Sunday 1 May 2011

Focaccia with Rosemary and Sea Salt

Hello and welcome, dear reader. First of all, an even-longer-than-usual hiatus in the fun and games here at PDKTC requires a little explanation: I've been in Venice. It being my parents' Silver Wedding year this sunny 2011 (congrats guys!), my Dad decided to whisk my Mum off to Venezia for a mini-break and, as he put it, 'I know she won't really enjoy it unless you lot come too'. Cue surprise family holiday, and the inspiration behind today's recipe, my favourite Italian invention (well, a tie with pasta and risotto, anyway), focaccia. It's pronounced 'fok-CATCH-ya', by the way - as a child I caused much hilarity by perisitently calling it 'foccercheeya'.

It's a type of bread flavoured with olive oil and sea salt, made flat instead of loaf-shaped, and dimpled to allow the flavours to penetrate when it's sprinkled with salt, rosemary, olives and all sorts of other delicious things before cooking. Like many breads, the thought of tackling it from scratch scares a lot of people, but its really a whole lot simpler than you think. Furthermore, thumping a basket of homemade focaccia on the table before a meal will pretty much impress anyone. The recipe may look complicated and time-consuming, but in fact a lot of it is waiting and a bit of kneading (genuinely the most theraputic activity in the world, by the way). The actual combining of ingredients takes about 30 seconds.

Ok gang. Here we go.

Ingredients
(Makes one baking-tray-sized 'loaf')

700g strong white flour ('bread' flour)
10g dried yeast, or 20g live yeast
4 tbsp good quality olive oil, plus a bit extra
10g sugar
2 tsp salt
Water
Plenty of sea salt
Chopped rosemary - a generous sprinkling

Method

First of all, pre-heat your oven to gas mark 8, about 230 degrees, and liberally oil a high-sided baking tray with olive oil. Next, you're going to want some lukewarm water - 150ml to start with. For dried yeast, whisk the yeast into the water until it's all dissolved, then leave in a warm place - but not hot - for around 15 minutes until bubbles have begun to form. This means that the yeast is activated. For live yeast, just mix straight in to the same amount of water until dissolved, then you can use it straight away.

Whenever you're dealing with yeast, remember that it's a living thing. If the water is too hot for you, it'll kill it; if it's too cold for you, it's too cold for it. Treat it with love - it's what makes your bread rise.

While the yeast is activating, measure out 150ml of very hot water and mix in the salt, sugar and 4tbsp of olive oil, then add 150ml cold water and check that the resulting liquid is lukewarm. Combine this with the yeast mixture.Then sieve the flour into a large bowl, make a dip in it, and pour most of the liquid in. Make your hand into a claw shape and gently stir the liquid, drawing in the flour slowly until it all comes together into a gooey dough. Add more flour or liquid if you need to.

Sit back and be proud of yourself, because that is genuinely the hardest bit over with. It's just a waiting game from now on, and the occasional brief bicep workout.

When your dough is formed, flour the table and leave the dough on the floured surface to rest for five minutes or so. Then it's kneading time! The best therapy around. pummel and stretch and work the dough for ten minutes or so, until it's smooth and elastic like a big stress-ball. Then pop it back in the bowl, cover tigtly with clingfilm, and leave in a warm place to rise until it's more than doubled in size. This can take a few hours, so have a nice cup of tea and put your feet up.

Once the dough is all risen, you need to do what's called 'knocking back' - grab the dough out of the pan and knead it again for a couple of minutes until you've knocked all the air out of it. Then leave to rest again for ten minures before shaping the dough to your roasting tin. Press your fingers into the dough to make little dimples in the top, then sprinkle over the sea salt and rosemary and and leave to rise again, this time only for around 20-30 minutes. Bake in the oven for five minutes, then turn down to 200 degrees or gas mark 6 for another 15-20 minutes until it's risen and golden brown. Sprinkle over a little more olive oil and eat your first slice while it's still warm, dipped in a mixture of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Perfetto!

Wednesday 13 April 2011

Raspberry Coulis and White Chocolate Mousse with Fresh Blackberries

Well. An exciting week here at PDKTC. I've officially submitted my application to study at the renowned school of culinary arts Le Cordon Bleu in London, and I am ecstatic! In tribute to the school I was hoping to cook something blue this week (yes, I know, embarrassingly keen). Unfortunately, as you may or may not know, the edible world is sadly lacking in natural occurrences of the colour blue. In fact, supposedly when Heinz tried making blue ketchup a few years back no-one would eat it because the idea of blue food was just too much to handle. I finally settled on blueberries, which are actually more purple but at least have 'blue' in their name...


Another hiccup became apparent almost immediately. It is emphatically not the British blueberry season - they begin around June, so we're almost as far from last season as we can get. After a gruelling trawl around my local greengrocers and supermarkets, I came up with some rather suspect Mexican-grown raspberries and blackberries (fail on the food miles there). So much for the 'blue' theme. But bear in mind that from June to August this recipe would be delicious with in-season British blueberries in place of the fruit specified here. Please also bear in mind that it's best made the day or at least the morning before your meal.


A final note - in my version, the mousse mixture separated out into two distinct layers as it set in the fridge, a testament to my inaccurate quantities and inability to beat an egg white. However, if this does happen to you, both layers still taste good and in my view it just gives it an extra bit of personality!


On to recipes.


Ingredients
(Makes 3)


Punnet of raspberries
Punnet of blackberries
Large bar (c.200g) good quality white chocolate, broken into small bits - I used Green & Black's
2 eggs, separated
c. 100ml double cream
50g sugar
50ml water


Method


First of all, make the raspberry compote: put about 1/3 of the punnet of rasps into a small pan with the sugar and water. Warm gently, mash the raspberries up a bit, and bring to boil for 5 minutes or so, until the mixture begins to look syrupy. Set aside to cool slightly. Run 3 martini glasses (or wine glasses if you're not the martini type) under hot water, dry, and then divide the raspberry compote evenly between the glasses and refrigerate immediately.


Next, put a slightly larger pan of water on to boil, then lower the heat to a gentle simmer. Put the cream, egg yolks and chocolate into a heatproof bowl which just sits over the top of the simmering water and heat slowly until the chocolate melts, occasionally giving the mixture a very, very gentle stir. As the mixture is melting, whisk the egg whites in a scrupulously clean bowl until very stiff (if they won't stiffen, add a small splash of white wine vinegar and keep trying). When the chocolate mixture is fully combined, fold a small amount of it into the egg whites then fold the egg whites into the rest of the chocolate until completely consistent. 


Take your glasses back out of the fridge and fill each to within 1-2cm of the top with the egg and chocolate mixture. Put back in the fridge overnight, or for as long as you can (at least a few hours).


To serve, gently place or pile the remaining raspberries and blackberries on top of the glasses in a pretty pattern. Enjoy your achievement, it looks great!


...And a sneaky picture with some enormous flowers to distract from the quality of the photography...

Monday 4 April 2011

Five-Vegetable Pasta Sauce

Hello and welcome back, dear reader. Today, I felt an overwhelming need for vitamins - a quick-fix diet of far too many crisps has left me gasping for something green and crunchy. Solution: a dash to the shops for as many vegetables as I could carry.

This simple, chunky and fresh-tasting sauce goes well with pasta or couscous, can easily be embellished with the herbs or spices of your choice, and, if you eat enough of it, pretty much deals with any 'five-a-day' problems in one easy swoop. As an inveterate carnivore, I added some smoked bacon lardons for that meaty kick, but my vegetarian readers can easily leave these out or replace them with some tofu pieces. Vegan readers, do this and then eat with egg-free pasta or couscous. Don't be overwhelmed by the fairly lengthy list of ingredients - they all go in together very easily, and the veg will only take a few moments to chop, I promise. You can replace any of the vegetables with your own favourites, and you don't even need to stop at five!

I won't include the pasta in the recipe, but some words of advice:

Use about 3 handfuls per person; cook in plenty of boiling water, very well-salted, as directed on the pack; and drain thoroughly before using. Al dente (still with a bit of bite there when you chew it) is the way to go.

Without more ado, then, on to the sauce:

Ingredients
(serves 3-ish)

Around 50g bacon lardons or cubes of pancetta (optional)
3 large spring onions
A good-sized courgette, washed
A medium head of broccoli
A red pepper, or pointed sweet pepper
2 large tomatoes
1tsp tomato puree
1 glass white/pink wine
1 pint tomato passata (or 1 tin chopped tomatoes)
Generous splash of balsamic vinegar
Salt and pepper
Shavings of Grana Padano/Parmesan cheese to garnish

Method

First of all, chop all of your vegetables into pieces (they don't have to be cubes - go with the natural shape of the vegetable) about 1cm square. This does mean cutting your broccoli smaller than you're probably used to, but it makes for a lovely, consistent sauce which is easy to eat.

Next, pop a good-sized frying pan with high sides on a medium heat and add the bacon pieces. You won't need oil - it's got plenty of fat in it already, which will melt as you cook it and lubricate the pan. When the bacon is beginning to brown, add the spring onions and the pepper and allow to cook for a couple more minutes. Then add the rest of the vegetables and the tomato puree, and again cook for a couple of minutes, turning gently to ensure everything is coated with oil and puree.

