Chocolate Rosemary cream

This is amazing! Sugar, lemon juice, vin santo, cream, rosemary, chocolate.

The taste is intense. And brilliant. I think rather than a whole ramekin, you want half that amount, and served with pears.

What a wonderful taste sensation for the new year. I copied it from Andrew MacLachlan's The Making of a Pastry Chef, and its credited as being a 16th Century recipe. Marvellous stuff. Reinforces the idea that what's gone before deserves heavy research :)

Twice baked goats cheese souffles

Well.... they look a little overdone :) But tasty enough. Altho' I would choose a sharper goats cheese next time - these would be good with some bite.
I made a white sauce, added egg yolks and goats cheese. Whisked egg white, folded it in. Then baked them twice. First time in the ramekin, second without.
Not sure what you get with the twice baking. : /
Also - slower oven - this baked the outside too quick, and tho' the inside was right, i think it could stand a little more heat. 

Next time - sharper cheese. Try single baking or cooler oven on second bake.

Christmas pudding proper

Thank you Bertinet Bakery for creating this :) the best christmas pudding. So many nuts, lemon, orange, rum, fruits - just gorgeous. And it was light. Really. Gorgeous, rich, indulgent.

Messy pile of profiteroles :)

Made the choux paste, creme patissiere, cut it with some whipped double cream, filled the choux buns and dipped in chocolate. They were light fluffy and lovely :) And messy. By this point in Christmas, I wasn't too fussy about presentation - a nice pile of tasty treats.

Christmas gammon

Christmas gammon.

Usually this fills us with delight and wonder, but for some reason this year, it just wasn't the bees knees. Must be time for a change.
The marmalade and rosemary glaze is lovely. But the meat wasn't as nice as the Daylesford Organic gammon we've had the last 2 years.

Next year - some game, some bread sauce, some deep green savoy cabbage. 

Pheasant breast with port, redcurrant, thyme jus

OK - this is me trying 'neater' food.

Made some boulangeres potatoes - sliced with onions, rosemary, thyme, cooked in stock.
Put the pheasant breasts in pan, coloured them, then roasted in foil in the oven.
This meant that the skin lost its crispness, but there were lots of lovely juices.
I put port, cider (cos it was lying around), juniper berries, redcurrant jelly in the pan to get all the meat juices. Reduced.

Plated up boulangeres with beans and carrots (i just wanted something green, and the co-op doesn't do greens or kale or purple sprouting).
Then added butter to the jus, and then strained it to remove thyme, juniper berries.
All done. It was very nice - strong rich flavour from the jus. Boulangeres was a bit too salty. I need to watch out with the new finer salt I've got. Haven't gauged how much to use yet.
Pheasant was totally delicious - moist, flavoursome, well seasoned (who knew?).

Chicken liver parfait

Chicken Liver Parfait. Raymond Blanc style.


Soak 400g livers for 6 hours in milk, water, salt.
Reduce madeira, port, with shallots and thyme. Then add cognac and pureed garlic.
Whizz the raw livers in the blender. Add the alcohol reduction.
Melt 400g (!) butter, then add to the livers.

All this was too much for my little blender! I had to make it in two goes. It was also too much for my 1lb loaf tin/terrine. 400g of livers makes a LOT of parfait :)

Once it was all evenly whizzed - taste (raw livers, yes) and season.

Cover with silicon paper to stop discolouring and a skin forming while cooking.

Bake in bain marie in 130C oven for an hour. Cool for 2 hours, cover with melted butter to make sure the air doesn't get to it.

I made two. Quite unintentionally. That's a lot of parfait. The house entirely smells of chicken livers. Slightly freaked out.

Savoy cabbage, pancetta on sourdough

Steamed onions, fried pancetta, steamed cabbage, gruyere, cheddar. Always delicious. This is one of our all time favourites.

Christmas Biscuits

Many thanks to Sonja Maedler for teaching me German Christmas biscuits. Well, some - there is a vast vast range :)
We made:
Hazelnut shortbreads - both rounds and crescents, coated in vanilla sugar.
Chocolate almond logs - stuck together with praline (sent direct from Germany, will have to set up a source), and dipped in chocolate.
Coconut macaroons.

All were very very delicious - especially out of the oven freshly dipped in the vanilla sugar. YUM. We snacked them on the train home :)

I will be hunting out german recipes and vainly trying to translate. They really know this schizzle.

Winter salad

A light meal for a winter evening. Salad was dressed with balsamic, olive oil, garlic, mustard - all steeped with rosemary. Lovely.
Roasted tomatoes, avocados, vacherin, saucisson, proper ham. And sourdough. Fantastic. This all went very well together (unlike the other day). We're back on form. Phew.

