Zeralda's Diary

Pie Principles

2011-10-31T14:01:00.007Z

Crispy pastry, succulent filling, and lots of compliments from my dining companions. What more can you ask for? Especially, as this was my first attempt at using my latest kitchen gadget, the pie funnel. Now, don't despair if you don't have one, you can achieve the same result with a few well-placed cuts in the pastry top, to let steam escape.

LIttle Party Pieces

2011-09-30T20:17:00.000+01:00

Birthday cakes are VERY important to my children. Only, they never eat theirs. It's not that they don't like them, they're simply too excited on their big day to deal with a slice of cake. These, however, they will eat. Introducing the simplest mini muffins: 3 ingredients - 3 steps. Optional: decorating. Child's play, really. Less than 20 minutes from start to finish, you can even knock these up in the morning to take to school.

A Different Lemon Cake

2011-07-07T19:21:00.004+01:00

Browsing through Tamasin Day-Lewis' "Supper for a Song", I felt irresistably drawn to her recipe for a lemon drizzle cake with lemon curd filling. The lemon syrup used for drizzling is flavoured with bay leaves and honey, the curd brings to mind a perfect lemon tart, and the cake layers offer full-bodied flavour with almonds and whole grain spelt flour, yet are surprisingly light. Not to mention moist and sticky....

Duck Breast & Cherries

2011-07-02T21:05:00.002+01:00

Have you come across Harry Eastwood? Here latest cookery book, "The Skinny French Kitchen", Bantam Press 2011, is a real delight. Beautifully designed and full of deliciously tasty recipes. She aims to reduce the fat content of traditional French dishes without compromising the taste - and she achieves her mission! I'm won over by her tasty, well researched recipes, for instance her duck breast with cherry sauce. Easy, yummy, and lean - what more do you want?

Luke Warm Pasta Salad

2011-06-02T12:25:00.009+01:00

I've caught the Ottolenghi bug. Was there a life before his latest cookbook? I can scarcely remember. I've cooked my way through approximately a third of "Plenty", and I keep returning for more. For lunch, we had a small salad from our garden followed by this luke warm, sweet-and-sour pasta salad.

I used the recipe as a starting point but made a few changes. Ottolenghi's salad is intended as a cold starter, having marinated for several hours in the fridge. We simply couldn't wait, and it was delicious luke warm. I used a mixture of whole and ordinary wheat linguine instead of soba noodles, and roasted my aubergines as I don't wish to spend the summer looking like the Michelin man!

Hot Cross Buns

2011-04-22T13:21:00.004+01:00

Hot Cross Buns are traditionally eaten on Good Friday: twelve buns for the twelve apostles (or Jesus and his apostles minus Judas, depending on whom you ask), decorated with the cross to symbolize the crucifixion. Folklore has it that buns baked on Good Friday will not spoil for an entire year but I see no reason to put this to the test. I'd much rather share and eat them, preferably straight from the oven, with a morsel of butter. And a nice, hot cup of tea.

Mt. Vesuvius

2011-04-16T18:08:00.004+01:00

My children love to hear about ancient Rome, the story of Romulus and Remus and the last days of Pompeii are amongst their favourites. So maybe it's not surprising that my daughter, when allowed to choose a project from a baking book, settled for an erupting volcano. Essentially, it's a marble cake turned red and baked in a bowl. The following recipe is adapted from Kreider-Stempfle and Frensemeier, "Das große Buch vom Backen und Bauen", Gerstenberg 2008.

Vitello Tonnato

2011-04-12T18:33:00.003+01:00

Some days are just perfect. Yesterday was a fine spring day, but more importantly, I chanced upon a lovely piece of veal. A delightful exercise, toying with this recipe and that! In the end, it had to be vitello tonnato, slices of tender meat marinated in a tuna-caper sauce. Arguably not amongst the top ten of the world's prettiest dishes, yet one of the most intensely satisfying flavours you could imagine.

