Christmas has crept up without me noticing this year. It feels like only a moment ago it was October, and now all of a sudden its only a couple of weeks until Christmas Day. This means that I'm now into the busy evenings and weekends of Christmas concerts, Christmas meals, and the last few running events of the year. Because of this, my intention to cook the Daring Cooks December challenge recipes of Char Sui Pork, followed by steamed pork buns using some of the left-overs, fell off the timetable due to time pressure. A great shame as both dishes sounded delicious. I'll have to make an attempt at them when I have a little more spare time.
Instead, I used the pork tenderloin I had bought for those dishes to make two improvised Pork en Croute. I have to say, they were delicious, so I didn't miss the Char Sui too badly! Here's what I did:
Pork en Croute No. 1:
120g pork tenderloin
70g puff pastry (I used shop bought, ready rolled - I'm lazy!)
2 slices serrano ham
Some thin slices of courgette
Finely sliced rosemary and garlic
salt, white and black pepper
Fennel seeds
Unroll your puff pastry and lay the 2 slices of ham on it. Place the pork tenderloin on top of the ham and season. Sprinkle the garlic and rosemary on top before covering with slices of courgette, wrapping the ham over to encase the pork and courgette, then wrapping the puff pastry over and sealing the edges.
Brush with a little melted butter, beaten egg, milk, or olive oil, sprinkle with fennel seeds, and cook as below.
Pork en Croute No. 2:
140g pork tenderloin,
camembert slices
3 slices serrano ham
120g puff pastry
button mushrooms, sliced small
butter, olive oil
Finely sliced rosemary and garlic
salt, white and black pepper
Fennel seeds
Fry the mushrooms, garlic and rosemary in a mixture of butter and olive oil on a low heat. Once cooked remove from the heat and allow to cool a little.
Unroll the pastry, lay out the ham on the pastry and place the prok tenderloin on top. Season with salt and the peppers, then spoon the mushrooms onto the meat. Top with a few slices of camembert, fold the ham over to encase the meat and cheese, then fold the pastry over and seal the edges.
Brush with a little melted butter, beaten egg, milk, or olive oil, sprinkle with fennel seeds, and cook.
Place on a greased baking tray and bake for 15 minutes at 200C, then 10 minutes at 180-190C.
Serve with gravy, apple sauce, new potatoes, and runner beans for a hearty and warming winter dinner.
Showing posts with label Pastry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pastry. Show all posts
Monday, December 12, 2011
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Croissants and other pastry delights
Generally speaking I'm not a massive lover of pastries for breakfast. They're one of those things that I occasionally get lured into buying by the smell, but then the taste almost never lives up to that promise. I usually find them too greasy, too flakey, and they just don't have enough flavour.
Of course there are some notable exceptions to every rule - I love the much breadier varieties that they make at the Natural Bread Company (an Oxfordshire bakery with a shop in Woodstock) - they're always buttery but not greasy; flakey, but not so much that you get annoyed with the bits of pastry all over you. They have texture and chewability. This, for me, is definitely how pastries should be.
Well, having set my bar quite high, I decided it was time to have a go at making breakfast pastries myself. I have a recipe book from the Bourke Street Bakery in Sydney, Australia which gives brilliantly clear instructions on how to make croissants. Time to take the plunge.
So here goes...
The night before, I mixed up a small amount of yeast, flour, milk and sugar, kneeded it well, then left it in the fridge overnight. This is the croissant ferment.
Next day I mixed the dough, kneeded it well and put back in the fridge. The instructions said to leave it there for at least 2 hours; I left mine for about 3 hours.
Next, I weighed out a truely extraordinary amount of butter. I actually used 400g instead of the recipe's 500g, as I wanted to achieve pastries that were a bit less greasy than the norm. I bashed the butter into a square about 1cm thick - I placed the butter between 2 pieces of baking parchement and hit it with a rolling pin. Quite theraputic!
After this I rolled the dough out into a rectangle about the same width as the butter square and about twice the length. I placed the butter in the middle, then folded the dough over the top.
The next step was to roll the dough out into a long rectangle then fold it over; I folded in thirds - one third towards the middle, then the other side over the top of that. I then returned the dough to the fridge to rest for 20 minutes. This had to be repeated twice more, turning the dough through 90 degrees each time I rolled it out. The dough was rolled out 3 times in total.
After a final rest in the fridge I had a laminated dough:
This was now ready to form into pastries.
I had inadvertantly made a hundred-weight of dough, so I had enough to make about 12-15 croissants and also about the same number of bear claws.
