Some Dishes I Forgot To Blog About...

Whilst I recover from the Darkest Crepe Cake, I thought I'd share with you some meals that I have made recently but just haven't gotten around to posting. I have this funny feeling that most people prefer to look at dessert rather than dinner (and who can blame them?) but I rather enjoyed these meals and I'm quite proud of them because they were made, swallow-like, on the wing.
The first meal was my take on a restaurant classic from the 70s that involves piping mashed potato onto a thick piece of cod or haddock, then covering the creamy potato with scalloped potatoes to replicate scales. This is then baked until golden. Now, I had planned this for supper one night and then forgotten which cookbook I had found the recipe in so had to literally make it up as I went along.
I used smoked haddock instead of plain because I love the smoky, flakiness. I also considered omitting the mashed potato and just scalloping the fish but I can imagine very few meals that aren't enhanced by mash. I boiled up the potatoes with a clove or two of garlic which was then mashed up with the potato, infusing it with a delicate flavour rather than the 'knock your socks off' pungency you can get with garlic. I also stirred in some diced Gruyere. And, because I'm not very artistic at all, I reserved just one of the boiled potatoes to make a backbone of sliced potatoes. The whole thing was then sprinkled with grated Parmesan and baked in roasting tin filled with 1 centimetre of milk for about half an hour or until golden brown and bubbling. The milk helps to poach the fish rather than roast it, thereby reducing the intense smokiness to a mellow flavour. If time was really short, you could poach the haddock in milk first, use the milk in the mashed potato, skip the scalloping and just brown the whole thing under the grill for five minutes. Or, you could use any other fish of your choice providing it was a thick, meaty piece. The beauty of fish is that it can be as exotic or in this case, homely and comforting, as you wish.
You could also flavour the potato with perhaps some pesto, mustard, wasabi or tartar sauce.
Meal No. 2 was one I had originally made for a food event but I had gotten all my ingredients wrong (working from memory is always a bad thing in my case!) so we just enjoyed the supper, photographed it and filed it away under "must read food events properly."
Rainbow Trout with Potato Salad is now one of my firm favourites. I have only ever tried Trout once before in a restaurant and was pleasantly surprised at its delicate, salmon-like flavour. It is such a gentle fish that it requires almost no additional primping other than a sprinkling of salt and pepper before pan frying. A tip I accidentally stumbled across when cooking this particular piece of fish: fry skin side down as always in a little butter or olive oil until golden. Gently flip the fish but remove the whole pan from the heat to finish cooking. This ensures that the fish is not overcooked and dries out.
Potato salad is one of my most favourite things in the world ever yet surprisingly I had never made it before. I scanned back in my memory for years of watching my mum prepare it, taking a little bit of inspiration from Pauls own hot potato salad and stirred up some mayo, dijon mustard, spring onions (scallions), creme fraiche, chopped parsley and lots of black pepper. The potatoes, still warm, help the flavours mingle together deliciously but take care that they're not too hot otherwise the mayonnaise will just split and go horribly greasy. I served the trout and potato salad with some sprouting broccoli and it was a perfect meal for a warm spring night.
The final meal I can hardly remember making because it was ages ago but I want to share it with you because it symbolises the first time I prepared and ate veal.
Constantly tottering on the border of vegetarianism ensures that I am incredibly keen on purchasing organic, locally produced meat of great heritage. I would rather go without than buy non-organic meat. As it turns outs, organic meat tastes so much better than intensively farmed but even if this wasn't the case, I would still go for the humane option. Therefore, I had always staunchly refused to eat veal in light of the cruel conditions they were farmed in. Thanks to the RSPCA Freedom Food standards, the anaemic, milk-fed calves, deprived of light and movement are a thing of the past, at least for us Brits. Rose Veal is a much better solution and tastes great. Is wonderful to be able to enjoy this delicate meat with a guilt-free conscience!
Because Rose Veal is so delicate, it simply needs pan frying after being seasoned, in a little butter for maybe a minute or two each side depending on your preference. I made a simple red wine, Thyme and Shallot sauce with the juices from the meat and enriched it with a little butter and lots of black pepper. I also fried some tiny potatoes that had been cut no larger than the size of a £2.00 coin until golden. As someone who doesn't tuck into a steak with great relish usually, I thoroughly enjoyed the Veal whose flavour falls somewhere between beef and pork loin. I will definitely be giving this another go, perhaps next time Osso Bucco?



And onto other matters in the blogging world, I have memed (nearly maimed - by the Crepe Cake) twice in the last couple of weeks! Tigerfish, I have not forgotten you and I hope to respond to your meme later this week.

As for the other meme, well we are having to disguise our blushes for we have been given a Thinking Bloggers award! We are thrilled that Kirsten over at Home Cooking Adventures liked our blog enough to pass the accolade on to us and four others (my fellow DBs Patricia and Peabody, plus two new blogs that I am unfamiliar with, PHX Rail Food and Feasting in Phoenix). Paul and I strive to be fun, interesting and fresh with our blog. I know we don't always achieve that but we want to be much more than just pretty pictures with an extended caption. IF we are to be labelled food porn, hopefully it will be more of the Henry Miller ilk than Penthouse. And if we have managed to make one person think about the issues we raise (or even cook from one of our recipes) then we've achieved our goal! So, thanks to Kirsten and, as is the nature of the meme, I would like to nominate the following five food bloggers who have made us think (if you're already been nominated then go straight to the head of the class you girlie swots!!):

1) T.W. Barritt over at Culinary Types. His blog is always fun, informative and never predictable. I am currently in love with his Chocolate Malt Cake. You should just get over there to read this blog if you don't already and prepare for an education!
2) Brilynn at Jumbo Empanadas who unwittingly encouraged me to take wobbly baby steps into taking part in food events, plus her food always looks and sounds tantalising. Oh, and she has a wicked sense of humour too.
3) Steven at Mad Chilli who produces the most stunning and original food I have ever seen but needs to post more! You left us hanging at the Passion Fruit Pud!!
4) Doodles, Maltese Parakeet and Mooncrazy hanging out at Peanut Butter Etouffe just because of their intelligent and witty posts.
5) Ulrike at Kuchenlatein for translating her blog posts much better than the Google Translater, for making her own Dandelion Honey and just for having a great blog!
And to all those who I haven't nominated, you are all worthy of this because if you're on my blogroll, you've made me think enough to put you there but I can only pick five! And those five now have to nominate another five blogs each that have made them think!

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Beet Carpaccio ♥

Yes, beet, not beef! carpaccio! (Huh? That just means it's thin slices of cooked beet, not thin slices of beef.) And isn't that just the prettiest salad ever? And it's sooo easy! And soooooo good!!

And -- it's also my first time to experience golden beets. Call me hooked! The flavor is still very beet-ish but somehow a bit less earthy than red beets. And the color, of course, is glorious ...

And -- it's a great way to use my brand-new benriner, the one recommended by Karen from FamilyStyle Food who seems to 'get' me whether it's cookbook recommendations or food finds or now, kitchen tools.

It was a breeze to create razor-thin slices of beet, also thin-thin-thin bits of red onion. I can't wait for more chances to experiment! The cutting area is about 2 1/2 inches wide, perfect for beets, potatoes, most vegetables. There's also a Super Benriner that's slightly wider. It includes the straight blade used for the beets, plus three interchangeable blades. And they're sharp! so there's a finger guard too. (For the record, there may be cheaper places than Amazon to purchase this Benriner. Even the package I received was labeled $35, not the higher price via Amazon.)

2010 UPDATE Looking for My Favorite Way to Roast Beets? It's now a photo tutorial!

BEET CARPACCIO

Hands-on time: 15 minutes
Time to table: 15 minutes
Serves 4

About 2 medium roasted golden beets, sliced very thin (my favorite way to roast beets)

2 tablespoons red onion, thin sliced (with the benriner if you have one)
2 tablespoons capers
2 tablespoons chopped fresh chive (or other herb)
1 hard-boiled egg, chopped (how to cook hard-boiled eggs)
Olive oil to bind (use the good stuff!)
Salt & pepper to taste

Arrange thin slices of beet on plates. Mix remaining ingredients and arrange on top. Serve immediately.

