Trio, Trio, I Want A Trio, And I Want One Now

You know what it's like. I'm sure it's happened to us all. At least once. You wait for quite a while for a Fanny Cradock recipe with Greengages to come along. Years go by. Nothing. Not a plum. Then three appear all at the same time. Fanny calls them 'Reines-Claude'. What are the chances? They are all quite different. How do you choose which one to go with. Two are sweet. One is savoury. You've got lots of Greengages as they are bang in season. The supermarket has them on special offer. The timing is perfect. Could not have been better. Apart from the choices. Why choose when the choice is obvious? Make all three! Fanny would surely be delighted with a Reines-Claude Ménage à Trois...

Fanny starts it all off with a jelly. She loves jelly. This one is a sweet version of her classic Aspic. She loves Aspic. Fanny makes it with plums. I make mine with Bramble Jelly, heating and setting it with Agar powder instead of gelatine, of course. It needs to be set in a shallow tin, so that the required circle of it can be 'stamped' out. While it's setting, Fanny halves and poaches some peaches, in a simple sugar syrup. When poached, they are fished out and dried on ordinary kitchen paper. The Greengages are also poached in the syrup, but left whole, otherwise they will lose their shape. When they are done they are not dried off, instead rolled in milled pistachio nuts, ready for assembly. The peach goes on top of the jelly, and the greengage goes on top of the peach. All that goes on top of all that is a little leaf of garnish - and you have Les Reines-Claude Savoyarde. Please warn your guests about the stone.

All this greengaging is new to me, especially using them for a savoury salad. No poaching required. Fanny takes a silver knife and cuts a cross across the top of each greengage, opening each fruit into four petals, without pushing them so far back that they would split. Very carefully, the stone is removed. In it's place a mixture of cream cheese, cream, seasoning and more milled nuts is piped. Then dusted with paprika. Fanny recommends serving these well chilled on a lettuce leaf. Greengage and Chill. She presents for you Hors d'Oeuvre des Reines-Claude.

Without a blink of an eye, it's back to the poaching. More greengages are submerged in extremely gently heated sugar syrup, whole again. This time they are bashed a bit to release the stone when they have collapsed, and the flesh is pulped in a blender. One of my very favourite phrases follows. Add custard. Whip them together and turn them into 'snow' by adding whipped egg whites. Fanny then piles the mixture into glasses and tops with 'spirals' of cream. That's piped by the way. Les Reines-Claude en Neige could not be otherwise.

What if, unlike me, you don't happen to have a steady supply of greengages at exactly the right time when Fanny decides to feature them? She has purposely kept the recipes simple so that alternatives can be substituted. Fanny says to start thinking about Plums. Go on. Start. Maybe Apricots? How about Damsons? Have you considered Mirabelles, or Cherry Plums to you and I? Even white or black grapes would do, if you are really stuck. Fanny has one last suggestion though, which she's borrowed from X. Marcel Boulestin, who was the very first television celebrity chef on the BBC. Or as Fanny refers to him, 'that great amateur chef.' Green tomatoes were his idea. He loved them in jams, chutneys, pickles and, surprisingly, omelettes too. Fanny says they would be perfect in all these recipes des Reines-Claude. Yes, including the splendid flurry of Snow...

Mmm-mmm-mmm-America

I'm not sure if Fanny ever went anywhere near America, but of course by the time she was pulling the partwork together in the 1970s, America was coming over here with a vengeance. Or at least the food was. So, Fanny being Fanny, she had to include a nod to our Stateside cousins on her culinary ladder, and the American Club, or 'three-decker', Sandwich appears to be it! She scarcely needs to give instructions for it, but simply cannot help herself...

According to Fanny, and according to generally accepted patterns, the American Club Sandwich should be made with toast, sliced tomatoes, hard-boiled eggs, lettuce hearts, real mayonnaise, thinly sliced mixed brown and white chicken flesh and bacon. This appears to be the reason Fanny feels the need to explain it however, as according to her, what can be found in 'less reputable restaurants' is generally anything but!

Wherever Fanny has been tucking into her Club Sandwiches, she seems to have been served 'revolting bottled wallpaper paste masquerading as mayonnaise'. She probably wouldn't be best pleased with my jar of Hellmans then? It is labelled as 'real' mayonnaise however. It seems to get worse, her sandwiches have contained rather tatty bits of outsized lettuce. That's not the worst of it, the chicken has been replaced with scraps of rabbit and one or two rag, tag and bobtails of the coarsest streaky bacon. I'm sticking with cheese.

Fanny reckons, if made well, the Club Sandwich is one of the most filling and most delicious you are likely to come across. The toast must be made fast under a pre-heated and very fierce grill or it will fly apart when handled and somehow constitute a peril 'once again' for people with bought teeth. Luckily I still have all my own, but although my toast is made fast, it is made in the toaster.

As I'm avoiding the chicken and the bacon, I need not pay heed to Fanny's advice that they be economically used, with the chicken the merest shards from the carcass and the bacon definitely not in brine. My cheese slices are fresh from the pack, and on offer (two for £2) at the supermarket, surely that will do. Fanny might approve after all, she says at the end of the day practically anything can be made to make a Club Sandwich. Being American, they simply cannot be considered to be 'classic' and therefore we can do anything we like with them. Thanks y'all.

