Possibly the Best Mushroom Wellington in the World. Ever.

......In which, we were disappointed with the recipes we found online so invented our own, based closely on the construction of the meat dish, but with non- meat ingredients.

In a Beef Wellington a fillet of beef is coated in pate and duxelles (a mixture of chopped mushrooms and shallots or onions) and then wrapped in a pancake  which serves to soak up any liquid that escapes from the filling. Around the crepes is rolled a layer of pastry and the whole concoction is then cooked in the oven.

As most of the mushroom wellington recipes we found were slightly disappointing, (having more in common with a Greggs mushroom slice than an xmas centrepiece), we invented our own.

The Beef Wellington is a dish for engineers, comprising several distinct layers, each with its own texture and flavours: This is what we were aiming for with the Mushroom version, and without blowing my trumpet too loudly (paaaarp), it was UM.AZE.ING.

The ingredients for Mushroom Wellington-Bottom:

6 large Portobello mushrooms

1 punnet chestnut mushrooms

large onion (or 6/7 shallots if you have them)

 2 x celery stalks

Shortcrust pastry (we used pre-made 1 pack, 300g)

4 crepes (we used pre-made)

large bag of spinach

Butter

6 cloves Garlic

Condiments and herbs:

Celery salt

Thyme

Mushroom Ketchup (and/or Worcestershire sauce if for non-veggies)

Madeira

Red wine or port

White pepper

1 bag fresh thyme

1. Melt a decent lump of butter in the frying pan and crack in a clove or two of crushed garlic. Add a decent splash each of Mushroom Ketchup, Port (and/or worcestershire sauce if for non- veggies) into the gills of each mushroom. Saute the mushrooms over a low heat for a long time (minimum 20 minutes),

2. While the large mushrooms are cooking, finely chop the onion (or shallots), carrots, celery and remaining garlic to make the duxelles. Saute until soft (about 10 minutes on a lowish heat)

3. Tip the finely chopped Chestnut Mushrooms into the frying pan with the remaining garlic butter. 

4. Add the sauted onion/shallot, garlic, celery and carrot mix into the frying pan with the chopped chestnut mushrooms. 

5. Chop a handful of thyme finely and chuck it in too.

6. Season the duxelles with salt, ground white pepper, a good splash of Madeira, Mushroom Ketchup (and/or Worcestershire Sauce if for non-veggies)

The duxelles needs to be cooked on the hob on a low heat until the liquid is absorbed and the mixture has become quite paste-like and all flavours absorbed - about 20 minutes +. Add in a knob of butter at the end and stir through. Keep tasting and seasoning until it tastes delish to you.

7. Meanwhile, once the portobello mushrooms are cooked (i.e. until they are caramelised on the outside, cooked down and soft, and most of the liquid has evaporated off)  remove from the pan and set aside, leaving any remaining garlic butter in the pan.

8. Chop the portobello mushrooms in half with a sharp knife and leave to cool.

9. Next cook the spinach by rinsing in water and adding to a pan to cook in its own steam. Cook until the leaves have just wilted and gone dark green and squashy and soft, then removes from pan.

10. Press spinach between 2 sheets of kitchen roll to absorb excess water.

Assembly:

11. Roll out the pastry until its 1/4 inch thick and about 20cm x 40cm (or if pre-made - just unroll it). It might make sense to do this on a baking tray - we didn't and then had to transfer the final pastry onto one, which was hazardous)

12. Layer the crepes so that they overlap along the middle of the pastry.

13. Add the duxelles mixture on top  of the crepes along the midline.

14. Spread it out until it covers the crepes

15. Grate a little stilton and sprinkle over the duxelles - don't be too heavy handed or it could overwhelm the mushroom flavours.

16. Finally, layer over the spinach and then build a "wall" out of layered half-Portobello mushrooms

17. Finally, roll up the pastry around the Portobello Mushroom wall, and pinch the ends together and fold the edge over on itself (as if wrapping a parcel). Do the same with the ends.

18. Get a willing helper to slather over some beaten egg to help seal the edges and provide a glaze.

19. Cook on a baking tray in a preheated oven at 180C for 40 minutes until the pastry is golden.

20. Slice, eat and enjoy!

NB You might want to make a madeira or port based gravy to accompany it, but its also delicious on its own.

I have a small bottom. I don't mean as in JLo (doesn't), I mean as in a small mini-me, Baby Bottom, who is precisely 1.15385 years of age. As such she has managed to get her head around a few words; "hiya!" and "bye!" shouted loudly at inappropriate times are favourites, and now she also has a favourite colour. Well, truth be told, its the only colour she knows, yellow (except she pronounces it "yeah-yo")

I stumbled across this graph from Reuters showing the trends in young voters, (although it shows it across such a time-scale that those were young voters on the left of the graph are now the grandparents or great-grandparents of the ones now standing up and being counted on the right.)

