Minding my P's and Q's

Parkin, Pesto, Quince.

Not all together!

Parkin, because it was bonfire night the week I attempted these, and Parkin is Dan's childhood-nostalgia bonfire night fix.


Except the recipe I tried was very old-fashioned and treacley. Dan remembers it as more ginger and golden-syrup and less treacle. I'll try the another recipe next time I feel inclined to try making Parkin and see if I can get closer to what he remembers. Still, what was left over after we attacked it on bonfire night went down well with my colleagues in the office on monday!

Pesto for no reason other than that we had a load of basil in the fridge which needed using. Yummy mixed with a little tomato sauce on gnocchi. Much nicer than the shop-bought jars. But the I suppose that shouldn't be surprising since anything fresh is usually better than something made in a factory and then left sitting in a jar for ages.

Now, the quinces.
This was because of my photography tutor John, who taught me on a darkroom course a couple of years ago. John has a love of quinces, jam in particular. I had never even heard of the fruit until I did that course, and this week I saw them for sale for the first time ever. They were in a metal bin at the farm shop - funny little fluffy things, like hard yellow pears. On impulse I bought a few. I had no idea what I would do with them or how you eat them.

Once at home I found a recipe for pear and quince compote in my Kitchen Bible (not me being facetious, it really is called the Kitchen Bible ), which took care of 2 of the fruits. I was a bit perturbed by my quinces not going a lovely ruby colour when stewed like the picture in the recipe book, but they tasted very yummy served slightly warm with a scoop of vanilla icecream, so I assume I just had a different variety of quince.
As I chopped, peeled and cored the quinces for the compote it became very obvious that they are not a fruit which you eat raw. The taste is so sharp it almost makes you wince (unintended rhyme!) and they're as hard as wood.
Ok that's an exaggeration, but you get my point.

I couldn't quite face chopping, peeling and coring the final quince. They were pretty awkward to work with because they were so hard. Baking seemed the way to go - 20 minutes or so in a medium oven (about 180C) softened the fruit up beautifully, making it easy to chop and mix with sugar for adding to a crumble at a later date.

I loved the flavour of quince. It tastes old-fashioned. Somewhere between an apple and a peach perhaps. I don't quite know how to describe it. Yes, its a pain-in-the-arse to prepare - certainly not a low-maintenance fruit. But I think they're worth it once in a while.

Thank you Mr Oliver...

...both for saving me from awful boredom on the long train journey from Glasgow to London, and for making Dan very happy.

Let me explain:
Dan's starting to get interested in the project. Not enough to get involved in the cooking you understand, but enough to put in a few requests. So far; bonfire toffee, treacle pudding, parkin, dauphinoise potatoes, and eggs benedict.

The week in question I had spent from thursday in Glasgow at a conference. I hadn't visited the city since I was child, and was pleasantly surprised by it, despite getting soaked every time I stepped outside. But I digress...
I was getting an early train back to London followed by a short break before my chiltern line back to deepest-darkest Oxfordshire. 7:55am on a rainy saturday morning didn't seem like a time to be breaking out the laptop and working on the train, so it had to be a magazine. Sadly, there wasn't much of a selection at the station. I had already read the ones I like for that month (I had been on the train quite a bit over the previous weeks!), and couldn't quite bring myself to part with my money for most of the others on display. So I was left with the Jamie Oliver magazine. Whilst this would not usually be my chosen reading material I figured that at the very least I could flick through and then donate it to my nephew who loves Jamie, thereby earning major favourite-auntie points.

One month later the magazine has taken up permanent residence in my kitchen, so no points for me. It is packed to the gills with great recipes, including eggs benedict! I bought some smoked ham, english muffins and white wine vinegar between trains the same day, and on sunday morning we had very decadent eggs benedict for breakfast. I've never had them before, and they're very rich so unlikely to be a regular treat, but tasty. Also, it turns out that hollandaise sauce really isn't difficult as long as you pay attention and don't rush.



So, thank you Jamie Oliver.

