they don't really feature: tomatoes and mushrooms do though, but the winner by a long way is Kombu. Kombu is a seaweed from Japan (it's similar to kelp). I bought some a couple of weeks ago, and I've been using it to add umami to stocks and soups and sauces. It does this very well, and without making everything taste of seaweed. I won't be rushing out to buy MSG any time soon, but I'm certainly enjoying the umami-quest-fest.

UPDATE: umami burger, oh yeah! I forgot to mention mature Parmesan cheese is a great source of umami

The Burger

Here it is then. The bottom part is a BLT - bacon, lettuce and tomato sitting on a blob of mayonnaise and topped with melted cheese. The top part is Dijon mustard, the burger patty, sliced gherkins, tomato ketchup and more melted cheese.



Possibly a bit over the top.

Great Buns

There are few things on this earth that can beat a really good beefburger. Sadly, like pies, some of the things that get passed off as 'good' burgers are anything but. I remember to this day the very first 'hamburger' I ever had. It was at a Wimpy in Doncaster (MacDonald's and their ilk were still a few years away from hitting UK shores, and burgers did not exist in Brit 'cuisine'), and it was very nearly enough to put me off the damn things for life. Obviously, I didn't know what it was supposed to be like, and so I was disconcerted by the total lack of ham in it. I also suspected that the disc of dense brown meatlike stuff in the middle could have been a lot juicier, the inner faces of the bread should not have been dark brown, crispy and carbon-flavoured, and that maybe the addition of some lettuce, tomato and ketchup might have improved things.

I did get over it, and about once a year I'll have a Big Mac or whatever the Burger King equivalent is, just to remind myself of what they're like. They're not like really good burgers, that's for sure.

These days, when I want a burger, I make it myself. The patty element of burgers is actually pretty easy. It's just beef that has been popped through a mincer. There could be a bit of salt. But nothing else; no onion, no filler, nothing to make it hold together (pure meat really doesn't need it). How you cook the patty is up to you, although there's a ton of advice about it on the interwebz. And the crunchy things and sauces that you put into the burger are also a matter of taste.



But the one thing that is critically important to a decent burger is the bread you put it in. Sadly, in Spain at least, the folks who make 'burger buns' think that sweet soft fluff does the trick. They are utterly wrong. A good burger bun needs to be strong enough to hold the contents together. A little bit of crunch on the toasted edges doesn't go amiss. Taste and texture are useful to have. I make my own buns these days.

When I was researching burger bun recipes, I came across this article, and the recipe seems pretty good. I've made it a few times, and I made it again today. But I tried a variation. You see, I wanted the buns to be the same diameter as the burgers, and to achieve this I was going to place the dough for each burger inside a steel ring. It turned out I had a bit more dough than I needed, but I used it anyway, with the result that the buns looked more like loaves. Next time I'll try to take some photos before we consume the finished burgers.

Christmas Already

I'm really sorry for my abysmal posting record this month - I have 3 or 4 half-written posts that only need (usually) a photo or a few more words to finish them off.

Ho hum. And now Christmas is upon us. I'm off to London first thing tomorrow, but I promise when I get back there'll be lots more posting. Can't wait, can ya?

I wish youse all a fab Christmas and a splendid 2012, despite what crap the money-obsessed 'financiers' try to pull next.

Elephants. Not

I love Tiger, I really really do. They sell silly stuff, hobby stuff, party stuff and herbs and spices. Most items cost 1 or 2 Euros. I doubt they have anything over €10. But it's nothing like a £1 shop in the UK - shopping in Tiger doesn't make you feel like a loser. If you don't have one near you - go to their website and complain like a complainy thing. Because then you'll be able to get some of this...

Yes, I kid you not. Elefantsnot! Just amazing.

Trains, Planes, Automobiles, Car Ferries and a Jelly Tot

We've known for about six months that one of the clan would be celebrating his 50th birthday in the Netherlands in mid-October. But did anybody book any flights when they were cheap? Nooooo, of course not. So we ended up organising the most bizarrely impractical itinerary for the weekend just gone.

