green kedgeree

20 May


This is an aggressively green supper. Squeaky green, even – stuffed with leeks and green peas. (I’m a little obsessed with the tiny round things lately, just sauteed straight from the freezer with improbable amounts of bacon. They fulfil the mindless quality of popcorn for a TV dinner.)

This, this is proper food. A little wild rice, some smoked fish for brainpower with chopped hardboiled eggs on top. This is English food, bastardised of course, what some might call tea.  If you already have boiled eggs and cooked rice in the fridge, it’ll take just a few minutes. If not, half an hour. Either way, it’ll feel like someone is taking care of you – making sure you get your greens and proteins.

Green Kedgeree

for 2, but double the rice if you are really hungry

a drizzle of olive oil

a pinch of curry powder

1 large leek

1 1/2 cups cooked rice (a mix of basmati and wild rice is delicious)

2 cups frozen peas (straight from the freezer)

2 small fillets of smoked fish (haddock is tradition, mackerel is good too)

2 hard boiled eggs

a squeeze of lemon

salt and pepper

In a large frying pan on medium heat, drizzle some olive oil and a pinch of curry powder, not much at all. Cut leek down the centre, almost to the base. Wash in cold water, splaying out the leaves to get at the dirt. Cut into rounds. Cook in olive oil for a few minutes.

Add rice and peas and 2 tablespoons water. Cover and let the peas just turn bright green. Separate the fish fillets into big flakes, gently stir into rice along with a squeeze of lemon juice. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Peel eggs and quarter lengthways. Serve arranged nicely on top of each plate, a wedge of lemon on the side.

apple cider chicken

16 May

This is the chicken I make when I need you to correct my homework.

When I need to say sorry.

When I need to prove that English people can cook after all.

When I feel a sneaking nostalgia for the apple trees in Hereford.

This is the chicken I make when I want to win you over.

A base of bacon and onions, a generous glass of cider (and one for the cook), stolen sprigs of rosemary and a long slow simmer. Then a dash of mustard, a bit of cream and some apple slices fried in butter.

This is good, simple chicken. I hope you like it.

Apple cider chicken

serves 4 – adapted from Diana Henry’s Roast Figs, Sugar Snow

4 large chicken legs and thighs

a little olive oil

1 small onion / 2 shallots

100g bacon or lardons

175ml cider

2 sprigs rosemary

2 crisp apples (braeburns or fujis are good)

1-2 tbs butter

1-2 tsp mustard

100ml cream

salt and pepper to taste

Heat a drizzle of olive oil in a large frying pan, When very hot, add the chicken thighs. They should sizzle. Cook a few minutes on each side, until they start to brown. Remove from pan.

In the same pan, fry the bacon and onions together until crisp and translucent, respectively. Nestle the chicken thighs on top with the rosemary, tip in the cider. Cover and turn down to a low heat to simmer for half an hour so.

Core the apples and slice into eight fat pieces. Heat some butter in a smaller pan and cook the apples until golden.

When the chicken is cooked through, the meat just falling off the leg bone, stir in the cream, mustard, salt and pepper and let simmer for five minutes to combine.

Stir in the apples at the last minute. Serve with wild rice to soak up the delicious rich sauce.

genoise with mangoes and cream

6 May

They say you have really got under the skin of a new language when you start to dream with its words, its colours.

I dreamed about making tart pastry and frantically trying to remove hundreds of hairs embedded in the sticky dough. I dreamed that I turned up to a trial day at a restaurant about to serve 290 covers with no chef clogs, no apron, no idea. The other intern tells me her dreams are full of chocolate mousse.

I guess we speak “patissier” now. Or maybe the exams are coming up and we are all terrified of dropping a tray of croissants or scorching our apple tarts. It’s not easy to cheat a practical exam  (though one apocryphal idiot did run out to Carrefour for a batch of eclairs at lunchtime, forgetting to destroy the telltale packaging).

Not dissimilar to our Modern Languages finals, I find myself with lists of vocabulary, not birds and fishes, but words for creams and spatulas and a very specific kind of “burnt.” What is the Maillard reaction? What does the triangle symbol on washing instructions mean? Questions that seem pointless, infinite.

In the end, it is just a high school certificate. I don’t have to make a six foot pineapple out of pulled sugar. Just a tart, a cake, a batch of choux pastry and some croissants. In six and a half hours. With an imposed decoration theme which may fall on (please no) the Olympic Games. Better start practising my marzipan podiums!

I’m having that dream where you resit your school exams, completely underprepared. I won’t be naked, but I will be wearing a stupid hairnet. No bluffing or outlandish literary ideas can save me now. I am terrified of failing.

