“J’aime bien la moutarde de Dijon, J’aime bien la moutarde de Dijon
Je n’aime pas la moutarde anglaise
Je prefère la moutarde dijonaise”

Police Dog Hogan

First, about Police Dog Hogan

Last week I went to see Police Dog Hogan playing at Salisbury City Hall. I’d never seen them before and I wasn’t sure what to expect but they turned out to be brilliant on all levels. As a band they are hard to categorise which makes them fresh and different.

Humour permeates. Shitty White Wine struck a particular chord [sic] with me as I haven’t been able to touch a drop since a particularly unpleasant experience involving overkill in my student days.

There’s a variety of music, a sort of folk/rock fusion, all played by a range of instruments, fiddle, banjo, mandolin, accordion, brass, drums guitars and trumpet, whose different sounds and vibrations add extra depth.

And how one of their songs led to the inspired creation of the über-useful magnificent mustard morsels

One song was especially inspiring. It was all to do with preferring Dijon mustard to English mustard. Normally I consider there to be a time and place for all mustards – pease pudding, for example, cries out for hot and fiery Colmans. But on other occasions Police Dog Hogan’s choice of Dijon is well judged.

And that’s what I was thinking of when I found myself looking urgently for a solution to a culinary cock up.

I had meant to bake some potatoes, or make some mash, to supplement the left-over gammon and red cabbage, but five minutes to lunchtime I found I had forgotten. What to do instead?

Method for making for über-useful magnificent mustard morsels

I had some day-old bread – a long baguette.

1. Slice relatively thinly (about 3 cm, not as much as an inch).
2. Drizzle over both sides some olive oil.
3. Generously spread both sides with Dijon mustard (this really doesn’t work as well with other types of mustard).
4. Then I decided to fry them in olive oil,
5. and sprinkled with dried oregano and smoked salt. The quality of the dried oregano is important – if possible go to a Greek deli and buy it from there. A dusting of smokey paprika also goes well.

It only took a few seconds, but the crunchy texture and the brightness of the mustard went perfectly…. a great improvement on the original potato plan.

Things to do with magnificent mustard morsels

You can use serve this fried bread for all kinds of things:

• with red cabbage and ham as suggested above
• with all kinds of soups
• If you have any left over you can cut with a sharp bread knife into crumbs and sprinkle over pasta,
• and they also go well as part of a sort of instant chicken salad of capers, olives, and mayonnaise (see image below).

For more about croutons (these magnificent mustard morsels are no more than  slightly overgrown croutons) follow this link.

This post is dedicated to Emily Norris.

Music to listen to as you cook

You can listen to Police Dog Hogan singing La Moutarde de Dijon as you quickly make these.