What is your “Secret Ingredient”

[Pampy Profile]

Crispy fried onions are used quite a lot in Indian dishes

[Binky Profile]

Spurred on by jeral, or it could be sakkarin, and the use of crispy onions, I made these cheese and onion scones this afternoon. I used the recipe from the Be-Ro booklet if anyone remembers that.

I think everyone seems to have that Be-ro book, I certainly have.

[Sakkarin Profile]

I've made several batches recently, the last lot had a bit of chilli and mustard in too. Yum!

I also made a couple of single-sized ordinary scones with dried fruit, it's funny working with such a tiny batch of ingredients!

[Binky Profile]

The recipe was for 6oz of flour, but I used 8oz and scaled up the other ingredients. Some scones have grated cheese on top, and others are plain tops. They both taste delicious.

[Joanbunting Profile]

I have 7 Bero books beginning with a 1937 one - all sepia coloured, It is really how I learned to cook using a cookery book not just memory. However I don't use the scone recipe!

[Sakkarin Profile]

Just caught 5 minutes of today's Mary Berry programme, in which she was visiting Heathrow's £3,000 a pop VIP lounge. We didn't get much of a look at what the menu she was given had to offer, just the dish she ordered, which was Lobster Brioche, which we then saw the "chef" prepare (more of an assembly than cookery).

The little dish was made with a small toasted brioche bun, with lobster tail slice and a claw, with a mayo and chive lobster mix and nasturtium leaves. It was finished off with huge tablespoonful of guess what, FRIED CRISPY ONIONS EXACTLY LIKE THE SHOP-BOUGHT ONES!

In a way my foodieness starts at Heathrow - when I was 15 I used to work there every Saturday and Sunday in Forte's staff canteen. I didn't learn anything there though, other than how to mop floors and wash dishes. Can't remember how much I got paid, but as the weekly wage was about £9 a week then, it was probably about £1.50 a day. Sadly most of it went on cigarettes - pathetic looking back on it.