We just finished reading the first Harry Potter to our 6 year old. He was so enthralled it was fun to see him get so into a book. To celebrate finishing the book he picked watching the movie and having a fun themed dinner. So I looked up some English inspired recipes, found a few food items inspired by the food in the book and movie and we had a great movie night.
I just used items I already had to make the food table look more fun. Harry Potter has become so much a part of our culture I’m sure we all have something lying around that would fit in. The wands were something I made for Aiden’s 11th birthday (which I just realized I never blogged about. I’ll have to do that!)
Our dinner menu for the night:
Breaded Fish Filets
Roasties
Toad-In-The-Hole
Breadsticks
Grapes
Peas
Chocolate Frogs
Bertie Botts Every Flavor Beans
and Butterbeer
I have no idea if this is a meal that someone from England would actually put together. I should have called my friend and asked her, but it was kind of a spur of the moment idea and I was just using things we already had (except for my husband stopping by Walmart on the way home from work to pick up the jelly beans and cream soda).
So onto the recipes!
Toad-In-The-Hole
Toad-In-The-Hole (Tiny Toads)
Adapted from BBCGoodFood.com
Ingredients
- 2-3 tbsp cooking oil
- 1 egg
- 1/3 cup milk
- 1/3 cup flour
- 1 pinch salt
- 24 cocktail sausages
Instructions
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Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put a generous half-teaspoonful of cooking oil in the bottom of each cup of a deep 12-hole muffin pan set on a baking tray.
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Pour the milk into a bowl, add the egg, flour and a pinch of salt and whisk everything together with a hand blender or wire whisk until a smooth batter forms.
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Put the muffin pan in the oven for a minute or so until the oil is very hot. Carefully remove from the oven and quickly fill the cups just under two-thirds full (this may not seem enough batter, but they puff up in the oven). Drop 2 sausages into each cup and bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown, well risen and crisp.
Roasties
Potatoes of any kind are always a hit in our home. These were no exception.
British-Style Roasties. Photo: Wendy Goodfriend
British Roasties
Adapted from kqed.org
Ingredients
- 4 lb Russet Potatoes
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2/3 cup cooking oil
Instructions
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Preheat the oven to 400F. Have ready a heavy roasting pan that will hold the potatoes in an even layer.
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Peel the potatoes and cut them into quarters so they are all about the same size; they should be roughly 2–3 inch chunks. Place the potatoes in a large saucepan and add enough cold water to cover them. Season with plenty of salt and bring to a boil over high heat. Once they boil, stir, reduce the heat to medium, and simmer for 5 minutes.
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While the potatoes cook, add the oil to the roasting pan and place the roasting pan in the oven to heat.
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Using the lid, carefully drain the water from the pan. Cover the pan and give it a good shake to bash up the potatoes slightly. This creates a rough surface all over the potatoes which helps them crisp in the hot fat. Remove the lid and set the pan aside, uncovered, for the potatoes to dry for a few minutes.
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Carefully (seriously, water hitting hot oil splatters!) add the potatoes to the hot oil in a single layer so they are not touching and return the pan to the oven. Roast, turning them about every 15 minutes or so, until they are deeply golden brown and crisp and tender throughout, 60–75 minutes. Serve while hot.
Breadsticks
I cut them so they were extra long so they kind of looked like wands. You can use any bread stick recipe you like.
Butterbeer
This was something I just kind of threw together based on other recipes I’ve seen. I have no idea if it tastes “right” but there are so many recipes out there I decided to just make something I thought our family would like.
Pour cream soda into a pitcher, add 1 tsp vanilla, 1/2 tsp butter flavoring extract and 1/4 tsp. almond extract. Stir. Add 3 spoonfuls whipped cream stir. Then scoop a few spoonfuls on top and spread it a little to make it look like froth. It was super sweet, and more like a melted float, but we liked it (everyone had water to drink too).
Chocolate Frogs
These were pretty easy, I already had the candy mold from a previous party. I’ve actually used it a lot more than I thought I would (camping party, Harry Potter party, Halloween party, and a science party) It can be purchased on Amazon if you want to get it here: Frog Chocolate Candy Mold
I melted regular chocolate chips, and used a spoon to spread the melted chocolate into the mold. Put that into the freezer. Then I made a simple Peanut Butter filling by mixing 1/4 cup peanut butter, 1/4 cup powdered sugar and a dash of vanilla extract. Mix until it feels like a soft dough. I ended up adding a little more powdered sugar, but I didn’t keep track of how much. Put the filling into the frogs, then cover with the rest of the melted chocolate and return to the freezer. Once the chocolate is hardened you should be able to pop them right out of the mold.