Incidentally, in case you should be under the mistaken impression that everything I've tried cooking has been a success, we had venison stew this week too. Seriously the most disgusting thing I have ever made.

not cheating with cannellini

So, flatbread felt like cheating.
Cannellini and mint dip was all new though. And given that Bethan loved it and asked for the recipe, here it is:

3oz dried cannellini beans
1/2 clove garlic
1/2 bunch chopped spring onions
1/2 handful of fresh mint leaves
1 tablespoon of tahini
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1-2 tablespoons lemon juice
salt & pepper

Soak the cannellini beans in cold water over night. Then drain and rinse and put in a heavy-based saucepan covered in cold water. Bring slowly to the boil, then allow to boil rapidly for 10 minutes before reducing the heat, covering and leaving to cook for 1 1/2-2 hours until the beans are tender.
Drain the beans and put into a food processor with all the other ingredients - or mash it all up together with a potato masher - blend, but don't over process as its nice to have a bit of texture to the dip.
Transfer to a bowl and cover. allow to cool for at least an hour at room temperature before serving.

Making bread

My Mum's birthday provided the family with the perfect excuse to get together for dinner at my older sister's place. To lighten the cooking work I promised to make the starter. Dips and flatbread seemed to fit the bill, so I made houmous again (never in 30 years then twice in a week!), a cannellini bean and mint dip, and Nigel Slater's flatbread.

Once I got started on the bread I have to confess to feeling a bit fraudulent for counting it as a recipe-of-the-week: it was fundamentally the same as normal bread, except for the addition of olive oil and that it only needs one rising period. Oh, and its shaped differently.

A brief explanation here:
My Dad has been making bread every saturday morning for my whole life. As little kids we "helped" - a tradition which my nephew and nieces continue. Even as surly teenagers the smell of fresh bread would have us fighting with enthusiasm over the crusty end of the warm loaf at saturday lunchtime.
A couple of years ago, growing frustrated by the lack of quality bread available in the shops, I though 'How hard can it be?!' and took up the family habit of making my own.


The following is my preferred method, reached after a few months of experimentation. Any kind of bread flour will do - I have successfully used just white flour, half-and half wholemeal and white, spelt flour etc etc. My favourite is about 1/2 wholemeal or spelt - 1/2 white flour.

Bread
550g bread flour
15g fresh yeast (or about a teaspoon dried yeast)
330ml water at blood temperature
1 teaspoon salt

Roll up your sleeves and wash your hands - they're going to get stuck in!
Dissolve the yeast in a little of the warm water.
In a separate bowl mix together the flour and salt, then pour in the dissolved yeast and mix it together with your hands. Gradually add the rest of the water mixing it in until the mixture forms a soft dough. It shouldn't be too sticky - if it is sprinkle it with a little more flour. Don't rush this and be aware that sometimes you will need a little more water, sometimes a little less. The absorbency (hmm is that a word?) of the flour will vary depending on weather etc. It takes a little while for flour to fully absorb the liquid, so if you rush and add all the water at once you could end up with an overly sticky dough.
Turn your dough out onto a floured surface and kneed for about 10 minutes until it is smooth and silky.
Put it into a clean bowl (I usually just wipe out the bowl I mixed it up in), cover with a teatowel or put inside a clean plastic bag (I usually just put it inside a Sainsbury's bag) making sure there's space above the dough for it to rise without sticking to the cover. Leave in a warm place for an hour, or a little longer if your yeast is a bit old or the room not very warm.
after an hour or so, punch the dough back to knock the air out of it (quite theraputic!) and kneed on your floured surface again for a few minutes. Then shape the dough into a roll and put into a bread tin. I use an 800g size silicon tin. This has the distinct advantage of being naturally non-stick so I don't have to grease the tin. If you have a metal bread tin (I think purists probably would prefer you did) then grease it well before you put your bread in.
Leave your dough in the tin in the warm place for a further 1/2 hour until it has risen to the top of the tin again. Preheat the oven while it rises - as hot as your oven will go; typically 220-230C.
Bake the bread for 15 minutes at this temperature, then turn the oven down to 205C for 10 minutes. After that take the loaf out of the tin and bake for a further 5-7 minutes at about 190C. You can try putting a tray of hot water in the bottom of the oven while cooking to make it slightly steamy if you want - it is meant to help the bread form a better crust, although the jury's out.
If the bread sounds hollow when you tap the base it is cooked.