Here are the croissants, formed, risen (I let them rise for about an hour and a half, but if its a cool day it may take a bit longer), and ready to go into the oven:
I was very proud that the croissants actually looked like croissants. Amazing!
For the bear claws I made about 150g of frangipane and put a teaspoon of it in the centre of each piece of dough along with a teaspoon of damson jelly then folded the dough over and sealed the edges. Any jam would work nicely but I thought the slight sharpness of damsons would complement the frangipane.
The bear claws looked pretty good as they came out of the oven.
The house smelt lovely for the rest of the day after making these. I was really hoping that their taste would live up to the smell! When I finally did the taste test the next morning (5 minutes in the oven at 180C crisped them up beautifully) they were just as I'd hoped; flakey but still with plenty of dough-texture. The croissants were lovely with some homemade strawberry and mint jam, and the bear claws were tastey just as they came; no extras needed.
Just as well we both liked the outcome as we have freezer full of pastries now! This isn't a recipe I would make often as it is time-consuming and very messy, but I definitely will attempt it again. Its nice to be able to have pastries made to my own preferences. The recipe quantities makes such a lot of pastries that I have several months worth now. I will have to try making the Pain au Raisins recipe next time - its my favourite kind of pastry.
Full marks to the Bourke Street Bakery instructions. Its shaping up to have been an excellent cook-book purchase.
Of course there are some notable exceptions to every rule - I love the much breadier varieties that they make at the Natural Bread Company (an Oxfordshire bakery with a shop in Woodstock) - they're always buttery but not greasy; flakey, but not so much that you get annoyed with the bits of pastry all over you. They have texture and chewability. This, for me, is definitely how pastries should be.
Well, having set my bar quite high, I decided it was time to have a go at making breakfast pastries myself. I have a recipe book from the Bourke Street Bakery in Sydney, Australia which gives brilliantly clear instructions on how to make croissants. Time to take the plunge.
So here goes...
The night before, I mixed up a small amount of yeast, flour, milk and sugar, kneeded it well, then left it in the fridge overnight. This is the croissant ferment.
Next day I mixed the dough, kneeded it well and put back in the fridge. The instructions said to leave it there for at least 2 hours; I left mine for about 3 hours.
Next, I weighed out a truely extraordinary amount of butter. I actually used 400g instead of the recipe's 500g, as I wanted to achieve pastries that were a bit less greasy than the norm. I bashed the butter into a square about 1cm thick - I placed the butter between 2 pieces of baking parchement and hit it with a rolling pin. Quite theraputic!
After this I rolled the dough out into a rectangle about the same width as the butter square and about twice the length. I placed the butter in the middle, then folded the dough over the top.
The next step was to roll the dough out into a long rectangle then fold it over; I folded in thirds - one third towards the middle, then the other side over the top of that. I then returned the dough to the fridge to rest for 20 minutes. This had to be repeated twice more, turning the dough through 90 degrees each time I rolled it out. The dough was rolled out 3 times in total.
After a final rest in the fridge I had a laminated dough:
This was now ready to form into pastries.
I had inadvertantly made a hundred-weight of dough, so I had enough to make about 12-15 croissants and also about the same number of bear claws.
Here are the croissants, formed, risen (I let them rise for about an hour and a half, but if its a cool day it may take a bit longer), and ready to go into the oven:
I was very proud that the croissants actually looked like croissants. Amazing!
For the bear claws I made about 150g of frangipane and put a teaspoon of it in the centre of each piece of dough along with a teaspoon of damson jelly then folded the dough over and sealed the edges. Any jam would work nicely but I thought the slight sharpness of damsons would complement the frangipane.
The bear claws looked pretty good as they came out of the oven.
The house smelt lovely for the rest of the day after making these. I was really hoping that their taste would live up to the smell! When I finally did the taste test the next morning (5 minutes in the oven at 180C crisped them up beautifully) they were just as I'd hoped; flakey but still with plenty of dough-texture. The croissants were lovely with some homemade strawberry and mint jam, and the bear claws were tastey just as they came; no extras needed.
Just as well we both liked the outcome as we have freezer full of pastries now! This isn't a recipe I would make often as it is time-consuming and very messy, but I definitely will attempt it again. Its nice to be able to have pastries made to my own preferences. The recipe quantities makes such a lot of pastries that I have several months worth now. I will have to try making the Pain au Raisins recipe next time - its my favourite kind of pastry.
Full marks to the Bourke Street Bakery instructions. Its shaping up to have been an excellent cook-book purchase.
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Coming over all Cornish
Dartmouth Harbour
Last week we extended our weekend by a couple of days on either side and took a little road trip.