When all the veg is beginning to cook, add the white wine and let it bubble vigorously for a minute or two, then add the passata and balsamic vinegar. Simmer for ten minutes or so, or while you cook the pasta, then season to taste and serve on top of pasta, garnished with the shavings of cheese.

Note: if you'd like to add any herbs or spices, I suggest you add dry or ground with the onion, and anything fresh and chopped with the passata or right at the end. Some parsley mixed with the cheese shavings would be a great addition to the garnish, the bright green matching the fresh taste of the sauce.

Anyway - if you're ever feeling short of essential vitamins, you know what to do! Enjoy your daily shot of vegetables, folks.

Tuesday 29 March 2011

A Lunchtime Puff Pastry Treat

After a long absence (Please Don't Kiss The Cook has been hitting up London!), we're back with a quick but nevertheless wonderful lunch-or-snack-time treat based on puff pastry, which, although a devil to make, is the easiest thing in the world to buy at your local supermarket and doesn't suffer too much from the 'non-homemade' stigma.

This recipe is not only delicious, but benefits from a great deal of flexibility - you can change it up from day to day, making it a fantastic way to keep your lunchtimes varied. The method below is the version I made recently, but I'll give you a few ideas for variations as well.

Ingredients

A dusting of flour
Puff pastry - about a quarter of a standard 'Jusroll' pack
Tomato puree - about a teaspoonful
A red onion, finely sliced
One garlic clove, crushed
A small, ripe tomato, sliced
About 25-50g of the cheese of your choice (I used Taleggio, which may smell like feet but tastes delicious)
A tiny bit of butter or egg wash
Basil to finish (optional, and not with the Taleggio I think)


Method

Preheat your oven to 200 C. Dusting the table and your hands with flour first, roll or press out the puff pastry to about half a centimetre thick, or until it's around 20cm long and 10 thick. Make sure you keep it reasonably well-floured or it'll stick. You can also buy it ready-rolled if you like. At the same time, sweat the onions and garlic in a small frying pan and allow them to begin to turn golden at the edges.

Now lay your pastry flat and cover with the tomato puree, leaving an edge of at least one centimetre all around. Top with the onion, tomato, and cheese. Wash the pastry edges with a little melted butter or egg. Bake for 10-15 minutes in a hot oven until the pastry has risen and turned golden brown, and the cheese is bubbling. Finish with chopped basil if using. Delicious hot or cold, and lovely with a salad.


Some Variations

You can see how easy the basic method here would be to vary - it's sort of a high-class pizza, and enjoys the same breadth of variation. Just don't insult it with plain tomato puree and cheddar cheese. It's worth more.

Here are a couple of ideas:

Goat's cheese: Cut out the tomato and tomato puree, and use caramelised onions instead of plain red onion. Replace the taleggio with goat's cheese. Top with a little chopped thyme, and serve with a cherry tomato salad.

A fresher option: Leave the tomato and half of the cheese out of the basic recipe (use cheddar or similar, not blue cheese here), and top the finished tartlet with fresh ripe tomatoes, chopped and tossed with torn basil, balsamic vinegar and olive oil, and a sprinkling of torn-up fresh mozzarella.

Salad-on-a-pastry-plate: Use olive oil, rosemary and crushed garlic instead of the puree, and leave out the rest. Bake like this, then top with lightly dressed rocket salad, cherry tomatos, slices of cured beef (bresaola), and shavings of really good quality grana padano.

Meatier Munch:  Sprinkle with some crispy-fried pancetta or some thin slices of cooked chicken before topping with the cheese and baking.

Experimenting with herbs: It's definitely not just basil you can involve here. Some chopped parsley rarely goes amiss for a garnish, a bit of tarragon would be lovely with the tomatoes (you could even sprinkle a tiny bit of tarragon vinegar on before the cheese), thyme or rosemary are both an option. Go wild.

Puddin': Why not? Puff pastry is just as much a dessert as a savoury taste. Try strawberries, honey and a dash of lemon juice to bake, with a dollop of creme fraiche to finish. Or, even naughtier, some very good quality dark chocolate and a generous sprinkling of chopped nuts. Eat sparingly!


So there you are, food fans. Fun with puff pastry. Incidentally, smaller versions of this recipe can make a nice canape idea, as the pastry base makes them easy to grab with a drink in the other hand. Just be sure to make them bitesize!

Saturday 12 March 2011

Creamy Spinach and Smoky Pancetta Soup

A simple and delicious soup (if I do say so myself). Dad always has soup for lunch, and a couple of days ago - shock! - we had run out of the usual 'Covent Garden' style stuff. Well, no worries, because it's not too hard to knock up a soup from a reasonably stocked fridge. Ours wasn't bulging, but it did contain some spinach and industrial quantites of smoked pancetta. Bingo.

Your basic soup method is pretty consistent. Cook all the meat/vegetables, involved, add some sort of liquid, usually stock and perhaps some cream or creme fraiche, simmer, liquidise, and (if necessary) strain. Exceptions are things like broths and chowders, which need a very good quality stock and are not liquidised. But for the minute our focus is on the classic 'vegetable soup with some sneaky meat involved'. This, incidentally, is not what the French call it.

Without too much fuss, then, we'll get on to recipes. The only other thing to bear in mind is that in this recipe the bulk of the spinach - which is to say the stringy bits - is sieved out before the end, so there will be less soup than you'd think.

Ingredients
(for 2)

Knob of butter
50g smoked pancetta (or use smoked streaky bacon)
Large bunch fresh spinach (one supermarket bag, or equivalent. Use frozen if you need to, but please defrost and thoroughly drain first, and bear in mind cooking time will be reduced)
Glass of white wine
200ml chicken stock, or more if necessary
50-100ml of cream or creme fraiche, depending on your calorie wants!
Salt, pepper
Generous grating of nutmeg


Method

Simple. Melt your butter in a medium pan and cook the pancetta until golden brown/crispy. Add the spinach and the white wine, and cook until the spinach has wilted. Add the warm stock.

Liquidise by whatever means available and strain thoroughly (you have to be tough with it. Knock it about a bit with a spoon).

Return to the pan and stir in the cream or creme fraiche. Season to your taste. Incidentally, nutmeg is always a winner with spinach - if you're serving it as a vegetable side dish, a grating of nutmeg on top brings out a whole new range of flavours.

This is a lovely soup, almost game-y in its combination of earthy spinach and smokey pancetta. Even if you're not the biggest spinach fan, I do urge you to give this a try.

Friday 11 March 2011

Kedgeree

Hello and welcome back, dear reader. I've had a few requests for a recipe for kedgeree, so I knocked some up last week and I'll give you my usual exciting and informative instructions below. Incidentally, if anyone else has a request for a recipe/something you would enjoy hearing me fail to cook, you can always leave a comment below or find me on Twitter @roseblackettord. I'm always open to suggestions.

On to some kedgeree chat.

Traditionally thought of as a breakfast dish, and especially as an element of that great old English institution, the Country House Breakfast, kedgeree also makes a great simple supper. Like the kipper, its days of regular early-morning appearances are, for the most part, a thing of the past; nevertheless, its creamy combination of rice and fish is not something that should be allowed to slip away into the mists of time. Hence, this recipe, along with the recommendation that you give kedgeree a chance on your supper table. One final added bonus? It's brilliant for using up leftover fish - one of those 'leftovers' recipes which gives the sad remains a whole new lease of life.

Ingredients
(for 3)

250g fish - almost any kind/combination. It should be cooked (cover with milk and water in a pan, bring to the boil then allow to cool). A combination of smoked/fresh often works well. Smoked salmon is nice too, and a few prawns won't go amiss.
100g rice - basmati or long-grained.
2 eggs - hardboiled (immerse in boiling water for 12-15 minutes, allow to cool) and shelled.
Double cream - 1/2 a small pot, c.70ml
Butter - a chunk
Chopped herbs - about 2 tbs altogether. Parsley and chives are good. Dill would work too. You can also substitute spring onion for chives.
Salt, pepper, cayenne pepper - pinch of each

Method

First of all, make sure the fish and eggs are all ready and cooked. Run the eggs under cold water to cool, then remove the shells and chop them into medium-sized chunks.

Cook the rice according to the instructions on your packet, then drain, run some cold water over it, and drain again. While the rice is cooking, make sure any skin and bones are removed from the fish and gently separate it into bitesize pieces.

Now for the quick putting-together bit, which you can normally do just before you eat. Melt the butter in a pan, and add the cream and chopped herbs. Leave over the heat. When it begins to bubble, add the fish, rice and egg and stir gently until all is evenly combined (try not to break up the chunks of fish too much if you can avoid it). Season to your own taste with the salt, pepper, and cayenne. Eat with green vegetables and hot buttered toast.

A lovely supper which can be pre-prepared and put together at the last minute. I hope you all enjoy it as much as I do.

Thursday 3 March 2011

Magical Banana Cake

I say 'magical', because this is the easiest piece of baking I have ever had the pleasure to undertake.


Let me just get on the record here and say that I. Absolutely. Love. Banana. Cake. 


Seriously.