Sorry the picture is a bit rubbish! This loaf was made with about 200g malted bread flour, 300g wholemeal. It didn't rise as much as a loaf mixed with some white flour would, also it was pretty cold which inhibits the rising a bit. It was tasty this morning for breakfast with some nice strawberry jam.



This isn't the method my Dad uses. He is far more thorough than me, using a starter rather than just mixing the yeast in straight away. He ends up with a bread with a more open texture, but this is a quicker method which can be cooked in the evening after work (as long as I get home on time!). If I start the process at about 6:30pm then the bread comes out of the oven before 10pm. Lovely fresh bread for breakfast!
I think people are daunted by making bread as it seems time-consuming, but actually most of that time is just waiting for it to rise. You don't have to watch it! Go and watch TV, cook the dinner, have a bath - whatever you would normally do in the evening. The other good thing about bread making is that its very forgiving. If the dough ends up rising for a bit longer you will still end up with a good loaf.

Food foibles

There are certain tastes you are expected to grow into as you get older. Dark chocolate, for example, or olives. A full-bodied glass of red, strong dark coffee. All of these I adore. They are grown-up tastes. To be lingered over and savoured, but too intense to tempt one into over-indulgence.



Smelly cheese, so ripe it oozes definitely makes it onto the list, but this is a taste I just can't seem to acquire. When I mentioned this is a previous post, Carisa was has horrified and it got me thinking - Isn't it interesting how, even as adults, we still all have certain food foibles?

I'm well aware of the ridiculousness of eating raw fish with enthusiasm but being unable to force myself to eat a mushroom.


I've eaten a whole bowl of snails (actually rather nice - a bit like mussels), but I'd rather go hungry than eat anything with mayonnaise on it.



My complete failure to see the point of condiments remains a source of puzzlement to Dan, and makes buying a sandwich tricky. (Next time you buy one see if you can find one without mayonnaise, mustard, salad dressing, or cheese - see, its not easy!)
Apparently I've been this way since childhood. My mother still shudders at the shame of me declaring at a friend's house that I wouldn't eat food with 'guck' on it. I was 5 years old.

As a child I had an allergy to beef and dairy products and I still tend to avoid both. I don't understand the lust a good steak inspires in people - give me fish or seafood any day - and all I see when I look at a latte is a tummy-ache.
I love fresh, flavoursome fruit and vegetables, interesting herbs and spices, and the satisfaction of a plate popping with different colours and tastes. A little good-quality meat (I'm a terrible snob about meat) and as much fish as I can decently manage.

Whilst this all sounds horrifyingly healthy, I do have to confess to having a terribly sweet tooth. My current object of obssession are the Hummingbird Bakery's muesli bars. Sound's healthy doesn't it? They're not. I'm pretty sure there's condensed milk, butter and sugar in there; so sweet it almost makes your teeth ache, but soooo goooooood! The irony of eating super-healthy, low cal, low fat, blah, blah, blah all day, only to scupper the whole thing with one innocent-looking sweet treat is not lost upon me.

But I'm sure cake should count as a legitimate food group.

Moroccan flavours for winter warming

When I went to Morocco I didn't get to taste a single morsel of the food. I was playing on a cruise ship, we docked for less than 24 hours and I had to be back on the ship for rehearsals at lunchtime. What a shame that now seems.



This week's recipe was Moroccan roast lamb, so I decide to keep the theme running and have a go at homemade houmous too.
The lamb was good. Roasted with butter, garlic, and cumin, and served with couscous and roast Mediterranean vegetables. The only problem with it was that on a cold British sunday what you really want with roast lamb is rosemary, garlic, gravy and roast potatoes. A good dish for a springtime meal though I think.