There are no huge surprises in this graph, except perhaps that labour are still doing so well. By contrast, when I was in the 18-24 age bracket about years ago, the conservatives were the only party that I and my peers had any recollection of being in power and were roundly detested by anyone in student establishments, education being a source of numerous deep and lasting fiscal wounds that Thatcher inflicted on the country then. Likewise, an 18 year old today was just 5 years old when Labour swept to power in 1997 and must remember nothing of the previous government. However unlike the Tory-haters that we grew up to be in the 1980's and 90's, today's young voters still hold sway with Labour, albeit on a downwards trajectory.

But how does anyone know, now, what they are really voting for? Political parties seem to prefer to hide their basic principles and nitpick policies rather than stand loud and proud for what they stand-for.

When I was "young" (I still refuse to believe that I am old, but the age bracket I have to put myself in in surveys keeps getting further down the page) politics was quite simple Labour = socialism = red, Conservative = Captalism = blue, Liberals = middle way = yellow.

These days its not clear to me, never mind 18-24 year olds what the differences are between the parties. I mean by that deep down what they really stand for, really believe in, what core values determine their policies (if you ask them they all give the same wooly yoghurt-weaving answers)

So when it comes to voting I might just ask Baby Bottom what her favourite colour is (bearing in mind she will most likely have learned at least red as well as "yeah-yo" by May), and muse on what the graph will look like in 2026 when she reaches the left hand side.

BAFTA WEAK

awards are for losers

So its the annual luvvie-fest at 195 Piccadilly. Sadly, Sunday's event (which put the "F" in BAFTA) is one of several in their calendar, but the only one anyone in the real world really cares about. Some time later this year, the same venue will be the location of TV's very own backslapping festival, the TV BAFTAs. For the sole reason that the BAFTA TV awards are given to TV people, the same TV people make sure they broadcast them ("hi mum!"), but nobody really watches and there isn't a red carpet worth reporting on: Claudia Winkleman giving it some "and Alan Yentob's in Dolce and Gabbana tonight" isn't really going to cut the mustard, because frankly, if nobody cares what comes out of his mouth , they aren't going to give a toss what he's wearing. But its also because TV BAFTAs are for TV people, that I have actually held one of the aforementioned trophies in my sticky little mitts. In fact, I held two at the same time. They were for the BBC's The Human Body** but the winner in question was rather non-plussed at my parading round the office playing with his gongs (as it were). And that's about as close as I ever got to having my own. Once upon a zillion years ago I went to the Broadcast awards, but only because the exec was ill and had fallen out with the series producer who wasn’t speaking to the director, who was being sued by the editor for unfair dismissal. The AP had already shagged and been dumped by the notoriously randy director, which left only little-old-me not in (or perhaps, still in) the firing line. As the director had nominated himself for the award (modesty not being a virtue that he was endowed with), it was decreed that he should attend but nobody else would. However, the matter of the empty table he would then be sitting at become an even bigger blow to his ego. Obviously he didn’t want to look like Jonny-no-mates, and that, my friends, was the only reason I have ever been invited to attend an award ceremony. Anyway, I'm making a documentary at the moment, and I reckon it could be BAFTA material – at least that’s what I told the Wellcome Trust who funded its development, so it must be true. ophelia.bottom@googlemail.com **Incidentally on the BBC's follow up series to The Human Body, entitled, "Superhuman", I can be seen in the opening titles parading around as a Lilliputian scientist. Can you spot me?

New job, and imagine my horror when I find that my series producer - the one I lost out on the job to - has about as much clue about how to run the show as the half-wit AP I left behind. I now realise that the reason they offered me more than my normal P/D rate is because I’m going to be expected to do her job on the production while she’s busy sucking corporate ass (I gather this is the “experience” that got her the job over me).

She is already displaying dangerous signs of a completely lackadaisical attitude to little things like oh, factual accuracy, and apart from me, intends to employ her mates to form the rest of the production team instead of looking for people who can do the f*cking job. Joy!

As if all this weren’t enough, the exec - yes that one - must have got a sexual-chemistry set from Santa because every-time we have a cosy production meeting, it seems clear that the only schedule on his mind involves overnights – and I’m not talking about the viewing figures. Oh God, it’s a recipe for disaster. I can’t even say I slept my way into this job – but I damn well might have to sleep my way out of it. Give me a week or so and I’ll probably be able to let you know about HIS overnight ratings.

ophelia.bottom@googlemail.com

Ophelia's back!

"So have you missed me?"

I’ve missed you. Without being able to sound off about the dire state of life, work, office politics and the latitudinal hang of the runner’s Calvin Kleins right here on my ickle blog, I’ve been lost.

I’ve bottled so much up recently I’m pissing volvic and the only thing I’ve managed to get off my chest was a sweaty-palmed commissioning editor I had been seeing.

