Truffles - Common as Muck

My big, beautiful, bounding Greyhound Coney has revealed that she is more than just a one-trick pony. Not only is she a champion racer and clumsy oaf extraordinaire, she also has an impeccable sense of smell.
Let me elaborate. For the last two or three days, she has been digging, almost mechanically at the stump of a tree up the lane where she is walked. As you do, we have been dragging her away, assuming that she was simply exhuming some bird carcass with a few leathery bits of scrawny flesh and feathers clinging to brittle bones. This morning though, I jokingly remarked to my husband “perhaps she’s unearthed a truffle”. What truth is mentioned in jest, for on her lunchtime walk I paid a bit more attention to her frantic scrabbling and saw that in fact she HAD unearthed a truffle. I picked up this lumpy, bumpy, tiny meteor-shaped fungus, maybe an inch and half in diameter, lightly brushed off the surface, inhaled deeply (but not too deeply, lest it be a desiccated doggy doo from 1950s) and was greeted with the aroma that I suspected truffles had all along: sort of like a mushroom combined with brothel. It is an incredibly distinctive smell and one that would probably put most people off trying truffles.
I excitedly pocketed the little black gem, continued walking the dogs, at a more frantic pace than usual as I was eager to get home and examine the truffle further. When I finally did get home, I brushed the dirt off the truffle with some kitchen paper (I read somewhere never to get them wet as with all fungi the flavour will be literally washed away), and sliced it open. Any doubts that this was not a truffle were swiftly allayed. Beneath the dark nubbly exterior the truffle was a creamy colour but alas, I could see that it was no good for eating, as it was spongy and there was the odd tiny maggot here and there, revelling in the exotic meal it had treated itself to. At least someone was benefiting from this rare delicacy: all my dreams of Risotto with thinly shaved truffle had been for naught. All the recipes that I had longed to cook but was unable to due to financial restraints disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Whilst it was a disappointment that the truffle was old, I have been informed that there will be others in the area and they are just beginning to come to fruition. Come August/September, there should be more fresh new ones ready for my girl to dig up, not quite knowing what she’s digging for, knowing only that she likes the smell. However, I have a feeling that she would prefer tinned Pilchards. Her favourite.