I very rarely get the chance to eat it, because its not something we tend to make at home. The two times I had it before today were once in Scotland after a long day's walking, when I felt like it warmed all my insides up at once; and once at tea with a friend when I'm pretty sure I ate at least half a whole cake. Scrummy. And today, well, I saw four slightly sad-looking bananas sitting on their own in a bowl, ostracised from the big fruit bowl where the oranges and apples and grapes all squatted looking snide (bananas in your fruit bowl make other fruit go bad faster). And I thought, what joy those bananas will bring to the world when I make them into CAKE.


There's something about the texture of a banana cake that just sets it apart. Not for you the slightly crumbly fluffiness of the average sponge. Your cake is heavy and moist - a word which is often reviled but which here means wonderful things. Your cake is solid and satisfying and easy to bake. Your cake quite possibly counts as one of your five fruit and vegetable portions a day.


Enough chatter. On to the recipe. Munch on this one with hot cup of tea in the middle of the afternoon and, as with the cookies, make sure you take your first bite when it's still warm from the oven.


Ingredients
(Makes one loaf-sized cake)

170g each of:  
Caster or demerara sugar 
Self-raising flour 
Butter, cut into small chunks

2 bananas, cut into chunks
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence (NOT extract, as usual)


Method

Behold! The easiest baking method in the history of man. Ladies and gentlemen, if it wasn't for the hot oven and the blades, a five year old could do this standing on its head.


Grease a small cake tin or a standard-sized cake tin. Pre-heat your oven to 160 C. 


Put all ingredients in your blender or food mixer. Mix/blend until totally combined and consistent (takes 5 mins or so). Put in cake tin. Put cake tin in oven. Wait one hour. Take out, cool, munch. 


Boom. Banana cake. Do It Now.

Sunday 27 February 2011

Cookie?

More baking! My brother is going back to school today after his half term. Poor little feller. So I've baked him some cookies to take with him, because that's just the kind of fantastic big sister I am. Being 17, 6'1'', and probably too old for cookies, he's supremely ungrateful, but I've baked them anyway, because I love cookies.


A cookie can come in almost any shape, size or consistency, from those huge American-style ones, still soft and slightly gooey in the middle, to the medium or small English versions which are hard and crumbly all over. To my mind, only the former merits the title - the latter are really just chocolate-chip biscuits, and would probably be better off replaced by some proper shortbread. This recipe is best for American cookies, therefore, but if you must make English ones (*shudder*), just put them on the baking tray in slightly smaller quantities (teaspoon instead of dessert spoon, say) and bake for 10-12 minutes instead of 8-10.


Ingredients
(makes 18-20 big ones)


225g light brown or demerara sugar (or a mixture is fine)
200g caster sugar
250g butter
Few drops vanilla extract (NOT essence, leave it out if you've only got essence)
2 large eggs, whisked
1 tsp baking powder, one tsp bicarbonate of soda
375g plain flour
Salt (just a pinch)
200g good quality dark chocolate


Method


First of all, pre-heat your oven so your cookies actually cook later. 180 degrees, which is around gas mark 4. Line more baking trays than you think you need (about 3) with greaseproof or silicone baking paper.


Now, chop your butter into little bits and cream it with both types of sugar. As I said when we made brownies, this can either be quick and a bit boring in the food processor, or slow but satisfying by hand in a bowl. Either way, when the mixture is very light, creamy and paler than it was, add the whisked eggs and vanilla extract and beat them in, then put the rest of the ingredients bar the choclate through a sieve and fold them in. 


Chop, bash, or (at a pinch) food process your chocolate into uneven chips, flakes and lumps, then mix them evenly through the cookie dough. Plop heaped dessert-spoonfuls onto your baking trays, absolute max 6 per tray. Leave them plenty of room to spread out, remember how big American cookies are! Stick them in the oven for 8-10 minutes, or until the dough has all melted and flattened out into cookies shapes and the tops are just starting to be golden. If The dough looks mushy still don't worry. 

Leave them on the baking trays until they are cool enough to touch, then transfer to wire racks. Eat the first ones while they're still a bit warm!


Other Things To Put In Your Cookies


Most flavourings go in at the same time as or instead of the chocolate chips. Any spices or ground things go in with the flour etc. Liquids go in with the eggs, and not too much of them or the dough will be runny.

  • Glace or dried sour cherries
  • Dried cranberries
  • Raspberries, strawberries, blueberries, all berries...
  • Milk or white chocolate chips
  • Nuts - pecans are great, but also walnuts, peanuts, macademias are fantastic.
  • Cinnamon
  • Mixed spice (tastes like Christmas)
  • Ground ginger
  • Raisins or sultanas, dried peel
  • Pieces of toffee or fudge
  • Small marshmallows (the kind you put in hot chocolate)
  • Finely chopped lavender flowers (for a very delicate and sophisticated taste)
  • Very fintely grated citrus peel - lemon, lime, orange, etc.
  • Chunks of caramelised orange from marmalade
  • Cocoa powder and melted chocolate (in with the eggs for the latter) for a brown chocolate cookie
  • Banana slices
  • A spoonful of golden syrup
  • Oats
  • Stem ginger
  • Chopped nougat
  • Chopped chocolate bars - Mars, Snickers, whatever's your favourite.
  • A combination of any of the above...experiment!

If anyone thinks of some crazy combinations or just wants to tell everyone how your cookies worked out, post a comment and let us know!


Have fun cookie-ing!

Wednesday 23 February 2011

Celebratory Brownies

Lots of things to celebrate this week, hooray. My clever little sister has got herself a job offer, I've got a Stylish Blogger award (last boast I promise) and PDKTC has REACHED 1,000 PAGEVIEWS! This is definitely a case for celebratory brownies, and possibly champagne and strawberries also. I actually made brownies a couple of days ago now, but since I only scoffed the last one this morning I still feel justified in writing about them.

To me, baking is something that's either in your blood, or it isn't. For me, sadly, it's the latter - I'm not one of nature's bakers. My Victoria sponges never rise properly; my pastry is usually too hard; I don't bake my own bread (often). But however nonexistent my skills, I still love to bake. Especially brownies. They are so simple and so satisfactory. That sugary chocolate crust, the way the insides teeter on the ledge between goo and cake, the way the pieces of nut balance out the taste and texture - perfect.

Incidentally, I actually left nuts out of my brownies as the Brother is allergic, but they are traditionally included so I have put them in the recipe below. If you or a loved one are in the same position, don't worry, it works fine without.

Join me now, dear reader, on a baking adventure.

Ingredients
(Makes around 16-20)

200g sugar
100g butter
75g chocolate (as good-quality/dark as you can afford)
Few drops vanilla extract (NOT essence, it's not the same thing)
2 eggs, gently beaten
75g plain flour
Pinch of salt
1 tsp baking powder
100g pecans, walnuts, macadamias or Brazil nuts (or a mixture!), quite finely chopped


Method

Pre-heat your oven to 180, and grease some sort of cake tin/baking tray with butter or vegetable oil. If you've got any, line the tin with greaseproof paper or even silicone baking paper, both of which will greatly increase your chances of prising out any brownies at the end of the process.

Next, melt your chocolate. Don't do this on too high a heat, or it will 'split' - go all weird and hard. You can melt chocolate either in a very low oven in a ceramic bowl, or in the same bowl oven a pan of simmering water, making sure that the bowl doesn't actually touch the water.

If your chocolate should happen to split, take it off the heat and add a dessert spoon, or a little more, of vegetable oil. Keep it warm and stir gently until it looks better. It won't be any good for setting, but you can still use it in your brownies :)

While your chocolate is melting away, cut the butter into small chunks and cream it together with the sugar until pale and creamy-looking. You can either do this in a food processor (easy and quick) or by hand in a mixing bowl (very slow but therapeutic and good for the biceps).

When it's really pale and creamy, which will take longer to achieve than you think (don't rush it...enjoy it), you can gently beat in your eggs, chocolate and vanilla essence until completely mixed. Then sieve in the flour, salt and baking powder, and fold until combined. If you're using nuts, mix them in at this point.

Turn the whole lot out into the baking tin and pop it in the oven for 25-35 minutes, or until the top is crusty but the inside still squidgy. If you put it a skewer it doesn't have to come out clean - its not a cake!

While waiting, lick the bowl (disclaimer: licking the bowl is optional. If you get salmonella from the raw eggs, that's not my fault ok?).

Once your brownie is ready, take it out of the oven and either cut it into little brownie squares or leave it as one giant brownie, you greedy sod. Either way, leave it to cool for a bit but definitely eat the first one while they're still warm. Mmm, chocolaty celebration.

Extra brownie things

Some things you can add to your brownie mix to change it up (add when you'd add the nuts):

Cherries, either cocktail ones or sour ones
Dried cranberries or raspberries
Banana, sliced or mashed
Chocolate drops, white or milk
Little chips of toffee
...Anything else you fancy, play around!

Some yummy things to eat (and drink) with your brownies:

Ice cream and chocolate sauce
Ice cream and golden syrup
A nice mug of perfect Hot Chocolate
Strawberries and whipped cream

Forest fruit coulis
Strawberries and champagne

Have yourselves a big brownie celebration, y'all!