We had basically given up on the idea of the Holland trip because we had no money and the fares between Madrid and Amsterdam had just become insane. But then one of the bruvvers said he would be driving from Surrey to the Netherlands via a car ferry from Dover to Dunkerque. So if we could get to Dunkerque, he could take us to Holland. A bit of research quickly revealed that to be a non-starter (based on flying to Paris CDG, TGV to Lille and local train to Dunkerque, we'd be looking at €350 each, each way). But then he had a brainwave-ette, and we checked fares from Madrid to Gatwick. Not too bad, actually, for the outbound sector. Coming back on Monday was pretty nasty though. MamaDuck needed an earlyish flight because she had classes from about 1330 on Monday. But we bit the bullet and got her a direct ticket from Schiphol to Barajas, while I opted to return to London in the car, stay overnight with the Offspring, and grab a €34 flight back from Gatwick on Tuesday evening.

As you can imagine, getting to nearly-Amsterdam was going to be somewhat circuitous, but we didn't mind because
1) We weren't driving
2) We'd have a couple of hours on the ferry, and that might be fun
3) It makes a total change from flying everywhere

SATURDAY
MamaDuck was working late on Friday, so we'd booked an early flight on Saturday, along with a minibus to take us to the airport. I am totally paranoid about missing flights and stuff, and when they say you need to be there 2 hours before departure, that is what I do. So we were up at 0430, in the van at 0515, at the airport 10 minutes later. The formalities were completed in no time at all, and we spent a couple of boring hours waiting for the flight. When it was all boarded we waited half an hour on the tarmac because the Air Traffic Control computer had crashed (that's really not a word you want to hear your pilot using) and so they couldn't issue the aircraft with a flight plan. Smart-ass passengers thought things like 'go North', but it's apparently a bit more complex than that.

At Gatwick we found our driver after a fair bit of exploration of the various car parks. We headed down to Dover, and arrived in plenty of time for the ferry. It was a pleasant surprise to find that security consisted of nothing more than a quick look in the boot.

I haven't been on a ferry for decades, but I remember loving the fact that you could wander around the public bits of the boat and weren't restricted to one tiny seat. We had a good, reasonably-priced lunch, served by jovial staff, and before we knew it we were pulling into Dunkerque.

We thought the drive up to nearly-Amsterdam would take about 3.5 hours. It actually took more like 5 because we got lost around Antwerp. We stopped for a coffee somewhere in Belgium, and didn't know whether to order in French or Flemish (as if!), but the girl spoke perfect English anyway.

The weather was lovely - sunny and warm - there were hot air balloons and lots and lots of wind turbines. Once we'd recovered from our undesired tour of Antwerp's ring road, we made good time and were around the outskirts of Amsterdam at dusk. We had GPS on one of the phones, but hadn't used it much because of astronomical data roaming charges. We did use it when we were lost in the little residential streets around our destination, and you really had to be there to hear the English GPS voice try to pronounce 'Wijkermeerstraat'.

The Dutch make a big deal out of 50th birthdays - blokes of this age become 'Abrahams' and ladies are 'Sarahs'. Abraham is a wise and reverend old man who 'knows where the mustard comes from'. Don't ask. Anyway, our Abraham's wife (who still has a few years to go before becoming a Sarah) had hired a local bar/restaurant, decorated it with the traditional Abraham stuff, and invited half the neighbourhood. A great time was had by all, and we staggered home about 2am, having been up for 22 hours.

SUNDAY
Sunday was a pretty lazy day. Abraham cooked a full English breakfast, his two boys were delivered by his mother-in-law, and we all went to a nearby patch of woodland with a couple of lakes in it. The kidz had a great time, and we finished up having some nibbles and drinks at a futuristic restaurant built out over the lake.

We returned home, and then went back to the restaurant where the party had been and had dinner. Being accustomed to Spanish mealtimes, the idea of booking a table for dinner at 1830 just seemed plain weird.