We meandered down through Dorset and Devon to St Ives in Cornwall, then back via the north Devon coast and a flying visit onto Exmoor. It was lovely to have some time to explore our own country, and made us remember that the UK is a lovely place and that its great to spend time just chilling out together.
To get into the spirit of the trip, the recipe I attempted this week was Hugh's curried trout pasty, from the River Cottage Fish Cook book. The pasties would make great picnic food, although they perhaps were not the perfect dinner - I couldn't come up with a very satisfactory accompaniment. Given that Dan sampled a real, home-cooked, Cornish Steak pasty while we were away I was glad to have attempted a lighter interpretation. I think I'd still be living off one of those 3 days later!
St Ives
One or two mini pieces of cookery inspiration from the trip:
Seville Orange Tart - an amazing dessert served up with creme fraiche at Rick Stein's Seafood Restaurant in Padstow. A little bit bitter and fresh. We had a really lovely, rather over-indulgent Sunday lunch there - this is Dan with his Lobster and Prawn Tourte, which was delicious too:
Leek and Walnut quiche - a surprisingly brilliant combination.
Also, fantastic cake from a bakery in Dorchester in Dorset - we sampled half a slice each of Rhubarb and Ginger loaf cake and Chocolate, Pear and Almond loaf cake in our beachside picnic that day. Yummy scrummy. Glad I don't live close to that bakery - I'd definitely end up over-eating every day!
Padstow
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Halloween cookery
Surely, it has to be Pumpkin for dinner on Halloween night? Once we had waved goodbye to the last trick-or-treater we sat down to a dinner of duck with a plum and chilli sauce (very tasty - find the recipe here) followed by pumpkin pie.
The pie was lightly spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice. It was a good mix, and a comforting wintery pudding. I served it still warm from the oven with some cream.
Halloween duty done.
I have to confess that fruity pies are still my favourite, but I did enjoy this. It would definitely be a better portable pie for a picnic, whereas fruit pies go soggy and don't travel at all well.
The pie was lightly spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice. It was a good mix, and a comforting wintery pudding. I served it still warm from the oven with some cream.
Halloween duty done.
I have to confess that fruity pies are still my favourite, but I did enjoy this. It would definitely be a better portable pie for a picnic, whereas fruit pies go soggy and don't travel at all well.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Daring Cooks Challenge #3
Dolma/Cold Stuffed Grape Leaves
Our October 2010 hostess, Lori of Lori’s Lipsmacking Goodness, has challenged The Daring Cooks to stuff grape leaves. Lori chose a recipe from Aromas of Aleppo and a recipe from The New Book of Middle Eastern Food.
This was the October challenge from the Daring Cooks website. I was pretty excited to have a go since I love stuffed vine leaves.
First things first though; an expedition was required to find somewhere that sold preserved vine leaves. None in Sainsburys, or Marks&Sparks, or Tesco, or the Greek deli in Oxford. Hmmmm. Where next?
Fortunately I had a monday evening trip to London last week, and even more fortunately some elementary googling told me that there was a Greek Grocery on Moscow Road. The Athenian Grocery turned out to be a veritable treasure trove of yummy treats. I'll be back. But in the meantime, a packet of vine leaves in brine were procurred, carried across London, taken to a concert, and traipsed back to the Cotswolds via Oxford. I hope they enjoyed their evening out.
It was easy to make the filling for these, and they were easy to cook. The fiddly bit was separating the vine leaves ready to roll up without ripping them. I knew all those years of striving to unwrap my Cadburys creme eggs without tearing the wrapper would come in handy one day! Excellent training for separating preserved vine leaves. I did rip a few, but they were mostly OK, and there were more than I needed in the pack anyway. A few did spilt during the cooking or when taking them out of the pan, but they were mostly fine. The taste was good.
Given how much I like eating stuffed vine leaves I'll definitely make these again. I won't put quite so much filling in each one next time (must remember that rice expands with cooking!) and hopefully that will solve some of the issues of them splitting.
Now then...when am I next going to be passing Moscow Road in London?
Also, this Sunday I finally made Dan one of his very first recipe requests; Beef Wellington. I served it up with Dauphinois potatoes, which made him one very happy man. He ate too much though. In fact, he was so greedy that he had to lie on the sofa after to let his stomach recover. Although now I think about it, that was probably an elaborate ruse so get out of doing the washing-up.
Our October 2010 hostess, Lori of Lori’s Lipsmacking Goodness, has challenged The Daring Cooks to stuff grape leaves. Lori chose a recipe from Aromas of Aleppo and a recipe from The New Book of Middle Eastern Food.