Exam revision for me: the classic French sponge cake, or genoise. The basic recipe is only three ingredients  – eggs, sugar and flour – and a little trickery for a light and fluffy cake. No baking powder. Just the magic of eggs. And an electric beater, or your arm will fall off after 10 minutes whipping. This version has a touch of butter and a little ground almonds for extra flavour.

Fill with homemade jam for teatime, like my mama used to, and sprinkle with icing sugar. Of course, if you were French, you’d soak it in kirsch, sandwich it with thick buttercream and strawberries and call it a fraisier, but that’s another story. I like it the Japanese way: fresh fruit and whipped cream, nothing else.

Mango and cream genoise

enough for 4 greedy girls, or 6 restrained dinner party guests

200g eggs (about 4 large)

sugar

125g flour

(optional: substitute 25g flour for ground almonds)

optional: 25g melted butter

for the decoration:

1 or 2 ripe mangoes

400g whipped cream

40g icing sugar

optional: 1/s tsp vanilla essence

Preheat oven to 180C. Grease a 20-22cm round tin with butter and then coat with a thin layer of flour. Tap the tin to remove excess.

Half fill a medium sized saucepan with water, set it to simmer. If you want to use butter, melt it in a small bowl over the saucepan. Set aside to cool.

Sieve the flour (and ground almonds if using).

In a large bowl, whisk the eggs and sugar. Place it over the hot water, which should be just barely simmering, and whisk steadily. The heat will help the eggs triple in volume, much like beating egg whites. Do not let the bowl get too hot or you will have scrambled eggs! Maximum 55C. Remove from the heat every now and then. Either use an electric hand-held beater or stick in a kitchen mixer. (By hand is possible, but painful.)

Beat until the eggs and sugar are very pale and fluffy. Lift up the whisk and watch how the mixture falls: if it’s a thick ribbon that folds onto the surface for a second, stop. If it’s a thin drizzle that disappears straightaway, keep beating.

With a spatula, fold in the flour/almonds half at a time, very gentlyso as not to lose the volume. Mix a little of this into the butter, then tip it all back in together. Again, fold gently. Tip into tin, smooth out with spatula.

Bake for 20 minutes until golden. The sides should have come away from the tin. The top should be spongy but firm: press it with a finger and watch it spring back.

Leave to cool. Remove from tin and carefully cut into two layers with a large breadknife. Peel and slice mangoes.

Whip cream until stiff and peaky but still smooth. If it starts to clump together, you’ve gone too far. Fold in the sugar and vanilla. Spread a thin layer of cream on the bottom layer of cake, arrange most of the sliced mangoes. (Save some for the decoration.) Smooth over more cream, place the next layer of cake on top.

Smooth cream over the top and sides in a thin layer. Place in fridge to firm up for half an hour. Now do another neater layer of whipped cream to finish it off. Pipe swirls and blobs or curves and squiggles if you like. Finish off with a few mango slices. Serve immediately.

essentials: celery salt

3 May

Big flakes of salt to be crushed satisfyingly between fingertips, blended with dark celery seed. It sounds frivolous, far from essential and yet – it adds a touch of care to a plain boiled egg, makes a real salad out of avocado and green leaves. For asparagus vinaigrette or tomato soup. Maybe even for chocolate chip cookies. Use it for the tactile pleasure as much as its neat clear flavour.

Make your own: rub some flaky sea salt with crushed celery seeds, or lemon zest, or fresh dried thyme. Brighten up a boring luncheon.

sunflower cupcakes

30 Apr

Cupcake maths:

Healthy courgette cupcakes + cream cheese icing = totally suitable for breakfast

One bowl, one spoon cupcake mix + fancy piped flowers = minimum effort, maximum effect

Cupcakes normally suffer fom being too sweet, too dry, too boring. Just a vehicle for towers of icing. They look pretty. But are really kind of stupid.

These are intelligent cupcakes, made with sunflower oil and brown sugar and yoghurt. Grated courgettes for subtle flecks of green to avoid a dry base. A handful of sunflower seeds for crunch, and because, why not?

The best thing about them is the pretty flowers on top. Proper buttercream piped in petals and stars and swirls. (It is possible that I am practising for my pastry exam…) The icing is coloured with turmeric and cocoa for bright cool sunflowers, because I was lacking in food colouring. It makes them quirky, beautiful, nutritious. This is a balanced cupcake. Good math.