MONDAY
Monday was the parting of the ways: we set off at 0800, dropped MamaDuck off at Schiphol ('just catching the plane to work, dahling, see you later xx'), and then headed back to Dunkerque, from where we were booked on the 1400 sailing. The weather was a bit foggy, but not dangerously so, but we really had no idea how long the trip would take because we were likely to get stuck in morning rush-hour congestion around Rotterdam and Breda. As it happened, there was no serious congestion, we didn't get lost, and by 1115 it looked possible that we could make the 1200 sailing. So we went a lil bit faster. What we'd forgotten, of course, was that the Ferry Terminal is about 10kms south of Dunkerque town, and the last 5kms are on windy little local roads with lots of roundabouts. We got into the Terminal at 1150, but UK Border Agency were a bit dubious about Driver's passport picture (and I don't blame them - it's 9 years old and looks a lot more like Abraham than Driver), and the ferry was pulling out as we parked up. Entering the Terminal building, we realised we'd made a terrible mistake. It was nothing more than a big room containing a play area, some tables and chairs, some vending machines, and a determinedly shut café. Pretty grim place to spend the next 90 minutes.

The crossing and the drive that followed were unremarkable, and around 1800 I was dropped off at Woking railway station. The ticket office was closed, and the ticket machine was too dumb to tell me why it kept rejecting the €20 note that I was trying to feed it with. I finally noticed my mistake and hurried off to a bank to withdraw some BritDosh™.

The plan for the evening was to meet Offspring and Old Mate From When We Lived In Dubai, and have a beer or two. Offspring had found a completely amazing, hidden-down-an-alley pub called Ye Olde Mitre, and it's really worth a look if you're ever in that part of London. Old Mate toddled off about 2130, and we weren't far behind. We toddled off to Offspring's new flat in St Reatham, made a plan for the following day, and had an early night.

TUESDAY
So, the plan was that Offspring would get off work a bit early, and we would meet in a pub near London Bridge Station at 1630. I would have to leave between 1730 & 1800 to get a train to Gatwick in plenty of time for my flight.

I got to the pub half an hour early, so I went into the station to get me a ticket to Gatwick. As I was waiting in the queue, I pulled out my boarding card just to quadruple-check the departure time. I was beyond surprised to see it was a little over one hour from now. Instant panic ensued, and a quite unbelievable problem materialised out of thin air.

See, I'd bought Offspring a belated Graduation Present. I can't tell you what it is, because he hasn't got it yet. But it's definitely something you cannot take onto an aeroplane in your hand baggage; for the sake of brevity we'll say it's a 101g Jelly Tot. I rushed around London Bridge station, found the Information Desk and asked if there was a Post Office or Left Luggage facility. Nope, they had neither, but Waterloo station had both. No good. I phoned Offspring, told him what had happened, got a ticket and was at Gatwick Airport in about half an hour.

A helpful lady there said no, there wasn't a Post Office, but there were some postboxes. In my addled state, I didn't know what she meant, and I asked her to explain. She happened to be standing beside one. A tall red tube-like thing with a slot that you put letters into. Ah. No, thanks. Left luggage? Yes, in the Arrivals Hall.

I ran to this place and deposited the Jelly Tot. The chap explained it would be £8 per day or part thereof, and I said I would get someone to collect it tomorrow. Fine, said the chap, just make sure they bring the original receipt. Another part of my world crumbled. I explained I was on my way to Spain - surely I could fax them a copy or scan it and email it? Nope, guv, has to be the original, guv, I don't make the rules, etc, guv. Grrr.

No point in arguing further, and I had a plane to catch. I mentioned Gatwick's marvellous new security system in this post, and was thrilled that it worked pretty quickly even when there were quite a few passengers - I think I got through in 7 minutes, and then pelted down the corridor to the gate, stamping on small children, leaping over carelessly positioned wheelie-bags and pushing aside other obstacles in a willy-nilly fashion. They had just opened the gate when I arrived, and quite a few stragglers joined the queue after me - some of them looked like they had recently been roughed up by a small tornado or a high-speed maniac. A couple of them looked at me with very slitty eyes indeed.

WEDNESDAY
I was home by about 2130 Tuesday, twitching mightily as I retold the story to MamaDuck. Even now, I haven't the slightest idea how I managed such a monumental screw-up. And now we have the problem of getting the Jelly Tot to its rightful owner. Just to complicate things a bit more, OffSpring is off to Scotland today for a week. So Driver is going to retrieve it: I've sent him the receipt by Registered Post. He should get it Friday morning. He's driving past Gatwick anyway on his way down to Dover (to get a ferry and then drive to the South of France where he mostly lives). He will then have to try to post it before attempting to board the ferry with it.