NUTRITION ESTIMATE
Per Serving: 134 Cal (54% from Fat, 11% from Protein, 35% from Carb); 4 g Protein; 8 g Tot Fat; 1 g Sat Fat; 12 g Carb; 3 g Fiber; NetCarb9; 30 mg Calcium; 1 mg Iron; 235 mg Sodium; 61 mg Cholesterol; Weight Watchers 2 points

RECIPE INSPIRATION
Adapted from Bon Appetit, April 2007

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MORE FAVORITE BEET RECIPES
~ King Hill Farms Simple & Sublime Beets ~
~ Swedish Beets ~
~ Beets with Feta ~
~ more beets recipes ~

NEVER MISS A RECIPE! For 'home delivery' of new recipes from A Veggie Venture, sign up here. Once you do, new recipes will be delivered, automatically, straight to your e-mail In Box.

A Veggie Venture is home of 'veggie evangelist' Alanna Kellogg
and vegetable inspiration from Asparagus to Zucchini.
© Copyright 2007

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Daring Bakers II - This Time, It's Personal

As a member of the Daring Bakers, this time of the month comes around all too fast. There are some members who, consummate professional bakers to the last, spend the month perfecting the allocated recipe. The finished article looks (and no doubt tastes) stunning.

I am not like this. I started my cake on Thursday Night and, not realising that I would spend most of Saturday incapacitated by a mini-migraine, am now left with a partially finished cake in the refrigerator.

Not to worry. Brilynn of Jumbo Empanadas, who chose this month’s recipe (a Martha Stewart recipe no less), was canny and selected a cake that can be made over several days. And thank goodness for this.

Darkest Chocolate Crepe Cake is not a cake to be taken lightly. I have wanted to make a crepe cake since I read about one in an old issue of Saveur magazine. I lusted after the wafer thin layers, sandwiched together with a delicate cream. Brilynns recipe takes that delicate cake to the next plateau. Imagine this: over 30 pancakes made with melted chocolate, heightened with a Nutella cream that contains no less than one and a half UK size packs of butter. And if that wasn’t overindulgence enough, the whole cake is then drenched in a dark chocolate glaze to give it Maybelline Lipgloss mirror shine. Finally, we are expected to exert our sugar art skills by decorating this black beauty with hazelnuts dipped in molten sugar, a 3 inch fragile spear of bronzed caramel extended upwards from the nut.

As I said, Brilynn is not one to do things by half.

Actually, the cake is fairly simple if you follow it step by step and over the course of several days as I have:

Thursday Morning: Make Pancake Batter. Leave to chill until the evening.

Thursday Night: Get Paul to make pancakes. Don’t get me wrong. I tried, I really did. My pancakes just ended up looking like something Ed Gein might have made a lampshade with instead of a delicate, lacy pancake. Not appetising. Paul is a champion pancake maker, even though he is more used to making thick, fluffy buttermilk ones. Fortunately for him, when he moved to the UK, I rapidly introduced him to the frail English pancake (or crepe as it is known everywhere else) so he is well skilled in both types. Can you imagine making about 35 pancakes? It’s really boring. At this point you hope that it’s all worth it.

Friday Night: Make internal icing and layer up cake. The icing is really good although I added extra Nutella (Nutella is now officially a cool and bona fide ingredient and not just something to spread on bread. I have seen it utilised in so many delicious recipes on food blogs in the last few months that it’s just a matter of time before restaurants start serving it too). Realise that a) you forgot to stir the whipped cream into the icing and it still sits in the fridge, looking palely up at you and b) that you don’t have enough cream left to make the external icing. Several expletives escape.

Saturday Morning: Am prepared to glaze the cake at my mums as it is her birthday and this was to be her birthday cake. We go out to eat (see tomorrows post), buy some double cream for the icing on the way. Get back to my mums and realise we have forgotten cake. Also realise that I have the start of a severe migraine probably brought on by the rapeseed pollen and/or heatstroke. I am a delicate flower and wilt with great rapidity in the sun. I also wilt in the cold. I have a strange internal thermostat.

Saturday Afternoon: Get home and go straight to bed. Awaken at 8pm to watch Grease is the Word. Headache gets much worse. Go straight back to sleep. Not even David Gest’s charming eyebrow gesticulations can help me tonight.

Sunday Morning: Awaken to happily find the headache is much better. I am particularly cross when I get a bad headache that is not alcohol induced, if for no other reason than suffering for one’s own gluttony makes it seem that much more debauched.

Fuzzy head aside, I am now prepared to make the glaze for the cake. I am currently typing this in bed, listening to the Arctic Monkeys (literally the only band of today’s current flock of new-new-new wavers that I will give a moment to), waiting for Paul to finish preparing the dogs food. We feed them turkey legs and it smells absolutely repugnant as it is boiled up. Like a pathologist, I have spread a highly perfumed cream under and around my nostrils to get rid of the stench.

Whilst I await the kitchen, let me just make mention of the other girls who have probably been far more organised than I and where you can see how they got on with the same recipe (and also a formal welcome to all the new members, all who have been given a real baptism of fire with this introductory cake!), in blog alphabetical order:

Jenny, Mary, Dolores, Becke, Ivonne, Peabody, Mercedes, Anita, Laura, Pat, Morven, Claudia, Hester, Gilly, Sara, Brilynn, Lisa, Ilva, Tanna, Marce, Devra, Helene, Patricia, Jen, Mary 2, Valentina, Veron, Sher and last but by certainly no means least, Meeta!

So, several hours later, the boiled turkey smell has left the building, the cake is iced and, most miraculous of all, I have even made the candied hazelnuts which look completely beautiful.
This cake is not easy to ice despite using a large circular cutter to get the pancakes all the same size. During the setting process, the pancakes refuse to lie flat and it ends up as sort of 'S' shape, as Paul put it. I actually did a layer of icing, patching in some of the gaps, chilled it and then did a final coat using a wet palate knife to smooth it all of (a trick I learnt from Ina Garten). Still, the icing does cover a multitude of sins and we were thrilled at the final result. The multi-strata of dark chocolate pancakes and pale nutella cream are stunning. Of course, I have a feeling that the caramelised hazelnuts can really make a silk purse out of a sows ear.
But how does it taste, you ask? Well, it's kind of OK. It reminded me very much of a Sara Lee Gateaux which is to say, kids and men will probably love it. But it didn't have the rich, sophisticated taste I was dreaming of. I suppose you could call this the Hollywood Heiress Cake - looks good but has very little substance.
To conclude, I think that Brilynn chose a great cake for all of us. I think that all of us Daring Bakers were tested in one way or another and some of us might have learned some new skills. I would love to experiment with the cake, using a lighter, lemon or raspberry custard/mousse filling. I felt quite proud of the hazelnuts and will no doubt knock up a batch of them, if only to decorate a tub of Ben and Jerrys...

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Dinner for Two: A Soldier's Story

I'm generally barred from using the kitchen for anything other than making my breakfast. That's only because Freya is too tired to interfere first thing in the morning. In spite of this, I know that when the month is nearing conclusion and the cupboards are bare, and payday is 2-3 days off, I will be encouraged to cook dinner. It's really not fair.

I wouldn't mind so much, but the reasons for this tradition are completely cynical. Whereas Freya loves having a full stock cupboard, TWO freezers stuffed to the breaking point, drawers with spices labelled A-ZZZZ1, and a fridge with stratified layers of food descending by sell-by dates; I prefer to cook makeshift meals on the fly. I think it's just the survivalist in me. It's the result of too much time in the hot sun of the high desert facing the prospect of a very long hike out for supplies vs. "eating that lizard or cactus and hoping it's not poisonous." Sure, I had supplies buried, but when you're in the desert you learn the benefit of hoarding. This is why if you decide to do some camping off the beaten track in Western Colorado you might find an old duffle bag under three feet of clay loaded with bottled water, fruit cocktail, and ravioli.

As the date of this post would indicate, we have now entered the grace period when I am granted amnesty and allowed free reign over the kitchen. The ingredients at my disposal were indeed Spartan, but I can see a meal in anything. I'm not saying that Freya wouldn't have made the exact same thing, but she would have done so under different circumstances. She would have said to me, "I'm making X for dinner. I have everything I need except for 1 ingredient." We would then head to the store and proceed to purchase said ingredient as well as 40 additional ingredients not called for in the recipe, "just in case". The method to her madness is only thinly veiled as she knows that I know that she knows that I am on to her trickery. My methodology is somewhat different.