Sunflower cupcakes

makes 12 medium sized cupcakes

60 ml ( 1/4 cup) sunflower oil

1 egg

125ml (1/2 cup) yoghurt

70g (1/3 cup) light brown sugar

100g (1 cup) grated courgette

zest of 1 lemon

190g (1  1/4 cup) flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

50g (1/4 cup) sunflower seedor mix of seeds

for the icing: 100g cream cheese

50g soft butter

100g icing sugar

1 tsp lemon juice

1 tsp turmeric

1 tsp cocoa powder

Preheat oven to 175C. Grease a muffin tray / line with cupcake cases.

Mix the oil, egg, yoghurt, sugar and zest. Gently pat the grated courgette dry with a paper towel. Stir in. Add the flour, baking powder and salt, then the seeds. Dollop into cases, smooth. Bake for 18-20 minutes until firm, a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Meanwhile, make the icing. Whisk cream cheese and butter together until very smooth. (If the butter is not soft enough, it might go lumpy. In that case, put the bowl over a pan of gently simmering water for a few seconds and whisk again. Do not heat too much or the butter will melt.) Whisk in sugar and lemon juice. Put 1/3 of the icing in a separate bowl, stir in cocoa. To the remaining 2/3 add the turmeric.

When the cupcakes are perfectly cool, ice them. You need a piping bag and a fine star tip. (Or else, use a sturdy sandwich bag, cut a small hole off the corner.) For the petals, pipe a blob then gently pull back your hand to make the point of the petal, without pressing on the piping bag. For the centre, pipe lots of little starry blobs. The yellow will be more runny than the brown.

smoked pepper mackerel with raspberry relish; fennel and orange salad

26 Apr

The disaffected baker youth are getting restless, shifting in their spots at the back of the class.

One of them wants to be a barman now, thinks it might be a bit more street. They all recoil from the draconian rules: they don’t want to take off their caps, giant headphones, piercings. Me neither, to be honest. The military atmosphere, lining up two by two to walk up to the classroom (in silence!)  makes me want to bang my head against the wall.

It was supposed to be about the cakes. But first we have to sit through science, technology, commerce classes. It might be interesting if it wasn’t dictation. We copy, word for word. The rebellious ones read the newspaper.

Last week someone started a fire in the bathroom.

Pastry school turns out to have downsides. Not all sunshine and sugar roses. At school, I get the real French experience. Pointless rules, a man with a moustache to shout at us, to call us idiots. (He normally uses a much more vulgar word than that.) My favourite classmate calls it ‘character building.’ She’s quitting at the end of year, with a much tougher skin than before.

But all this gives me an ‘in’: I get to work in a proper patisserie, alternating with school weeks. I get to try my hand at creams and biscuits and mousses, most of which I am allowed to taste. I get a qualification, albeit GCSE level, with which I can enter the job market.

I’m lucky. I’m still doing what I want to do. I have to jump through some hoops to get it. It’s just that sometimes, at the end of my day in the classroom, I dream about setting fire to all my school books.

And so, not much energy for real cooked food recently. Evening suppers are for rice pudding, peas and bacon, quinoa salads (thank-you, charming flatmate) and crisps. I can’t think of anything worth sharing…

Except for one lunchtime after a morning in the school labs. We made little coffee religieuses, supposedly nun-shaped pastries. (Only in France, right? That and the bicolour “divorce” cream puff.) So I needed something sharp and savoury and quick, preferably made from all the lurkers in the fridge. Something with colour, to make me feel like a person again.

Smoked pepper mackerel with raspberry relish; fennel and orange salad

(this isn’t really a recipe, but please humour me)

Smash a whole mackerel, smoked with giant crumbs of pepper, onto some buttered rye bread, or seedy wholegrain crackers. Heat a handful of raspberries with a pinch of sugar in a small saucepan just until they wilt and get juicy. Dot the mackerel with the beautiful scarlet relish.

Thinly slice a fennel bulb. Supreme an orange, squeeze the juice from what’s left over onto the fennel. Mix with olive oil, more pepper and fancy salt and call it a salad.

Serve your colourful foods together.

toasted teacakes with cranberries and orange glaze

23 Apr

So let me get this straight: it was your day off from the bakery?

Yes.

In your limited spare time, you decided to make buns?

Yep.

Then you brought them into the bakery to share with your colleagues?

Uh, yes?

You’re such a geek!

In all fairness, it was Good Friday. And while I have never been particularly patriotic or religious before, I do like an excuse to make buns. Those sticky fruit-laden hot cross buns that Marks and Spencers do so well, that I have been dreaming about from far away in France. And I wanted to show my colleagues that English bakery is not so bad after all.