Unfortunately everything I initially saw in him (Wit! Charm! Money! Exotic Holidays! Accidental Pregnancy followed by Life-Long Financial Security!) transmogrified into a pasty, red-faced egotist with occasional bad breath who’s idea of foreplay was letting me getting a word in edgeways (as long as the word was blow-job).

I just couldn’t do it. I’m afraid the wags and the wannabes and the endemol-blondes* will just have to keep their trophy-shagging badges. I tried and I failed. Once the first layer of polish started to flake off it was all downhill. (The first layer of polish, by the way, for any potential Mr Bottoms reading this, is the one that conceals farting in front of a lady)

Dinner at the Ivy with telly bigwigs and the occasional B-list presenter I could stomach: watching him pick out a rancid piece of pre-masticated spinach from between his molars, study it closely on the tip of a slightly grubby index finger, and then chow it down for a second time, was a bridge too far. Alas, I couldn’t bring myself to commit to a life with someone I didn’t really truly love.

Who’d have thought after so many years of shallowness that an overwhelming dose of self-respect would bring me crashing down at the final hurdle huh? If only that pesky desire for standing on my own two faux-Leboutins wouldn’t get in the way, I could be rich (by proxy, at least).

Ultimately however., shagging the comm. ed of a small cable channel that most people have never heard of, let alone subscribe to, was never going to make me truly happy, or keep me in coke and cocktails. As somebody more eloquent (and far-sighted) than I am once said – “you can only really ever shag your way to the middle-ground.”

So here I am – back among you, newly single and ready to lap-dance (if necessary) up that greasy old pole we euphemistically call a career in TV. Yay!

Ophelia “but you can shag your way to the” Bottom

*with the greatest of respect and apologies to those blondes working at endemol who are not giggling idiots with cerebral bypasses whose only functioning neurone causes them to giggle uncontrollably every time Charlie Brooker walks within ten feet.

nano nonsense

Nano used to be the science of small things. I've seen a lot of small things in my life, (and not all of them down a microscope) but I have now stumbled upon a nano of a different kind, this being NANO WRI MO, which is short for NATIONAL NOVEL WRITING MONTH.

The idea being that you force yourself, come hell, high water, doomesday, tsunami, natural disasters or acts of god, you WILL sit down at your computer for every day during the month of November and write some words, no matter how naff, shit and downright non-literary they are. The idea being, of course that by the end of the month you have written some, or perhaps all, of that book that was burning inside you and ready to get out all along. Their goal for you, is to write a 50,000 word novel by midnight on 30th september.

The list of authors who have been published after writing a Nanowrimo novel is reasonably long, but that said, its still only a drop in the ocean of the twenty one thousand six hundred and eighty-three who managed to write 50,000 words last year and were therefore declared "winners"!

But hell - writing can be cathartic, creative, consoling, consuming and fulfilling whether its published or not. We are all authors now. Its just that no bugger seems to be writing me a quarter of a million pound advance yet. I must be doing something wrong.

Well anyway, if you fancy writing a novel in a month (or trying to), go and sign up at http://www.nanowrimo.org and come and be my writing buddy (I am assuming this new creative obligation gives me the god-given right to stay up smoking and drinking whisky in my study til the early hours as I await the divine hand of inspiration to flow from the tip of my...Oh. keyboards don't have tips.

Hot Bloody Shots

So if there's one thing guaranteed to get me spitting, its a nepotistic love in. Oh look MEITGF
(I got the acronym wrong deliberately, pedants). But my latest, greatest source 0of ire is the one which slithers through my letterbox once a year, courtesy of my friends at Broadcast. Yes,its the arsing HOTSHOTS edition. Yes its the up and coming new stars of tomorrow.There's just one problem in order to be considered you have fulfil the following condition:

"To be considered as a Broadcast Hot Shot, each individual must be nominated by a company. Each nomination must also be accompanied by a written testimonial from a senior individual at that company."

RIIIIIGHT: So, in the very first category "business" we have "six to start". Correct me if I am wrong, but it appears they set up this company in 2007/2008 and they themselves (Dan and Adrian Hon) are the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Creative Officer themselves, which begs the question: who nominated them, or did they just nominate each other? That isn't really in the spirit of the games, I thought, or if it is, then perhaps Broadcast need to revise their rules?

Not that I have a problem with self nomination - in fact, far from it. I congratulate every one of those well-connected, Oxbridge educated smooth talking bastards that convinced their bosses to give an obsequious quote to Broadcast blowing smoke up their arses. Even more (much more) I congratulate those who got there under their own steam and are building brilliant careers working in fantastically successful companies and who will, in the not too distant future be calling the (metaphorical) shots in TV. But that leaves just one question. Which is : how many brilliant freelancers out there have been overlooked because, at the time of asking, they weren't working with a company that they could rely on to nominate them? Is it a coincidence that out of 17 Hotshots in production, only 1 was a freelancer? I suspect not.