Vinaigrettes with Verve

Spring is sprung! The last week’s sunshine has really kick-started salad season for me – quick and easy, prefect for a hot day, and best of all, you can tailor it to your craving of the moment. Salad leaves, pulses, rice or pasta, nuts, meat, fish, and a whole rainbow of vegetables – the choice of salad ingredients is almost endless. But for me what really sets the seal on a great salad is the dressing. Forget those sad shop-bought ones with their added lecithin and MSG: give me a home-crafted vinaigrette any day. Once you have the technique mastered it takes all of ten seconds, and with as many potential ingredients for the vinaigrette as there are for the salad itself, you can really stamp some personality on your very own house dressing. 

All about emulsions...

In essence, a simple vinaigrette is the most basic of all salad dressings: it’s an emulsion of oil and vinegar, seasoned with salt. An emulsion is essentially a mixture of two substances which don’t ordinarily mix, such as oil and water. The mixture of these substances is achieved by agitating them (if you whisk together oil and water, for example, they will eventually mix). As you whisk together the oil and vinegar when making your vinaigrette, the vinegar is broken up into tiny droplets which are suspended in the oil. Because vinegar is water-based, it doesn’t like being mixed with oil and will try to run together into larger droplets, and eventually one big pool of vinegar. This is what’s happening when you leave your vinaigrette for a while and it begins to separate. Luckily though, all that’s needed turn it back into a full emulsion is a bit of whisking or a good shake.

Why we love mustard

I like to keep my vinaigrettes in a sealed container like a bottle or jam jar, so that I can shake them up just before using them and don’t have to worry about them splitting. Another way of keeping your vinaigrettes emulsified for longer is to add a stabilizer. This essentially keeps the vinegar suspended in the oil for longer before it starts to separate, leading to a longer-lasting dressing. A commonly used commercial stabiliser is lethicin, which is also found naturally in egg yolks – that’s the reason why mayonnaise, which is also an emulsion, doesn’t split as quickly as vinaigrette.

However, a much better stabiliser to use in your dressing is mustard, which holds it together just long enough for you to linger lovingly over your salad, but not so long that it never splits at all (a trait of commercially-made dressings which I’ve always found faintly sinister). I’ve included mustard in the recipe below because its stabilising properties are useful and I love the flavour it brings to my dressings. However, you can leave it out if you like without causing yourself too many problems. 

Some other things

I’ve given a really basic recipe for vinaigrette here, which makes enough to fill your bottle or small jar and cover your salads for weeks to come. Then underneath, there’s a whole list of yummy things to add to this base mixture, to make the vinaigrette your own. Please note that if you keep your vinaigrette in the fridge the oil will solidify after an hour or two: just leave it at room temperature for a bit before you next use it. The amount of oil and vinegar in the dressing should mean it’s pretty safe from bacteria even if you keep it at room temperature – the oil stops them from getting any oxygen and the acidic pH of the vinegar kills them too. Hooray!

Basic Vinaigrette

Makes 400ml

Ingredients

100ml white wine vinegar

300ml oil (Olive oil or a neutral oil such as rapeseed)

1 tsp Mustard or mustard powder

Salt and pepper

Method

Whisk the mustard into the vinegar and add a sprinkling of salt and pepper. Very slowly pour the oil into the vinegar mixture, whisking hard all the time to emulsify the oil into the dressing. The finished dressing should all be the same thick texture and all the oil should be fully incorporated. Once it’s done, taste it and adjust the seasoning to your liking. Then pour over a lovely salad and enjoy!

NB: for a ‘split’ vinaigrette, one in which the oil is not fully emulsified with the vinegar, just pop all the ingredients in a bowl and give a few cursory blows with your whisk. Unlike a split hollandaise, a split vinaigrette is still delicious.

Lovely things to add to your vinaigrette

Balsamic vinegar: Add a teaspoon or two to the white wine vinegar base.

Chilli: Can be used in a thousand ways. Raw or cooked in a little oil; with seeds or without; added to the finished dressing or used to infuse the oil (see below). Using the seeds will make your vinaigrette spicier. Try using rice vinegar as a base, a mixture of equal parts sesame and rapeseed for the oil, and finishing with chilli and lime juice for an Asian-inspired dressing.

Chopped herbs: Parsley, chives and tarragon all add their own distinctive flavour and are lovely used separately or mixed. They’re great when the salad is accompanying steak or grilled chicken. Coriander gives a fresh flavour and goes well with chicken or fish dishes. Dill is of course brilliant with fish, especially salmon. Basil is just generally yummy, and great with some chopped tomato in a ‘split’ dressing (see below). Use fresh herbs (dried ones taste of nothing, except possibly dead grass) and you can add them when you mix the vinegar and mustard or stir them in at the end.

