A lunch fit for a lioness

This week, football, pies, a no-lunch lunch, and recipes for mussel slippers and hot chicken wings with blue cheese dressing.

Hot chicken wings with blue cheese dressing and chaussons aux moules.

These past couple of weeks, we’ve played truant several mornings to watch the Women’s World Cup.  We’re quite invested, as we have three teams to support: Sweden, because of our darling Olivia, who was here with us during several crucial matches, France, of course, and the mighty lionesses of England.

I’ve loved football all my life. My dad supported Middlesbrough from a boy and still when I hear snippets of MFC news on the radio, I think I must call him to discuss them. In my mid-twenties, I moved to Highbury, close enough to the old Arsenal stadium I could hear the cheers when they scored. I began to follow another red team.  When I met Séan at a wedding in 1996 and we discovered we were both Gooners, that was that really. I mean, there were other things. He was funny, kind and clever, he liked to cook and to eat, to throw parties, my friends adored him. But mostly it was an Arsenal thing.

Block 109 at the Emirates, our other happy place.

Eventually, when the team moved to the new, bigger stadium, we edged far enough up the waiting list to get season tickets. Other than belovèd humans, going to the football on a Saturday afternoon is what I miss the most about our London life.

We followed the women’s team too, first going to Meadow Park at Boreham Wood, along with a couple of thousand others. The sound of young women’s voices cheering on their heroines was so different from the masculine cheering, chanting and jeering at the Emirates, higher pitched but just as urgent. After matches, the squad often stayed behind for a long time, signing autographs and talking to their young fans who sometimes resembled them so closely, both in age and tight ponytails. More recently, we’ve been to Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium to watch the women play in front of capacity crowds, 60,000 people, a sign of how far the women’s game has come in just a few years.

We’ve loved following the women’s team, both at the Euros in 2022, and now at the World Cup, in part because so many of our Arsenal heroines are in the England squad. It remains deeply upsetting to me that both Leah Williamson and Beth Mead are out of this tournament due to injury, but

Alessia Russo has given us some magic, including the goal that sent us to the World Cup final, and Lotte Wubben Moy may yet get to make her contribution. And I still love to see former Arsenal players, Nikita Parris and Jordan Nobbs, play well - unless they’re playing against us, which I confess tests my magnanimity.

So tomorrow there will be no Sunday lunch chez nous, at least not in the let’s-all-sit-at-the-table-for-four-hours sense. Because from 11ish, we’ll be fighting over the best seat on the sofa to watch the football, which kicks off at noon (11am in the UK, I know, I’m not missing the first hour).

I was thinking about what would make a good footie lunch, but don’t worry if you’re not a football fan – if you’re not, thank you so much for indulging me by reading this far – today’s recipes, for there are two, are great for picnics, easy summer lunches, or casual parties.

I associate pies with football. On my way along Gillespie Road to the Stadium, I often used to stop at Piebury Corner, a stall set up in the front garden of a terraced house for match days, which sold superlative pies named after Arsenal players. The Tony Adams was steak and ale, Charlie George, minced beef and onions, Ian Wright, steak and Stilton, Thierry Henry, venison and red wine, and the Dennis Bergkamp, chicken, ham and leek, after the legendary striker who famously was afraid of flying (the non-flying Dutchman, as some wags called him). Piebury Corner went on to run two cafes, on Holloway Road, and at King’s Cross, both of which closed during Covid. I miss them.

Who wouldn’t want a mussel slipper?

Anyway, onto my quest for a French football pie. I’ve been wanting to make chaussons aux moules for a long time. Who wouldn’t want a mussel slipper, as this shape of pastry is usually called? Chaussons aux moules are associated with Sète, just over the water from us, also home to the tielle sétoise. Like the tielle, they are traditionally made with a yeasted dough but - please don’t tell anyone, as I like living here and the purists can get twitchy about such tinkering - I decided to make these with a more tender dough, the kind I use for Cornish pasties. These are the pasties of the Mediterranean, after all, and I think it works well.

To go with the mussel slippers, I’m making some hot chicken wings with a blue cheese dip. You can also serve crudités with the blue cheese dip, for health. So sporty.

Hot wings with blue cheese dressing.

NO-LUNCH-TODAY FOOTBALL MENU

Pringles (as this is what we often bought to snack on at the Emirates)

Chaussons aux moules
Hot chicken wings with blue cheese dip and carrot batons

Orange wedges for half time

Smarties (as this is what we often bought to snack on at the Emirates)

Bought chocolate brownies

PLAN OF ACTION

You can make the filling and the pastry for the chaussons the day before if you want. You can even roll out the pastry circles. Chill everything in the fridge and simply fill, glaze and bake them just before you want to eat them.

You can make the blue cheese dip a couple of days before you want to eat it. Cover and refrigerate it until you’re ready to eat it. The chicken wings are best cooked just before you want to eat them.

Cut the orange wedges and crudités.

Chill the beers or Cokes (football is the only time I ever fancy a Coke, weird fact about me).

Put the Pringles and smarties in bowls if you’re being fancy. Put the brownies on a plate.

Fight for your place on the sofa.

Come on you Lionesses.

Chausson aux moules                           

For these, I make the pastry with half butter, half lard, but you can use all butter if you prefer, or bought pastry – either puff or shortcrust. For ease, I also use steamed, de-shelled  mussels from the freezer cabinet in the supermarket, but of course you can buy fresh ones, steam them open and take the meat out yourself if you want. It’s the weekend, I’m being lazy.