Tuesday 22 February 2011

Stylish Blogger Awards!



Well boys and girls. My good and incredibly kind friend stupidgirl45 has kindly nominated me for a Stylish Blogger award! As a humble newbie on the blogging scene, I'm very, very honoured that she thought of me and would like to recommend that you:

1. Send her e-champagne and shoes
2. Read her fantastic blog here
3. Add her on twitter on @stupidgirl45 because she is lovely :)

So, in return for my award, I have to post it on my blog (see above), give 7 random facts about myself, and nominate 10 other bloggers I think deserve an award. So here goes...

Factoids

1. I love a good roaring fire on a cold day. Probably a bit too much.
2. I used to have a pet rabbit called Sooty (yes, he was black). The rabbit I had before him (Benjy, after the one in Peter Rabbit) only lasted two weeks before the dog got him :(
3. Depsite all my good-food babbling, I adore those Bachelor's microwave pastas, especially the Cheese, Leek and Ham flavour.
4.When I was little, I used to stick my head down rabbit holes and shout 'Hello Mr. Easter Bunny, are you there?'
5. I am, bizarrely, embarrassed by where I live in a big way and like to do everything I can to make up for it by being nice to people.
6. I like to listen to Abba and Dusty Springfield when I'm cooking. Preferably turned up WAY too loud.
7. I'm terrified of spiders. They make me freeze up and feel like things are crawling all over me.


Oh, and 8. I'm so much of a newbie that I don't even read 10 blogs, or at least not 10 I think are stylish...so the list below is my top 8... NOT because I want to be mean but because I'm badly read.


Nominations

I'm not sure I had even read 2 blogs a few weeks ago, so these are based on nothing more than the infantile knowledge of the internets/blogosphere I have gained since then, plus a couple of friends I think deserve more attention. Think of it as a newbie's guide to blogging! In no particular order:

1. Political Reboot Low-key but very intelligent politics blogging by a good friend of mine. I'm not a particularly political animal, but this makes me feel interested.
2. JM Tohline Author of soon-to-be-published The Great Lenore (which I for one will be reading), his blogs on writing and life always hook me. He's got a fantastic way with words.
3. Rum and Monkey From the Dark Ages of the internets before all this social media claptrap took off, Rum and Monkey's irreverent and sometimes incomprehensible satire still lives. The Bears category is my favourite.
4. shitmydadsays Justin lives with his dad. His dad says shit. Justin writes it down. Booya.
5. The Only Humor Daily shots of humor. I like a giggle with my tea break, and I look for it here.
6. Foodimentary You've almost certainly heard of it. Winner of a Shorty Award, this encyclopedic blog is my go-to for all foodie knowledge, and the guy who writes it is my hero.
7. Rose Cottage What I try to do here, only done properly and a million times better. The most beautiful food blog I know of.
8. Elizabeth Buchan The life of a writer of hugely successful romance novels. I find this a tantalising insight into the day-to-day goings on of someone who's already made it to the top of the tree.

If I've nominated you and you feel like it, you too should post your award and give 7 random facts about yourself and 10 nominations. Pass on the love folks!

That's it from me for the moment, except to say thank you so much to all who have been reading so far. I hope you'll continue, especially because I'm on the cusp of 1,000 pageviews (eeek) and there might just be a celebratory post in it for you if I get there!

Finally, one last huge THANK YOU to stupidgirl for being so kind as to nominate little ol' me, a huge boost to my ego and a great encouragement to carry on writing. I made celebratory brownies yesterday and was planning to blog on them today, but it took me so long to compile 10 (well, 8) nominations that I'll have to leave it for tomorrow. So goodnight, dear readers, and get ready for some bakin' on the morrow.

Saturday 19 February 2011

Simple Onion Gravy for Sausages

We were going to have rack of lamb for supper tonight. I won't lie, I was seriously looking forward to cooking it, since rack of lamb, as well as being a bit flashy if you get it right, is one of the first things I learned when I was first taught to cook. There was definitely a bit of showing off on the horizon.

Well, karma got its own back: when we opened the pack, the lamb smelled absolutely putrid, despite being well within date (that's what you get for buying your meat vacuum-packed at Costco, folks). Sad faces all round. We'll have to have sausages instead.

Cue my onion gravy.

I made it up one day not so long ago (as far as you can 'make up' a recipe for onion gravy...) and since then it's become one of my staples. I eat sausage and mash a lot more often than I used to! It'll jazz up the saddest of bangers and it does wonders for your mash as well (I'm biased, I LOVE mash with gravy). Don't forget to salt your mash a lot more than you initially think you need to though - it's the difference between creamy spud joy and bland failure. But back to the gravy. The best thing of all is that it's as easy as pie. A lot easier, in fact. Pie can be quite complicated.

Here it is, then; not the most glamorous of recipes, but I bet you find it useful!

Ingredients
(for 3 or 4)

One medium onion, sliced
Olive oil
Port
Beef stock
Redcurrant jelly
Salt and pepper
The pan you cooked the suasages in

Method

While your sausages are cooking and your potatoes are boiling, pop the sliced onions in a frying pan with some olive oil (not too much though, kids) and leave them on a low heat to cook through and turn that lovely golden brown particular to the white onion when it's done just right. When your sausages are done, remove them from the baking tray or frying pan onto a serving dish. Put the pan on the stove on a high heat, pour in a really good slosh of port (about a wine-glass's worth, if not more) and de-glaze it (that's when you scrape away at the sticky its on the bottom until they all dissolve into the port).

Pour the port and sausage juices into the onion pan, and add around a pint of beef stock. Obviously, you all make your own delicious beef stock and only use that in your cooking, but if you didn't, stock cubes would be fine. Let the gravy simmer for a little while, then add the redcurrant jelly. Allow the whole thing to reduce gently for five or ten minutes (this is a good time to get your mash ready). Finally, taste, season, and serve up with your champion sausage and mash. Peas or maybe some buttered leeks are a good vegetable here.

Enjoy Good Old British Bangers and Mash with the Finest Onion Gravy.

Thursday 17 February 2011

Creamy Thyme and Aubergine Bake

A quickie for now, as this wasn't my recipe. It's from Nigel Slater's Tender Vol. I - which, by the way, is a brilliant option if, like me, you have occasional trouble letting such things as vitamins into your life. And for the herbivores out there, I don't think there is a cookery book I could more highly recommend for putting the veggies first.

Plug over. (I don't even get paid for this stuff.)

Firstly, a few notes about aubergines 
(mainly because they're cool)

There are about a million kinds of aubergine, ranging in colour from white through variagated to purple, in size from the tiny ones in Thai Green Curry to absolutely frigging massive, and in shape from long and skinny through round to big and bulbous.  NOT ONLY is it, technically speaking, a berry (thanks Wikipedia), it's also a close relative of tobacco. More importantly, aubergines are used in cooking all over the world, including Thailand, Turkey and the Middle East, France, Italy, and India.


Nigel will tell you all about salting aubergines in his recipe, and I'm pretty sure he knows best. Salting, by the way, is what you're supposed to do to take the bitterness out of vegetables like aubergines and courgettes, stop them from absorbing too much oil when fried, and improve their taste on cooking. You slice them up, stick them in a sieve, and pour over a load of table salt. Then you leave them for half and hour, and rinse it off again. There's a lot of talk recently about it being unnecessary to salt aubergines nowadays, because the types we grow now are much less bitter than the aubergines of yesteryear. My advice would be, if you're using those big purple aubergines they import to places like Tesco's, you're probably ok - they're not supposed to need salting. If you're using another kind, better safe than sorry and it won't do them any harm.

The Bake

Anyway, this bake is a lot of wonderful things all rolled into one, really. Its star player is the aubergine (eggplant to my American readers), one of my all-time favourite vegetables as it is, but here it's dressed up in its best and really made to shine. Aubergine is usually more friendly with tomatoes than with cream, but somehow in this recipe the thyme ties them together, and the parmesan seasons the whole bundle...and honestly I can't think of another vegetable dish I'd be as happy to serve as a main course!


That's another thing. Thyme. I must be about the only person in the world who feels that it's sometimes over-used (it is in my house, anyway...), but here, like the aubergine, it fits perfectly into its place and shows off like nobody's business! I'm sure you could use rosemary or another woody herb in its place, but it just wouldn't be the same.


Sadly, in the interests of avoiding prosecution for plagiarism I can't give you a straightforward recipe. In short, though, you cook off sliced onion, garlic and aubergine in a pan, layer them in a dish with thyme, salt and pepper sprinkled in there too, pour over a lot of cream, top with parmesan, and bake til it's hot through and golden-bubbly on top. God it's good.


This goes fantastically with things like beef and chicken, and last night we actually ate it with some breaded hake - I find hake is a pretty good blank slate for painting with flavours, so the creamy aubergines were definitely the star of the show that was yesterday's dinner. If you don't want it to upstage your main dish, serve it with something robust like maybe a flavoursome beef braise or a big, hearty stew. That said, it can also take centre-stage if you want it to. I for one have been picking at the leftovers from the fridge all day, which includes having it for lunch.