I approach everything in my life as a contingency planner. I think about the possible pitfalls and how I will compensate when they occur. e.g. The zombies are attacking:
1. Liberate a prison, it's the safest place. The prisoners would probably prefer freedom among the zombies to more time behind bars.
2. Station snipers in the guard towers. Not to waste bullets on the walking dead, but to pick off any marauders and bandits.
3. Raise crops and livestock in the courtyard for food.
4. Assign every occupant his/her own cell with enough canned food and ammunition to protect themselves (kill themselves) should they find themselves the last survivor.
5. The movies all get this wrong. Anybody not in their own cell would have to wear a mask, Hannibal Lecter style to avoid any confusion about who is and who is not infected and to avoid the all too common "Joe Schmoe just had a heart attack and now he's biting my arm" scenario.

The only thing not provided for in this contingency plan is the rogue doomsday cultist who poisons your crops and water supply while pretending to be just one of the guys.

Right, so this is how I live my life and work in my kitchen. And this is why when I needed spring onions for Tuesday night's meal I used a shallot. When I needed 8oz of prawns, I used a 1/2 tablespoon of shrimp paste. Instead of shiitake, I used the last of some mysterious, potentially hallucinogenic, potentially deadly Chinese mushrooms sent to us by a friend in Singapore. You get the point. About the only thing I had for this recipe that was required was the ground pork.

I get excited by cooking on the frontlines. I like the challenge of thinking fast. I hate planning meals and prepping the night before. I love the desperation that comes from improvisational cooking. This isn't to say that my wife's method isn't great. She studies cookbooks meticulously and selects her ingredients with the sort of discrimination usually reserved for Southern country clubs. And in spite of the assertions of a friend of mine, this is not cooking by the numbers. The belief that any literate person can cook anything out of a book is ridiculous. The art of cooking is a cumulative process. Knowing what works comes from study and trial and error.

The fact is that my style of cooking is momentarily exciting, a test of my skills and knowledge of ingredients, but it's also very safe. I'm not putting myself out on a limb, risking my neck preparing a meal that takes hours or days to make. Freya chooses recipes that challenge her and teach her skills. She makes dishes that hinge on exact ingredients and precise cooking times, where days of hard work can be destroyed by stirring too fast or too slow. I'm just a grunt, cooking in the trenches. Even so, you must admit, my ad hoc siu mai looks pretty sweet!

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Bread.

Bread. There is not one country that doesn’t have its own variation on it. Flatbread, Pitta Breads, Naan Bread, Tortilla, Ryebreads, Sourdough, Sweet Breads, Beer Bread, Breads made with vegetables, breads made with fruit.
It is one of the oldest food sources, dating back to Neolithic times, indeed to many early civilisations it was their only source of food. It is probably because of this limited diet that we now have bread in so many different variations. The Iberians and Gauls used Wine and Beer to get a successful rise, whilst earlier breadmakers relied on airborne yeasts. Honey was used to produce a sweet bread (and to help the rise) and seeds would have been added. The idea of a starter, made several days in advance was one of the earliest methods of producing a light, tasty bread.
Of course, over the years it has evolved. Archaeological evidence suggests that the Ancient Egyptians suffered from bad teeth due to the stones and grit in the poorly milled flour chipping their teeth. Thankfully, bread milling methods are somewhat more sophisticated nowadays and the only extras you find in bread are welcome ones.
It seems to me that there is, and always has been, a triumvirate of uses for bread: to have with soup or broth, made into sandwiches, or eaten with butter. It is the ultimate fast food and there is nothing more pleasurable than sinking your teeth into a freshly sliced loaf, thickly buttered. It never fails to send me, temporarily, back to my childhood when, off school feeling poorly, my mum would bring me toast and marmalade to eat. I also have fond memories of eating toast sprinkled with sugar when we couldn’t afford Golden Syrup or jam. My teeth ache at the thought of it but as a sugar craving 12 year old, I loved buttered and sugared toast.
My husband reconnects with his American culture by seemingly wrapping almost anything and everything that resides both inside and outside the fridge in bread or tortillas. He finds it a constant source of amusement that us Brits butter our sandwiches, even those with jam or peanut butter; I find it amusing that he drinks milk with peanut butter and jam sandwiches and at no other time.
Because of the simplicity of bread, it is intrinsically woven into our memories. Even in our poorest days we can afford bread, and it offers us a comforting respite from our woes. Who hasn’t eaten slice after slice of toast and jam because they’re feeling particularly down?
To draw this article together cohesively and not just ramble on endlessly, here's the point: Andrew at Spittoon Extra, along with Johanna at The Passionate Cook and Jeanne at Cooksister! have declared that their next "Waiter There’s Something In My"....is to be, of course, bread!
The difficulty here is not merely finding a recipe but instead deciding which recipe. There are literally millions of variations of bread in the world and everyone of them deserves to be tasted, and preferably by myself.
Regular followers of our blog will remember those hedonistic days when Paul used to write a ‘weekly’ baking article. Obviously, as is so often the case, he felt he was stifled by the ‘baking’ tag and wanted to spread his wings and write about other food sources. So, despite my commissioning him to provide the piece for this particular event, he was much too busy with his own food blogging event, The Big Burger Ballyhoo 2007, to take part.
So, the onus was on me to come up with the goods. Bearing in mind I usually leave the bread making to Paul and he leaves the bread eating to me, it was a slight reversal of roles. However, I felt suitably buoyed by the event (and I was also incredibly bored and boredom breeds creativity in the kitchen) and decided to make something with an Italian feel. The Italians make marvellous bread. From Ciabatta to Focaccia with Pizza in between, it is always deeply flavourful. I had previously made Ciabatta using a Biga Starter and that took four long days of breeding a starter, knocking it back down, adding half a cup more flour and waiting another day. The loaf I chose to cook on Sunday had just 4 hours proving time. Positively a walk in the park compared to Ciabatta.
"Ahh, but what is the bread made?" I hear you all cry. It was the perfectly delicious Italian Polenta and Pine Nuts Bread.
The method is slightly unusual. You make a mini starter with the cooked polenta, some flour, yeast and honey which you leave to prove for 2 hours. Then you stir in some more flour, pine nuts toasted in butter, plus the butter itself, knead for 10 minutes and then leave that to prove for another hour. Split the dough in half, roll out into two thin sausages which you vaguely plait together. Leave this artisinal shaped loaf to rise for 45 minutes, then bake for half an hour. Apart from the initial starter being incredibly difficult to knead (it is really wet from the cooked polenta), the rest of the process is a breeze and ideal for anyone wanting to try something a little different. The unexpected crunch of the toasted pine nuts is really good and I don't generally like pine nuts that much. Do make sure you trust the source of your pignoli though because there is nothing worse than biting into rancid nuts.
To adapt the recipe, you could use chopped walnuts instead of pine nuts and try adding some chopped herbs (rosemary would be wonderful) to the dough. I also have a hunch that a sprinkling of Parmesan could be pretty good too.
So, the recipe is as follows:
ITALIAN POLENTA AND PINE NUT BREAD makes 1 loaf
(adapted from Baking by Martha Day)
Ingredients:
50g Polenta
300ml Lukewarm Water
15g Fresh Yeast (two packets)
1/2 Teaspoon Runny Honey
225g White Bread Flour, separated into two halves
25g Butter, melted
3 Tablespoons Pine Nuts plus extra for sprinkling
1.5 Teaspoons Salt
1 Egg Yolk mixed with a Tablespoon Water for the Glaze
METHOD:
Mix the polenta with half of 250ml of the lukewarm water. Simmer gently for 2-3 minutes until thickened and cooked. Leave to cool.
Meanwhile, dissolve the yeast in the remaining 50ml warm water, along with the honey.
In a bowl, mix the yeast mixture with 115g of the flour, sifted, then beat in the cooked polenta.
Turn this mixture out onto a well floured surface and knead for about five minutes until elastic. You will need to add extra flour if you mixture seems very wet, or it will just stick to your hands and everywhere else. A dough scraper comes in very handy here too.
Once you have got a cohesive dough, place into a lightly greased bowl, cover with clingfilm and leave to rise for 2 hours. It should double in size and look very bubbly and airy, like the middle of malt balls.
Sometime before the two hours are up, melt the butter and mix in the pine nuts, cooking until they are golden brown. Leave to cool.
Once the two hours are up, add the remaining flour and salt to the polenta/flour/yeast starter and mix with a wooden spoon until well combined. Mix in the pine nuts and butter and turn out onto a floured surface.
Knead well for 5 minutes until smooth and elastic.
Return to a well oiled bowl, cover and leave for another hour, until doubled once again.
Finally, knock back the dough and split into two. Roll each half out into a long sausage shape, about 15" long. Roughly plait together and place on a well oiled baking sheet. Cover and leave to rise for 45 minutes.
Preheat oven to 200c.
After 45 minutes, brush the plait with the egg wash, sprinkle with pine nuts and bake for half an hour, or until golden and fragrant. Your nose will tell you when it's ready.
Leave to cool if you can bear it, or split straight away and eat with butter, melting and running down your chin.