But the good news is, after all this stressiosity, I didn't reward myself with a smoke.

Smoking No More

I hesitate to say, out loud and in public 'I quit', because I will then look like a weak and feeble arse when next I pick up a cigarette, set fire to it, and suck its evil contents down into the fetid depths of what remains of my lungs.

So what I will say is, it's been 4-5 days since I last smoked a cigarette. And you know what? Quitting isn't killing me. Sure, I get the little craving monster, probably timed to the minute to coincide with the times when I would previously be lighting up a smoke. But now, I think I've smoked all the ciggies I need, thank you, and I can make the craving go away in about ten seconds.

I can't really remember the last time I tried to quit smoking, and what that was like. But I can remember finally giving in to the ceaseless, never-ending desire to fill my guts with smoke. I guess the craving then had been much worse than it is now.

To tell you the truth, I've been wanting to quit since, like, forever. But I was scared. I knew it would hurt. I'd tried before and failed, and I don't need any more failure in my life. Etcetera. Well, I finally screwed up the courage to do it on the evening of October 5th, 2011. The day that Steve Jobs died. Now, I'm not saying that there's any particular significance in the date. but his untimely passing had put me in a thoughtful mood (and I doubt that Steve was killed by smoking - it was just dodgy genes wot done it), and by early evening I was able to put my baccy, skins and lighter in a drawer and leave them there.

And the next day I had some breakfast at about 9am, and some lunch at about 1pm and I ate all my dinner that evening. And you're thinking 'so what?' Well, one of the gazillion side effects of smoking is that it suppresses your appetite. I really didn't eat much when I was smoking, and there would always be something left on the plate. And that's a bit embarrassing when you've spent however long it is actually cooking the stuff: even more embarrassing when someone else has cooked it for you.

And the next day, I ran up a few steps. Danced a bit maybe. Hugged my missus. Actually felt more alive than I have done for years. Fingers crossed eh?

An Astonishingly Good Read

I rarely post on here about books I'm reading / have read / have hurled into the street below because the author just can't effing write. But I really have to share a little rave-ette with you, having just finished reading David Mitchell's extraordinary 2004 novel, Cloud Atlas for the second time. Why it took me 7 years to come across this book, I'll never know. I was talking to a writer-friend a few months ago, and he asked me if I'd read it. I confessed I'd never heard of it, and a week or two later he presented me with a copy at our flatwarming soiree. I wasn't sure if it was a gift or a loan, but after I'd finished it the first time I told him he'd have to fight me if he wanted it back. I won't spoil it for you by telling you anything about it, except that its interlinked episodes hurtle through the past and the future, and the author slips with apparent ease between various genres and styles of writing in a supremely impressive and entertaining way.

It seems a motion picture is going to be made of it, starring Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant and many other big names. But don't wait for the film - read the book!

Them Molecules Again

I actually made a Molecular Gastronomy recipe today that I was quite proud of. It's Agar Agar Tomato Soup Spaghetti, invented by Ferran Adría of El Bulli.

There are two essential bits of kit needed for this recipe - a big chunky syringe, and lengths of plastic tubing. The tubing has to fit very tightly over the nozzle of the syringe, otherwise all your efforts are doomed to failure. After quite an extensive search, I found tubing of the right size (about 4mm internal diameter) in the gardening department of El Corte Inglés - it's intended to be part of an irrigation system.



So, here's what you do. Make some tomato soup (or even open a can if you're not that bothered about what it tastes like). When ready, whizz it in a blender and then strain through a tamis or bit of cheesecloth. Return to the heat and add about 5g of powdered agar agar. Remove from heat when the agar agar has dissolved.

Now the fun part. Cut a length of tubing about 2 metres long. Coil it up a bit and secure the coil with a couple of bits of sticky tape (you don't have to do this, but it makes things easier later in the process). Fill your syringe with tomato soup - you'll need about 45ml to fill your 2m tube. Fit one end of the tubing over the syringe nozzle, and carefully inject the soup into the tubing. When a bit comes out of the other end, you're done. Remove the tube from the nozzle and pop it into a bowl of iced water. If you intend to make more than one spaghetto, repeat this paragraph.