In conclusion:

Aubergines are very cool vegetables, and utterly delicious. You should eat lots of them, starting with the Creamy Bake and working out from there. Have fun with aubergines. Thank you and goodnight.

Friday 11 February 2011

'One-Tray' Chicken and Potatoes

A fairly quick roast chicken number which I knocked together for supper last night. It's pretty simple, but turns out delicious with gravy and some fresh vegetables, or even just frozen peas if you're feeling lazy. The secret is the lemon - I always include a lemon with my roast potatoes, it does something mysterious and delicious to them which I may not understand, but still can't get enough of. Lemon goes fantastically with a roasting chicken as well. In addition, putting chicken and potatoes in the same tray lets the roasties absorb some of the chicken's flavour while they cook, which makes for extra-delicious potatoes.

Straight on to the recipe today - there's not a lot of extra chatter needed about roasting a chicken I think.


Ingredients
(for 3-4)

One large whole chicken
Five medium-sized potatoes suitable for roasting - King Edwards and Maris Pipers both roast well and are easy to get your hands on
Whole head of garlic
Big handful of whole fresh rosemary stems (don't use dried, just leave it out if you can't get a hold of it)
A whole lemon, fairly large
Knob of butter
Generous splash of olive oil

Method

First off, peel your potatoes and chop to the size you like your roasties. I make mine slightly smaller than instinct tells me, as they're more likely to get nice and crispy in the chicken's cooking time.

Splash some olive oil into a large roasting tin, arrange the rosemary in the centre and make sure it's coated in oil, then settle the chicken on top of the rosemary. Scatter the potatoes around the edges of the tray. Chop the garlic head in half, then break off the individual half-cloves and scatter them over and around the potatoes and chicken. rub a couple over the chicken, and if you like stuff a few into its cavity. Separate your knob of butter into three pieces - one for the cavity of the chicken, and two to balance on or rub over its back. Finally, chop the lemon in half, then half again, and squeeze each quarter over the potatoes and chicken. Drop the squeezed-out rind into each corner of the tray. Now pop the whole thing into a medium oven, around 180 C.


That's the hard part over - all you need to do now is to wait for it all to cook. This will take at least an hour, probably more, and even up to two depending on the size of your chicken and the strength of your oven. Keep checking it regularly, and if the chicken's not browning properly you can turn up the oven to high for ten minutes to get it going. 


It's obviously important to cook your chicken through, to avoid infections like salmonella which are present in raw chicken. To check, stick a knife or skewer into the thickest part of the bird. If the juice which comes out is clear, rather than pink, it's cooked through. You'll be able to see if the meat isn't done when you carve the bird anyway - it should be opaque and a fairly pure white colour - if it's pale pink or at all translucent, you might consider giving it another few minutes in the oven. It gets easier to tell as you become more experienced.


When your chicken is finally done, the potatoes will probably still need a while to finish cooking. This is fine - lift out the chicken from the tray, pop it in a serving dish, cover with some tinfoil and leave in a warm place to rest. All meat needs 'resting' after cooking - it basically means keeping the meat warm but leaving it for a while before eating, which allows the proteins in the meat to relax and distributes the juices more evenly, leading to a juicier and more tender mouthful when you come to eat.


When you remove the chicken, give the pan a good shake to agitate the potatoes and mix the rosemary in more evenly. If you're making gravy, you'll also want to carefully tip the juices from the meat into a separate container for use in a sec, and sprinkle a bit more olive oil over the potatoes to make up for the lost fat.


While the potatoes are finishing off, in a hotter oven if they have a long way to go, you can cook your vegetables - frozen peas are quick, and broccoli is supposed to protect against some forms of cancer, so they'd be my choice. You can also make the gravy. Once the potatoes are done, you're ready to eat. Enjoy a nice roast dinner once in a while!


Finally: GRAVY for this chicken dish

My standard gravy for a chicken roast goes as follows: 

Either skim the fat off the chicken juices, or use one of those clever little separating jugs like this one to get to the good bits of dripping and discard the bad. Put the good bits (the liquid that sinks to the bottom when you leave the juice to sit for 5 minutes, while the fat sits on top) into a saucepan, add a tablespoon of flour, and stir vigorously with a whisk over a low heat until it's all combined. Then pour in about a pint of chicken stock (homemade is best, of course, but Knorr stock cubes are a good substitute if you've run out), whisking all the time. Add a glass of red wine, and leave to simmer gently for five minutes. Taste and season. You can add a spoonful of redcurrant jelly if you like a sweeter sauce, but otherwise that's it. Not too hard, and way better than Bisto!
 

Tuesday 8 February 2011

Risotto!

General chatter:

I LOVE a good risotto. By which I don't mean basmati rice overcooked with some sad looking peas added, but a proper Italian-style dish with arborio rice or similar, which takes time and attention to get right. Once you've got the basics of a dish like that, it'll repay you a thousand times by acting as a delicious blank slate on which you can draw up the exact meal you feel like eating. It's reliable in its basic ingredients, which are almost all things you have lying around in the average kitchen, and in its timing - my risottos always take at least 40 minutes, and never more than an hour. It's great as a starter or a main, if you're eating alone or with friends. If you haven't already, I hope you'll give risotto a good couple of tries, and come to love it every bit as much as I do.

A light risotto makes a lovely lunch, say with crayfish, crab, chilli and coriander (I ate this while out for lunch last week, and it was fantastic). A big bowl of risotto with bacon (pancetta if you've got it) and peas, liberally sprinkled with parmesan shavings, is my best friend when I'm curled up in front of the telly with a glass of white wine after a long day. Somehow it feels like more of an achievement than spaghetti and tomato sauce, although it takes about the same amount of effort (if maybe a touch more time in the kitchen)!

For a big dinner, I always think risotto makes a stylish accompaniment to your main dish - if you're sick of potatoes as a side, give risotto a go. Try something like thyme and wild mushroom risotto with lamb, perhaps, or a chilli-based one with asian braised pork belly. Pork belly's very trendy at the minute too, and it's quite a cheap cut. If you're serving your risotto as a side dish, it might be best to dole it out yourself - and think 'less is more'. You want the risotto to be a partner to your meat or main dish in this instance, rather than the main event - although, of course, it can certainly hold its own as a centrepiece if necessary. Try serving it in a roasted, scooped-out half of butternut squash.

Pre-cooking risotto (for dinner parties) 

Another little tip, which I learned from the Food Guru, is that you can actually part-make risotto in advance. PLEASE bear in mind when I say this that I don't mean days in advance - if you leave rice for too long before re-heating and eating it, it can harbour various very nasty little stomach bugs, which anyone who's picked at an ill-advised morning-after Chinese will vouch for. They don't just stop at a dodgy tummy either, and your life is (hopefully) worth more than a couple of grains of rice.

Bleak warning over.

Anyway, to pre-cook risotto just do the basics the hour before your guests arrive rather than the hour after they get there, when you're busy trying to be a star hostess (or host...). Make up the basic recipe (which I'll stick below in a bit - apologies to all who know it back to front, some people aren't so lucky!) to the point where the rice has nearly absorbed enough stock, which you'll know by tasting and feeling the hardness of the rice in your mouth. 

So you've got your risotto base and any other extra bits ready, and when zero hour comes you just need to mix it all together and reheat, adding extra stock and a bit of wine if necessary: it tends to thicken as it cools. You can do that after you've seated your guests, and they'll all be SO impressed that you whipped up a risotto by magic in five minutes.

Enough chatter. Here's a basic recipe, with tips on how to start making alterations:

Ingredients
(For one)

A small onion
Risotto rice - three small handfuls for a generous serving. Or three big handfuls, if you have small hands... Remember that it increases 3x in size while it cooks. Arborio rice is the easiest to get your hands on, I'm pretty sure they sell it in Tesco!
Glass of white wine
Stock - 500ml or so. The type depends on your flavours - chicken for a risotto involving chicken or other pale meats, vegetable for vegetarian risotto. I've never heard of risotto with beef stock before, but I suppose you could try it...
Grated cheese - cheddar is ok, but parmesan or really nice peccorino is best.
Salt and pepper


Method

This method will make you the absolute blank canvas of risottos. To alter them, you just put whatever ingredients you're adding in the following categories, and add them when I mention that category in the recipe. A lot of things, including all meat and vegetables like butternut squash, which makes a fantastic risotto by the way, need pre-cooking - just cook then however you like them most.

Category 1. Hard-stemmed herbs (thyme, rosemary, any whole or freshly-ground spices); onion-style ingredients (garlic and chilli are the most common here)

Category 2. Herbs which can be tough (mint is the main one, as it needs a bit of extra cooking time. Possibly also tarragon is you use it, but add some chopped leaves at the end too); dried herbs (All of them. But please don't use them if you can help it, they're honestly gross); vegetables which barely need any cooking (frozen peas, which you can add straight from the freezer by the way; spinach)

Category 3. Pre-cooked additions (pieces of chicken, beef, pork, fish or shellfish, vegetables with a long cooking time or which you want to roast before adding - No1 here is butternut squash, which makes a yummy risotto when oven-roasted in small chunks and added last-minute); soft herbs (for mixing through; examples are coriander, parsley (lovely!), dill)

Category 4. Finishers (a knob of butter just before serving makes it nice and shiny; some cheese, preferably shavings of parmesan or peccorino, is essential, either mixed through or scattered on top - or both; fresh herbs to scatter on top for a nice final presentation)


Bearing all that in mind (phew!), here's your basic method:

Finely chop the onion to about the same size as your grains of rice. Don't panic, it can be bigger if it must be. Sweat the onion and any ingredients from Category 1 in some butter or olive oil until softened and translucent. By this point your stock should also be ready and within reach. Add the rice, raise the heat a little, and mix around until all coated with the oil. Add the wine.