Stollen

Its Christmas. I was inspired by Richard Bertinet's beautiful delicate, light stollen in his bakery, and went to the cookbook (Crust).
Mine turned out to be bruisers!! They were a joy to make tho'. The dough smelled amazing from the first mix - eggs, sugar, milk, yeast. Deeply comforting.
Then it became a beautiful dough once kneaded, strong but rich. Making up the filling was exciting too: creme d'amande was light and deliciously flavoured with ground almonds (amazing when cooked); fruit mix with rum also just gorgeous.

I wasn't brilliant at the folding it all together - I wasn't sure what I was doing really :) would be better next time. I was making three as we had presents to get ready for the next day, and they were so huge I ended up with plenty for us. WOO!!

They came out quite varied because of the way I'd folded them. I selected the best parts for my friends, wrapped them in silicon paper tied with string.
All in all a very economical exercise, and really lovely to make - super rewarding. There's going to be more of these. I have to say the creme d'amande makes a huge difference - you have a light sweet bread, with rum fruit, creme d'amande with some marzipan in, so it all stays light and delicious - nothing heavy in sight :)

Raspberry cake

Same as I made a few months ago. Unfortunately, this one wasn't as good. C'est la vie.
I think I forgot to add baking powder. It was all there, but just wasn't light like the other one.

Custard

My first custard :) Delicate and lovely. Very happy with that. (shop bought pie ;)

Passion fruit pavlova

Ever since I read in Nigel Slater that passion fruits were in season in December, I've made puddings with them in the winter. They are so unbelievably fragrant, it assaults your senses. Brilliant.
I used them here to cut through the meringue and cream (had loads of egg whites again).
Real treat.

Grilled endive

I've been on the lookout for endive for some time, as I wanted to try braising it, but its always pretty pricey. So I spotted some on a market stall at a good price and bagged it.
Rather than braising it, I looked at the next door recipe in Leith's Vegetable Bible for grilled.
Lemon juice, olive oil, seasoning, oregano - quarter the endive, place under grill until the leaves begin to catch.
Fantastic flavour - the bitterness mellowed, but left plenty of flavour - the lemon and oregano were beautiful with it.
Ate this with a vegetable soup I made up of fridge leftovers: leek, carrot, parsnip, celery, potato, onion - no stock - just plenty of seasoning, bay and thyme (and a bit of butter). Also threw in some red lentils and pearl barley for health.
Good eating.

Apple caramel rice pudding

Played it safe after some experimental errors. Just wanted the lovely apple, caramel rice pudding. Beautiful.
The method used of bringing the rice to the boil, in water, then boiling for 4 mins then draining, and cooking in milk, produces incredibly white rice. It looks pristine. Its very beautiful.
And I still think the caramel tastes smoky. Like wood smoke - deep rich, sappy even. Just gorgeous. Those people at French Laundry know what they're up to.

Taste jumble

I think you can definitely tell that I've been ill and banned from the kitchen, as this recovery effort was really odd.
I made hummous - which was nice. Beetroot with the horseradish cream, slightly odd, but ok.
Then we had lovely focaccia, sourdough bread, parma ham, cheeses.

But none of these things remotely went together.

Each was nice in their own way - but I've never eaten such a taste jumbled meal. This hasn't been my finest week.

Horseradish

I got him in the farmer's market - all covered in soil. Its my first horseradish. I mixed it up with some sour cream - for horseradish cream no less.

Puff mince pies

Made these in college - with pre-made puff pastry ;)
The filling was delicious - mincemeat supplemented with orange zest and juice, and brandy.
Was reading The Making of a Pastry Chef  by Andrew MacLauchlan and there is a wonderful piece from Gale Gand who says of flavours - moving specifically to orange:
"When I first started as a pastry chef, everyone was pushing compounds and using liqueurs for flavouring. I did that a little bit at the beginning of my career; for example, using Grand Marnier to get orange flavour. Later I thought, why not just use an orange? I started out with things that were easy, like orange zest, but went on to grinding up oranges, reducing them over a low heat, and sieving them and using the actual fruit."
That's how to do flavour :)

Rough puff pastry tatin

This is my first attempt at rough puff pastry. It was nice on first eating, but didn't keep at all well the following day.
I didn't integrate the butter well enough. Also, the colouring on the apples isn't uniform enough - i needed to move them around much more in the pan (whilst keeping them in formation). I think tiredness was beginning to set in, and was followed up with illness, which has kiboshed me all this week.
A good mistake in a way - puff pastry is not considered easy, and the lamination needed to stop the fat just leaking out is good to understand and see it go a bit wrong.
Be good to try again when feeling better.