Nice Peas, Dear

Fanny's romp through a few hors d'oeuvres has included some delights and some low lights too, but it's certainly opened my eyes to another world of 'outside the menu'. Fanny does say that although she has helped increase my overall culinary repertoire, she reminds me it remains small. I know my place. To finish things off, for now - there will be more 'advanced' hors d'oeuvres to come we are promised - Fanny tackles a vegetable that I am sure we all take for granted. Peas. I don't really think about them too much, occasionally boil some up as an accompanying after thought, or fling some in with some pasta. Surely I am not alone?

Fanny treats them far more regally and royally, making a Casserole of Cooked Peas, or Petits Pois à la Française. I've seen this dish on different retro and historical cooking shows, normally being scoffed at rather than scoffed speedily though. It's essentially a different way to cook peas, for me at least, which may seem a little extravagant today, but Fanny reckons is the only way to treat such a wonderful vegetable when in season.

Fanny lines a lidded casserole dish with the outside leaves of a well-washed lettuce. Of course she does. I don't have a lidded dish, so use a glass bowl which I can fit with a foil lid. Fanny has taught me to be resourceful. The lettuce is the old-fashioned limp, round kind, no need for an iceberg here, we won't be eating it anyway. Fanny adds perfectly ordinary shelled peas, which have been freshly prepared by one of the assistants. Thankfully the supermarket has done mine for me. I know... Please don't send me nasty letters, it's been a busy week.

To the peas, Fanny adds a mix of good 'bone' stock (I use vegetable bouillon of course), white wine and seasoning before topping it all with yet more lettuce leaves. It seems to be a day for switching, all I have is some Vermouth, always to hand in case an emergency Martini is required, so Noilly Prat is sloshed in. It's only a tablespoon of each, which doesn't seem very much at all. Fanny cooks hers with the ever helpful instruction of 'until they are ready', which for me is around 45 minutes. I assume it is the same for everyone, but you'll know best.

Fanny dredges out the now wilted, grey and pulpy lettuce leaves, which she says look like pond weed (she's not joking) and mixes the cooked peas with a little mayonnaise and the casseroled cooking liquid to serve. The peas themselves are nice and tender - not at all like Fanny warns they might be if cooked incorrectly. If so, they'd be more like the ones Miss Mattie in Cranford swallowed with mouthfuls of water because they were so hard! Not these, the casseroling technique worked well, and the lettuce cushioned them perfectly. Fanny flings her discarded leaves onto the compost heap, so don't be worrying about waste. They do taste great, very, erm, pea-ish and very fresh. Not like bullets, no need for mouthfuls of water. Fanny's final warning is to take a note of what I serve to whom, as my still small (ok, I get it) repertoire could cause resentment to guests if served often. So, for one time only, unless I forget my notebook, peas anyone?

A Neat but Reet Petite Salade Marguerite

I don't know about you, but when I think about Hors D'oeuvres it's not necessarily salads that spring to mind, but Fanny has different ideas. Maybe she's thinking differently as she showcases creations she likes to call 'Flowerlike salads'? I should be learning by now that for Fanny, it's all about the presentation, but for me, when I think 'salad' I think of leaves, maybe dots of cheese, some vegetables and a dressing. We know that when Fanny thinks 'salad' she thinks eggs, so really it should be no surprise that she gives us two further variations on egg salads, both presented in typical Fanny style.

For the first, or most simple variation, for beginners, the Salad Mimosa, Fanny suggests chopping vegetables and eggs very finely and arranging them in any plain, round, glass dish. Fanny uses diced peas, cubed green beans, severed celery, sheared spring onions, divided cooked potatoes... You get the idea. Anything that is to hand really, and anything with some colour. Anything which goes well with mayonnaise too, another of Fannys staple ingredients.

I have little gem lettuce, tomatoes, orange peppers, peas and eggs - so a real flurry of colour. Fanny cuts everything to the same teeny tiny size - including chopping the egg white and egg yolks separately, to add colour to the finished, prepared Salad of course. Chopping is the key. Very small chops. When I've been in the States and had a Chopped Garden Salad, I've really enjoyed it. This reminds me of that, not many stray leaves in sight, just fresh, raw vegetables flung fastidiously together with Fannys flair.

Fanny loads up the ordinary glass bowl with a bed of vegetables. I use little gem lettuce though, despite not being sure how Fanny would react. She says it's basically a criminal culinary offence to slice lettuce with a knife, as it will only weep. We don't want that, and besides no self-respecting cook would dream of it, hand shredding is the only way professionals do it. Oh dear. The bed of chopped (horrifically) lettuce is mixed with perfectly ordinary mayonnaise and the rest of the vegetables arranged on top. They can be 'meanly moistened' with olive oil, if preferred. Arranged in diamond segments, naturally. No weeping has occurred as far as I can see, maybe just in Fannys memory.

This makes the basic Salad Mimosa. Those who know Fanny well however know that there is always a second level to take even the most basic of dishes to. For advanced cooks. Hors D'oeuvres are no exception. To transform the Salad Mimosa into a showstopper Salad Marguerite it's essentially a case of smothering the whole lot in more mayonnaise and decorating it like a flower. With egg. The whites are sliced lengthways to become petals and the yolk kept round as a centrepiece. It seems a shame in one way to cover up all that triangular handiwork, but the finished flower does look very summery. It's all about the way it looks after all, but the completed salad tastes fresh, crunchy and wistful, perfect for showing off. That's the whole point isn't it?