This was the October challenge from the Daring Cooks website. I was pretty excited to have a go since I love stuffed vine leaves.
First things first though; an expedition was required to find somewhere that sold preserved vine leaves. None in Sainsburys, or Marks&Sparks, or Tesco, or the Greek deli in Oxford. Hmmmm. Where next?
Fortunately I had a monday evening trip to London last week, and even more fortunately some elementary googling told me that there was a Greek Grocery on Moscow Road. The Athenian Grocery turned out to be a veritable treasure trove of yummy treats. I'll be back. But in the meantime, a packet of vine leaves in brine were procurred, carried across London, taken to a concert, and traipsed back to the Cotswolds via Oxford. I hope they enjoyed their evening out.
It was easy to make the filling for these, and they were easy to cook. The fiddly bit was separating the vine leaves ready to roll up without ripping them. I knew all those years of striving to unwrap my Cadburys creme eggs without tearing the wrapper would come in handy one day! Excellent training for separating preserved vine leaves. I did rip a few, but they were mostly OK, and there were more than I needed in the pack anyway. A few did spilt during the cooking or when taking them out of the pan, but they were mostly fine. The taste was good.
Given how much I like eating stuffed vine leaves I'll definitely make these again. I won't put quite so much filling in each one next time (must remember that rice expands with cooking!) and hopefully that will solve some of the issues of them splitting.
Now then...when am I next going to be passing Moscow Road in London?
Also, this Sunday I finally made Dan one of his very first recipe requests; Beef Wellington. I served it up with Dauphinois potatoes, which made him one very happy man. He ate too much though. In fact, he was so greedy that he had to lie on the sofa after to let his stomach recover. Although now I think about it, that was probably an elaborate ruse so get out of doing the washing-up.
Monday, October 4, 2010
Argentina
My Dad tells an interesting story about being on a ship that docked in Buenos Aires. They were carrying coal, but the next cargo was to be grain. After unloading the coal in Buenos Aires they had about 48 hours to the next port in which to completely clean the hold of any trace of coal dust.
However, red wine was super cheap in Argentina, and the sailors got so drunk on it that they gave themselves alcohol poisoning and were completely incapacitated. Dad and the other officer cadets worked round the clock to clean the ship, staying up working for the full 48 hours straight. He was 17 at the time and had only been in the navy for a year. He swears that it was the hard physical work like that experience, as well as the poor food once you'd been at sea for more than a week, which meant that he stopped growing almost as soon as he joined the merchant navy.
But anyway, I digress. This week I made an Argentinian dish - Empanadas. Hence the musing on my Dad's tales of his travels. They're the South American version of Cornish Pasties! The filling was a combination of chicken, onion, leek, paprika, cumin, stock, pear, and peach. My fear was that the pear and peach chunks would make these wierdly sweet for a dinner dish, but the stock and spices balanced out the sweetness of the fruit remarkably well. I cheated and bought ready-rolled puff pastry for the outside; the ultimate in convenience! I baked the empanadas in the oven and served them with green vegetables and a few new potatoes, but if you made smaller portions they would work well with a salad for lunch.
My other recipe this week was to take advantage of the last of the wild blackberries which I had picked at the weekend; Blackberry and apple souffle.
I actually made blackberry, apple and pear souffle as I already had some stewed apple and pear in the freezer so it seemed sensible to use that rather than starting from scratch!
Here's the recipe (enough for 2 souffles):
Blackberry and Apple Souffle
(Sorry for the horrible picture - souffles sink fast once they're out of the oven so you have to 'snap' and serve!)
120g blackberries
1/2 apple
squeeze of lemon juice
10g sugar
1 egg white
30g caster sugar
butter for greasing the souffle dishes
Grease the souffle dishes with a small amount of butter.
Preheat the oven to 200C and place a baking tray in the oven to warm.
Peel, core and dice the apple. Place in a saucepan with a squeeze of lemon, 10g sugar, a splash of water and the blackberries. Heat gently until the apples break down to a pulp, then take off the heat and allow to cool a little. Press the fruit mixture through a sieve to make a fine puree.
Put a tablespoon of fruit puree in the bottom of each souffle dish and put the rest to one side.
Whisk the egg white until stiff, then add the sugar and whisk again until it is a glossy meringue-like mix. Gently fold in the remaining fruit puree with a metal spoon, then spoon it into the souffle dishes.
Put the souffle dishes onto the preheated baking tray and bake for 10-15 minutes until golden brown on top.