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AN OVERDUE UPDATE PART 2

Please forgive me if my recollections about the last couple of months are in anything other than chronological order: this is simply the way my brain works. Everything as I remember it or not at all.
And, without wanting to drive the point home, this INTOLERABLE heat seems to lightly sauté my brain, in a black butter sauce probably. I hate the cold, but more than that, I hate the heat!! It is too hot to work, too hot to cook. How I envy people who live near snow and frost, yet I also despise snow and frost because it means I get cold hands. It does, however, mean hot stews, spicy chillis, rich cakes, eating as much as possible to retain and to further enhance that important belt of fat that stops us from turning blue. It’s all scientific you know.
Well, as you will see below, I have posted a couple of photos, one of my Lemon Meringue Tarts and one of my husband’s homemade bread. His is infinitely more artistically shot than mine. I am hopeless with a digital camera. The bread was delicious though. I have hired him as my new food photographer although it may mean dragging him away from Futurama or the Simpsons at times. I am fairly certain that I have weaned him off Big Brother and as for Eastenders, he went cold turkey on that when we had satellite TV hooked up. It was for the best really. There are only so many implausible plotlines and ridiculously far-fetched scenarios that the human brain can comprehend without short-circuiting the synapses. I had dreadful visions of him watching one second too much of Albert Square and collapsing in a foaming heap on the floor muttering “the launderette....queen vic.....so many pretty colours.....”
Anyway, enough with the absurd meanderings. As you may have read below, we have another new dog, a teeny tiny Jack Russell called Max. He is adorable and as close to physical perfection as you can imagine. I missed Benji terribly and Max is a good companion who snuggles up to you at night whilst keeping one beady, bright eye open guarding the house. Coney and Max have a certain stoic camaraderie. They love to run around the field together but indoors there are boundaries that must never be crossed. These boundaries run somewhere along the lines of Coney indicating to Max that “what’s yours is mine but what’s mine stays right where it is mister so take your stinking paws and perfect teeth away from it.” It could be that Coney is jealous of Max’s perfect gnashers. Who knows? Whatever the reason, we are currently babying her because she cut her leg open very badly and had to have 20 stitches. She remained very brave though, and she is just getting extremely bored with being walked exclusively on her lead. The stitches come out Friday morning so if I can only keep her from nibbling them until then, they shouldn’t get infected. Indeed you might say that she's trouble y'all.
The spare bedroom is now virtually complete. Our trip to Ikea was entirely successful (we even got to see a burning building en route!) and once we have removed the devil-wood that is carpet gripper from the room, plus assorted bits of wood and cardboard, it will be a perfectly peaceful room. And, as an added bonus, Coney has decided to make the room her own “Thanks you guys for giving me my own room and comfy bed and ooh, look at this lovely expensive bed linen that I can scrap about with my claws and these delightfully rustic looking cushions that I can gnaw on when I’m bored. You shouldn’t have. Now please leave.”
As for cooking, as I mentioned, the heat has made baking prohibitive, particularly with our Kitchenaid being out of action but I have been experimenting with a few Summery dishes that keep our bellies full.
I made my own version of Pasta Primavera which I have a strong suspicion is an American invention, probably from the 50s, as I have never seen it in any Italian cookbook. It’s origin aside, Pasta Primavera is actually a healthy and yummy pasta salad (which can also be served hot) which utilises the great Summer vegetables that are just coming into fruition now (that sounds like a contradiction in terms). Some recipes use a heavy Béchamel sauce but I find that just too cloying, particularly when serving it cold so I combine the oil that the vegetables are sautéed in with some freshly grated Parmesan Cheese and it makes a light but tasty dressing. Anyway, here’s the recipe as I recall it, a combination of a traditional American version and Nigella Lawson’s version from Feast (I couldn’t find the book at the time so had to remember what the picture looked like. Not a whole heap like my own!).

Pasta Primavera this will serve 2 incredibly gluttonous people and 4 people with smaller stomachs and a stronger will:

Ingredients
1 Clove Garlic, finely chopped (I would use more, but my husband unfortunately has a physical aversion to it so I have to keep it minimal)
Handful of Pine Nuts
2-3 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
Knob Butter
Rice Shaped Pasta
Button Mushrooms sliced, around 250g
About 10 Cherry Tomatoes, halved
French Green Beans, halved, fresh and blanched
Fresh Broad Beans, podded, blanched, deskinned
Handful of Frozen Peas (but fresh are better, if using fresh, blanch them until tender in boiling water)
Chopped Spring Onion
2 Courgettes, cut into inch long batons
Really, any of the above green vegetables can be omitted, Sugar Snap Peas and baby Asparagus would be great too.
METHOD:

Cook the Pasta as per directions on pack.
Heat the oil and butter gently in a deep frying pan. Add the chopped garlic and pine nuts, cook until the nuts are golden but take care not to burn the garlic as it will taste bitter.
Add the courgette batons and gently fry until they turn soft and start to go golden (about 3-4 mins).
Add the mushrooms, cook until soft but not releasing their water. You don’t want to fry them.
Throw in the parboiled green beans, broad beans, frozen peas and a little of the cooking water from the pasta if necessary. Season lightly at this point.
Finally, add the tomatoes, chopped spring onion and drained pasta, stirring thoroughly but carefully to amalgamate all the ingredients. Add about a cupful of grated Parmesan cheese, stir until it starts to melt. Check for seasoning once again. At this point, put a lid on the pan and leave for upwards of 10 minutes if you are eating warm, or for a couple of hours then refrigerate if eating cold.
Apply to face.

