Gluten-free Vegeterian Falafel Scotch Eggs

In the last two years I have been discovering just how much English food is under-rated. One of the ‘hidden gems’ are surely Scotch Eggs.

Being over 32 degrees in Ljubljana ever since we’ve been back from Norway and England, the heat is really getting to me. Of course the only solution is a picnic in the wild! Apparently there is no picnic without Scotch Eggs, but since David is gluten intolerant (not celiac, be careful with the recipe if allergic) and my sister is not a big pork meat lover I had to make some tweaks.

I found this recipe on the BBC GoodFood web site (which I love to use) but  it calles for the use of flour and breadcrumbs. I used the all-purpose gluten free flour and because I couldnt find GF breadcrumbs I just used finely crushed GF crackers (onion flavoured went very well in the falafel mix).

You need:

9 eggs → don’t boil all 9 as I did 🙂 one egg is for the falafel mix
a bit of olive oil → a couple of spoons to fry the onions
2 large onions, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp ground coriander
a 400g can of chickpeas (garbanzo beans if you are American)
fresh coriander → I didn’t use it because it’s not trivial to get here
150g GF breadcrumbs → the recipe said 200g but this is plenty
5 tbsp GF flour → I use the all purpose mix
oil for frying

Hard boil 8 eggs (will try and make it Heston style liquid centre someday but not really good for a picnic) and peel when cold. I suggest undercooking rather then overcooking the eggs because they cook a bit more later when you fry them.

Fry the onions and garlic in a pan until really soft and golden. Why are cooking instructions always so funny? Onions never turn golden but they get brown. And then if you keep waiting they turn black. Do not let them turn black. I suggest doing it on a low heat because if you overheat garlic it burns and gets very bitter and horribly unpleasant. Add the spices and fry a bit longer. Again, do it on a low heat, burned spices are no treat (bitter).

Using a food processor or a stick blender (immersion blender) whizz into a paste. Then add chickpeas (and coriander leaves) and pulse until its finely chopped but not pasty. You want some texture, noone likes baby food.

Stir in the GF breadcrumbs, GF flour and the last egg (beaten) and season generously. I find it best to beat the egg in a bowl and add salt and pepper to the egg before mixing it into the falafel mix. I think the seasonings incorporate with the mix better this way. If you like it spicy add chilli powder. I know it’s messy but my suggestion is go in there with your hands and mix it all up. Its actually great fun 🙂

Divide the mixture into 8 and wrap the cooked eggs. The mixture is quite sticky but brushing your hands with a bit of oil helps. I think the best way to wrap the egg is to flatten the mixture in your hand (like a big thin burger), put the egg in the middle and close up on the top. Make sure the egg is evenly covered then roll it between your hands to form a nice ball.

We fried them like that but I guess it’s even better if you roll them in a mixture of GF breadcrumbs and sesame seeds before frying. Or get creative and crush some GF corn flakes to make it extra super crunchy.

Fry the eggs in a deep pan (or a deep fryer) for about 2 minutes until crispy and looks cooked.

Scotch Eggs go great with a cold spicy yogurt sauce (just mix greek yogurt, sour cream, a squeeze of lemon juice and a bit of chilly powder).

European Open Championships

Firstly I must apologise for the long gap since my last post. I found myself too busy while I was away in Tromsø and since leaving, I have had lots to sort out and to be honest have been very tired.

On Friday 26^th June I left Warsaw to go to Tromsø, northern Norway for the European Open Championships. I have never been so far north and it was certainly very different to any place I have seen before. In late June early July it barely reaches 15 degrees, and it stays light for 24 hours which can get confusing! Being someone who is generally either hungry, or sleeping (because it is dark) I found myself hungry 24 hours a day. The good news was that there was some excellent food to be had. Anyway more on that later, let’s get into the bridge.

The Midnight Sun.

The first event was the Mixed Teams, around 88 teams from 29 different countries. I was partnering Susanna Gross. She is a regular partner of mine. On her A game she is an excellent player but having a hectic life with two young children and a busy job she is often tired and therefore not at her best.

After a long day, Suz trying to unlock her room with a double bidding card!

We teamed up with Catherine Curtis and Paul Fegarty, partners in life as well as in bridge. They have a very good record in England, having done very well in the Premier League for several years and even represented England in the Camrose last year. Sadly the team never quite found form and we never really looked like finishing in the top 16 to qualify for the knockouts.

Susanna and Mini.

In the last match of the Round Robin, with neither team having a chance to qualify Susanna and I face Geir Helgemo (many peoples choice for the worlds best player) partnering Aasa Langeland. The fact that they too were struggling is testament to the strength of the event (they would go on to win a silver medal in the mixed pairs!).