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Sugar High Friday - Flower Power

Or in my case, fruit and flower water power!
Yes, this months Sugar High Friday, hosted by Monisha at Coconut Chutney is themed around Flowers and Flower Waters. Whilst Springtime brings forth a surfeit of daffodils and tulips, we have to wait a few more weeks for the more 'edible' flowers. Primroses are starting to die off, as are violets, so these are no good to use now, especially as we had rain yesterday which resoundingly spoiled any yellow or purple stragglers.
My botany is not good enough to know whether or not bluebells would be OK to use because we have a surplus of them around these here parts.
Not to worry. As a compulsive buyer of unusual spices and flavourings, I have unopened bottles of both Rose and Orange Flower Water both crying out to be used.
As of last night I had no idea what I was going to make. I only knew one thing: I had a deadline I was going to miss if I didn't start thinking pretty hard about those flower waters.
I remembered seeing a beautifully fragile filo construction in Tessa Kiros' Falling Cloudberries. The frail layers of filo were cemented together with an orange scented sabayon and caramelised orange segments. Perfect! I pulled out the recipe and after looking lustfully at the picture for a while, got to work.
Stumbling step No.1. No oranges. OK. So, I'll use lemons instead and make a lemon sabayon. But who wants to eat segments of lemon? Hmm. Too late to run to the supermarket but I always knew that the bag of frozen fruits would come in handy one day.
I picked out the raspberries, black and redcurrants.
Kiros' recipe has four elements to it:
1. The Pastry Layers
2. An Orange Confit
3. An Orange Sabayon
4. An Orange Sauce
I realised that with the scant ingredients I had, the recipe would require some serious reworking. Using the book as a guide only I finally produced a Red Berries, Lemon and Orange Flower Deconstructed Mille Feuilles. Sounds pretty fancy but it was actually really simple. Remember, deconstructed is the key word here. It's the word chefs seem to use when they don't want to spend ages constructing a dish. Someone dropped the roast chicken on the floor and it smashed into 100 pieces? It's a deconstructed roast chicken. It's metro-cuisine you know.
But, back to the pudding in question. This is a dish that can be made in advance and assembled when your guests arrive. The confit is made first of all and then stirred into the Sabayon which is then chilled until you need to use it. The orange sauce can also be made in plenty of time, you can just gently reheat it when the assemblage is due, stirring through the frozen fruits to defrost them but ensuring they don't lose their shape. In an ideal world of course, fresh fruit is preferable. You could also omit the Sabayon element, making sweetened whipped cream instead but it won't have that ethereal, light as gossamer texture.
I have never used Orange Flower Water before and was thrilled to find that far from having that slightly soapy taste that Rosewater can have, it has an almost indefinable delicacy, like the scent of a rare flower dissolving on your tongue. It doesn't taste of oranges, far from it, but it does have a floral-citrus flavour. I will certainly be experimenting with it again.
It looks effective enough to be served at a dinner party but to me the real joy is when you break through the layers of crisp filo and the sabayon oozes dreamily over the spoon. The fruit sauce is a tart foil for the rich cream and the orange flower water permeates the whole dish with its floral delicacy.
If you want to try your hand at this, here's the recipe.
RED BERRIES, LEMON AND ORANGE WATER DECONSTRUCTED MILLE FEUILLES
Serves 4
Ingredients:
Pastry Layers:
8 Sheets Filo Pastry
50g Melted Butter
30g Caster Sugar
Some Honey
Lemon Confit:
Juice and Zest of 2 Lemons
30g Sugar

Fruit and Orange Water Sauce:
Juice of 2 Lemons
30g Sugar
10g Butter
Tablespoon Orange Flower Water
Tablespoon Limoncello or Brandy
Handful of Mixed Berries to finish
Sabayon:
300ml Double Cream
1 Whole Egg and 2 Egg Yolks
50g Caster Sugar
1 Tablespoon Orange Flower Water
METHOD:
To make the confit, heat together the lemon zest, juice and sugar, simmering until it has turned thick and jammy, about 7 minutes. Leave to one side.

To make the fruit sauce, heat together all the ingredients except the fruits, until it has reduced and is thickened, 8-10 minutes. Taste for sugar, extra alcohol, orange flower water etc.

To make the Sabayon, whisk together the egg yolks and sugar in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water, until pale and thickened. This will take about 12-15 minutes of constant whisking.

Stir in the Orange Flower Water and 2 teaspoons of the Lemon Confit. If you have left the confit to set aside for a while, it may solidy slightly so you reheat it gently until it liquifies if this is the case.

Whisk the cream until it peaks softly and fold into the orange water/creamy egg mixture. Chill in the fridge, covered, until you are ready to use it.

Preheat the oven to 180c.

To make the filo layers, lay one sheet of filo pastry out on a large work surface (or small in our case), brush generously with butter and sprinkle over some of the sugar. Lay another sheet of the filo and repeat using four sheets. Brush the top sheet with more butter, cut into 5" x 3" rectangles and place on a baking sheet. You should get about 10-12 rectangles per sheet, depending on the size of the filo.

Drizzle over some of the honey and bake the sugared layers until golden and crisp, about 8 minutes.

Repeat with the other four sheets of filo pastry, ensuring to keep them covered under a tea towel until you are ready to use them as they are notoriously fragile.

When they are cooked, swiftly remove the small rectangles from the baking sheet and lay them out on a clean work surface so they don't stick together. Allow to cool. This takes no time at all.

Finally, assemble the pudding. Place a layer of filo pastry on a plate, dollop over some of the creamy sabayon and drizzle over some of the fruit sauce (after stirring through the fruits). Place another rectangle on top and repeat, using 3 or 4 of the filo rectangles, and finishing with the pastry. Dust lightly with icing sugar and if you have anymore sauce left, spoon some around the plate.

Serve and wait for the oohs and ahhs.

P.S. DON'T FORGET TO DIG OUT THE CHARCOAL FOR PAULS BIG BURGER BALLYHOO!

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Any Excuse to Make Muffins...

But this particular excuse is Muffin Monday 02 held by Elena at Experiments.


If you enjoy baking but find you don't always have the time, muffins (or indeed cupcakes) are the perfect thing for you. It takes no time at all to knock up a batch and - given the opportunity - they last several days in the cake tin.
Elenas theme this month is "Muffins That Make You Go Ooooh". In other words, no straightforward ingredients are allowed. This means no bog standard bran, no common chocolate chips. Basically, no mundane muffins. With that in mind, I thought I'd try a couple of recipes, one savoury and one sweet.
When I made the Rhubarb Mutton, I wanted to have something bready with it, but I had no pita bread or naan bread and white sliced just wouldn't cut the mustard. I got to thinking. What ingredients do I have in my cupboard that are sort Persian and sort of Muffiny? I came up with Chick Peas and Fresh Mint to highlight the mint in the stew. So, how about Chick Pea Muffins? Designed to be made in a Jumbo or Texas Muffin Tins, these nobbly little treats are great split and spread with butter. Rather than taste Persian though, they more resembled cornbread (the recipe had a 30/70 split of cornmeal and flour). However, they were still deliciously savoury and even better cold the next day. The unexpected bite of the chick peas is really very delicious. I have a suspicion that using hummous and/or sesame seeds would be a great variation too.
Of course, I prefer sweet muffins above all else and whilst scouring the cupboards, I found a handful of soft Werthers Originals. I had thought about making toffee chocolate muffins but I was all out of chocolate. So, what else goes really well with toffee? Paprika? No. Chicken Livers? No. Coffee? Absolutely! I grabbed Pauls secret stash of coffee beans (must try harder to hide them), ground some up in our coffee machine that was an unexpected anniversary present from my mum and inhaled their heady aroma for a while. There are some smells in the world that make things seem OK, that seem like natural mood boosters and, along with the smell of cakes or bread baking or chicken roasting, freshly ground coffee is one of those smells. The rest of the batter is straightforward, butter and sugar blended together, then eggs, then the ground coffee and flour. This coffee mixture is then dolloped into muffin cases and an unwrapped toffee (or 2!) is pressed into the centre of each. As they bake, the kitchen is filled with the scent of toffee/coffee which from here inwards will be clumsily referred to as cotoffee.
When eagerly removed from the oven, they look unassuming, almost boring. Split them open and a puddle of thick toffee spills over the moist bespeckled sponge. It is hard to restrain yourself from biting straight in but needs must and third degree burns on the lips and tongue are never pleasant. You have been warned!
(recipes to follow - bread making awaits me tonight so I'm short of time. Oh, and Dawsons Creek is on).

