I’m in Europe! Land of cheese, bread, and apparently in England, not deep fried mars bars. I have no idea why I though they were an English thing when in reality they’re a Scottish thing. Also I have been informed that Scots deep fry everything. I was hearing horror stories about when you order a burger, you might get it deep fried as a whole. That sounds atrocious and frankly unlikely, could some Scots somewhere debunk this?
Also, I apologize in advance for the subpar pictures, I didn’t want to carry my massive SLR around Europe and for some events I forgot my camera, so these pictures are taken with my not so great camera phone. I probably will do deep fried mars bars again when I’m back home so I can submit these posts properly.
Anyway, this isnt going to be a very detailed post because I didn’t bring a laptop to Europe so I’m typing on my WordPress app on my phone =P I apologize for the lack of posts! Everytime I had time to post something (say on the train or plane for example) I didn’t have any access to wifi or my phone didn’t charge properly. I’m not sure whats wrong with my phone but it only charges normally when it’s connected to a computer via USB, but using the same USB with an outlet adapter, it takes like 12 hours to charge completely, sometimes more. Both Rogers and Samsung seem inept at “duplicating” this issue so I’m stuck with it. It’s not a huge deal because everywhere I go there’s usually a computer but it’s incovenient when I’m at a computerless hotel or at a bus station. Also I apologize in advance if there are any typos. I still suck at touchscreen keyboards.
So far on my trip I’ve been to Paris, London, and this town in Germany called Bielefeld, about a 6 hour drive from Paris (I’m staying in a town in France called Serris). Just for the record, I don’t enjoy being a tourist. I like visiting cities and seeing where the locals eat, hang out, and like to shop. I particularly enjoy public transit to see actual people travelling to and from work. After living near Montreal for six weeks, I got used to how the metro worked there, so I quickly got accustomed to the Paris subway, and ventured to visit my friend Joanne in London by myself on the Tube! ( aka the underground subway )
Ome of the things I’ve noticed is that nobody understands my French accent because I have a weird hybrid of a Quebecois/Outaouais/Anglophone accent. And everyone thinks I’m American–I’ve already had this discussion on FB, I know the accents are barely indistinguishable, but the people are very different. People are surprised I speak French or Vietnamese because I was born in Ontario, and I’m so chubby next to all the skinny Viet and European people. It’s disheartening, and then i gorge myself in delicious French baguette and Le Rustique Camembert double cream cheese. Noooom all my hard work this summer is kind of going to waste, but the cheese is sooooo good.
When I was in Paris, I tried some cheese fondue from this restaurant. It was really good, and the server gave me the ingredients for the fondue on the back of their business card. It was so awesome! But I was sick of cheese for about a day, which is a long time in Lisa-land.
I also bought some macarons from a local bakery in Serris and I forgot how soft a delicious French macarons got once they were matured. Italian macarons have a crisp outside and chewy inside right away, but they don’t develop the super soft texture I find French macarons can have. All in all, they were delicious, and I think I may try to make some pistachio ones when I come back. They seem to love pistachios here in Europe.
One day I want to take a staycation in Europe somewhere. I’d be content with Italy or France, but England would be pretty cool too. My friend made me veg fajitas with Quorn, this awesome meat replacement that has the same texture as chicken (well the product I had was the chicken strips, but I’m sure the pepperette products have that texture as well. I don’t think they have quorn in Canada unfortunately, but I want to petition the crap out of that because that stuff is delicious and it should be in Canada.
She also included this awesome British cheese called Wenselydale cheesr, which had the crumbly texture of Feta cheese but it wasn’t as briney.
In London, we went to the Sherlock Holmes museum, walked around Camden Town markets and made deep fried Mars bars. We discovered that the secret is freezing the Mars Bars ahead of time, and making sure that the frying oil is hot enough.
- - 1 cup flour
- - ½ cup corn flour
- - ½ tsp baking powder
- - ½ cup milk
- - a dash of salt
- - 2 king sized Mars Bars (which equals to 4 smaller bars)
- - oil for frying
- Freeze the Mars Bars about 45 minutes before you start frying them. You want them still kinda gooey when you deepfry them but you dont want the chocolate to melt
- Mix the dry ingredients and then incorporate the milk
- Once the oil is hot enough (it starts to bubble right away when you drop a bit of batter into the oil) dunk the Mars Bars into the batter and carefully but quickly lower them into the oil with a fork.
- Fry for about 30-60 seconds, turning until they’re golden. Let them drain on a paper-towel-lined plate and then serve immediately. They should be wonderfully crisp on the outside and gooey and just barely warm on the inside.
“Also I have been informed that Scots deep fry everything. I was hearing horror stories about when you order a burger, you might get it deep fried as a whole. That sounds atrocious and frankly unlikely, could some Scots somewhere debunk this?”
It’s entirely true and very common; when you get a burger from a Fish & Chip shop, you almost always get your burgers deep fried. However, in most other non-Western places, like Indian takeaways, they’re not deep-fried.
AND PFFFT, WHAT’S THIS ABOUT HORROR STORIES? DEEP-FRIED BURGERS ARE THE BOMB-DIGGITY. <33333
– Mitch