I suggest serving this with vanilla icecream.
For a man who claims not to have sweet tooth Dan does seem to have a definite enthusiasm for fruit puddings. This one was declared to be a keeper. He almost licked the plate!
However, red wine was super cheap in Argentina, and the sailors got so drunk on it that they gave themselves alcohol poisoning and were completely incapacitated. Dad and the other officer cadets worked round the clock to clean the ship, staying up working for the full 48 hours straight. He was 17 at the time and had only been in the navy for a year. He swears that it was the hard physical work like that experience, as well as the poor food once you'd been at sea for more than a week, which meant that he stopped growing almost as soon as he joined the merchant navy.
But anyway, I digress. This week I made an Argentinian dish - Empanadas. Hence the musing on my Dad's tales of his travels. They're the South American version of Cornish Pasties! The filling was a combination of chicken, onion, leek, paprika, cumin, stock, pear, and peach. My fear was that the pear and peach chunks would make these wierdly sweet for a dinner dish, but the stock and spices balanced out the sweetness of the fruit remarkably well. I cheated and bought ready-rolled puff pastry for the outside; the ultimate in convenience! I baked the empanadas in the oven and served them with green vegetables and a few new potatoes, but if you made smaller portions they would work well with a salad for lunch.
My other recipe this week was to take advantage of the last of the wild blackberries which I had picked at the weekend; Blackberry and apple souffle.
I actually made blackberry, apple and pear souffle as I already had some stewed apple and pear in the freezer so it seemed sensible to use that rather than starting from scratch!
Here's the recipe (enough for 2 souffles):
Blackberry and Apple Souffle
(Sorry for the horrible picture - souffles sink fast once they're out of the oven so you have to 'snap' and serve!)
120g blackberries
1/2 apple
squeeze of lemon juice
10g sugar
1 egg white
30g caster sugar
butter for greasing the souffle dishes
Grease the souffle dishes with a small amount of butter.
Preheat the oven to 200C and place a baking tray in the oven to warm.
Peel, core and dice the apple. Place in a saucepan with a squeeze of lemon, 10g sugar, a splash of water and the blackberries. Heat gently until the apples break down to a pulp, then take off the heat and allow to cool a little. Press the fruit mixture through a sieve to make a fine puree.
Put a tablespoon of fruit puree in the bottom of each souffle dish and put the rest to one side.
Whisk the egg white until stiff, then add the sugar and whisk again until it is a glossy meringue-like mix. Gently fold in the remaining fruit puree with a metal spoon, then spoon it into the souffle dishes.
Put the souffle dishes onto the preheated baking tray and bake for 10-15 minutes until golden brown on top.
I suggest serving this with vanilla icecream.
For a man who claims not to have sweet tooth Dan does seem to have a definite enthusiasm for fruit puddings. This one was declared to be a keeper. He almost licked the plate!
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Torta di Spinachi
This was my second Angela Hartnett recipe, and it turned out just as tasty as the first ( Aubergine Parmigiana).
As always, I adapted it slightly to suit the ingredients in the shops and in my fridge - I used half spinach, half asparagus, and changed the parmesan to a creamy goats cheese I bought from Crudge's Cheese at the weekend farmer's market.
The recipe directs you to make the pastry using olive oil instead of butter. I've tried this a couple of times before; once was a disater and once was passable. This version was actually good! The difference was the flour I think - Angela Hartnett's recipe suggests using '0' type flour, which is the same kind you would use for pasta. Its a much finer flour and worked well for the pastry with olive oil.
The torta was easy to make on a busy day - I made the pastry and mixed the filling together in the morning then they just sat in the fridge all day until I was ready to roll out the pastry and put the dish together in the eveing. We had it warm with salad and new potatoes one day, but it was equally lovely cold for lunch the next day.
Here's the recipe I ended up with after my amendments:
Pastry:
200g pasta-type flour
2 tablespoons olive oil
Pinch of salt
Ice cold water as required
Mix the flour and salt together. Add the olive oil, then gradually add cold water, mixing well between additions until the pastry comes together into a dough. Wrap in cling film and allow to rest in the fridge for at least an hour.
Filling:
250g Spinach (stalks removed & roughly chopped)
200g cooked asparagus, chopped into 1-2cm lengths
60g hard cheese eg parmesan, manchego, or goats cheese - grated or finely chopped
1 egg - beaten
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
Salt & pepper
When you are ready to assemble your torta grease a pie tin with a thin coating of olive oil. Roll out the pastry until its larger than the pie dish and lay it in the dish, allowing it to hang over the edges.