Mushroom, leek and thyme quiche

So this one turned out better. Still raggedy around the top, but no holes in the pastry so the filling didn't leak, and the taste and texture were sound.
The flavour of the filling was very nice - paris brown mushrooms, leeks - sweated in some butter, and some thyme to give aroma and lightness.
The recipe called for only double cream and eggs for the custard, but I thought this was too heavy and lightened it with some milk, and adjusted the cooking times accordingly. A lot of guess work and just waiting and seeing with this - as I was using different diameter and different ingredients for the custard.
Worked well tho'. Can hold my head up for this quiche :)

Quiche Lorraine, Chickpeas and Swiss Chard

There are many things wrong with this dish, but many things right :)

first -  you'll notice that the quiche is only half full. That's because a) i did the amounts a bit slap-dash in the re-reckoning from the recipe and b) some of the filling escaped.

second - there is no tomato sauce in the chickpeas. nor parsley. The fridge wasn't giving up any.

But - the taste was really divine!!! The recipe was from Roux again, and the pastry was light light light and salty and gorgeous. The filling was light again, despite being full of cream, cheese and pancetta. Delicious.

The chickpea/chard dish is always superbly tasty (River Cafe, Book 1). Reducing white wine over gently cooked onions and carrots, and following with more olive oil and lemon, bit of chilli - is amazing. Just amazing.

A feast of a meal, if a bit wonky :)

Blueberries

Blueberries and yogurt. Because they're just gorgeous.

Rocket and fennel salad (and other things)

Matt wanted salad again. The mini lamb leg joints and the steaks are proving too much, on top of all the bakery goods :)
I've been pretty knocked out working 7 days a week, and haven't had as much cooking energy at home, nor time to get to the farmer's market (altho' i did get up at 7 last week and go before work, that's the only way its going to work).
So - here we have some crappy bread - which matt worked wonders with. He does completely the best cheese and ham on toast ever. I won't disclose the secret ingredients online.
The aspect I did rather have some enthusiasm for was a little fennel and rocket salad i got together: finely finely sliced the raw fennel, mixed with lemon juice, olive oil, seasoning, added rocket, done. Very tasty. Lemon and olive oil knock off the sharp aniseed of the rocket, leaving you with something very aromatic and cut through with lemon. Delicious.

Sticky toffee - mark II

Another day, another sticky toffee recipe.
I saved up my money to get pudding tins :) They're very cool.
I made the toffee: butter, cream, sugar - heated (but not boiled) up, so the sugar dissolves.
But - I wasn't using dark brown - only light brown and demerara. The crystals demerara are too large to dissolve easily, so struggled to get the consistency of toffee I wanted: very smooth, deep tasting.
Also - it doesn't produce the right tarry, deep blackish delicious mollasses-y toffee I wanted. This is literally a pale imitation.
Steamed sponge is always nice - but I messed up the bain marie - next time I'll use hot water in it from the off. SIGH. I must have been tired.

So - all in all - I made four very cute puddings, which needed DARK brown sugar, and a proper bain marie technique. We'll get it right next time.

Steak sandwich

The bread is the potato bread I made, painted with olive oil, griddled to a tasty char, mustard inside, steak griddled for a few minutes, rocket, tomato.

Something very satisfying about using your own bread in this way.

Herb-crusted mini leg of lamb, with rosemary cannelini beans

This was two nice dishes, which didn't really go together :)
Waitrose did this mini, boned, leg joint. It was on offer (as I suspect no-one knew what to do with it), so I got one, well two, and stuck them in the freezer.
I decided that herb-crust would be interesting to try.
I found a recipe by Michel Roux. Can't go wrong.
Take parsley, thyme, rosemary and chop up. Mix with breadcrumbs (i had some leftover sourdough, handy).
Brown the meat lightly, to seal it. Then put it in the oven. Don't do what I did which was to put the mustard on, put the crust on, then realise if you bake that at 200 C for 45 mins you'll have very burnt herb toast.
I covered mine in tin foil to protect it for the first 25 mins, and uncovered to crisp for the remaining 20. A little bit too long (should have known the packet instructions for 'medium' would be too far gone).

The beans I thought would be nice with the lamb, to have a delicate stew with the meat instead of potatoes and veg. But.. the tomatoes were overpowering, and altho sweetened and had red wine vinegar added, were still too bitter with the lamb. Rosemary can also have a bitter twang, so it wasn't a great idea to add that. It would have needed a great deal of cooking out to get where I imagined it.
However, that said, it was tasty - just two different meals sharing the same plate. 