From now on, your rice is going to absorb liquid until it's cooked through, which will take around 40 minutes. During this time, don't just leave it to spoil, keep a close eye on it. For the next 40 minutes, this thing is your baby. Your job is to keep adding stock in small amounts, so that there's enough liquid there for the rice to absorb, but not so much that the risotto will be runny when it's finished absorbing. It shouldn't be swimming in liquid, but it shouldn't be sticking to the bottom of the pan either. It's a delicate balance and will probably be a bit scary the first time, but you'll get the hand of it!

The mixture will thicken gradually as the starch in the rice cooks. Just how thick it should be is up to you - various different regions of Italy have their own traditions. My favourite way of describing traditional risotto is "all'onda", which literally means 'like a wave' - the risotto should make little waves on the plate as you tip it up. This is traditionally achieved by adding cold butter and cheese at the end of cooking, but you don't need to worry too much about that with this basic recipe.

The most important thing is to keep on tasting. You know how pasta is best al dente, with just that touch of bite left in it? Well, when your risotto rice gets to al dente stage, it's about ten minutes before it's ready. This is the time to add your Category 2 ingredients. Be very careful with stock from now on - do add if it needs it, but beware of adding too much at once. If you do, you'll end up with rice soup, not risotto.

This point - just on al dente - is also the time to remove your risotto from the heat if you're pre-preparing it. Carry on from this point in the recipe later, once you've brought your pan back up to heat. You may need to add a little wine or stock to loosen it up a bit if you've let it cool.

When the rice reaches the texture you like best, add your Category 3 ingredients (they should be at room temperature, don't add chicken and so on straight from the fridge) and combine, cooking for a minute more just to heat them through and allow the flavours to combine.

Cheese, salt and pepper, and any Category 4 ingredients in, and serve straight away, topped with more cheese. Even the plain risotto needs some cheese stirring through before serving, and make sure you check your seasoning before you finish cooking.

With the babble removed, that's:
'cook chopped onions, rice in, stir, wine in, stir lots and add stock slowly (c.40 minutes), finish with cheese and seasoning.' 
That simple. When you've sorted that out, you'll have all the wonderful world of risotto at your fingertips. 

Happy exploring!

Friday 4 February 2011

Marmalade!

As anyone with an interest in preserving fruit or making jam will know, late December to early February is Seville orange season. It's not a long one, but Seville oranges are very important for one simple reason - they're the variety used to make the very best marmalade. My marmalade-making session has lasted for four days now, and to celebrate finishing those lovely sticky orange jam jars, I'm treating you all to a marmalade extravaganza.

Classic marmalade is a preserve made with Seville oranges, which are not usually used for eating because of their bitter taste and thick peel. A traditional marmalade contains prepared, softened orange peel, sliced into pieces. The thickness of the pieces varies depending on the type of marmalade, and each thickness has a different effect, so that a thick cut marmalade is often more bitter and caramel-tasting, whereas a thin cut marmalade is lighter and has a more fruity scent.

These days, though, marmalade goes far beyond the tradition orange version, and now it's pretty much of a case of anything goes (as long as 'anything' means a citrus-based preserve...) You can have marmalade made from other varieties of oranges (sweet oranges, blood oranges, tangerines...); lemons and limes; even grapefruit. As long as it's a citrus fruit, you can make it into marmalade. You can also add all sorts of exciting bits and pieces, from spices and extra flavourings (cardamom, vanilla...) to the spirit of your choice (whisky is a good one to start with). You can mix your fruits together as well, although it might take a while or a good recipe to get the ratios right for the best flavour.

Despite all this excitement and variety, and purely because it's Seville season, I stuck to a traditional base for my marmalades. I made two batches, one plain and one a bit...experimental. To the latter, I added all the ginger in the house (which turned out to be one 5cm stem, a bit manky round the edges...) and a few star anises. I've called it 'Medium Cut Seville Orange Marmalade with Star Anise and a Hint of Ginger'. Catchy,I know.

Just as there are a million varieties, there are a million million recipes even for a traditional marmalade. I didn't go for anything too flashy, just one that caught my eye from my Ballymaloe cookbook. It begins with whole oranges, which are washed thoroughly then cooked before being sliced and cooked again with sugar and juice to make the marmalade. The alternative method is to slice the orange peel first, then cook the marmalade, again in two stages. Either way, however, it's vital that the peel is soft before you add sugar for the second stage of cooking, as once the sugar is added the peel won't soften any more, and you can end up with nasty hard bits in your marmalade.

Anyway, I can't give you an exact recipe as it's not mine, but here's a very rough breakdown of how it worked for me.

I'll give you the basic version first:

I had about 3kg of Seville oranges, and four lemons, which I used because they're very rich in pectin, so they'll help your preserve set well, and they add a nice hint of sharpness (although to really bring this out you need more than 4 lemons per 3kg of oranges!). These I washed, paying attention to any defects on the peel and trying to get rid of them - you're putting the peel in your mixture later on, so you don't want any unsightly dark patches or lumps spoiling the perfection of your jars.

Next up was to boil the whole oranges and lemons in plain water. I split them into two batches even at this early stage, frankly because it's impossible to fit 3kg of oranges plus water into one domestic saucepan, and I own some pretty big saucepans. So, per saucepan was 1.5kg oranges; 4 litres of water; and 2 lemons. You need to boil fast until they're soft, which for me took about 2.5 hours. The water will froth and rise up the pan like Satan's minions, before making a leap for freedom over the rim, thus rendering your stove stickier than it has ever been before and, if you're me, meaning you have to wash the kitchen from floor to ceiling after every batch. Watch out for this. It can be prevented by turning your hob down a little bit.

Sterilising shenanigans

Once you've boiled your oranges, you need to leave them in a warm place to cool, making sure you reserve the cooking liquid for later, and sterilise your jam jars to remove any bacteria which might feel like breeding in your nice sugary marmalade. Now, this can be easy, or it can be fraught with danger and excitement: it's up to you. I managed to come out of it just 5 jars down, and with only minor burns to the upper thighs, but you might not be so lucky. It's tempting to take what you think will be shortcuts, so take the following advice very seriously:


1. DO NOT TRY TO POUR BOILING WATER INTO A COLD JAR. It will explode and shower you with scalding water and broken glass. This is not even as fun as it sounds.

2. DO NOT PUT GLASS JARS INTO A VERY HOT OVEN. When you take them out they'll explode; if you try to pour marmalade into the survivors, these will also explode.

3: DO NOT POUR HOT MARMALADE INTO A COLD JAR. You guessed it. Explosion central.


Once you've cleared up the broken glass, water, and hot marmalade mixture from the floor a couple of times you should get the idea.

Now that we've all finished laughing at my shenanigans, here is the correct way to sterilise:

Put your jars in a large pan covered with water. Place on hob and bring to the boil. Boil for 5-10 minutes. Carefully remove jars and place in a warm (not hot) oven to dry. Make sure jars are still warm when potting the marmalade.

Ok? Do not deviate from these instructions. Trust me on this one.

...And on with the show

Right. So, after several hours and some injury time, I'd sterilised my jars and the oranges were well and truly cooled (you can leave them overnight at this point, by the way, although you need to keep your clean jars warm so it's best to do that bit just before you go into the second stage of cooking). This is the time for the mind-numbing bit, so I stuck on some BBC iplayer and got down to it. You have to scoop out the middle segmented bit and pips (but not the pith) from all the oranges and stick it in a muslin bag. Then you need to slice all the orange peel, as thickly or thinly as you like, and put peel, cooking liquid from before, and muslin bag full of orange innards back into your enormous saucepan. Once you've brought this lot to the boil, it's time to add the sugar; I used 3.3kg per batch (ie per 1.5kg of oranges).

I know. I think it's an insane amount too. But those oranges are seriously bitter and you need to balance that out.

I stirred the mixture until the sugar had all dissolved - you can tell, because that grainy feel goes away as you stir - then brought it to a fast boil (again, not on the very hottest setting, though, because it'll overflow the saucepan otherwise) and let it bubble away.

What you're looking to achieve at this point is a set, and it's a bit of a difficult thing to measure. Every few minutes, take a tiny spoonful of your mixture out of the hot pan and pop it on a cool plate. When it's cooled, if you push it with your finger and the skin wrinkles up, that's a set. Don't worry if it's all hideously confusing when you first start testing; you'll get there, whether it takes hours or no time at all. Also, I re-boiled my star anise marmalade after it had cooled because it seemed a bit runny, and it didn't seem to do any harm - the set improved the second time. I'm not sure you'd do this if you were a purist, but for me it worked fine!