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Weekend Herb Blogging

Because of my intrinsic need for food that makes me feel cosseted and safe, I adore anything that is stew-like. This includes braises, curries, ragus and tagines. Whatever country you happen to be from, you will do a slow cooked rich meat dish that I would probably fall in love with.
Whilst I also long for the spring and consequent summertime, I miss these bolstering, stick to your ribs meals that send you to bed happy, contented and full. So, utilising the ‘winter’ meat that I still have left in the freezer (which includes, mutton, shin of beef pork hocks and sausages), I have been experimenting with ways to, quite conversely really, bring a touch of winter to these warm Spring days, if only for the benefit of our bellies.
A slow cooked dish that I have been thinking about for some time, after reading about it in The Fish Store by Lindsay Bareham, was for shoulder of lamb cooked with saffron and rhubarb. I didn’t have any lamb but I did have a shoulder of mutton in the fridge and several lithe, pink sticks of rhubarb going limp in the fridge.
I have never tried Rhubarb in a savoury dish, but I adore its slightly astringent flavour that is tempered beautifully with gently stewing and a whisper of sugar. It is certainly one of those fruits that would suit a rich, fatty meat like mutton or lamb perfectly.
It couldn’t be simpler to make either. Sweat down a couple of large onions, thinly sliced, in some butter until they start to softly meld with the butter. Add some diced shoulder of mutton or lamb that has been browned in a little oil (this step also helps to rid the mutton of it's excess fat), a good pinch of saffron, grind of pepper, generous squeeze of lemon and simmer slowly for an hour. A wrinkly skin will appear on the top of the mutton stew but don't be tempted to stir this in. This lack of movement is allowing the meat to tenderise completely.
The rhubarb is cut into large chunks and quickly stir fried over a low height with lots of fresh parsley and mint (thus revealing the dish to be Persian in origin) which are then stirred into the stew. Cook until the Rhubarb collapses. Adjust seasoning adding more lemon if needed and some fresh parsley. Serve with plain boiled basmati rice that has tipped into a hot frying pan and the bottom allowed to go crusty.
The final flavour is slightly tart, the fruit is not overpowering and the meat is curiously turned a glorious shade of pink. It is also meltingly tender.
Incidentally, this is my entry for Weekend Herb Blogging, held this month by Sher over at What Did You Eat? I have been woefully bad at entering in recent weeks so hopefully this will be a return to form.
If you want to recreate this dish in your own kitchen, or, if you share my love of winter food even in the summer, here's how:
MUTTON BRAISED WITH RHUBARB AND SAFFRON serves 2
Ingredients:
3 Large Sticks Rhubarb, cut into 2" Chunks and stripped of stringy bits if necessary
400g Diced Mutton or Lamb, removed of any excess fatty bits
2 Pinches Saffron dissolved in a little boiling water
2 Large Onions, peeled and thinly sliced
Juice of one Lemon
70g Fresh Parsley (flat leaf), chopped finely
Handful of Fresh Mint Leaves, chopped finely (although I didn't have fresh so I used a tablespoon of dried mint)
Salt and Pepper to taste
60g Butter or Olive Oil
METHOD:
In a large stockpot, gently heat a third of the butter or oil and gently cook the onions until they collapse. Don't allow them to colour. These will probably take about 20-30 minutes.
Meanwhile, trim the meat and using another third of the butter or oil, cook the diced meat in batches until richly coloured and much of the fat has rendered off.
Add the meat to the soft onions and stir in the saffron and water.
Add half the juice of the lemon, a good grind of pepper and bring to the boil.
Immediately turn down to the lowest setting and leave to simmer, without a lid, for an hour.
You can prepare the chopped herbs and trimmed rhubarb whilst you wait.
Finally, add the herbs and rhubarb to the stew, and cook for another 30 minutes or until the rhubarb has collapsed. Taste for seasoning and add more lemon juice if necessary.
Serve with plain boiled rice.
Enjoy!

P.S. DON'T FORGET TO DIG OUT THE CHARCOAL FOR PAULS BIG BURGER BALLYHOO!

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Is There Such a Thing as a Healthy Chocolate Mousse?

Helene at Tartelette was the proud winner of last months Hay Hay It's Donna Day competition with her beautiful cheesecake. She has had the unenviable task of choosing the theme for this month but fortunately she chose something that is close to most peoples hearts (and if not, why not?) - Mousse.
Mousse is possibly the easiest dessert to eat, it can be luxuriously dense or as light as a cloud. It can be savoury or sweet and it can be baked or, um, not baked.
I wanted to do something slightly different from the norm, i.e. omitting the egg element from the mousse purely because I was running low on eggs AND time AND finances so I turned to the web for help (as usual).
A startling solution stared up at me: Tofu Mousse. Wait. Did that say Tofu? Isn't that coagulated Soy Milk? The original vegetarian food and possibly the sole reason why I gave up vegetarianism as a kid? How can this be utilised in a mousse without it tasting like a health shop smells?
Actually, Tofu gets a bad press but it is surprisingly versatile if you treat it properly. Paul loves it in Miso Soup and he introduced me to the joys of deep fried tofu but neither of us had tried a sweet version of it.
What makes this mousse particularly special is that it is OK for vegans and would also be good for diabetics (it uses Agave Syrup instead of sugar), yet it doesn't skimp on flavour either. So, if you find yourself with a spare box of silken tofu in the cupboard because, say, your husband said he wanted to make Miso soup with it so you bought him a packet especially and six months later it's still in the cupboard, and you don't feel like the hassle of whipping egg whites, or you have vegetarian guests coming for dinner that you want to impress, then this could be the mousse for you!
It requires no cooking except for melting the chocolate, which doesn't count anyway, and the flavouring options are endless. I soaked some dried figs in chocolate liquor, chopped them into sticky, crunchy nuggets and folded them into the mousse, but preserved cherries, fresh raspberries, rum raisins, nuts, mint essence, toasted coconut, anything would be great in this versatile mousse.
The Filo Cups are optional but they do look cute. However, they are also incredibly fragile and need to be served with the mousse in them straight away (but fortunately this mousse doesn't need to sit in the fridge for several hours to set up) otherwise they turn soggy. The mousse would, of course, be just as good served in little espresso cups.
I have tweaked the original recipe to suit what we had in the cupboard, namely one block of tofu (which is about 8oz, 220g), and a 100g bar of Lindt 70% Dark Chocolate. I also had a bottle of Agave Syrup which I use on rare occasions (although you could replace this with honey or sugar if preferred) and of course, every bakers essential flavouring, vanilla extract. These four ingredients, the chocolate for flavour, the tofu to replace the egg element, the syrup for sweetening and vanilla for flavouring are your basic mousse. What else you add to it is entirely upto you.
This batch makes enough to fill four large Texas Muffin Cups with some left over in the bowl for finger licking.
TOFU CHOCOLATE MOUSSE WITH LIQUEUR SOAKED FIGS serves 4
Ingredients:
220g Block Silken Tofu
100g Bar Good Quality Dark Chocolate (but you could use milk chocolate and I suspect white chocolate too)
2-5 Tablespoons Agave Syrup (or honey or caster sugar)
1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
5 Dried Figs, soaked in a tablespoon Liqueur (I used chocolate)
4 Large Sheets Filo Pastry
Melted Butter
METHOD:
Preheat the oven to 200c.
To make the Filo Cups, cut the large sheets of filo pastry into quarters and brush with butter. Layer the sheets into the cups of large muffin tins so that they form little cups. They may overlap but they are supposed to look rustic. Brush any pokey out bits of pastry with butter and bake for 5 minutes or so, until golden brown.
Carefully remove from the muffin tin and leave to cool on a cooling tray.
To make the mousse, melt the chocolate in a small heatproof bowl placed over lightly simmering water.
Stir in the vanilla and the agave syrup. Use just two tablespoons syrup to start. You might need to add more later depending on how sweet your tooth is.
In a food processor and using the plastic blade, blend the tofu until it is smooth.
With the blade still running, pour in the chocolate mixture and process until completely amalgamated. Taste for sweetness. Add more if necessary.
At this point you can add any other flavourings. I used the soaking liqueur from the figs.
Stir in the chopped figs, keeping some aside for decoration.
Spoon the mousse into the filo cups.
Sprinkle over the reserved pieces of chopped fig, lightly dust with icing sugar.
Enjoy!

