Dear LPG

I have been in the kitchen again and thought I would let you know how I got on with my latest attempt at getting things nationally right.  As you will remember February was going to be all about looking at national taste from a Serbian perspective.

I checked the recipe list for ingredient availability, and that nearly worked out perfectly, but the method revealed just one little problem.  The first ingredient on the list was ground beef and I went to my local supermarket only to find minced beef which is not quite the same.  The secret is in the description, but I decided that I was not going to let a little thing like that get in the way of culinary success.  I went home and googled ground beef which brought up lots of places where I would be able to get minced beef, so minced beef was going to have to do. 

I have to admit to checking more than one video showing the pastry-making process.  It looked as tricky as all that pizza throwing that the really authentic Italian pizza chefs do although there was more stretching and pulling of the dough involved.  Just looking helped me to very quickly opt for plan B, pre-prepared filo pastry as a substitute.  After that it was really easy. The filling was good and the assembly process worked well although my first few sausages suffered from a few puncture holes.  I have learned that filo pastry is very delicate and your thumb can be a hole maker if you are not gentle enough.  

As you can see from my picture I used a cake tin when it came to the getting it round and, when it came to it, I started my twirl at the wrong end.  Working from the outside in left me with a twirl that just would not fit in the pan hence the central raised detail.  But for all that the taste was good according to my testers. 

I have done my research and March is all about Bangladesh.  From what I can see, that area of the world has reason to celebrate three times in the space of four days during March, so I hope to produce something designed to pinpoint their festivities for next month.  Hilsa (or ilish) should also be perfect for those non meat eaters amongst us and any reader who might have given meat up for lent might also be interested in this fishy dish. 

As I always say… just how hard can it be?    

CB, Lewisham