Mix together all the filling ingredients, place them on top of the pastry in the pie dish and spread into an even layer.
Fold the excess pastry over the top of the filling to cover it.
Bake in the oven at 200C for about 25 minutes, or until golden brown.
Serve hot or cold. Its a great picnic dish.
As always, I adapted it slightly to suit the ingredients in the shops and in my fridge - I used half spinach, half asparagus, and changed the parmesan to a creamy goats cheese I bought from Crudge's Cheese at the weekend farmer's market.
The recipe directs you to make the pastry using olive oil instead of butter. I've tried this a couple of times before; once was a disater and once was passable. This version was actually good! The difference was the flour I think - Angela Hartnett's recipe suggests using '0' type flour, which is the same kind you would use for pasta. Its a much finer flour and worked well for the pastry with olive oil.
The torta was easy to make on a busy day - I made the pastry and mixed the filling together in the morning then they just sat in the fridge all day until I was ready to roll out the pastry and put the dish together in the eveing. We had it warm with salad and new potatoes one day, but it was equally lovely cold for lunch the next day.
Here's the recipe I ended up with after my amendments:
Pastry:
200g pasta-type flour
2 tablespoons olive oil
Pinch of salt
Ice cold water as required
Mix the flour and salt together. Add the olive oil, then gradually add cold water, mixing well between additions until the pastry comes together into a dough. Wrap in cling film and allow to rest in the fridge for at least an hour.
Filling:
250g Spinach (stalks removed & roughly chopped)
200g cooked asparagus, chopped into 1-2cm lengths
60g hard cheese eg parmesan, manchego, or goats cheese - grated or finely chopped
1 egg - beaten
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
Salt & pepper
When you are ready to assemble your torta grease a pie tin with a thin coating of olive oil. Roll out the pastry until its larger than the pie dish and lay it in the dish, allowing it to hang over the edges.
Mix together all the filling ingredients, place them on top of the pastry in the pie dish and spread into an even layer.
Fold the excess pastry over the top of the filling to cover it.
Bake in the oven at 200C for about 25 minutes, or until golden brown.
Serve hot or cold. Its a great picnic dish.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
cooking up a storm
My Dad likes to say that if there's an easy way of doing something and a difficult way of doing it I'll always find the hard way. This sprung to mind today as I spent all afternoon in the kitchen.
On the May Day bank holiday monday Dan and I are having a little house warming party/birthday party for Dan. It will be lovely to have our friends, new and old, round to visit. Its going to be a busy few days though: I'm off to the ballet on the friday evening, then my parents are coming to visit for saturday and sunday. Its going to be a lovely social weekend, but there will be no time to cook anything for our party guests that weekend.
I really didn't want to buy frozen pizzas or other crappy processed food that would be easy but not particularly nice. So, today I've been getting organised, and cooking up a storm with freezeable food.
First up, a trip to the farmers market and farm shop for ingredients.
Look how lovely the eggs I bought are:
I suppose its a little odd to feel pleased by pretty eggs, but I did enjoy a childhood-nostalgia lunch of dippy-egg.
Then I knuckled down to the catering.
First up; bread.
I was a bit stupid and forgot to to dust the baking paper with flour to stop the bread sticking. Consequently, the 1st batch will not be going to the party. Dan and I will have to eat it ourselves and pick off the paper as we go!
Then cheesecake.
Its somewhat horrifying the amount of cream and cheese in a cheesecake, but it always seems to go down well. Yummy. I have tried making cheesecake before but it didn't set. This time I had more success, so we have one Rhubarb and Ginger cheesecake, and one Mixed Berry cheesecase.
On to the quiches. A couple of roasted vegetable ones and one quiche-lorraine style onion, bacon and tomato quiche.
Ooof. The freezer's pretty full now.
I'll make a couple of tomato and mozzarella pizzas tomorrow, then that's enough for now.
It wasn't all hard work though. I had time for an icecream in the sunshine at the farmshop. Apple pie flavour no less.
On the May Day bank holiday monday Dan and I are having a little house warming party/birthday party for Dan. It will be lovely to have our friends, new and old, round to visit. Its going to be a busy few days though: I'm off to the ballet on the friday evening, then my parents are coming to visit for saturday and sunday. Its going to be a lovely social weekend, but there will be no time to cook anything for our party guests that weekend.
I really didn't want to buy frozen pizzas or other crappy processed food that would be easy but not particularly nice. So, today I've been getting organised, and cooking up a storm with freezeable food.
First up, a trip to the farmers market and farm shop for ingredients.