Once you've achieved your set, you just transfer your marmalade mix into a jug with a ladle (or pour, if you can manage without spilling it!) and pour from the jug into the warm jars, trying to keep a consistent ratio of peel to liquid in each jar. Then all you have to do is wait for it to set fully, maybe giving a gentle stir from time to time to help distribute the peel evenly. Voila! Your very own marmalade!

Ginger and Anise Marmalade:

For the ginger and anise marmalade, simply dice some ginger very finely (I used 33g, but to be honest if you've got more I'd put it in, a hint of ginger isn't really enough!) and add it, along with 4 or 5 star anise, at the stage when the oranges are boiled whole.  Make sure you remove the anise before you add the sugar.

Last but not least, a couple of things to do with your sticky orange friend:

  • Obviously, spread it on the best bit of toast you can lay your hands on.
  • Remember the Christmas Ham (I'm sure you do). 
  • Spread on some thinly baked sponge cake, roll up, and serve warm like an orange Arctic Roll.
  • Make it chunky, with demerara sugar, and dip sausages in it.
  • Have a spoonful with some vanilla ice cream and good quality chocolate sauce.
  •  Spread it on top of an orange cake (like lemon drizzle, but with orange juice). Or, hide a spoonful or two at the bottom of your usual cake mix.
  • Add a spoonful to gravy for gammon or duck.
  • Make little pastry tartlet cases and fill them with marmalade before baking (good one for the kids).
  • Use to glaze some chicken and cook on a bbq or in the grill pan. 
  • Make bread and butter pudding, but with marmalade as well.
  • Try it with a savoury mature cheese like cheddar, brie, or goat's cheese.
  • Pick out bits of chunky peel for a sneaky sugar hit.

Ok, it's not the quickest thing in the world to make, but if you set aside a Sunday to dedicate to the Seville orange, I don't think you'll regret it. It's pretty therapeutic watching the stuff bubble away; you can catch some TV while you slice the peel; and best of all, there is almost no feeling more virtuous than tucking into your very own homemade marmalade for breakfast. Think how proud your mum would be.

Saturday 29 January 2011

Lemon, Bacon and Parsley Pasta

Greetings, dear followers. Back again after the usual long absence, and today, on my first evening home, I thought I'd knock together an easy supper. I'm not entirely sure where the idea for this first came from, but it combines some of my favourite ingredients. It's a dish I often turn to when the idea of pasta appeals, but a heavy cream or tomato sauce doesn't. It has the added benefit of being super-easy. And tasting good.

Ingredients
(for one)

Pasta for one - my favourite kind is fusilli, the twisty ones (named after rifle barrels, by the way), of which you need about three handfuls for a fairly generous serving. Spaghetti is next favourite, and to measure that you bunch it together in your hands and allow a bunch about the size of a one penny piece (or a little bigger) per person.
Three rashers of bacon
Olive oil
One clove of garlic
Juice of just under half a lemon
Glass, or just over, of white wine
Around a tablespoon of chopped parsley (PLEASE don't use dried, it honestly tastes like dead grass. You're better off using none if you can't get it fresh. You could substitute for a different herb as well)
A tiny splash of cream if you feel like it
Salt and pepper to season


Method

First, cook off the bacon however you like it best and set it aside to cool off a bit. If you're a veggie (or even if you're not, actually), I think pine nuts would be kind of yummy with this dish as the sauce is almost like a hot salad dressing anyway, so it builds on the 'pasta-based salad'. You can leave the bacon out, although I think it brings something nothing else really can. I also thought about the uses of halloumi cheese here - it would make the dish richer, but the lemon juice might help cut through that. If you wanted to use halloumi, you'd coat it in seasoned flour and fry it off until golden brown, then add it at the point in the recipe where the bacon goes in. 

Right, the bacon should have cooled off a bit by now, so tear it up into bitesize chunks. This is the kind of pasta you can eat with just a fork as you crouch like a praying mantis over the latest episode of Glee.


Now set some water on a high heat to boil for your pasta, with a generous pinch of salt added. While you wait for it to come to the boil, crush and finely chop the garlic and chop the parsley ready to add later. When the water's boiling, add the pasta. 


In a separate, smaller pan, put a splash of olive oil and the chopped garlic, and cook over a medium heat for a minute or two until the garlic softens and the oil begins to bubble a bit. At this point, add the lemon juice and white wine. 

Just a quick note about the lemon juice. You're about to reduce the wine, garlic and juice mixture, which will boil off some of the water and intensify all the flavours. One thing I've found is that if you add too much lemon juice, it can begin to taste too strongly sour, so go reasonably easy with that lemon half. If it does mess up on you, a good way to rectify the situation is with a spoonful of cream and judicious seasoning.


The next bit is easy: keep an eye on the pasta and the lemon and wine mix as they bubble away. You don't want the pasta to overcook or the sauce to reduce right away; if the first looks like happening, drain it; if the second, lower the heat and add a little water or a bit more wine if necessary. Once both pasta and sauce are cooked (the sauce should hopefully be ready first), drain the pasta and pop it back in the pan. Add the sauce, bacon, chopped parsley and a splash of cream if you feel like it. Stir it all in and season to taste. Instant supper. 

Ok, almost instant. 

Thursday 20 January 2011

Fruit Stuffing Balls (for Roast Pork?)

Another little job for the Anonymous Bystander today. She's having a lunch party fairly soon and has pre-prepared some delicious-looking roast pork to serve (I helped by means of sitting in the kitchen while it cooked, watching 4OD and occasionally basting it). This was yesterday evening, and today she asked me to make the fruity little balls of stuffing which are part of the recipe and which are served with the pork dish.

The stuffing is simple as anything to make, and you can use it either to stuff a joint of pork to roast (as the name suggests...) or just roll it into balls and pop it in a roasting tin with the meat, whether you cook it from scratch (in which case, add the balls about halfway through the pork's cooking time) or reheat it all together on the day. It takes very little time to put together, just as little time to cook, and tastes great.

Unfortunately, the recipe I worked from today isn't mine so I can't reproduce it for you here - it's in the Farmer's Market Cookbook by Ysanne Spevack, previously marketed as Organic Cookbook, if anyone's interested in finding it. I'll write a little about my experience of cooking this recipe, though.

Incidentally, I've had a question about including some vegan recipes on the blog. Well, I'm a very carniverous kind of a gal, so vegan doesn't come easy to me, but today's recipe is at least vegetarian (although obviously you'll be eating it without the roast pork...). If you leave out the eggs and don't mind yeast from the breadcrumbs, then you could make it vegan. The egg's role here is to bind the ingredients together into quite a gooey mixture, so for a vegan cook I suppose I would suggest finding another binding agent - maybe a sticky fruit puree. You could try using extra dates and apricots, and blending them so they'd stick the rest of the ingredients together. That's just an idea though, not tried and tested advice!

It also occurs to me that although I've used this stuffing as an accompaniment to a roast meat, it might make an equal, if not greater, impact as a centrepiece, say a sort of (dare I say it?) fruit-based 'nut roast'. You could add in your favourite nuts, pulses or seeds (cooked if necessary), maybe some cheese (for the veggies not the vegans), maybe even coat it in breadcrumbs and fry it like a chicken nugget. I'd be very interested to know what any of my veggie/vegan readers think about that. Please feel free to comment!

On to methods, then. You need a couple of leeks, a handful of dried apricots, one and a bit (or just two) of dried dates (no stones), four handfuls of fresh breadcrumbs, two eggs (FREERANGE please boys and girls, you don't even want to know what they do to those battery hens), half a handful of thyme (fresh is best, but I used dried today because we were out of the good stuff), and some olive oil, salt and pepper.

Everything needs chopping fairly finely, and the eggs need beating. Keep the leeks separate while you chop, but everything else can go in a bowl together. I sweated the leeks in a saucepan, and I also added the dried thyme at this point because it's a lot tougher than the fresh stuff and I thought it could do with an extra shot of heat to release the flavour (if there is any flavour in dried herbs, which I sometimes wonder). The leeks need to be nice and soft, then you literally stick all the rest of your ingredients into the pan with the leeks and give it a good old mix-up until it all comes together. It should almost look like a dough.

Incidentally, if you have any leftover breadcrumbs at this stage the best thing to do is to put them into a warmish place (eg, a low oven) until they're totally dried out, and then seal them in a sterile jar. They'll keep in your store cupboard for a surprisingly long time.

I scooped up smallish handfuls of my 'dough' and rolled them into little balls between my hands, then set them on some magic paper (it's awesome stuff, like a replacement for greaseproof) on a baking tray, covered with clingfilm and left them in the fridge for the Anonymous Bystander.

When it comes to her dinner party, she can leave the tray out for an hour or so to bring to room temperature, then pop it in a hot oven, 200 or so degrees, for 10-20 minutes. If you're cooking pork you can add the balls to the roasting tin with the meat, and I guess if you're doing it vegetarian stylee you should add any extra ingredients you fancy at the 'mixing' stage, then bake the stuffing - you can make it into any shape you like, obviously, so if you want a 'loaf' or similar go for it - in the oven as described above. The other idea I mentioned, about maybe breading and frying the balls of stuffing, should also be carried out at this stage if you wanted to try it. I'd love some feedback if anybody has a go.