Susanna was sitting on the same side of the screen as Geir and she picked up

♠KQx ♥xx ♦AK ♣AJ9xxx.

Naturally she opened 1♣, Geir passed and she pushed the tray through. When it came back she was surprised to see that I too had opened 1♣. That is when she noticed that she had accidentally passed as dealer!! She now had a problem since she had no forcing bids available. She smartly tried 1♦, as that is the bid that I was least likely to pass. I rebid 1NT and she had another problem! At this point she turned to Geir and said “I have a problem, and you will never guess what it is!” Anyway she tried 3NT hoping we hadn’t missed a slam. The good news was, we hadn’t missed a slam. The bad news is, the opponents cashed 5 hearts and 3NT failed by a trick.

My hand:

♠AJ9x ♥Jx ♦Jxx ♣KQxx

In the other room Ann Fuglestad and Geir Brekka bid to 4♠ so we lost 10 imps. However, we had the last laugh as we won the match by 21 IMPs, too little, too late though.

There were a few english teams which did make it through to the knockouts:
Penfold: Sandra Penfold, Brian Senior, Nevena Senior and Roumen Trendafilov
Robertson: Marion Robertson, Simon Cope, Stefan Scorchev and Desislava Malakova
Debotton: Janet Debotton, Artur Malinowski, Sally Brock and Barry Myers

Sadly all of them lost in the round of 16. Sandra Penfold and Janet Debotton have been doing well at this level for years, but for Marion this takes her bridge success to new heights and with her team of young professionals she qualified with ease and was even at table 1 in the last match of the round robin. What a fantastic achievement!

Congratulations to Ton Bakkeren, Jacco Hop, Meike Wortel (all Netherlands) and Christina Lund Madsen (Denmark) who won a close final against AJ Diamonds from Poland.

After the mixed teams, we played a 1 day board-a-match, which was a bit of an anti-climax and I don’t even know how we did, not well though!

Then, onto the Mixed Pairs. Around 219 pairs.

Our first job was to play 50 boards and finish in the top 72 in order to reach the A semi-final which would give us a much easier path to the final. On the final board of the day, lying just inside the top 72 I picked up:

♠Qx ♥AJ ♦KJx ♣AKQJxx

In 3^rd seat at game all, this looked like a balanced 23-24 to me so I opened 2♣. Susanna responded 2♦ – waiting and I rebid 2♥. This may look odd on AJ doubleton but infact it is a conventional bid (named Kokish after the famous Canadian player and coach, Eric Kokish). My 2♥ bid was natural OR 23-24 balanced. I pushed the tray through, and when it came back it was my turn to have a problem. Susanna is 99% supposed to bid 2♠, which is a relay to discover what my 2♥ bid was. What she had actually bid was 4♣. Clearly tiredness had caused her to forget Kokish and she had splintered in support of my assumed heart suit. I explained all of this to my screenmate then set about finding a solution to reach a playable contract! I decided to cuebid 4♠ hoping Susanna would bid 4NT – RKCB which I would then pass. What she infact bid was 5NT!! – as we play it 5NT is pick-a-slam, and I probably should have passed it but I couldn’t resist 6NT, pretty sick I know. My LHO with the AK of spades doubled it, but my RHO to whom I explained exactly what had happened, lead a heart.

Susanna held:

♠xxx ♥Kxxx ♦Axxxx ♣x

The ♥J held and with the hand which doubled holding the ♠AK and the ♦Q she could actually make it on a strip squeeze but she misread a difficult ending for 1 down. This meant we ended in 78^th and would have to play in the B-semi final where only the top 6 would reach the coveted final.

The next day we had 50 boards to finish in the top 6. I am proud to say Susanna put in one of her best days play ever and we actually finished 4^th, and we were through to the final – in three previous attempts I have never managed it!

The final was 52 pairs, playing 102 boards. Despite spending half the event in the top 15, we had a poor second day and ended up in 32^nd place, a fraction below average. Catherine Seale and Tom Paske were the best placed English pair in 25^th.

Comfortable winners were Philip Cronier And Sylvie Willard from France – Well done!

With a great last session, Geir Helgemo and Aase Langland (Norway) claimed silver and Andrei Gromov and Victoria Gromova (Russia) the Bronze!

Meanwhile Maruša had arrived to take part in the Ladies Teams and Pairs and Kevin Castner had arrived to partner me in the Open Teams and Pairs. 48 hours before the teams started, our teammates cancelled for unavoidable personal reasons so we were left without a team. The night before the teams started, Richard Bowley very kindly offered us a chance to join his team; Tom Paske, Simon Cope and Shivam Shah. Naturally we jumped at the chance. Little did we know what a great run we would have.