P.S. DON'T FORGET TO DIG OUT THE CHARCOAL FOR PAULS BIG BURGER BALLYHO!
We failed to mention that this also includes unusual or favourite toppings for burgers too. My personal favourite is avocado with sour cream, ketchup, salsa and chilli. And tortillas chips. And fried mushrooms. I like to keep it simple! What about you?
So, what are you waiting for? Get grilling!

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Big Burger Ballyhoo 2007

bal-ly-hoo [n. bal-ee-hoo] -a clamorous and vigorous attempt to win customers or advance any cause; blatant advertising or publicity.
We here at Writing at the Kitchen Table have no interest in duping the public. You won't find bait and switch here folks! We're unashamedly promoting a food event in an attempt to hype our own profile. And as if the event itself weren't enough to draw a crowd, we're even giving away a prize!

Freya has authorised this event, but I don't think she approves. It's no secret that I choose to express my American patriotism in the form of the occasional cheeseburger (or hot dog, or taco, or...) and I'm about half way through my quest to find the perfect burger (+/-20 years, dependant on future coronary surgical technique). I've never found a burger to compare with the Grand Daddy from JJ's, but that hasn't stopped the search.

Those of us in the Northern Hemisphere are fortunate to be a few short weeks away from barbeque season. I'm hoping that a few readers are as excited about this as I am or this will be a very dull event. Just send me your best burger recipes, pictures included if you'd like, and I will cook and sample all of them. Don't limit yourselves to standard beef patties. I've been known to get just as excited by veggie burgers (falafel counts), fish burgers, chicken...squirrel.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS
All submissions must be able to be cooked on a barbeque.
All submissions must be received by 11:59PM pst May 25, 2007.
Relatives and personal friends are welcome to submit recipes, but will not be considered eligible to win.
I retain the right to refuse sampling burgers which have ingredients I am unable to find or which may cause instant death.
Judging will conclude June 1, 2007 or when I've had a stroke, whichever comes first.

Send an E-mail with Burger Ballyhoo in the subject line to youbiggirlsblouse at tiscali dot co dot uk. Include the name of your burger, recipe, your name, the name of your blog, and a picture of the burger if possible. Feel free to use our Warhol logo without permission.

To really up the ante, we can tell you that the winning prize package will include a bottle of Goatslick as seen in our April 1st post. Now go get grilling!

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Brownie Babe of the Month...

Chocolate Brownies. Possibly the most perfect of all the ways to indulge in Theobroma Cacao. The chocolate hit in a well made brownie is so strong it can feel like you’ve just downed three double espressos in less than 10 seconds flat.
And there’s the non-prep side of things. It takes no time at all to whip up a batch of brownies and even less time to devour them. The only difficult part is melting the chocolate...and how difficult is that?
Of course, there is a down side to such a simply wonderful cake. Brownies don’t really look like much other than brown, heavy, stodgy bits of brick. But think again! There lies within a simple, evil genius. People unfamiliar with the Brownie may overlook it once, but once bitten, never again shy.
Myriam at Once Upon a Tart has decided to tap into the part of us all that adores Brownies with a new event called Brownie Babe of the Month. This is one event I couldn't pass up on.
The characteristics of the brownie, whether it’s chocolate or otherwise (blondies also exist and are just as yummy) is that moist, almost undercooked middle that takes very little time to get used to. This is where I always have problems. 9 of my brownies out of 10 are nearly always under or over cooked. I adore that squidgy middle so much that I have strong reservations about leaving them in the oven for the stated time in the recipe. I decided to make Malteser Brownies and the recipe I used was adapted from the Green and Blacks Chocolate Cookbook, Celebration Brownies.
For the American readers among us, you will probably know Maltesers as Whoppers or Malted Milk Balls. As per the recipe, I removed them from the oven once the top had started to crack and it had that pale, sugary crust. I plunged a toothpick into the brownie and it came out slightly goopy but it seemed OK. I triumphantly removed the tin from the oven marvelling at the nobbly top caused by the Maltesers that had bobbed to the surface seeking escape from their chocolatey doom.
The lure of the brownies didn’t call until much later after we had eaten dinner and then, Southern Comfort munchies kicking in, everyone suddenly remembered that, yes, we had dessert waiting for human consumption. I raced to the kitchen and eagerly cut into them...only to find lots of chocolately ooze all over the knife. They were undercooked and not just Brownie undercooked but spilling out of the tin and onto the work surface overcooked. The resemblance to chocolate milk was startling.

Half an hour later we sat down to hot brownies which had to be impatiently scooped from the tin and shovelled into mouths. Of course, they were still delicious despite the initial disaster. The Maltesers had melted but were chewy and crunchy all at the same time.
I haven't published the recipe here but if you want to produce a rough approximation of it, simply use your favourite chocolate brownie recipe but, before you pour your chocolate mixture into the brownie pan, place a layer of Maltesers (or Malted Milk Balls) in the bottom of your pan first. What is great about this is if you don't like Maltesers you can use any miniature chocolate bars (for example Hersheys Kisses or maybe small Peanut Butter Cups or even Reeses Pieces would be great) instead. Perfect for any celebration or for eating at any time of the day!

And onto other blogging news...Writing at the Kitchen Table has been nominated for Best Food Blog as part of the Bloggers Choice Awards 2007, so if you feel that our little blog is worthy, click on the button below and make yourself heard!

And if the lure of the chocolate brownies ahead isn't motivation enough, think of what I went through with the pigs head just to share the experience with you all!

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A Roast Chicken Lunch

...on a curiously hot spring day.

As you know, I buy one organic chicken a month. I am on a never-ending quest to find the perfect way to roast the faithful hen and I think I may have found it. I had previously thought that the secret lay in cooking the chicken bosom side down so all the juices flood straight into the part that can be driest. That was before I read the Zuni Cafe Cookbook by Judy Rodgers. You will recall that I have taken to her ‘salt meat at least 24 hours before you cook it’ mantra with all the fervour of a fully paid up cult member. The results that I have had have just been too good to think that her ideas are mere bunkum. It really does work.
Now, I’m not talking about submerging meat in liquid brine, simply rubbing the meat with salt (the amount is roughly ¾ teaspoon per 1 lb meat), pepper and perhaps some herbs for extra flavour, and leaving it, covered, in the fridge for a minimum of 24 hours. Your meat will then be tender and flavoursome. With chicken or turkey, it would seem especially important to brine the meat to infuse it with that all important flavour and moistness that it seems to sometimes lack (particularly if your bird is not of great provenance).
But, enough proselytising about the brining. Back to the chicken in question. Despite the temperature being well in the 20s (that’s centigrade), I still wanted a roast chicken for lunch on Saturday. I suppose the child in me that has never quite grown up still remembers the days when roasting a chicken was a special occasion, so expensive was it. Like myself, my mum would always roast the chicken in a slightly different way: using a ‘tent’ of foil to cover it, smearing it with margarine (butter was frowned upon in those days) on the skin and under the skin, cooking it belly side up, belly side down. It would seem that lovers of the roast chicken are looking for the holy grail of roasting, the one chicken prepared in such a way that it tastes so sublime that you would die happy just to smell it.
I think I have gotten close but until I try a truly organic, fresh chicken, I think that day is still someway off for me.
In the meantime, I have my brining techniques.
The chicken for this particular recipe, Roast Chicken and Bread Salad, is roasted slightly differently to your average chicken. After its time spent in the salt, the chicken is rubbed completely dry and roasted for no more than an hour at the highest setting your oven will go (mine was 230c). The skin blisters and bronzes but the meat beneath remains brilliant white and incredibly moist.
I had reservations that it was going to be stringy and tough but as soon as Paul started to carve it, I could see that these fears were unnecessary.
The salad itself was the perfect choice for a warm spring day. Warm roast chicken tossed with olive-oil brushed bread that has been lightly toasted, a slightly tart wine vinegar dressing and some soft salad leaves. Most fortuitous, for me at least, was the surfeit of raggedy chicken leftovers so make stock with.
For dessert I wanted to celebrate the warm days so it was out with the rich chocolate puds and in with a light fruity dish, pinched from the ever-reliable Nigel Slater. Plums de-stoned and halved, the pink cavities filled with whole raspberries and then each half is smeared with a generous spoonful of creamy mascarpone cheese, gently scented with vanilla extract. This luscious dessert is then sprinkled with demerara sugar and put under a hot grill under golden and bubbling.
What is most wonderful is, depending on what time of year it is you can alter the fruits (i.e. peaches, poaches pears) and the filling (blackberries, blueberries, ground almonds or a whole ball of marzipan) to suit what is in season or to suit your palate. And it only takes 2 minutes to make! The perfect ending.

