Play Dough

So I’m still on myfoodeeblog’s world tour over in California and the homestyle chef that I’m staying with keeps children for a laugh and one day I saw them playing with Playdough and thought to myself “I bet I can teach them how to cook something delicious with Playdough”

So I totally stole one of the kids’ jars and had a ‘play’ just to suss out the obviously endless array of culinary possibilities:

Before I have a taste, I ask my collective of cooking geniuses that masquerade as my Facebook page what to do with it:

Joshua Cobb: Play dough spaghetti bolognese?

Lisa Moorcroft: Salted caramels are fashionable now, how about play dough caramels?

Stuart Robinson: Own made play dough contains a hell of a lot of salt.  I guess you could make egg custards.  The sweet will battle the salt.

Steve Mitchell: Make a dick

So, how does Playdough taste?

Looks like the facebook group were right; It turns out that Playdough is hella salty and the saltiness isn’t uniform; you get bits that are just a bit salty and other bits that are supersalty so this will have to be factored in to my final recipe. After considering carefully my friends’ recommendations and then totally ignoring all of them, I decide to make Playdough alphabet soup! Er, because of the er, learning potential and stuff.

I start by making some letters from the cube:

I then put these with the other ingredients:

Lemon, tomato, chopped onion, cumin, chilli and chicken stock (out of shot).

I begin by softening the onions, tomatoses and spices and Playdough in a pan:

And this is where things started going catastrophically wrong. You see, the Playdough started to disintegrate and everything started to turn green:

Oh nose! I’m making an evil lesson!

After adding in the chicken stock, my cursed recipe began going hulk green!

Gah!

After simmering for around 10 minutes, I serve and just for safety put a hex on the devil soup just in case I die:

So, how does my Devil Playdough alphabet soup taste?

It’s edible, which catches me off guard because I was expecting it to be horrific; the chilli balance is nice and the lemon cuts through the ahem, richness, of the by now hopelessly disintegrated letters. But I don’t eat more than about 5 spoonfuls because I am really freaked out by the colour and the fact I am eating a children’s learning device. Oh well! Back to the drawing board eh!

So, do you keep children? Have you ever fed them Playdough or cooked them radioactive green soup? Even if you haven’t, fire over to the Facebook page and discuss this ‘and other incredible recipes’ with another 439 food luvvers.

Alternatively, you can cook with me on twitter.

And I occasionally write at huffpost