The houmous on the other hand, I was proud of. Made from scratch, including soaking the chickpeas overnight, it was firmer and less oily than the shop variety. I expect that canned chickpeas would be absolutely fine, but it seemed not quite in the spirit of the project to use them. At least not the first time.

Houmous
100g dried chickpeas
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon tahini
1-2 garic cloves - crushed
Olive oil
Salt and black pepper

Cover the chicpeas in cold water and leave to soak overnight.
The next day rinse the chickpeas, put in a heavy bottomed pan, cover in cold water, bring slowly to the boil. Skim off any scum that forms on the surface, reduce the heat and leave to simmer with the lid on for 1 1/2 - 2 hours until the chickpeas are tender.
Drain, reserving a bit of the cooking liquid. Put into a food processor with the lemon juice, tahini,garlic and seasoning and blend until smooth. Mix in a little olive oil and some of the cooking water until the houmous reaches your prefered consistency.
Taste and adjust to your own preferences - personally I like my houmous fairly lemony but not too oily. I also added a little sprinkle of paprika at the end. A few toasted cumin seeds are also a good addition.
Enjoy!

Cheeeeese!

Idly browsing the internet trying to figure out how to make semifreddo (see Italy post) I found out that its meant to be really easy to make soft cheese.
At this point, I should point out that I'm amphatically NOT a fan of cheese in general. In fact, the only cheese I like is the kind that doesn't taste like cheese - mozzarella is good but so far no other kind has taken my fancy. However, I wanted to have spinach and ricotta cannelloni for dinner, and that definitely needs cheese, so I decided to try making it...

Soft Goats Cheese

Take 2 pints of milk, heat it to 185F, stir in a sprinkle of salt and the juice of a lemon until the milk curdles. Strain through cheesecloth, then once most of the liquid is gone wrap the cheesecloth up round the cheese (don't squeeze it!), and hang it in a cool place (I put it in the fridge) to continue to drain for 4-6 hours. Unwrap the cloth, and hey presto!, you have cream cheese.

When I mixed in the lemon I was really convinced it wasn't working. In my ignorance I was expecting proper lumps to form at that point rather than the little flecks which actually are the sign of curdling. Still, I went with it and set about straining.
Realistically, unless you have a particular penchant for 1970s fashions, I doubt many people have cheesecloth in their house. I just doubled over the muslin I'd bought for straining my damson jelly and used that, which seemed to work fine. Amazingly, as soon as I started pouring the liquid into my muslin-lined colander I could see the cheese beginning to collect, which was heartening. After a few hours draining in the fridge all those little flecks ended up creating 175g of soft cheese - I found the ease of the whole thing quite exciting, which may mean that I really need to get a life, but who knew it would be so simple to do?!

What was even better was that I actually liked it. OK, so I probably won't be eating it by the plateful, but a little here and there will definitely be acceptable.
By-the-way, I used goats milk, but I assume cows milk would work equally well.

Parents for dinner

My parents were due to visit for lunch and for a nosey around our new place. I felt like the occasion deserved a bit of cookery-effort, and with the weather feeling distinctly autumnal something a satisfying but not too heavy seemed the order of the day. To my mind there's nothing more comforting than pastry. I find the process of making it strangely soothing, and the golden glow of the finished product does lift the heart a little. About six months ago I ate my very first salmon-en-croute, and remembering the wonderful textural contrasts of flakey pastry, nutty wild rice, and soft salmon, as well as my new love-affair with dill, I decided to have a go at making it.

Now, every recipe for salmon-en-croute tells you to use puff pastry. But, smart-arse that I am I decided to use shortcrust.
Rookie-error.
Even though I rolled it out really thin it made the dish a bit too heavy overall. So, definitely puff pastry in future. On the otherhand, I loved everything else about the dish. The salmon was soft and was enhanced by the dill and spinach, while the rice added a bit of welcome bite. we had it with little potatoes, a watercress salad and a yummy bottle of Riesling.
A bit time-consuming, but perfect fuel for the country walk that followed.

