Naturally you've got to bring some meat to barbecue, so I grabbed some meat patties out of the freezer, but what else? I'm quite incapable of turning up at someone else's house empty-handed, but it's so easy to bring too much - if each person brings along enough for three, you soon find yourselves with a huge surfeit of food.
So what to bring? I considered a salad, but figured they'd probably have the salad aspect under control. Bread? Probably wouldn't get eaten. A dessert? Well, anything I have left to make would need refrigerating, and you can't really assume fridge space will be available. Finally, I just decided to get a couple of packets of chips and make some onion dip (p197).
That's right: the humble kiwi onion dip is actually in the Edmonds book. It's not quite the classic version though. I popped down to Countdown to get the chips and ingredients, and as I was walking back, I started thinking how odd it is that Edmonds should print a recipe that uses reduced cream, since Nestle, the major reduced cream brand, is likely to be one of Goodman Fielder's main competitors. After all, the Edmonds book is a vehicle for promoting their own Edmonds products.
When I got my can of reduced cream home and checked out the onion dip recipe, I found my suspicion was justified: the Edmonds recipe uses sour cream instead of reduced cream. Unfortunately, this meant I had to go back to the supermarket.
On returning from my second supermarket expedition, I mixed the sour cream with the onion soup mix, and put it in the fridge to chill. This is pretty much all you'd do for the classic version, but the Edmonds one has finely chopped cucumber and capsicum added just before serving.
Well, I say just before serving, but actually it was just before I left the house. Since I spent another hour sitting in Lauren and Tom's kitchen laughing while Tom's attempted homemade sausages, (to be fair, they turned out well. It was just funny to watch) before actually heading to the barbecue, it didn't really qualify as a last minute addition.
The dip still tasted good though. I like the substitution of sour cream for reduced cream - it's fresher and lighter than the reduced cream version, which can be a bit rich and gluggy. Since I'd chosen a low-fat sour cream, it also halved the fat content - never a bad thing! I'm not sold on the added cucumber and capsicum, though. They seemed to take away from that classic oniony flavour. Still, other people at the barbecue seemed to like it, so I guess you'll have to try it and decide for yourself.
(I find I've forgotten to take a photo of the finished product, so you'll have to use your imagination. It looks like lumpy sour cream with red and green chunks in it, surprisingly enough.)
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