Hallo, I'm back. Prepare to salivate.

Hello there. Did you miss me? You did! Shucks. I missed you guys too. Well moved house got me new shiny internet set up. I'm ready to rock. Here goes.



IVOLBEAT

So I was at work, elbow deep in cake mix and I get a text message from my mucker Lesley. She tells me she's bought my Christmas present allready.

A ticket to go see VOLBEAT in December. YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSS!
I freakin LOVE LOVE LOVE Volbeat.
When I think of them I smile like a little child who has just been given the biggest toy ever. Y'know, that smile that you smile with your eyes?

Myself, Lesley and my twinny Arlene took a little trip last year down to London to see Volbeat live.
 I can honestly say hand on heart that it was one of the best gigs I have ever been to in my whole life.
The band were amazing, the atmosphere was electric and it was one of the best nights I've had to date.

Post gig is a whole other story.

It turned out to be something like Ferris Bullers day off, involving two dodgy taxi rides, a lesbian glam rock club (took us a while to realise there were no men in the club and what we thought was flock wallpaper was actually loads of pictures of ladies doing naughty things), unleashing Mr Bean style catastrophy on a Chnese restaurant at 2.30 in the morning, getting back to the hotel, falling between the beds and trying to get a whole class of annoying Spanish school kids thrown out the hotel.
Good times.



Well. Volbeat are from Denmark so the recipe today is for Smørrebrød.
Which is a Danish version of an open sandwich which is traditionally eaten at lunch time and can have many different toppings but I've gone for a traditional pickled herring version.
Yes, this is a wee cheeky easy recipe.


Herring on rye bread with pickled cucumber and sour cream

serves 2

4 slices dark rye bread
tub of pickled herring (Orkney herring in dill is very good)
Small tub sour cream
Few snipped chives
1 cucumber
100ml white wine vinegar
2 teaspoons caster sugar
1 teaspoon salt
Few stalks fresh dill chopped
Pinch ground white pepper
2 Tuborg beers

You can make the piclked cucumbers the day before and they will last for about 5 days.

To make the pickled cucumber:
Cut the top and bottom off the cucumber and slice finely. Lay in a single layer in a non metallic dish. Sprinkle with the salt and leave for 20 minutes.
Put the sugar, pepper, dill and vinegar into a pan and bring to the boil. Leave to cool.
Squeeze the excess water from the cucumbers and place into a jar or bowl. Pour over the sugar and vinegar mix, seal and leave overnight.


To make the sandwich:
Place your juicey herring fillets onto the rye bread, scatter over some of your pickled cucumber. Plop on a dollop of sour cream and scatter over the snipped chives.

Have a nice cold Tuborg beer while you nibble.

That's Danish.