Dear LPG,

You would think after a whole year’s experience of trying unfamiliar recipes for the first time, I would have learned a thing or two about improving my cooking skills, but my attempt to do Bulgaria proud on this, their special day, did not pass without its little culinary variations.  The most significant lesson I learned from this month’s recipe is that deviating from method is equally as detrimental to the final look of the finished dish as varying the ingredient list, although the final version of all my cooking exploits are usually open to interpretation I suppose.

This time it was my method that went a little wrong I think even though I followed the instructions to the letter with only one or two little exceptions.  I grabbed a cake tin that was significantly smaller in diameter than the specified size which was to cause this month’s different look to my version of the dish.

You will note that I subtly left my version in the cake tin when taking the picture and I was right; the out of the tin version was even worse!

There was a bit of mixing involved and then it was just a case of rolling the pastry to make sausage shaped cylinders and placing them in the cake tin spiral-style.  The real problem is that because of the lack of space in the tin there were more rolls than needed and this was the factor which caused the problem.  I decided that the only way forward was a little stacking and a second layer of ‘pastry sausages ‘on top of the first, and this was where I went wrong.  during the baking process, my neat little rolls grew too big for the tin and the result is there for all to see although it tasted quite nice according to my taste testing team.

So I have put that one down to experience and, moving on I note that Turkmenistan which is near Russia, celebrates their independence on October 27^th.  Having learned that puddings (those ‘end of the meal’ specialties which depend on looking particularly pleasing to the eye’) might not be my forte, I have it on good internet authority that Plov is one of the Turkmen national dishes and, as my cooking skills are better suited to a good solid main course dish, I hope next month’s offering will look a little more like it is supposed to.

CB, Lewisham

CB shares her instructions for next month’s Turkmen cooking adventure…

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