My Treat's a Tart

2011-01-27T15:39:00.004Z

A tart is a decided short-cut to my heart. I've loved them for a long as I can remember, and when I first started baking tarts, Tamasin Day-Lewis became my guru. I am currently re-reading her "Art of the Tart" (don't you love the title?), and took a fancy to a cherry and almond tart. Judging by the picture, I expected a clafoutis in a pastry case, yet how wrong I was. The result was a cherry studded bakewell tart.

Essential White Loaf

2011-01-21T20:03:00.014Z

A good white loaf is the little black dress in the world of breads. Not my choice day in, day out, but utterly perfect for ever so many occasions. Requiring only a few, simple ingredients and a little muscle, on lazy days, I often feel it is easier to bake this than walk to the next bakery. Well, that's my kind of laziness! Although kneading bread should rightfully classify as an upper body work out...

Chocolate Drizzle Cake

2011-01-18T19:00:00.003Z

Allegedly, she says, there are times when nothing but chocolate will do. Ever thought so? This moist, rich, dark chocolate loaf is the perfect option for all of you brownie lovers out there. If you are a chocolate purist, you may want to up the cocoa percentage and reduce the amount of sugar a little - that said, I have yet to meet the person who can resist this as is. I'm recording this specially for my friend Claudia who loves this cake. The recipe is loosely adapted from Nigella Lawson's Quadruple Chocolate Loaf Cake in "Feast". Have all your ingredients at room temperature, then it's as easy as pie.

Digestive Biscuits

2011-01-12T11:39:00.006Z

Have you got a favourite every day biscuit? Excluding seasonal delights such as the many types of Christmas cookies, my best beloved are ginger nuts and digestives. The latter are incredibly versatile, I particularly love them with goat's cream cheese and slices of pear. Or plain as a snack.

The following recipe comes from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's "River Cottage - every day". Adjust the sweetness according to taste, and try out different types of flour. The biscuits in the picture were made with whole grain wheat flour but spelt works equally as well.

Frisian Whole Grain Spice Bread

2011-01-08T08:40:00.018Z

Amongst the many wonderful pieces of equipment in my father's kitchen was a massive terracotta bowl, I estimate it must have had a volume of 20 liters or more. It was used for one purpose only, namely to bake bread. And just one particular type of bread, namely the tastiest whole grain loaf one could imagine. A spicy bread, it delights with a grain-to-grain texture and a solid crust. This recipe has been in my family for three generations, its origins lost some where in the dim and distant past but I believe it comes from one of the small Frisian islands off the North Sea coast.

Gingerbread House

2010-12-22T16:34:00.021Z

I'm so excited, this is my first ever home-made ginger bread house! And it wasn't even remotely difficult, as I had been led to believe. Either I have been very fortunate in the recipe I used which came on some scrap paper with a biscuit cutter I bought, or else my friends who had handled gingerbread dough before were rather unlucky in their choice of recipe. This dough was very easy to handle, not particularly sticky, kept its shape once baked and even tastes nice. Another plus: instead of golden syrup or other such exotic concoctions it uses plain honey, thus no need for a pilgrimage to specialist shops. Indeed, I had all I needed at home.

Christmas Tree Decorations

2010-12-17T15:23:00.009Z

How do you decorate your Christmas tree? Mine has to have red candles, miniature toys and apples, and most importantly, something made by the children. In an ideal world - theirs, certainly - this has to be edible, too. Which is why we have just baked two trays worth of stained glass stars. Some of these will adorn our Christmas tree, others will double up as small presents, and a few have mysteriously disappeared already...

... and I don't want to hear they are wonky, they've been made by a 3 and 5 year old respectively!

Mozart Truffles

2010-11-25T10:35:00.019Z

Have you ever eaten "Mozartkugeln"? Little truffles with a core of pistachio flavoured marzipan, encased in nougat and covered in dark chocolate. There are various commercial versions, the 'original' is produced by Paul Fürst in Salzburg. If you get the chance, you should try them, they are very good!