Now the magic part. Agar agar is a gelling agent, and it sets at room temperature. Once the soup and agar mix has set in the tubing, fill your syringe with air, attach the tubing, and press the plunger on the syringe. You don't want to use too much force at this stage because once the frictional resistance of the spaghetto has been overcome it will emerge pretty fast and you need to avoid it hitting walls, ceilings, floors, cats or houseplants.

You can dribble your spaghetto randomly on a plate, or arrange it in an arty-farty spiral, although they are a little delicate and prone to breaking. You can serve the spaghetti cold or warm them over a pan of boiling water - be careful though, because they will melt at about 70°C.

And you can make them from virtually any liquid you fancy, as long as it's smooth enough to be injected into the tube. I think my next attempt will be with gazpacho.

Oh, and the reason I was proud of this is that the tutorials I'd read warned about the difficulty of using the syringe to extract the spaghetto, and recommended a nitrous oxide cream whipper to blow it out, but I suspect this was because they didn't have a tight-enough fit between their tubing and syringe nozzle. Or maybe they just like playing with laughing gas.

English Airport Procedures - Compare and Contrast

I've been to England twice in the last two months, the first time flying into & out of Stansted, and the second, Gatwick.

Up till now, if I've had to go to London, Stansted has been my airport of choice. Luton is too much like a municipal bus station, while Heathrow and Gatwick are a national disgrace (well, two national disgraces, or six if you count each terminal separately). But for the most recent 2-day trip for the Offspring's graduation, timing was critical, and the most suitable times could only be got by using Gatwick.

So, Stansted. Arrival was modestly painless, involving a mere fifteen minute wait in a snaky, sweaty queue for my passport to be waved through by an Immigration Officer (or possibly a Border Agent). Departure was farcical. The hall was crammed with people and the slow-moving queues were being harangued by stern-sounding people and recorded messages telling us that all liquids, gels and creams must be in a clear resealable bag. Now, I was under the impression that this foolish, pointless and downright inconvenient knee-jerk process had been stopped (certainly nobody at any Spanish airports limits the amount of toothpaste you can take on board). But I was wrong, of course. All I had was half a tube of toothpaste and a big pot (more than 100ml) of skin cream that I'd bought while I was there. I hadn't bothered to get a special bag, so I showed the lady what I had - it was in a semi-transparent Boots bag that could only be 'sealed' if you tied a knot in it. She had a look inside, and told me I couldn't take it on board, because it was in the wrong kind of bag. And you can't argue with these people because they'll have you labelled as aggressive and tasered within seconds.

Moving on.

Gatwick is a building site at the moment - BAA claims to be spending 1 billion quid on refurbishing it. The Immigration hall seems to be finished. When we arrived, we were asked if we had chips in our passports. Yes we did, so we were directed to a self-service machine with slightly odd instructions. It tells you to place your passport details page on a scanner, go through the gate, stand on the feet and wait for it to take a photo and open the second gate. 'Stand on the feet' seemed a bit illiterate, but all becomes clear when you get through the first barrier - there's a sticker on the floor with a couple of feet on it.

So that was quite impressive, and queue-less, but I didn't know what to expect for the return journey and was fretting somewhat because the train we had tickets for wouldn't get us there in time to deal with a long wait for security (in fact we ended up not using those tickets, and bought tickets for a different operator that would get us there half an hour earlier).

I don't know if it was the time of day, or just a super-efficient new system, but the immigration hall was virtually devoid of passengers. We were greeted by a friendly, chatty bloke who had a look at our gels and liquids and then sent us to a gate where you scan your boarding pass. And then we're into the x-ray section where, once again, the staff were friendly and helpful and we were through that in about 3 minutes flat without once being made to feel like criminals. I really couldn't believe it.

Looks like I'll be using Gatwick more in the future.

Moving House & Pie Stuff

Those of you who read my drivel on Facebook will have an idea of the bizzyness I've been going through for the last couple of months. I've really had no time to blog at all. The thing that was driving me nuts was trying to move house. We actually found a place we liked last October, but our landlady said we could only move when the lease has expired (I'm still not convinced this is actually true) unless we find a new tenant or pay all the rent that would be due until the end of April. So that flat didn't happen - we had actually paid a month's rent to hold it, and fortunately the landlord paid it back. We bided our time (not very happily, it must be said - we were desperate for more space) and during April we found an utterly amazing apartment. It's twice the size of the old one, has 2 bedrooms, 2 terraces (one of which is glazed-in and only useful for utility stuff, but the other one is for full-on sunbathing/barbecuing/growing planty things), a well-equipped kitchen and, best of all, an astonishingly low rent.