Chopped nuts: Walnuts, hazelnuts, pine nuts...the list is endless. Chop ‘em up and throw ‘em in. Especially good when used in conjunction with the corresponding nut oil (see below).

Chopped tomato: If you’re feeling finicky you can peel it first: cut a cross in the bottom and drop the whole tomato into boiling water for ten seconds, then drop it into cold water. The skin should peel right off. Cut the tomato into quarters, scoop out the seeds, and dice what’s left. Then stir it gently into your dressing. Also nice in a ‘split dressing’.

Flavoured oils: Nut oils such as walnut or hazelnut work very well and are popular in French cuisine. They are made by pressing the natural oil from the nut itself, so you can’t really make your own. Truffle oil, however, is made by infusing a neutral oil with truffle pieces, which you can do yourself if you can source the truffles. You can infuse any oil with herbs; add a sprig or two, heat it gently and leave it in a warm place for an hour or two. Chilli works here too.

Flavoured vinegars: The most common here is raspberry, but if you look around a bit you can find hundreds. You can also make your own by adding a sprig of your favourite herb or some crushed fruit to a standard store-bought white wine vinegar and sealing it tightly for a week or so. Just replace the white wine vinegar in the recipe with the flavoured vinegar of your choice.

Garlic: Crush one clove well (if you sprinkle it with table salt it’ll puree more easily under your knife) and add to the dressing to taste. For a deeper but milder flavour, cut the bottom off a whole head of garlic, wrap it in tinfoil and roast it for half an hour. Then squeeze out all the little cloves, pop them through a sieve, and stir the resulting yummy goo into your finished vinaigrette.

Honey and grainy mustard: Pretty simple really. Use a good squirt of runny honey and a good-quality wholegrain mustard instead of the plain one. Add to the vinegar when you start the dressing.

Lemon juice: Use instead of vinegar (with equal parts lemon juice to oil rather than 1:3) or add a squeeze to your finished dressing. Lovely with parsley, especially if you add a sprinkling of pine nuts to your salad. Also makes a lovely ‘split dressing’.

Shallots: Chop a few very finely and sweat them gently until they’re soft and translucent, or leave them raw for a sharper flavour. Stir them into the dressing at the end.

Sherry or cider vinegar: Use instead of white wine vinegar for a more refined flavour.

All the ingredients listed above can be combined in hundreds of different ways, and they’re only the beginning. Mix your favourites, add a few new ones, and really get creative. Salads will never be the same again!

A Truffle-y Treat for Mother's Day!

 

Today I’m off for a yummy Sunday lunch with my auntie and my Gran, at an undisclosed countryside location. It’ll be great to get out of London, and especially to be able to wish them both a very happy Mother’s Day! Sadly, I can’t be with my Mum – she’s at home back in the Bleak North – but I’ve already sent her some flowers and a card. I wanted to do something for my auntie and Gran as well though, and I thought that something home-made and cookery-related would be better than a shop-bought card. Of course, chocolate was the first thing that sprung to mind. The recipe for truffles below is great for any special occasion; don't forget Easter, that ultimate festival of all things chocolate-y, is just around the corner!

If you’re stuck for something to do for Mother’s Day, the clock is ticking, and all the florists and supermarkets are closed, I urge you: head to that local shop that’s still open on Sunday and buy a nice bar of chocolate, a tin of cocoa and a tub of cream. They’ll always see you through!

 But first, read on...

Some Interesting Science-y Stuff

No one knows why chocolate seems to exert such a fatal attraction over so many of us, although scientists have proposed that the taste of it raises levels of serotonin in the brain – the chemical associated with feelings of happiness. It’s a mysterious substance: it can appear in many different forms, from the cacao bean through to nibs, bars, drops, liquid and powder. To make it, manufacturers must go through a complex process which involves fermenting the harvested beans then extracting the ‘nib’ from the shell of the bean. Ground nibs form a liquid known as chocolate liquor; this is pure chocolate. It’s separated into cocoa butter and cocoa solids, which are then blended by the manufacturer in varying ratios with other elements like sugar and milk to create their own brands of dark, white or milk chocolate.