They were pretty damn good; bread with a base of cider and cream and honey can’t be a terrible thing. They had their wobbly crosses. But they weren’t quite as fluffy as I remembered. And the cross was not especially nice – a flour and oil paste made for piping. So I tried again.

Why make buns only once a year anyway? Take off the cross and call it a teacake, spices and all. Stud them with dried cranberries for bejewelled colour and brush with a syrup made from fresh orange juice. Leave them ample rising time as you potter around, let the house fill with the smell of baking bread. (They’re not that hard, just some stirring and ten seconds of kneading. Waiting will be the most difficult.)

Eat them straight away, tear off soft hunks with sunbursts of cranberry and raisin. Cut them in half and have them cold with a slice of brie (genius) or toasted the next morning. In fact there is a kind of magic in the toasting: the charred edges like shaded charcoal, an extra caramelisation and of course, the melted butter sinking in.

Toasted teacakes with cranberries and orange glaze

makes 12 – adapted from Dan Lepard’s hot cross bun recipe in the Guardian

150ml cider at room temperature

7g fast action dried yeast

75g wholemeal flour (but plain will work too)

50g honey

150g cream

2 eggs

4 tsp mixed spice

zest of 1 orange

400g bread flour

25g cornflour

1 tsp salt

170g dried cranberries

130g raisins (the big juicy kind)

for the glaze: juice of 1 orange + 50g sugar

Mix the cider, yeast and wholemeal flour and leave to bubble for half an hour.

In a medium saucepan, whisk the honey, cream, eggs, orange zest and mixed spice together and heat very gently until just body temperature. (Any hotter and the yeast will not be happy.) In a large bowl stir the flour, cornflour, salt and dried fruit. Add the yeast mix and honey mix and mix to a shaggy dough. Leave to rest for 10 minutes.

Lightly oil a worktop with sunflower oil. Tip the dough onto it and knead for 10 seconds. Put it back in the bowl, cover with a tea towel and leave in a warm place. (If your house is cold like mine, heat the oven on 75C for three minutes then turn off and stick the bowl inside.) Leave for an hour.

When the dough has doubled in size, divide into 12 equal hunks. Roll each one very gently into a ball on an oiled surface, place on a baking paper-lined tray. Let the teacakes rise in a warm place (oven as above) until doubled again. (Took me about 45 minutes.)

Preheat oven (take teacakes out first!) to 200C. Bake teacakes for 15-18 minutes until golden-brown. They should make a hollow thud when you tap the bottom.

Meanwhile, make the glaze. Take 50ml juice from the orange and 50g sugar and heat in a small saucepan until bubbling. Let cool. Brush onto teacakes when they are still warm but not hot.

Serve straightaway with lots of real butter – or toasted the next day. Also delicious with cheese.

mohnkuche (poppy flour cake with lemon glaze)

20 Apr

A parcel of steely powder and a blue flower-printed card. The International Gourmet Penpal Project has begun.

Poppy seeds with lemon is obviously a classic combination, but I had never heard of Mohn (poppy seed flour) until Mary sent it to me. The sandy texture of ground almonds, it is a beautiful dark grey colour with a bitter taste like walnuts. My German friend scoffed when I told him about it – just a normal boring cake for him, nothing special.

And yet it bakes up to be almost blue! Looks like granite, but soft as anything. You could ice it in layers with thick buttercream, but I preferred the lemon juice and sugar option – just a thin white crust over the nutty base. (No flour, for you gluten-free people!)

In the end I had to give the last two slices away to the picky German friend, else the whole cake would have been gone by the end of the day. (He liked it too!) A grown-up sponge cake, I suppose – a sophisticated colour, a bitter twist and simple sweet icing – Mohnkuche may be my new favourite afternoon snack.