There was a little catch, though. The owner insisted on using a County Council scheme called Plan Alquila. This is an admirable thing that encourages landlords to rent out their empty property by insuring the tenant's rent. So there's no risk of the property owner not being paid. But, this being Government, there are many hoops to jump through, and nothing happens when it should. We had to apply to Plan Alquila for approval, and the process that they said would take 2 weeks ended up taking 7 very very long weeks. I have no idea why it took so long, but finally the contract got signed and we moved in towards the end of May, having extended our previous lease by 2 months.

Just to complicate things a bit, in the background to the move was a long-standing order for 103 pies for a friend's 40th birthday party. So we got the keys on Wednesday, hired a truck and 2 Romanians on Thursday, got everything moved in by about noon, and then I set up my prep table in the bedroom and started making pies (I couldn't put it in the kitchen because that would involve removing a narrow worktop and we hadn't got permission to do that from the owner at this point). But the bedroom was okay - it has AC and didn't have a bed.

I finished making the pies on Friday, and MamaDuck made a trip to IKEA in the evening to buy us a bed. This cost an astonishing amount of money, and was promised for delivery the following afternoon - the day of the party. I managed to get my pies made, collected and delivered by about 2pm, but the IKEA guys didn't arrive with the bed until about 5pm.

Then we rushed off to Moncloa Bus Station to get up to the party. Our friend had rented a house in the country for the occasion, and all his family from Liverpool and Ireland were there. A fair amount of drink had been taken by the time we arrived, and when I was introduced as the pieman there was a liberal amount of hugging, kissing and handshaking.

The party coincided with the Champions League Final between Barcelona and Man United, and our mate had hired a TV projector and big screen so we wouldn't miss it.

All in all, a terrific day.

The Long Egg-speriment

This post is about Gala Pies and Long Eggs. If you don't know what either of these, I will now elucidate. A Gala Pie is a long version of a pork pie, typically baked in a bread tin and about the size, shape and weight as a brick. But far more tasty, unless of course, you're a troll. Gala Pies have a boiled egg running through the centre and are designed to be served in slices. Magically*, no matter where you cut the pie, you always get the full amount of egg yolk and egg white.

This is where the Long Egg comes in. Long hens became extinct aeons ago (possibly from exhaustion during the never-ending egg-laying), so these days we have to resort to magic technology to replicate their efforts. It seems that every commercial Gala Pie-maker considers the provenance of the Long Egg to be a trade secret, but my trawling of the Interwebz came up with solutions involving tubes of different diameters and the separate poaching of the yolks and the whites.

I rummaged around the kitchen and came up with a squeezy sauce bottle that seemed to be about the right diameter for the outer tube, so I cut the top off. The inner tube was more problematic, but I found some phallic pet feeder things that were only a little too big for the inner tube (I figured that was okay - more yolk, less white - only doctors like egg white anyway) in the local Chino.

I poured my yolks into one of the blue tubes, but was unable to seal the top so I had to rig up something with toothpicks and wire to keep the tube vertical while the yolks set. When it was done, I placed the long yolk into the wider tube, poured albumen around it and popped it back into the pan until it set. Getting the complete long egg out of the tube was a bit of a disaster, however. I hadn't thought to use any lubricant, and the egg white had become quite firmly attached to the polythene. So I had to cut it out with a knife and ended up with a somewhat mis-shapen long egg.

I had my pastry, jelly and pork filling all ready, and no time (or eggs) to make another long egg, so I chucked it in and baked it.



So the egg didn't look great, but the whole pie tasted fantastic.

That was a couple of weeks ago. I made another long egg this morning, using food-grade polythene tubes that I made myself using my heat-sealer. This one seems to have turned out pretty well, so I'll make another gala pie tomorrow. Wish me luck.

*Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
- Arthur C. Clarke, 1961