The team was called 10cc, the name of Richard’s bridge club. There would be 10 10-board matches and the top 16 of 102 teams would qualify for the knockouts.
In the first match we played Levy Stern, a strong team from Israel. Kevin and I faced the Yadlin brothers, winners of the Open Teams in 2003, a tough first round draw but with good cards in both rooms we won by 29 imps. A good run followed and after 5 of the 10 qualifying matches we were lying second, about half a match behind team Orange white from the Netherlands.
In round 6 of course, we played them and beat them 22-1, we were now leading albeit it narrowly.

Team 10CC leading the Round Robin.

3 more wins followed and as we sat down to the last match we had already qualified but we wanted to finish in the top 4 so we had a choice of opponents in the knockouts. We came up against a good Hungarian team, but poor play by us and good play by them meant we suffered one of only two defeats in the Round Robin and by far our heaviest (31IMPs). Still we were comfortably in the top 4 until a flurry of imps headed team Rosenthal’s way and they pipped us to 4^th at the post, we qualified in 5^th place. Debotton (Janet Debotton, Artur Malinowski, Nicklas Sandqvist, Tom Townsend, Thor Erik Hoftaniska and Thomas Charlsen) was the other English qualifier.

In the round of 16 we played the strong team of Ventin: Juan Carlos Ventin, Fredick Nystrom, Johan Upmark and Frederic Wrang. The match was just two 14 board sets. After 14 boards of scrappy bridge we were leading by 7 IMPs. However a solid display of low error bridge by Ventin in the second half saw us out by 21 IMPs. Well played to them.

Meanwhile Debotton lost to the very strong Rosenthal team.

Congratulations to team Orange White from the netherlands who lead from start to finish (except a brief moment in the round robin where we were ahead of them!). Bob Drijver, Danny Molenaar, Bart Nab and Tim Verbeek totally dominated the event. Awesome stuff!

The losing finalists from Norway were team Blund: Boerre Lund, Ole Berset, Jorgan Molberg, Aksel Hornslien and Olav Arve Hoeyem.

While we were losing, Marusa’s team – team Cameron (Catherine Seale (England), Vanessa Vos and Gail Cameron (Zimbabwe) ) was flourising in the women’s teams. There were 20 teams and the top 8 would go through to knockouts after 10 10-board matches. Despite an up and down Round Robin, team Cameron qualified in 6^th place. The strong Polish team who had won the Round Robin chose to play Cameron. That proved to be a poor choice as Cameron won by 44 IMPs!

In the semi-final they came up against the super strong Baker team and couldn’t quite manage another upset, losing by 37 IMPs. But the win against Poland was enough to secure the BRONZE MEDAL!! Congratulations to Gail Cameron, Vanessa Vos, Maruša Baša and Catherine Seale. The director told us this was Africa’s first ever medals at world level, and also Slovenia’s (although it seems they have 1 medal before from the European Mixed Teams in 1998).

3rd place teams ‘Cameron’ and ‘Netherlands Ladies’.

 

The Event was won by Baker, Lynn Baker and Karen McCallum (USA) and Marion Michielsen and Meike Wortel (Netherlands) adding to an impressive tally for all these players. Well done!

They beat China Orange in the final: Yiyi Chen, Jing Liu, Xingxing Shan, Nan Wang amd Bing Zhao.

The final event was the Open and Womens Pairs.

Kevin and I couldn’t find the form we found in the teams, and despite some good sessions we didn’t make it to the final. Maruša and Catherine didn’t shine either.

The open pairs was won by Thomas Bessis and Frederic Volcker (France), Anders Morath and Bengt-Erik Efraimsson took silver, Dennis Bilde and Chris Willenken the bronze.

The Women’s pairs was won by Sandra Rimstead and Emma Sjoberg, Justyna Zmuda and Katarzyna Dufrat took silver, Lu Yan and Liu Yan the bronze.

Congratulations!

We had a good time in Tromsø, though I can’t say it was my favourite venue. It was mostly very cold in the playing area – not a problem for me but it was for most people. The bathroom facilities were dreadful too. Tromsø itself is beautiful and the weather though a trifle cold for the time of year was refreshing and good for playing bridge. Tromsø is very expensive which meant that players from the poorer countries in Europe mostly could not come, unless they had sponsors which is a great shame and a problem that should be considered when planning these events.

We did enjoy some excellent food. There was a great Sushi place by our hotel, plus I had excellent local fish, lobster and tried moose for the first time which was superb.

Moose for dinner.

Lobster.

With Simon, Mini and Maruša at the sushi restaurant.

The Junior Europeans started there today. Come on England!

I now have a few weeks to recover, my next tournament is Brighton in early August. Look forward to some food posts!