G’wan George!

As soon as I spotted the new muffins, I suspected I could subvert Irwin’s intentions.A new range for the Portadown bakery, Irwin’s Orange and Cranberry Fruit Muffins were probably intended as a brunch treat with clotted cream and a drizzle of melted chocolate.

Or maybe toasted and topped with peanut butter and strawberry jam? Or perhaps on their own with real butter and a cup of milky coffee? However, I had an altogether different idea. But first let’s go back to the beginning…

Some weeks ago a new sandwich press arrived at home via a benevolent benefactor. If you’re reading this, Benevolent Benefactor, thanks again! Not to put too fine a point on things but the sandwich press has hardly cooled since. Such are the scrumptious delights it produces, the little humans have started asking for toasted sandwiches for breakfast and that means, if someone else is having one, you can be sure I’m going to have one too. And yet the sandwich press isn’t really a sandwich press at all, which is to say, it’s a George Foreman Grill. It came with a wee recipe card and everything, a recipe card I promptly lost before I had fired the thing up for the first time. I wasn’t initially sure what I was going to do with it and then…

Upon that first toastie mission though, it was as if the culinary planets aligned right there in the kitchen. The Taste Rocket had blasted off into the stratosphere and I was hanging on for the ride. Or to extrapolate the situation without a space age metaphor, the simple fact was: The George had become me and my toasties’ best friend.

There followed several weeks’ worth of memorable toasties. The jerked pork that I mentioned last week, the Inside Out Croque Monsieur (ham and Gruyere with crème fraiche), the Left-Over Special (diced potatoes with beans, grated cheddar and spring onions) and The Mountaineer (Swiss Emental, turkey and a honey-mustard mayo). There were others too and apart from the peanut butter and strawberry jam version, all of the others had one thing in common: Cheese.

The thing I luuurve about these toasties is (apart from the taste), is that what would have been a cold cheese and ham sandwich, is transformed into a crunchy on the outside and meltingly decadent in the centre, hot lunch.

And before you go thinking it: They’re meant to be messy, with the cheese and/or beans bursting out all over the place and sizzling. I should have known better but the remainder of a brown stew, gravy and meat, which went into a toastie last week was particularly messy and sizzling. Even the sizzling I like to hear. I refer to this sound as ‘George’s Song.’

“Hear George tuning up there,” I’ll tell the littlest human when the sizzle starts. “G’wan George! Give her dixie!”

But coming back to Irwin’s and their new muffins…

As soon as I clocked the Orange and Cranberry variety, a lightbulb went off in my head – or my stomach, as the case may be.

To me, orange and cranberry are two tastes synonymous with Christmas and come Christmas night, one of my all-time favourite toasted sandwiches is unearthed for another outing. That’s right, cherished reader, I’m referring of course to the vaulted Christmas left-over toastie. I reckoned (and I have since been proven right) that the newly released orange and cranberry muffins would provide a delectable and fruity starchy receptacle for all the Christmas trimmings, to be toasted by George – or therein, as the case may be.

As you might also imagine, last week I wasn’t in receipt of a turkey with a cavity full of sage and onion stuffing. But not to be put off my notion, I roasted a chicken and thereafter fashioned a small amount of basic stuffing. This was the classic sage and onion with added garlic for good measure.

I won’t insult your intelligence by explaining how to roast a chicken or, for that matter, make a stuffing. Instead, I’ll suggest two things. Make a chicken and stuffing mix with a goodly dollop of mayo and second: Use a mucky cheese slice as the melting ingredient.

You’ll see from the one of the photos too that I added some crispy bacon to the equation. This was intentional. The thinking was: Irwin’s Orange and Cranberry muffins will be sweet, so I needed something salty to work as a counterpoint. And it worked in spades.

The muffins were indeed sweet but not overly so and with the luxurious chicken and stuffing mix heady with sage and itself slightly sweet with the onions; combined with the salty bacon and the cheese, it was (so far) the best toastie the George has produced.

If you’re reading this, Irwin’s, you have permission to use my Christmas Toastie idea on your website – but only if you call it, ‘Michael’s Christmas Orange and Cranberry Toasted Muffin.’

G’wan George!