Lentil Soup

This used to be one of my favourite meals: red lentil and fresh coriander soup. And it is still good - but the flavours are not subtle enough, or maybe its just how i cooked it. The garlic wasn't sweet enough, there was too much milk and not enough coriander to punch through it all. Overall - very nice to eat, but not interesting enough.

Potato bread

I saw this recipe in Prue Leith, and thought it would be fun to try. I am haunted by the tortanos of the Flour Station bakers in London, which are truly superb.
This was a different thing altogether: homely, close-textured crumb, very moist from the spuds.
Initially we couldn't work out if they were cooked or not - but after baking them as much as we dared (could be bothered) we left them. The next day - they were really really great. Who knew?

Crumpets - too salty

So i remembered to put the salt in this time. But now they're too salty! Hmm.
I had a fair bit of trial and error with these:

a) trying to cook them in the oven.
Resulted in the batter leaking out from the rings entirely. Don't try it.
b) cooking in a stainless steel pan.
Talk all you want about 'greasing' the pan. Its going to stick majorly.
c) cooking on silicon paper, in a pan.
the silicon paper will burn.
d) don't fill more than 1/2 inch - there's no way its going to cook all the way through.
e) don't try to bake uncooked crumpets in the oven.
It will just make them lifeless.

Overall - the batter is fine, altho' it needs less salt, nice and bubbly.
The equipment needs some refining. Anyone got a spare cast iron griddle or non-stick pan??

Sticky toffee pudding

Its a classic. I wanted some. Bingo.
Toffee sauce was brilliant: brandy, butter, demerara sugar, double cream - boil it all up to thicken, and you're done.
The pudding itself was just lovely. Prue Leith all the way. A real winter treat.

Sausages Michelin

Farmer's market trip at the weekend. Found out that the magic sausage/venison chorizo/sea beet man used to be a michelin starred head chef. No wonder his sausages are amazing. Its a gem.
This week -
Venison and apparently red wine, but there were some berries in there - either juniper or elder, not sure.
Mutton, feta and oregano were brilliant. Just gorgeous.
Bratwurst - beautiful.
Matt made shallot gravy with some marsala to go over the ubiquitous steamed potatoes, spring greens and carrots. Am trying to keep some veg on the table.

Breakfast

Castellano's bacon, egg, homemade sourdough. Fry-up.

Oxtail

6 hours later.
It was pretty tasty. There was a point where i thought the 'meat' (ligaments, sinew, bone) would never ease up. Served up with rough mashed spuds with skins on, carrots, braised cabbage (with apples, onion, garlic, spices) which also took 2+ hours. Very tasty in the eating.

Crumpet overflow

SHE SAID: Fill them to the top.

Fish-finger sandwich

Fish-fingers in Bertinet bread with some greens and carrots for health and some sauted leftover potatoes for not health.

Panettone bread and butter pudding

Ok - so this is related to this: Night Bakery

There was too much bread product for Matt and I to manage, so I wanted to find a way to not let it go to waste. On Monday night we had the bath buns pretending to be savoury bread - with soup. It worked very well. Let them eat Brioche...
But the panettone I wanted to use properly - so made up a custard and made bread and butter pudding with it.
Its fantastic. The smell from the kitchen was superb. The custard set really nicely and the bread was light with good flavour. At last it found its millieu.

Lamb, pearl barley, carrot stew

Bought some cheap as chips stewing lamb. Remembered how nice pearl barley is, and decided on this stew.

I sliced and fried some onions very gently in olive oil and butter.
Coated the lamb in seasoned flour, and browned it gently in the onion pan.
Added stock (just veg bouillon - i haven't got round to the veal stock yet ;)
Added pearl barley and let cook for several hours.
On reflection adding the barley just one hour before the end would be better.
Sliced carrots, added them about an hour before the end.
All in all cooked it slowly slowly for about 3+ hours.

By this time, the meat is falling apart and everything is sweet and unctuous.

I didn't want to cloud the stew with other veg - potatoes and parsnip - so i cooked them separately. I've got a thing for steamed potatoes at the moment, so i did those and chiffonaded some spring greens. Wanted some fresher carrots than just those in the stew, so finely julienned them and steamed alongside the greens.
Also sliced up some parsnip and gently boiled for a few minutes, finished it with butter and salt.

All in all very satisifying on a cold early winter evening. Especially when we had the next post for pudding!