Chocolate changes its state depending on what levels of heat it is subjected to, and in what order. In order to make chocolate couverture (the type of chocolate used by chocolatiers) set hard and shiny, they ‘temper’ it. By heating the chocolate to a certain temperature, then cooling it whilst stirring or agitating and then re-heating it to a slightly lower temperature, they can change the size of the crystals which form as the chocolate sets. Smaller crystals mean a glossy appearance, a firm set, and a crisp snap when the chocolate is broken. It’s very difficult to temper chocolate without the proper equipment and knowledge (you either need a tempering machine or a slab of marble and a lot of experience!), so in the recipes I’ve given here, I’ve made soft chocolate truffles which don’t need tempering. But I promise they’re just as delicious as hard chocolates!

All About Truffles (Mmmm...)

Truffles are so called because they look rather like the rare fungus of the same name which is often used in French cookery, particularly in higher-end restaurants. Although this association with an expensive and exclusive ingredient gives chocolate truffles an air of luxury and sophistication, they are actually very simple to make! The base mixture is a ganache, which is a name for chocolate which has been lightened and stabilised by adding another substance to it, usually cream. A standard ganache will use equal quantities of cream and chocolate, so however many grams of chocolate you have, just use the same number of millilitres of cream.

Once you’ve made your basic ganache, you can flavour it with various things and once the truffles are shaped you can roll them in lots of different coverings. The best bit of this is that you can personalise your truffles to match the favourite flavours of the person you’re making them for. I made three kinds for my auntie and Gran: coffee rolled in almond; vodka rolled in icing sugar (adventurous choice, I admit!); and rosewater and honey rolled in caster sugar. You can buy rosewater at some supermarkets or online; they also sell it at a store near me which specialises in Persian ingredients. I’ve included a couple of other suggestions for flavourings and toppings below.

The Easy Option

If you think truffles are beyond you I have two things to say to you: first of all, they’re not! Believe in yourself! Secondly, I can tell you from experience that the old chocolate-dipped strawberry or coffee bean never goes amiss: just melt the chocolate, hold the strawberry by the green hull or the coffee bean between two forks, dip them in and leave them to set in the fridge on some greaseproof paper.

One Final Thing

When melted, chocolate mustn’t be subjected to sudden changes in heat, otherwise it will ‘sieze’ or ‘split’ and become unworkable. When heating it over hot water, it’s important not to allow any of the water to get into the chocolate for the same reason.

And now, down to the good stuff...

Ingredients

Ganache:

150g best quality dark chocolate

150ml cream

25g butter (unsalted is best)

Flavourings:

 Either:

20ml rum, Cointreau or other alcohol

OR

30ml very strong coffee

OR

30ml rosewater and/or 1 tbsp honey

OR

Zest of 1 orange/lemon and 1 tbsp juice

Coverings:

Flaked or chopped almonds, toasted until golden brown

OR

Cocoa powder

OR

Sugar: icing, caster or demerara

OR

Ground or chopped pistachios

OR

Melted chocolate

Method

 Put the cream and butter in a large mixing bowl and heat it gently, stirring, over a pan of hot water until the butter is completely melted and the cream begins to steam slightly. There is no need to boil the cream.

Break the chocolate into pieces and add it to the cream. Remove the bowl from the heat and stir the cream until it melts in. The best thing to stir it with is a spatula, but a wooden or metal spoon will do. If the mixture gets too cool and the chocolate isn’t melting, put it back over the hot water, but make sure no water gets into the mixture – it can make the chocolate ‘spilt’, which is when it goes hard and unworkable. Once it splits, there’s no going back, so be careful!

When all the chocolate is melted and thoroughly mixed into the hot cream, add your chosen flavouring and stir it in thoroughly. Put the mixture in the fridge and leave it to cool. This will probably take a couple of hours, but stirring the mixture over a bowl of ice can speed up the process. Bear in mind that if you use alcohol for your flavouring the ganache will take longer to set.

While the ganache mixture is cooling, prepare your coverings. Toast the almonds if you’re using them. If you wanted chopped almonds but could only get flaked, you can toast them until they’re a bit crunchy then bash them up in a pestle and mortar or with a rolling pin. If you’re using chocolate, melt it over a pan of hot water, remembering about not letting any water get near the chocolate itself: it is much more liable to split when not mixed with cream. Leave the chocolate in the bowl and keep it warm. For all toppings except the chocolate, just spread out a thick layer on a plate. 

Now for the messy bit! Wash and dry your hands thoroughly, then, once the ganache is cooled, take a piece as large as you want your truffle to be and roll it into a sphere with your hands. Some people find that coating their hands with a layer of neutral-flavoured oil, such as sunflower, stops it sticking as much; personally, find this makes it harder to shape the ganache. You can also shape the mixture between two spoons, or using a melon scoop (or an ice cream scoop for giant supertruffles!)

