Rain or Shine : Picnic Ideas

 The weather in the UK has been so unpredictable why not bring your picnic indoors! 
Here are some ideas for ‘portable’, tasty and easy picnic ideas for indoors or outdoors.

Savoury cake, mini hot dogs, aubergine pate and  tsukemono (Japanese pickle)

Savoury cake

Yield:  12 portions

Dough:

12 tbsp white flour

3  medium organic eggs

400ml of milk

150 ml  sunflower oil

50 ml of olive oil

1 tbsp  baking powder

3 tbsp grated Parmesan

Filling:

Cherry tomatoes cut in halves

1 pack of feta cheese cut in cubes

Oregano

Green olives

Blender, rectangular or square baking tin (greased with margarine an dusted with flour)

Prepare the baking tin

Pre-heat the oven at 180C

Method:

1) First prepare the filling, wash and cut the cherry tomatoes in half and cut the  feta cheese into 1cm cubes and half the green olives.  Set the filling aside.

2) Now prepare the dough: Mix all ingredients in a blender.

3) Put half of the mixture in the already prepared baking tin.

4) Add the filling cheese, olives and oregano and put the rest of the dough on top.  Decorate the top with the cherry tomatoes.

Mini Hot Dogs

Yield:  about 40 mini hot dogs

Bow to mix the dough and baking tin (greased with margarine an dusted with flour)

Pastry:

1 cup of cornflour

1 cup of white flour

1 cup of wholemeal flour

3 tsp of baking powder

1 tsp of salt

4 tbsp of melted butter

3 medium organic eggs

1 cup of cold milk

Filling:

Chorizo sausage or good quality frankfurters, you can spread mustard when rolling the pastry onto the frankfurters

Method:

1) Mix all flours, baking powder, salt, melted butter and eggs  until you achieve a crumble consistency .

2) add the cold milk slowly to get a pastry consistency

3) open the pastry with a roll pin in rectangular shape-ish

4) cut the pastry into small squares to fold  the pastry. Lay one square of pastry at a time on a flat surface place the cooked chorizo or frankfurters and roll it firmly.

5) place in a baking tray

6) Brush with beaten eggs yolk

7) bake  for  20 mins or until golden

Serve with mustard and tomato sauce

Aubergine coarse pate

Ingredients:

1 medium size roasted aubergine without skin and diced

80gr of roasted cherry tomatoes

1 white onion diced

100gr of diced spring onion

1 clove of garlic – I used smoked garlic

parsley

Method:

Yield: 300ml jar, pending the size of the aubergine.

Tsukemono

Japanese pickle, my friend Angel recipe, passed to her from her Japanese mother.

1 thinly sliced  cucumber

1 tbsp of wasabi paste

1 cup of beer

1 tbsp sugar

1 tbsp salt

1 tbsp of rice or white wine vinegar

Let it marinade for a minimum of couple of  hours. It keeps for about 15 days in a jar.

 yield: pending the size of the cucumber about a 500ml jar.

 Delicious with rice, salads or by itself. 

Fingers crossed for good weather!  
This post was first published at Great British Chefs blog