Look how lovely the eggs I bought are:
I suppose its a little odd to feel pleased by pretty eggs, but I did enjoy a childhood-nostalgia lunch of dippy-egg.
Then I knuckled down to the catering.
First up; bread.
I was a bit stupid and forgot to to dust the baking paper with flour to stop the bread sticking. Consequently, the 1st batch will not be going to the party. Dan and I will have to eat it ourselves and pick off the paper as we go!
Then cheesecake.
Its somewhat horrifying the amount of cream and cheese in a cheesecake, but it always seems to go down well. Yummy. I have tried making cheesecake before but it didn't set. This time I had more success, so we have one Rhubarb and Ginger cheesecake, and one Mixed Berry cheesecase.
On to the quiches. A couple of roasted vegetable ones and one quiche-lorraine style onion, bacon and tomato quiche.
Ooof. The freezer's pretty full now.
I'll make a couple of tomato and mozzarella pizzas tomorrow, then that's enough for now.
It wasn't all hard work though. I had time for an icecream in the sunshine at the farmshop. Apple pie flavour no less.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Torta (sorta!)
I had (whisper it) a vegetarian over for lunch.
Dan doesn't understand the concept of vegetarianism. So I had to try and create a lunch where he wouldn't notice the lack of meat or fish.
He does have a weakness for courgettes, so when I came across a Torta Verde recipe I thought that might do the trick. This Torta Verde recipe was basically a rice, courgette and parsley pie, so I adapted it to make a courgette-y quiche.
Here's my adaption of the recipe:
Anwen's Courgette and Parsley Quiche
100g white flour
100g wholemeal flour
3 tablespoons olive oil
warm water (about 60-80ml)
450g courgettes
2 garlic cloves
1/2 onion
2 eggs
30g gruyere
Large handful of parsley
salt and pepper
Pastry:
Mix the two different kinds of flours together, add a pinch of salt. Make a well in the centre add the olive oil. Stir to mix. Slowly add the warm water, mixing with your hands to make a soft, but not sticky dough.
Wrap in clingfilm and put in the fridge to rest for 20 minutes.
Put the oven on to heat to 180C.
Make the filling: Chop up the courgette, garlic, onion. Put everything into a food processor, season, whizz. Add a handful of parsley. Whizz again.
Roll out the pastry , lightly oil quiche dish and line with pastry.
Blind bake for 15 minutes (10 with baking beans and then remove them for another 5 minutes).
Beat two eggs, add to the courgette mixture and mix. Grate the cheese and fold in.
Fill the pastry case with the courgette and egg mixture. Return to the oven for about 25-30 minutes, or until the courgette mixture is slightly puffed and set.
Remove from oven and allow to cool.
Interestingly, last time I made pastry using olive oil instead of butter I didn't think it was a good method, but it went well in this context.
We also had tomato soup, sourdough toast, olives, and a selection of yummy cheeses from the farmers market. Then a good old hearty country walk in the spring sunshine, with a picnic of scones and jam halfway.
What a lovely, chilled out sunday.
Dan didn't moan about the lack of animal protein.
Not once.
Which means that I won this one.
Dan doesn't understand the concept of vegetarianism. So I had to try and create a lunch where he wouldn't notice the lack of meat or fish.
He does have a weakness for courgettes, so when I came across a Torta Verde recipe I thought that might do the trick. This Torta Verde recipe was basically a rice, courgette and parsley pie, so I adapted it to make a courgette-y quiche.
Here's my adaption of the recipe:
Anwen's Courgette and Parsley Quiche
100g white flour
100g wholemeal flour
3 tablespoons olive oil
warm water (about 60-80ml)
450g courgettes
2 garlic cloves
1/2 onion
2 eggs
30g gruyere
Large handful of parsley
salt and pepper
Pastry:
Mix the two different kinds of flours together, add a pinch of salt. Make a well in the centre add the olive oil. Stir to mix. Slowly add the warm water, mixing with your hands to make a soft, but not sticky dough.
Wrap in clingfilm and put in the fridge to rest for 20 minutes.
Put the oven on to heat to 180C.
Make the filling: Chop up the courgette, garlic, onion. Put everything into a food processor, season, whizz. Add a handful of parsley. Whizz again.
Roll out the pastry , lightly oil quiche dish and line with pastry.
Blind bake for 15 minutes (10 with baking beans and then remove them for another 5 minutes).
Beat two eggs, add to the courgette mixture and mix. Grate the cheese and fold in.
Fill the pastry case with the courgette and egg mixture. Return to the oven for about 25-30 minutes, or until the courgette mixture is slightly puffed and set.