So, who’s next? What crazy ingredients can you send me?

~~~

Mohn cakewith lemon glaze

makes a large sized cake – I halved the recipe and still made 6 generous slices

150g soft butter, at room temperature

50g icing sugar

6 eggs, separated

a pinch of salt

zest of 1 lemon

200g Mohn flour

100g ground almonds or walnuts

110g caster sugar

for glaze: juice of lemon + 100g icing sugar

Preheat oven to 180C. Grease a 20-22cm round tin or line it with baking paper.

Cream the butter and icing sugar. Add the egg yolks one by one and beat well. Fold in the salt, lemon zest, Mohn and ground nuts.

In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites. As they become stiff, add the sugar a spoonful at a time and keep whisking to thick glossy peaks. Mix the whites into the Mohn mix a dollop at a time, folding gently so as not to lose the airy volume.

Tip cake mix into tin and bake for 30-40 minutes, until it comes away from the sides of the tin and the top springs back when pressed.

Mix a few drops of lemon juice into the remaining icing sugar, adding more until it makes a thick pouring consistency. Smooth over hot cake as it comes out of the oven.

 

anzac biccies

17 Apr

Thanks to this little blog-thing, I have been lucky enough to:

  • rediscover my love of crayons
  • pluck up the courage to comment on other grander blog-people
  • make some virtual friends among said blog-people
  • win personalised running coaching with this awesome company
  • have a recipe of mine borrowed for a very classy café
  • start up a fledgling international gourmet penpal scheme

I just received some Mohn (poppy seed flour) through the post.

Partly I am excited because, well, I love post. It is rare enough these days to receive a letter or parcel, so the novelty never ceases to amaze. Obviously, I also get to make new and exciting cakes, apparently in a stylish grey. But beyond that, I get to make connections. As much as everyone rails about the evils of the internet, sometimes it it surprisingly satisfying.

In return I am sending these biscuits. Not French, very Australian. Patriotic even: Anzac Day is coming up on April 25th. Apart from being lacy and snappy, sweet with golden syrup and sandy with coconut and oats, they are sturdy enough for posting. At university I remember a bubble wrapped bag of the toffee-brown biscuits arriving in my pigeon hole. I think we sat down on the post room floor and crunched through them straight away. They are addictive.

Thank-you Mary, for the poppy seed flour! Will let you know how it turns out….

Anyone else want to send me some ingredients? Or some local speciality food? Will reply with cookies, promise.

Anzac biscuits

(makes 50 ish, so either send a lot of parcels or halve the recipe. Originally from Australian Women’s Weekly, measurements are all in cups, which makes it very easy, just a cup, a bowl and a spoon.)

1 cup plain flour

1 cup sugar

1 cup oats

¾ cup desiccated coconut

½ cup melted butter

2 tbs golden syrup (honey at a pinch)

1 tbs water (*drawing slightly inaccurate)

½ tsp bicarbonate of soda

Preheat oven to 150C.

In a large bowl, mix the dry ingredients together. Stir in melted butter and golden syrup, add the water if the mix looks a little dry. Make rough balls of dough the size of a walnut shell. Spread them out on a baking tray lined with baking paper with plenty of space between – they will melt into large thin discs.

Bake for 10-15 minutes until they form crisp dark caramel-coloured biscuits.

sweet spicy salty salmon fishcakes (simple salmon #2)

14 Apr

Nearly a year ago now, I wrote about another salmon supper. It was supposed to be a series. The next one in said series has a story about denim and irons. The last one was full of overly poignant memories.

This is just supper. Combining my love of all things pancake with a taste for faintly oriental dressing (anything that reminds me of gyoza dipping sauce, really) these fishcakes are cool and tangy and so simple.

Bright orange from the sweet potato, coated in sesame seeds. Salmon from a tin, or leftovers hiding in the fridge. A few minutes of mashing, squashing and patting into shape. The satisfying sizzle of oil. A salad with avocado and mustard.

Make with them what you will: add chopped fennel or chili, coat with fine breadcrumbs or oats or even shredded coconut. Swap in canned tuna or real potato, use paprika and sweet barbecue sauce instead of soy. Have an easy flavourful supper of your own.

Sweet spicy salty salmon fishcakes

makes just about a light supper for 2

1 large sweet potato

1 tin salmon (100g, drained)

1 shallot, chopped fine

1 spring onion, also chopped fine

1 egg

1 tbsp soy sauce

1-2 tsp rice vinegar

1/2 – 1 tsp fish sauce

a dash of chili

indefinite smount of sesame seeds

Stab the sweet potato all over with a fork and microwave on medium-high for 3-5 minutes. Turn it over once so it steams evenly.

Mix the egg, salmon, chopped onions in a large bowl. Mash the sweet potato (keep the skin on if you like) into the mixture. Add the seasonings and taste. Add more if necessary – they should taste sharp and tangy.

Heat a large frying pan on medium heat with just a drizzle of oil. Coconut oil is nice, olive will do. Tip sesame seeds into a shallow dish. Make six balls of mix (they will be quite soft and sticky) and press them into the seeds on each side. When the oil is hot enough to sizzle a drop of water, cook the fishcakes a few minutes both sides until the seeds are golden-brown and the middles nice and warm.

Serve with a crisp green salad and some edamame.

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