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And Now For Something Completely Different...

Weekend Dog Blogging! A non-food event held by Cate over at Sweetnicks that we've never participated in, yet I couldn't resist when I found this picture of Coney taking charge of my blog recently...she hates to be left out of anything and I have many pictures 'enhanced' by her big boisterous beak poking in the shot!
Also, note that A Cooks Tour is on the TV. Remember? The one where Anthony and his brother eat oysters in France. At least, that's what it looks like. It could be a home improvement show too!

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And After All That....A Gentle Supper

After working on something challenging like the Cochon du Tete, not to mention the surfeit of food we had over Easter, I placed a moratorium on stodgy food. So, whilst you guys have been reading about us being elbow deep in pig head, we have actually been treating our stomachs to lighter fare. Pasta with Cauliflower, Stir Fry and last nights cholesterol friendly dish.
I have raved about Lindsay Barehams latest cookbook, The Fish Store, for some while now and each time I read it, I find another exciting and quick supper dish.
Paul and I love Puy Lentils, we had some packets of herbs wilting in the refrigerator (do we have anything that isn't wilting in the fridge?) and some frozen cod. This particular dish, Poached Cod with Puy Lentils and Salsa Verde had our name written all over it.
Ahh, about the Cod. I had seen it lurking in the freezer a few weeks ago and presumed that I had bought it a few weeks ago. When I read the Use By date it said 20th June....no year mentioned but I optimistically assumed 2006. Sure, I was wary about using nearly year old frozen fish but I wanted to cook that dish, I had no expendable cash to buy fresh and there it was.
So, on thawing it looked somewhat dessicated, more like my Salt Cod stash than fresh Cod. I figured poaching it would bring it back round. And, to a certain extent it did. Of course it wasn't as moist or flaky as fresh Cod but it still tasted fine and I sit here typing this with no gastro-intestinal disorders to speak of. Yet.
If you want to replicate this recipe, I would certainly recommend buying a fresh piece though! The flavours are so simple that the quality of each one is paramount. You do need to make the Salsa Verde or something similar because that tangy, herby sauce brings the lentils and fish together in a fantastic way. Plus, whatever herbs you have, whatever time of year it is, you can whizz up and make something that tastes fresh and tastebud tinglingly good. Salsa Verde is particularly wonderful with any fish, but you could also toss warm new potatoes in it or serve it with a rich meat, like lamb. The recipe given below is Barehams own, but providing you retain the base elements of tartness (if you don't like mustard, perhaps add a dash of wine vinegar), pungency (garlic and anchovies) and the green herbiness, you can just run with the ball.
POACHED COD WITH PUY LENTILS AND SALSA VERDE serves 2
Ingredients:
COD AND LENTILS:
2 Fillets of Fresh Cod, skin removed
Juice of One Lemon
250g Puy Lentils
1 Onion, peeled and studded with one clove
Bay Leaf
Chicken Stock Cube
Seasoning
SALSA VERDE
40g Fresh Parsley, stalks removed
Some Mint Leaves
Some Basil Leaves
2-4 Anchovies to taste
Some Capers to taste
Olive Oil
1-2 Cloves Garlic, depending on how garlicky you want it, obviously
Mustard to Taste
METHOD:
To make the Salsa Verde, which only improves when kept in the fridge overnight, place the roughly chopped garlic in a spice grinder, along with the herbs, anchovies, capers, mustard and a good slug of olive oil. Note: If you are using Wine Vinegar instead of Mustard, do not add as much Olive Oil.
Process until it forms a lumpy green mixture. You will probably need to add more Olive Oil if at this point it resembles compressed grass cuttings. You want it to be the texture of a tomato salsa so quite slack. Taste for seasoning and add a good grind of salt and pepper and process some more. Add more of any of the above ingredients if you feel it needs it. And that's it!
To make the Lentils, place the studded onion, bay leaf and about 300ml cold water in a saucepan with the stock cube and lentils. Bring to the boil then turn down to a low simmer. Puy Lentils take anywhere between 20-40 minutes to cook, depending on the brand etc. Once they are cooked they will not be mushy but have a delightful nutty bite to them without being tooth-crackingly hard. Taste for seasoning and add salt and pepper as necessary. Do not oversalt as the stock cube will already be fairly salty and lentils soak up flavours like a sponge.
To make the cod, bring a pan of salted water to the boil and add the lemon juice. Gently drop the cod fillets into your replicated brine and bring to the boil once more. Turn off and leave for five minutes. Drain using a slotted spoon to avoid the flesh breaking up and place on a plate with the lentils and a large spoonful of the salsa verde.
Enjoy!

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Diary of a Pigs Head - Part 2

After 72 hours in a bucket of brine, William no longer had that pink ‘alive’ look. He looked pallid, and slightly greyish, as you would imagine anything would that had spent time immersed in salt water. I don’t like using Saltpetre as the pink-preserver because it seems like one chemical too many in a life already filled with unseen chemicals hidden in our foods.
I am always curious about the long line of lineage of preserving food. I wonder how long it took stone-age man to realise that eating spoiled meat would consequently spoil him (and his family) too. And how many more years before salt became the chief preserver of all meats and fish?
Either way it was of little or no consequence to William. He lay submerged in the brine, his empty eye socket filled covered over with a dried bay leaf and his skin (skin? I suppose at this point it becomes rind) pitted with peppercorns.
I removed William from his briny depths, knowing this would be the last time that he would bear any resemblance to the proud beast he once was. I rinsed off the brine and placed him and a pair of trotters (which I doubt were his but it would be nice to think so) in my large stockpot to rapidly boil out any excess salt.
The smell of hot cloves and brown sugar quickly filled the air. I was expecting a rather more unpleasant offal-like smell but the brine had taken care of that. Besides, with the brain removed there is nothing but meat and fat left anyway. And what’s not to like about meat and fat?
Once again, William and trotters were transferred to another pot, this time immersed in an herbal infusion of celery, fresh herbs, carrots, onions, a whole head of fresh garlic and a splash of white wine vinegar to sharpen the ensuing jelly.
I was rather precariously working from two recipes: the Jane Grigson one, which instructed four hours of slow simmering, and the Fergus Henderson one which advocated just two hours cooking and that was for a whole head.
Striking a happy medium between the two, I simmered it for 2 and a half hours. After this time, the vegetables had collapsed and the meat was falling from the bones.
I lifted the meat (no longer referred to as William) from the pan, and put it in a large bowl to cool off slightly before I started to pick it apart. I strained the cooking liquor and then reduced it by half with rapid boiling. This would – in theory – produce a rich, flavoursome jelly, made further gelatinous from the addition of the trotters to suspend the shreds of meat in the terrine like tiny pink rags.
And, bolstered by some alcohol, I tasted the stock and was pleasantly surprised by the intensely savoury liquor, imbued with the whole head of garlic and numerous herbs, not to mention Williams sweet meat, made sweeter still by a lifetime spent in pig luxury. No salt was needed, I just added a dash more vinegar to smarten it up a bit. I left it to simmer whilst I attacked the head.
Ah yes. The head. Whilst I was flitting around tweaking the cooking liquor, there was always that dark spectre of the cooked pigs head, staring up at me from the draining board.
I took it downstairs. Paul was going to have to watch me do this if not actively participate. Unfortunately, he was on the phone to his parents and seemed to be making unnecessary conversation with them, as if to prolong the call. I figured there was only one way to deal with this: hands straight in. And that is precisely what I did. I had my lined terrine next to me, a waiting vessel for the meat as I removed it from the various parts of the head. I was interested to note that there was moist, lean brown meat right behind the eye socket that, with a lot of coercion I managed to work loose. When you have your fingers eye socket deep into a cooked pigs head, you do seriously start to question your own sanity.
After about an hour spent picking apart this once masterful animal, I was left with about half a terrine of decent meat, of varying textures and colours. Some as dark as roast duck, some as pink as a rare steak. Some of the fat resembled raw pork, such was it's white density.
Fingertips still tingling from the heat of the freshly cooked pigs head, I trot upstairs with my half filled terrine and pour over the reduced gelatine-to-be. The Brawn or Cochon du Tete or Headcheese - which it now is - is refrigerated for several hours. After this time, it will separate into two distinct layers, one a protective covering of pure pig fat, the second a pink and bronzed translucent strata of gelatine and meat. It turns out perfectly.
William’s work here is done.