Remove from oven and allow to cool.
Interestingly, last time I made pastry using olive oil instead of butter I didn't think it was a good method, but it went well in this context.
We also had tomato soup, sourdough toast, olives, and a selection of yummy cheeses from the farmers market. Then a good old hearty country walk in the spring sunshine, with a picnic of scones and jam halfway.
What a lovely, chilled out sunday.
Dan didn't moan about the lack of animal protein.
Not once.
Which means that I won this one.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
A couple of classics and an unsuccessful experiment
In the spirit of tieing up loose ends before the end of the year, and also because my mum bought too many eggs over Christmas, I decided to try a couple of eggy classics over the Christmas break - homemade custard (without Birds custard powder) and homemade mayonnaise.
My custard recipe was great on flavour but didn't thicken as much as I would have liked. Not sure if that's how the recipe is, or whether I went wrong, but I thought I'd try it again in future with a different recipe. I bought a River Cottage cook book in the January sales so I'll try Hugh's recipe next time. It has a bit of cornflour in it so I imagine it would thicken more successfully. We'll see.
The mayonnaise was good. I'm not usually a fan of mayo. Its that old condiments thing - I just don't really see the point of drowning food in layers of cheap nasty processed sauce. But homemade mayonnaise was great.
I made a garlicy version, as we had it with squid so I thought that would go well. I put too much garlic in but otherwise it was a great success. At least it kept the vampires at bay for the evening! I would use a little more lemon juice or some white wine vinegar to give it a bit of bite if I was makig a 'straight' mayonnaise, but the garlic was more than enough flavour for this.
Mayonnaise
100ml extra virgin olive oil
1 egg yolk
a few squeezes lemon juice
1/2 clove garlic (crushed)
salt and pepper
Stir the egg yolk with a wooden spoon until it thickens. Add the garlic and stir.
Pour the olive oil in a drop at a time, keeping stirring all the time with the wooden spoon.
Take your time or the mixture will curdle. Add the olive oil VERY gradually, stirring all the time. Add the odd squeeze of lemon as you go.
Once the mixture starts to stiffen you can speed up the oil a little, but don't rush.
If it curdles (mine did, so I know this works!), take another egg yolk and put it in a clean bowl. Stir it until thickened then gradually add your curdled mayonnaise mixture, stirring all the time. This will fix it.
Season with salt and pepper to taste.
The unsuccessful experiment was pastry made with wholemeal flour and olive oil, instead of plain flour and butter. It came out with a bready texture and was rather hard. It also didn't keep or freeze as well as normal pastry and was much more difficult to roll out. I think I'll stick to the traditional pastry recipe in future.
My custard recipe was great on flavour but didn't thicken as much as I would have liked. Not sure if that's how the recipe is, or whether I went wrong, but I thought I'd try it again in future with a different recipe. I bought a River Cottage cook book in the January sales so I'll try Hugh's recipe next time. It has a bit of cornflour in it so I imagine it would thicken more successfully. We'll see.
The mayonnaise was good. I'm not usually a fan of mayo. Its that old condiments thing - I just don't really see the point of drowning food in layers of cheap nasty processed sauce. But homemade mayonnaise was great.
I made a garlicy version, as we had it with squid so I thought that would go well. I put too much garlic in but otherwise it was a great success. At least it kept the vampires at bay for the evening! I would use a little more lemon juice or some white wine vinegar to give it a bit of bite if I was makig a 'straight' mayonnaise, but the garlic was more than enough flavour for this.
Mayonnaise
100ml extra virgin olive oil
1 egg yolk
a few squeezes lemon juice
1/2 clove garlic (crushed)
salt and pepper
Stir the egg yolk with a wooden spoon until it thickens. Add the garlic and stir.
Pour the olive oil in a drop at a time, keeping stirring all the time with the wooden spoon.
Take your time or the mixture will curdle. Add the olive oil VERY gradually, stirring all the time. Add the odd squeeze of lemon as you go.
Once the mixture starts to stiffen you can speed up the oil a little, but don't rush.
If it curdles (mine did, so I know this works!), take another egg yolk and put it in a clean bowl. Stir it until thickened then gradually add your curdled mayonnaise mixture, stirring all the time. This will fix it.
Season with salt and pepper to taste.
The unsuccessful experiment was pastry made with wholemeal flour and olive oil, instead of plain flour and butter. It came out with a bready texture and was rather hard. It also didn't keep or freeze as well as normal pastry and was much more difficult to roll out. I think I'll stick to the traditional pastry recipe in future.
Monday, November 23, 2009
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.
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.
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