Hope you enjoy today's dish, everybody. Get stuffing!

Monday 17 January 2011

Toby's BLT

A crunchy classic from that budding new cook, my boyfriend. This is definitely and absolutely the perfect bacon sandwich ever. I've called it a BLT in the title above, but this is in fact a blatant lie, because there's not a T in sight, and very little L. All you lads with hangovers out there - this one's for you.

Ingredients
(For 1)

2-3 rashers of bacon
2 slices of bread
English mustard (Colman's is my favourite)
Mayonnaise
Ketchup
Some lettuce, iceburg for preference

Recipe

It's a pretty simple one, let's face it, but the beauty is in the detail.

Cook off the bacon - in a frying pan is best, rather than on a tray in the oven, because you can keep an eye on each individual slice and make sure it's done to perfection. Fry it just as you like it - for me, the fat absolutely has to be crispy, and the meat pinkish with a lovely golden-brown crust.

While you're cooking the bacon, you need to prepare the rest of the sandwich. Lay out your two pieces of bread, and spread one with mayonnaise and the other, fairly thinly, with mustard. Put as much lettuce as you can handle (so in the case of my brother, about half an inch square) on the mayo side, and, when your bacon's ready, put it on the mustard side so the bread is well covered. Squeeze some ketchup over the bacon: again, the amount will depend on you, so if you're my brother you may need several bottles. Slap the bacon side (quickly, or it'll all fall off...) onto the lettuce side, slice in half, and chow down.

Tuesday 11 January 2011

New Year's Catch-up: A Hollandaise Bonanza

Apologies for another hugely delayed entry - a combination of New Year, flu, and a weekend cooking job. Here, therefore, is the post which you should have had round about New Year's Day...my contribution to our big bash at home: Hollandaise (and Bearnaise) Sauce.

Hollandaise Sauce


Hollandaise sauce is probably one of the most offputting of challenges for the amateur cook. It can curdle at the drop of a hat, and if you're anything like me your hand gets hideously tired holding that bowl over a pan of simmering water. Annoyingly, as well as being the most difficult, Hollandaise, along with its close cousin Bearnaise, is one of the most delicious of sauces. The former is wonderful with fish or vegetables, most famously asparagus; the latter is, to my mind, almost indispensible with a good steak and chips. 

Down to recipes, then. The classic hollandaise method is the one most at risk of splitting; Delia Smith's Foaming Hollandaise is a much less risky option; I use another recipe altogether. Mine is totally reliable, and originates from one by a friend of my mother's who runs cookery demonstrations: find her here. It's even more of a cheat than Delia's, since it uses creme fraiche, which has nothing whatsoever to do with a traditional hollandaise, as its main ingredient. It might not stand up in a direct 'sauce-to-sauce' comparison, but it tastes very, very similar to the classic version and is just as delectable with the same basic food groups. 


Hollandaise is one of my absolute favourite things to eat, and in the hope that you'll end up as obsessed with it as I am, I'm going to treat you to a little info about the traditional method of making it before I let you in on my secret cheat's recipe. 


Hollandaise sauce is an emulsion, like mayonnaise, only warm rather than cold. Most traditionally, this emulsion is formed by whisking egg yolk and acid such as vinegar or lemon juice over a low heat - use a saucepan of water, hot, but not even close to boiling, and put the egg etc in a bowl over this. You need to hold the bowl up rather than resting it on the pan, as you don't want the heat too strong. When the egg mixture is pale and creamy, you start to add butter - either melted butter, which you add very slowly on the heat, whisking constantly; or cubes of cold butter, which you add one at a time off the heat, again whisking constantly. In the latter method, acid is omitted from the recipe until the emulsion has formed, when lemon juice is added to taste. 

These methods are for some reason usually considered the superior ones, particularly in professional kitchens: probably because they're more longstanding and traditional, and call for a steady nerve and some skill in the kitchen. They are both do-able, don't get me wrong, but there are several downsides, especially for the nervous or inexperienced cook. Your hands will get tired from whisking and holding up the bowl, which, incidentally, will get a bit hot, more and more greasy from your buttery fingers, and therefore harder and harder to hold. You'll panic because the butter isn't combining properly. You'll over- or under-heat the mixture, both of which are bad - too hot, and the egg will curdle; too cool, and the butter won't melt and emulsify. And at the end of it all, the ghastly thing will curdle anyway and you'll have to run around whisking frantically and adding dashes of cold water (this does save it though, by the way). All in all, it's classic French-style cookery at its best...and it's a bit of a faff.


Slightly more friendly is the blender method, wherein the eggs are blended with acid rather than heated and whisked, and the melted butter is then poured in in a stream as you blend. It can still curdle, but it's less likely as you're not operating over direct heat. Like classic Hollandaise, that made by the blender method can be kept warm for a few hours in a thermos, or on the very edge of the aga if you have one. Delia Smith's Foaming Hollandaise - there's a link above to the recipe - is another method close to the original, but suggests whisking in stiff egg whites to stabilise the normally volatile sauce. She claims that it can then be made the day before, or even frozen and re-heated. However, I've generally found that even my cheat's Hollandaise is not at its best when cooled and re-heated, and with the ordinary sauce you run all the risks of curdling and so forth all over again.


Recipe (The Cheat's Hollandaise)


So that, in what is admittedly a fairly large nutshell, is your traditional Hollandaise. Now for a grand finale, I'll take you through the very reliable cheat's method I used on New Year's Eve (we served it with some amazing rare beef fillet, by the way) and a couple of ways to play around with your new favourite sauce.


Ingredients:

(for 4)

A medium tub of creme fraiche (Tesco finest size, not normal Tesco size!) About 3 tbsp
Tbsp cornflour
2 egg yolks
Small splash of white wine vinegar
Even smaller splash (maybe two squeezes) of lemon juice
Pinch of salt
85g soft (but not melted) butter


Method:

Now you'll understand why this is great. So. Stick all your ingredients into a small saucepan and whisk together over a medium heat. Keep whisking until it begins to simmer, but don't let it boil. It will eventually thicken.

Once it thickens, take it off the heat and check the seasoning. Add more salt, lemon, vinegar if necessary. Incidentally, when increasing the quantities for this recipe careful with the vingear and lemon - you don't need quite the same ratio for more sauce, and I've added too much before. The sauce should taste creamy with a hint of a tang, but not like straight vinegar! Remember when you first add these flavourings that you can always add more at this second stage.


Now, while it's still off the heat, whisk in the butter. Yes, all of it at once. No, it won't go wrong. Done it? That's it. Job done. 


Here are some fun ways to use your Hollandaise:


Pour it over grilled or steamed asparagus
Eat it with steamed baby carrots
Eat with any white or mild fish
Dip in some salty french fries (my personal favourite)
Eat with rare beef fillet


And a couple of more complicated ones:


Make Bearnaise sauce: 
Use tarragon vinegar instead of white wine in the above recipe. If you don't have any, get some fresh tarragon and simmer gently it in some white wine vinegar to infuse. Stir in some chopped tarragon and/or chervil to the finished sauce. (NB: traditional Bearnaise also uses finely chopped and sweated shallots in the base before adding the butter, or even infuses these with the herbs and vinegar and then discards before adding the vinegar to the sauce. I think my version tastes wicked, and that omitting the shallots, while probably an insult to a purist, need not concern the everyday cook too urgently). Eat your Bearnaise with steak and chips or similar.


Make Eggs Benedict, Eggs Florentine, or Eggs Benedict Royale:
Eggs Benedict is a delicious and filling breakfast. Take half an English muffin, toast it, and set it on a plate and top with some slices of ham (fantastic use of your final shreds of the Christmas one, by the way), a poached egg (drop the egg, without shell, into swirling hot (but not boiling water) and cook. Or use one of those little poaching gadget jobbies), and a dollop of hollandaise on top. Utterly, utterly divine. I promise you, Eggs Benedict is God's answer to mornings.
Eggs Florentine is the same, but with spinach instead of ham - not my thing, but an excellent vegetarian alternative. Eggs Benedict Royale uses smoked salmon instead of the ham; a more luxurious version, great for those who like fish for breakfast (again, not me, but each to their own). Possibly more suited to a light lunch.


Finally:

 Hollandaise is the basis, or 'mother sauce' for a variety of French 'daughter' sauces - there's Bearnaise, as described above, but you can also create a multitude of alternatives by adding different flavourings and seaasonings to the very basic 'acid, butter, egg' combination. Famous versions include Dijon sauce, or Sauce Moutarde, which adds a couple of tablespoons of dijon mustard to the basic recipe, and sauce noisette, which uses clarified and browned (but not burned!) butter in place of the fresh butter of the original. As far as I know, most of these variations should be just as possible with the more stable recipe above as with the classic sauce. 


So there you are, Hollandaise explained. I really and truly am in love with this sauce, and I hope that after you've mastered your fears with the cheat's version, and maybe even had a go at the classic one if you're feeling brave (it can work, I promise; chefs wouldn't use it if it didn't) you will love it too.