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AN OVERDUE UPDATE PART 1

So, it’s been a few days since I last posted anything. Ok, so maybe a month. Or two. I realise that I am hopelessly flaky when it comes to posting on my site but I have not been resting on my proverbial laurels.
I have been stripping the spare bedroom down to its floorboards, painting the walls bright sparkling white and attempting to remove all traces of black gloss paint that the previous owners thought made the house look ‘traditional’. Here’s the skinny for the previous owners: it didn’t. It just looked dark. And a bit creepy.
During the process of removing the carpet, I have found my new sworn enemy: carpet gripper. For those not familiar, it is a thin strip of wood that runs around the edge of the room, studded with sharp little tacks that grip the carpet in place. Once you have pulled the carpet up, this carpet grip becomes a hateful, spiteful stabbing beast. My feet are now overly familiar with the bed of nails sensation. Not pleasant. Still, the room is slowly wiggling on and with an impending visit to Ikea on the cards, it should be looking really very lovely in a week or two. The plan is that Coney will choose to sleep in this redecorated room, rather than at the foot of our bed. Don’t get me wrong, I have no qualms about sharing our room with a greyhound (and now a Jack Russell as well!), it’s just that, well, she seems to have qualms about sharing it with us. And we’re getting a tiny bit weary of sleeping with a legs tucked up under our armpits whilst she enjoys the lions share of the bed. And she’s moodier than a teenager so we have to tread on eggshells for fear of snarling repercussion. Of course, these are just things that make her even more adorable. Well, with the exception of her pilchard breath. Not pleasant.
As for cooking, I am still trying to cook something new everyday but with temperatures outside reaching an unbelievable 40c, it is simply too hot to contemplate baking cakes or cookies. This means I have to resort to raiding the chocolate drawer (yes, our fridge has a drawer devoted to that heavenly deity, cacao) instead. I shouldn’t really complain: England is renowned for it’s schizophrenic weather. Next week it will probably be snowing AND raining.
Whilst I haven’t been writing about food very regularly, I have been photographing (poorly) most things that we’ve churned out. Of course, my husband’s freshly baked loaves of bread are the most photogenic: he is attempting to make bread on a weekly basis but has now burnt out two electrical adaptors because he overworks our poor KA. So, until payday, he will be getting more exercise than usual and kneading the dough entirely by hand!
As for me, I have been perfecting my shortcrust pastry (and when you stop thinking about how complicated pastry must be to make if you can buy it ready prepared from the supermarket, you realise that it’s only three ingredients, flour, butter and water. And really, how difficult is cutting some butter into flour and then mixing in some water?). I have recently made what I consider to be the ultimate picnic food: smoked haddock and watercress tart. It looks really flashy but is just a simple case of poaching some smoked haddock, flaking it and adding to a béchamel/egg sauce, tinged emerald green by the watercress which in turn repays the tart with it’s peppery, almost metallic flavour. We served it with bashed new potatoes that had been heavily seasoned with olive oil and sea salt. So delicious that we ate three quarters of it!
In addition, I have been working my way through my favourite cookbook of the moment, The Pastry Queen by Rebecca Rather. She runs a bakery-come-cafe in Texas and the book is filled with recipes that she serves her customers. They are good hearty recipes: dense bundt cakes, sticky pecan bars, scones enriched with double cream. I am particularly fond of this book, not so much for the recipes, but more for the style, which is approachable, generous and friendly. After all, cooking is about sharing with people and the reproduction of recipes should be no different.
The first recipe cooked by myself from the Pastry Queen was about as complicated as they get from this book: Big Hair Lemon/Lime Meringue Tarts. Lemon Meringue Pie is a great British favourite, although it suffers from people using those pre-packed lemon fillings with the oil ‘pill’ that supposedly encapsulates the ‘essence’ of lemon within it’s little gel walls but in fact tastes a little bit too synthetic. Couple that with a soggy pastry bottom and undercooked meringue and it can taste like your worst nightmare.
Anyway, this recipe uses freshly made lemon/lime curd (painfully easy to make), a hazelnut crust (which I completely ruined as my husband got sticks of butter confused with the UK packs of butter (for the record, there are TWO sticks of butter per one English 250g pack) and had to quickly make a pate sucree (posh name for sweet pastry), and Italian style meringue (which is where the egg whites are heated over a bain marie with caster sugar to stabilise the whites making a stiffer meringue). The Big Hair element comes from the meringue, which is piled on top of the curd filled crust and then teased as you might tease a bouffant hairdo. It is then zapped with a blowtorch (or in my case under a very, very hot grill) until it is coloured. They look funky but taste like the best lemon meringue ever!

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