 As soon as you’ve shaped your truffles, roll them in your chosen covering. You may need two or three layers if you’re using sugar, especially icing sugar – some of the sugar will be absorbed by the chocolate. If you're using chocolate as a covering, gently spear a truffle on a cocktail stick, hold it over the bowl and spoon over chocolate until it's all covered. Then leave to set in the fridge on a lined tray.

Whatever your covering, put your truffles straight back in the fridge to set once they're done. They only need a little while before serving – just try not to let them get too warm, otherwise they get remarkably sticky! They’re best eaten on the day, but will keep for up to three days in the fridge.

That's all folks! I hope you have a truffle-y Mother’s Day!

Homemade Chicken Stock Cubes

 

I had a lovely roast chicken recently and, like any conscientious cook, I wanted to make stock from the leftovers. But there’s nothing more annoying than a freezer full of huge bags of stock that you'll never manage to use, especially if you just want a little bit and you end up having to defrost an entire ocean! So I used this clever trick to save myself some freezer space and a lot of hassle. Chicken stock might not sound like the most exciting of recipes, but I can promise you that from now on, you’ll be using this trick every time you roast a chicken. 

Essentially, once the stock is ready you remove the flavourings and reduce it to a strongly flavoured syrup, then freeze it in an ice cube mould. When you need some, you just pop a cube into boiling water, and you’ve got instant stock. It’s the same principle used in making industrial stock cubes, except that they dehydrate the original stock rather than reducing it, so that it forms a dry powder rather than a syrup, and can be pressed into cubes to be kept in your cupboard. And, of course, they put a lot more artificial flavours and colours into their mixture, whereas yours will be completely homemade; nothing will go into it that you didn’t put there yourself.

I’ve included the basic method for making stock below, as well as a more detailed explanation of the reduction and freezing. If you have your own favourite method, or flavourings you like to add which I haven’t included, just change the recipe to suit you. The reduction and freezing method works for other chicken, fish and veal stocks too. 

I’ve browned the chicken bones in this recipe, because I prefer the taste. This is technically known as a brown chicken stock; if you want to use the stock in light chicken, fish or vegetable dishes, you might prefer to make a white chicken stock, which uses the same method but without roasting the bones. White chicken stock tastes lighter and a little less rich.

Enough chatter now, and on to a recipe. 

Chicken stock cubes

Ingredients

1 chicken carcass, meat removed

1 carrot

1 onion

1 celery stem

10 black peppercorns

Bay leaf

Sprig of thyme

A parsley stem

Water

Method

Put the bones in the oven at 180° for around 10 or 15 minutes, or until they begin to brown up a bit.

Peel and roughly chop the carrot and onion, and wash and roughly chop the celery. Tie the herbs together with a piece of white, natural fibre string.

Pop the chicken in a large pan with all the vegetables, herbs and peppercorns. Cover with water so it comes to about 1-2cm over the highest point of the chicken.

Bring the pan to the boil. As it heats up you’ll need a bowl of cold water and a spoon. Scum and fat will rise to the surface as the liquid comes to the boil; carefully skim all of this off with the spoon, cleaning it in the cold water if necessary.

Once the liquid is boiling and there is no more scum rising, turn the heat down to a gentle simmer and allow to bubble quietly away for around 2 hours, and not more than three.

Once the stock is ready (give it a taste if you’re not sure – if you don’t think the flavour is strong enough, you can leave it to simmer a bit longer), drain out all the veg and chicken. RESERVE THE REMAINING LIQUID – you wouldn’t believe the number of times I’ve poured perfectly good stock down the sink!

Return the liquid to the pan and put it back on the heat. Bring it to a gentle boil and reduce it by about ¾ (reducing, for anyone who doesn’t know, is when you boil a liquid until the water starts to boil away and it reduces in volume).

This is a bit of a subjective bit. You need to taste your reduced mixture, and it should taste too strong – imagine the taste you want in your stock, and reduce the mixture until it is 3-4 times stronger than that. 

When you’ve reached your desired strength, pour the mixture into an ice cube mould and pop it in the freezer.

Finally, when you want some stock just pop out a couple of cubes and stir into some boiling water – use about 300-400ml per cube, or just taste it and bring it to the strength you want.

I do hope you get a lot of use out of this recipe, it really is a keeper. Enjoy!