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Easter Cooking

Don't worry, the pigs head post is coming but as you can see from the following pictures, things have been culinarily hectic this weekend - and I wouldn't have wanted it any other way! I hope that everyone else had a wonderful time over the break too.
FRIDAY:
Paul and I don’t observe the Easter break in the same way as our families because we are not religious. To us the break signified something well deserved: much needed time away from work, court cases and bank letters dropping on our doorstep, reverberating with the all the power of a 20 kilo weight in my overly sensitive brain.
True, we did eat fish on Friday, in the form of fish and chips with my grandparents, but we also consumed pork and chicken cooked in a most novel way at our friend’s house - on a Raclette.
Raclette is actually a Swiss cheese, not dissimilar to Brie, that is melted over boiled potatoes, gherkins and dried meats. The word Raclette is derived from the French Racler, to scrape, and this is how it was served originally, the cheese melted then scraped onto the diners plate, forming a stringy, cheesy blanket for the vegetables of their choice.
Nowadays the word Raclette means the machine that has been produced to make life a little easier for the social diner. A hotplate on which you cook your meat or vegetables, underneath which nestle little trays that you fill with the cheese – it melts as the meat cooks and the two are then joined in a tasty union on the plate. What excited me about the modern day Raclette was the possibilities that this gadget held, much more so than a fondue. Sure, melted chocolate or cheese seems like a good idea but the washing up is just never worth those fleeting moments of chocolate induced ecstasy. On the other hand, the Raclette can cook whole steaks, fish, prawns, vegetables, pizza bases. You could toast pita breads, fruit, maybe even give waffles a try. I am now finding it hard to justify NOT adding one to my collection of dusty gadgets.
Before we went out on Friday, I pretty much got everything prepared in advance (I know, I'm a girlie swot) for the rest of the holiday. I spent the afternoon making dessert (which for now will remain anonymous - it's part of a foodie event so there'll be a whole post devoted to that) and making Cassoulet for Saturdays meal at my mums.

SATURDAY:
Cassoulet is one of those wonderful French dishes that you think must be dreadfully complicated, what with its rules about what meats can and can't go in - how many crusts does it have? Some say one, some three, some none. As with so many traditional dishes from France, you will never get a straight answer so it is best to adhere as well as you can to the elements that everyone agrees on and then add your own twist. My twist was to omit the duck (although I did make Duck Confit for my grandad - I've yet to hear the results), use fresh organic chicken legs and use a pork hock from Graig Farm instead of a hunk of belly pork. I also threw in some Cumberland Sausages for good measure although these certainly weren't needed.
I always hugely overestimate what my family can and can't eat and this was no exception. Paul had leftovers coming out of his ears.
If you fancy making Cassoulet for yourself, with a little organisation it is really easy. For flavour, you need a piece of pork on the bone (i.e. hock or belly pork or even a stock bone), some sausages (should be garlicky Toulouse ones but they are incredibly hard to get around here) and duck confit if you should happen to have some laying around (and don't we all?) but chicken pieces are slightly more economical and tasty. The dried pulse is of your choice but a creamy white one is best: I used Haricot. Butter Beans or Cannelini would be equally delicious. Make sure to soak these at least 6 hours in advance, then simmer them until almost tender with a bay leaf, a whole peeled onion and some peppercorns. Do not salt them.
Brown the pork in a little olive oil until it is richly coloured. Add a roughly chopped onion and lots of garlic. Some recipes ask for all the cloves from 1 or 2 heads of garlic chopped but I used just four cloves (Pauls stomach etc). Brown the onions until softened but don't let burn. Add a stick or two of celery, just snapped in two, and a big handful of parsley torn up. The keyword (to me at least) is rustic so don't spend ages painstakingly chopping the ingredients. The slow cooking in the oven will do all the hard work for you. Pour in a can of chopped tomatoes (my own addition, totally heretic I'm sure!), and the beans, cooking liquor and all. Nestle in the chicken or duck pieces, the sausages and grind over some black pepper. Cover tightly and cook for at least 2 hours in a low oven (about 150c). If you are cooking this dish in advance, you could leave it to cool at this stage, refrigerate and then reheat it thoroughly the next day. Remember to taste for salt now. Serve with some fresh crusty bread and butter.
So, with Saturdays lunch prepared, come Saturday afternoon, I could concentrate on Sundays lunch. You might remember that my grandparents had requested Jerk Pork and Jerk Pork is what they got. However, there was nothing I could do in advance for this, other than make the jerk rub, so, whilst Paul and my mum fixed the fence that Coney once hurdled over to race a horse (she lost), I made the Duck Confit for my Grandad and (hold onto your girdles, ladies)
a Salted Caramel and Chocolate Ganache Tart. That's right: the only truly perfect coupling in the world: chocolate and caramel. This was a recipe lifted in its entirety from the amazingly wonderful Green and Blacks Chocolate Cookbook and one that I had made in my head many, many times. I have never tried salted caramel before and I was not disappointed. Still hot from the pan it tasted buttery but ever so slightly bitter, almost burnt tasting. Once chilled though and covered with a so-rich-you-just-have-to-try-it chocolate ganache (3 and a half bars of Lindt 70% no less) it was tooth-stickingly chewy but not molar-inducingly sweet. The addition of sea salt is nothing more than pure genius. If you do make this tart, just remember to take it out of the fridge a good half an hour before you want to serve it, otherwise you will be getting claims for dental bills for loose or entirely dislodged fillings. Oh, a huge bonus from using the wrong size tart tin (the recipe required 11" and I only had a 9" pan), there was a lot of ganache left so I chilled it and made chocolate truffles with it.

SUNDAY:
The big day and we can all relax apart from Paul who just has to make his famous tomato salsa (the best ever) and his famous salsa infused rice to serve with the pork. I made a spicy pineapple salsa too (from an Ainsley Harriott recipe), that was just terrific with the blackened pork. I was happy that I had managed to serve pork with perfectly cracklesome crackling, soft, yielding fat underneath that and then moist meat beneath that. My family commented that they couldn't remember the last time they had been able to get crackling this crisp and I rather smugly alluded that, not to the chef, but to the purchase of decent, organic meat that is not pumped full of water for extra weight. My grandad is still sniffy about organic food using his rather flimsy argument that anyone can stamp their food with an organic label but to me, the proof is in the tasting and with this joint of pork they could not deny the simple facts: organic is best.
The food served didn't follow a strictly Caribbean menu, my family are much to fussy for that. But, I think we served the perfect meal for a hot summer and the first lunch eaten outside. Because at least two members of our family (notably me and my grandmother) like to honour the potato famine by eating potatoes at every possible occasion, I made some of Elisabeth Luards salt encrusted wrinkled potatoes. Sure, it was probably a touch of overkill with everything else going on but the dish was emptied of them with astonishing rapidity.
Finally, for a tea-time treat that actually wasn't taken advantage of (the tart pretty much slaughtered everyone as far as appetite went), I had baked a Simnel Cake last weekend. I was worried that it would be too dry. The recipe stated that it needed to be cooked for between 90 minutes to 2 hours. Mine was cooked within 40 minutes. I liberally doused it with some homemade Apricot Kernel Vodka (which tastes wonderfully of Marzipan) and hoped for the best. Kudos goes to my mum who helped decorate the cake. She is the artistic foodie of the family. Like I said to her "you would be more than happy to leave the 'boring' baking stuff to me and just primp things all day" to which she sagely nodded "well, food has to look good too, right?" She spent ages joyously scorching the eleven marzipan apostles and then adding her own touch, a tiny bunch of freshly picked violets which represent nothing more than perhaps the joy of this new season and the promise of the year to come.

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