Salmon-en-Croute (enough for 4 people):

375g puff pastry
splash of olive oil
2 reasonable sized shallots
450g skinned salmon fillet
Juice of 1 small lemon
Large bunch of fresh dill
salt and pepper
115g mixed basmati and wild rice (pre-cooked)
Handful of wilted spinach
1 egg - beaten

Preheat oven to 200C/Gas Mark 6.
Cut off 1/3 of the pastry and roll it out into a rectangle. (Wrap the other 2/3 in cligfilm and put in frisge). Place onto a non-stick baking tray, prick all over with a fork to stop it puffing up too much in the oven, then bake for 12 minutes or so until golden. Set aside to cool.
Make the filling:
Fry the shallots in a little olive oil over a low heat until soft. Set aside to cool.
Place the salmon in a bowl, squezze over the lemon juice, scatter the dill over the top, drizzle with a llittle olive oil, and season with salt and pepper. (Do this no more than an hour ahead or the lemon will start to 'cook' the salmon.)
Combine the cooked rice and shallots. Season to taste.
Assemble the dish:
Spoon the mixture over the cooked pastry base, spreading out towards the edges. Place the wilted spinach on top in a thin layer, then put the salmon fillets on top of that. Spalsh on a little of the marinade liquid and discard the rest.
Roll out the remaining pastry until it is slightly larger than the base. Lift it and place over the partly-assembled dish. Trim off the corners of the pastry and tuck the sides underneath the cooked base.
Brush the top of the pastry with beaten egg, then bake at 180C for 30-35 minutes until golden. Allow to cool for 5-10 minutes before serving.

...and so to Italy

A late september trip to Italy meant that the recipe challenge was put on hold for a week, but I resolved to keep the spirit of the project alive by making an effort to try foods I had never had before...and what a place to do it! Italy in the early autumn sunshine - surely one of the loveliest places to be.



Some memorable meals included a smoked swordfish pizza with fresh buffalo mozzeralla and rocket, pear-filled pasta with a walnut sauce (delicious, although due to its slight sweetness you definitely wouldn't want more than a handful), black pasta stuffed with courgette and basil with squid and smoked bacon, hazlenut torta, and Dan's new favourite; vanilla semifreddo with peach compote. Gorgeous!



Less fancy favourites -
Paprika crisps! Why can't we get these over here? They're amazing!
Goats' cheese, ham and fresh crusty bread sitting on the top of a mountain pass in Switzerland.
Fresh apples from Merano. I have never seen so many orchards in one area.

Just a little postscript - we saw these quite a few times around Italy. I definitely want one! How cool?!

So why blog?

I'm a control freak.
Lets get that out in the open right from the start.
I like lists and projects and having a plan.
After recipe-of-the-week had lasted a few weeks I realised that it was here to stay for a while and so I needed to keep track of recipes tried. Partly so that I remembered what I had already made and also to remind me whether it was any good and any alterations for next time.
I started by scrawling it down on paper. But as the list got longer that became annoying.
Then I started a computer-list, just in word, nothing fancy.
But then around about week 10 I decided to do it properly. As a child I had scrap books, which I loved working on, but a blog seemed a more modern and immediate way to keep track of my progress.
I might just have to try and do a scrap-book too though. There's something lovely about recipe books handed down through the generations. It would be wonderful to start one and hope it is treasured in future years - but only the recipes that actually work can go in there! This blog will be warts and all.

Incidentally, this week's recipe was Lamb kebabs. Tasty, and good to make as I got to use my griddle pan which I bought from the Le Creuset shop in the Swindon outlet village a couple of years ago, and only used 2 or 3 times since. It seemed like a necessary addition to the kitchen at the time, but I have had a guilty conscience about it sitting in the cupboard largely unused. Halfway through cooking, when waving a tea towel around under the smoke alarm, I remembered that it is nearly always easier to grill things than cook them on the griddle pan.

