Fanny Cradock Invites... you to the iPlayer

There's been quite the hullaballoo this week in the press about the 'Return of Fanny Cradock' to the BBC... Every newspaper, every radio show and even some television shows have covered the 'breaking news' story. The BBC are at last adding some classic cooking shows to their iPlayer archive for us all to savour, showcasing the changes from the 'early days' of Fanny and Delia to erm, well, the 'later days' of, erm, Levi Roots and Lorraine Pascale. It's Fanny that has set the headlines alight however - and I'm not just talking about those nasty tabloids who stole my blog photos to illustrate their stories, but that is another tale for another day...

Once again, Fanny will be showing us all how to throw a proper Cheese and Wine Party. She happily invites us into her actual home to do this, and cooks for us in her actual kitchen. She'd actually campaigned fiercely for many years behind the scenes to move cooking programmes out of the dreary studio, to show the housewives of Britain how to cook in ordinary kitchens. She wanted to cook in ordinary housewives homes. The producers were't keen. Fanny cooked up the plan to use her own kitchen instead. We'd all love to see that! Just before we get that exclusive peek of Fanny's kitchen, she, of course, introduces us to her dog, Mademoiselle Lolita Saltina Cradock, who is not yet quite a lady. No more explanation required.

Fanny is sick to death of looking at walls while she cooks at home, so she shows us around her time-saving kitchen where everything faces the camera instead. Which is fortunate. Peter and Sally are on hand, looking terrified, to help out when barked at. We're having a Cheese and Wine party after all, and time is tight. We all have dramas, nothing worse than the doorbell ringing before you are ready, you really should have your frock on by now and the food isn't presented as it should be. Don't worry, just pull in your army of amiable assistants to rummage through your endless cupboards to make the show happen with ease. It's what every ordinary housewife would do.

To celebrate Fanny on the iPlayer, I am making her very special Italian cheesecake with her very special homemade cream cheese, that we very specially made earlier. This one uses a pastry base. The cream cheese is simply mixed together with egg yolks, orange zest, sugar and a little flour. Oh, and fresh grapes and mixed peel. They are funny lot these Italians. This mixture is poured into the raw pastry case. Fanny then covers the surface in unbeaten egg white and a trellis of pastry offcuts. She sprinkles on a few pine-nuts and a dusting of icing sugar, and it's ready to bake.

Her kitchen at home has four ovens, but we only need one for this. Once baked, sit back and enjoy a slice while catching up with Fanny on iPlayer. It's a treat. Sing along to the jaunty theme tune and gawp in amazement at her talents. She never misses a heartbeat as she tours round, whips up several meals, cleans as she goes, fries stuff, forks stuff, fondues stuff, shows off every piece of equipment she owns and gives detailed explanations of the culinary terms involved. She has diplomas you know. All in one take. The camera follows her round the kitchen with ease. You'll be amazed. Of course if you miss the recipes, don't worry, they are all in the booklet. Back where she belongs on the BBC. Enjoy!

Rock'n'Rissoles

Certain Fanny Cradock recipes just keep popping up time and time again. In different books, on different TV shows and in different newspaper columns. She does them slightly differently each time. I like to think it's less her recycling old ideas, and more about reinforcing a set of core recipes that can be used differently for different occasions. She wouldn't be taking shortcuts to fill a show, would she? It would never be that she had run out of ideas, would it? Surely she wouldn't think we hadn't been watching properly before, would she? Her Rissoles are one such recipe. They get everywhere.

In the partwork she also gives them her favourite proper name. They are Fondue Frites. She doesn't discuss them, just presents them, after all we have made them together before. Many times. She introduced them on TV as part of her Adventurous Cooking series in 1966 and again when she invited us to her Cheese and Wine Party in 1970. After showing us around her glorious kitchen bursting with young assistants, she gets straight on with this hardly extravagant form of 'hot cheese' which is ideal for informal parties and buffets. It's disputable if they are of French of Belgian origin, Fanny never really decides. She is too busy explaining to us the real nature of the word 'fondue' which, she says. is a classical cookery term and not just hot cheese. Except this one, which is hot cheese.

The ingredients are well known to viewers and readers alike. Duchess Potatoes. This time not dyed eye-popping green but simply steamed and sieved before butter is added. Fanny suggests chilling the mixture until it becomes stiff at this stage. At least in the partwork she does. On TV she just jumps straight in and adds the absolutely essential Gruyère cheese, for it must be Gruyère, eggs, salt and pepper. Except in the partwork it's two egg yolks only. In the booklets it is two egg yolks only. On TV it's one whole egg. Surely Fanny didn't get her own recipe wrong on TV, did she?

In print again she recommends chilling the mixture at this point. On screen she blobs the mixture into a dish of flour and shapes it very roughly into a 'fat sausage shape'. At least that's how she describes it. I follow the printed instructions of course, shaping my sausages when the cheese and potato mix is cool and firm from the fridge, not hot and sloppy. Or loose and flabby. Or however she is describing it at the time. And chill again. On TV when Fanny brings her shaped sausages out of ordinary refrigeration they are perfectly shaped anyway, so presumably it doesn't matter. Magic must be at hand in her kitchen.

The shaped and chilled rissoles are then dredged in flour, beaten egg and coated with fine breadcrumbs. On TV Fanny does this once and plops them straight into the fryer. In print she is at pains to point out that this procedure must be undertaken THREE times. For only a triple coating will give a suitable protective wall for the delicate cheese and prevent it oozing into a gooey mess in the fryer. This would be failure. The oil must be smoking hot, so as to almost blind you, apparently. Fried until just golden and then transferred to the oven to finalise the 'fondue'. At least on TV. In print they are fried and well, just served, but still gooey inside. There seems to be many ways to make rissoles the Fanny way. They are cheesy and gorgeous, so we can forgive Fanny for the repetition, and (perhaps) the errors. My rissoles are all goo inside and no escaped ooze outside. No failure. Just like Fanny's.