Jelly and nostalgia

On a roll from last week's jam experiment, and with a massive bag of damsons from my parents' trees, this week I attempted Damson Jelly.
It took a while because you first boil up the fruit, then strain it through muslin for several hours, then boil it up with sugar. So although its not in any way labour-intensive, it does take pretty much the whole day to get to the finish point.
Except, for me, it took until the next day to get to the finish point because the jelly didn't set on the first attempt.
Turns out I was over-eager in potting my jelly and should have let it get to a hotter temperature first. So back in the pan it went the next day, and it did set on the 2nd attempt. Phew.


Then for a bit of nostalgia. Last Christmas we took a day trip on Eurostar to Lille for the Christmas market.


It was one of those crisp cold December days, so after a bit of wandering round Lille we found ourselves a cosy cellar-like bistro for lunch. The only thing on the menu were gallettes. Now I may be ignorant, but I didn't know what gallettes were before that point. They were a revelation. Savoury buckwheat pancakes, with a leek ham and cheese filling, served with a pichet of local cider. Absolutely perfect.
Back in the UK, I searched high and low for buckwheat flour, to no avail. So I had to substitute wholemeal. Not quite the same, but a reasonable result nonetheless.
I had never made pancakes of any kind before so this was a learning curve. The first one was a disaster. Soggy, and disintegrated! The second was not much better. But I did manage to get a couple of decent examples done after a bit of swearing and persistence. Filled with onion, ham and cheese they made a yummy weekend lunch.
I later found out that the french always say that the first pancake is "pour le chien" (for the dog), so clearly I'm not alone in struggling with pancakes. Which is comforting.

Here's the recipe (makes enough for 3 or 4 gallettes):

75-80g flour (wholemeal or buckwheat)
1/2 beaten egg
200ml cold sparkling water
10g melted butter
pinch of salt

Combine all ingredients and whisk together with a fork until smooth and runny.
Cover and leave to stand in the fridge for at least 2 hours. I found that its still good the next day.
When ready to cook your gallettes, remove the mixture from the fridge. Beat with a fork for a few minutes, then heat a small amount of oil in a frying pan. Ladle in some gallette mixture, swirl around to make it as thin as possible and cook for a few minutes. Loosen the edges with a pallette knife (or a fish slice if you're like me and don't have a pallette knife), then flip and cook on the other side. set aside and keep warm.
Repeat for all the mixture.
Make whatever filling you fancy.
Heat pan again, add the gallette, spoon your filling in, fold gallette over to cover your filing. allow a minute or so to get warm through.
Serve.
Yum!

Rhubarb and ginger

Apparently there has been a massive surge in sales of jam-making equipment this year. I feel a little grumpy about this, as if there's one thing I hate its to be part of a trend! Nonetheless, I have made jam this year.
I started my jam making with an unsuccessful attempt at blackberry jam last year. What can I say?...I was a trendsetter!


Problem was, the jam was too hard to spread easily (we ate it anyway, of course!), so this year I bought a jam thermometer before I made a second attempt.
After a yummy and spreadable strawberry jam I was feeling confident, so when I was sent the instructions for rhubarb and ginger jam I resolved to give it a try.
And it worked!
The result was tangy with lovely little surprises of stem ginger throughout. Definitely one to do again when rhubarb comes into season. And a great alternative to marmalade, which I just can't stand.
Find the recipe here.

How it started....

It all started with a book.

Specifically, this book:

So I suppose, technically, it all started with a blog. Which seems rather modern to me, although I'm aware I'm a few years behind the times.

Having been recommended the film of the book of the blog by another blogger (are you keeping up?!) I decided to start with the book. I still haven't got round to the film, but that's beside the point. At about the halfway point of the book I had a sudden realisation that I have a rather large collection of cookery books. They take up a whole shelf. And yet, the majority of the time I cook the same few meals.

I decided to start a PROJECT.

Since I had no desire to cook my way through an entire recipe book as Julie did I resolved instead to cook at least one new recipe per week. It seemed manageable, and even with a couple of weeks off through the year that would mean 50 new recipes in a year. I do like a nice even number, so that sealed the deal!

Here goes....