This home-made version is much bigger than the original, improvises with the elements chocolate, marzipan, pistachio to play a new, pleasant tune. It's labour intensive but makes a marvellous seasonal gift. I found this recipe several years ago in the German food magazine 'essen & trinken', and have tinkered only a little.

Pink Ladyfingers

2010-11-07T19:38:00.018Z

No, I'm not talking nail polish. Have you ever eaten a pink biscuit? I had not until very recently - but ever since I'd read somewhere about pink biscuits called roses de Reims, I'd wanted to eat them. They are not easily got anywhere near me, so the obvious solution was to try and make them myself. Finally, I found a recipe here (in German), which gave me a starting point and led me this version (in French). I've simplified the method, tried various shades of pink, and am rather pleased with the result. The trick is to bake the biscuits twice to achieve the typical crunchy texture.

They go very well with a glass of pink bubbly. Or indeed a cup of tea, if it's that time of the day. Or how about pink tiramisu with white chocolate? Or a bowl of Eton Mess surrounded by these biscuits (to awaken the inner Frenchman or woman in you, call it a charlotte). I am tempted...

Cooking Fish

2010-07-25T19:51:00.015+01:00

Well, I promised you a main course after all those starters, didn't I? Now, I absolutely adore fish but the more I cook it, the more critical I become and the harder it seems to achieve perfection. Good results by all means, but not that 'wow, it doesn't come better than this' feeling. Ideally, one should always take notes when reaching the desired goal, however, there's not always time.
I know that's a big mistake, as the next time I cook the same dish, I won't always remember the exact details. Thus the following report is as much for my own benefit as for yours. Because I cooked a beautiful salmon filet to perfection today. I am especially pleased as this dish is my very own brainchild, although I am sure it won't be as novel an approach as it feels to me, today.

Simple Maths: Adding Up

2010-07-24T12:54:00.013+01:00

As my daughter is learning how to add up, I find myself devising uncountable ("how many?") exercises. Here's one for you:

4 courgettes
+ 8 Italian sausages =

...?

For the Love of Lavender

2010-07-18T14:19:00.019+01:00

Somewhere inside me, there's a little old lady trying to come out. Or how can I explain my love affair with lavender?

Apart from its smell - you either love it, like me, or you don't - and use in potpourries or as a moth deterrant, lavender oil is used medicinally for its anti-inflammatory and antiseptic properties. It also aids relaxation and can therefore be found in many bath remedies and even in pillows. However, lavender is also a powerful allergen, so use it cautiously if you don't know whether it agrees with you.

Bento Lunch

2010-07-13T18:23:00.005+01:00

Today's lunch consisted of a pasta salad, herby pancake-sausage rolls and strawberries. The children and I had pancakes for lunch yesterday (setting up a little table and chairs in the kitchen and playing restaurant which they loved), so I made a little extra batter, added salt and pepper and lots of freshly chopped herbs. I cooked the pancakes, laid slices of a mortadella type sausage on top - cooked ham would be fine, too - and rolled the pancakes up tightly. Covered in foil and left in the fridge until I cut them up this morning. The pasta salad consists of left-over pasta from yesterday evening (I purposefully made more than I thought we could eat), which we had with sauteed vegetables, namely aubergines, leeks and green chilli in a white wine and cream sauce. I simply added peas and cocktail tomatoes. For myself, I would have added a vinaigrette dressing but the children prefer it plain.

Shooter Sandwich

2010-07-12T14:50:00.011+01:00

Watching old episodes of "Two Fat Ladies", a fabulous cooking programme featuring Jennifer Patterson and Clarissa Dickson Wright, I came across this simple but substantial sandwich. It needs to prepared a few hours before you want to eat it, but apart from this, it is a very easy and satisfying dish. We ate this for a summer evening picnic. You need a loaf of white bread, a steak, 4-5 cm thick and as large as the loaf (either use two or shorten the loaf to fit), and some good sized mushrooms - I used a mixture of brown champignons and shitake mushrooms. Quantities will naturally depend on the size of your loaf.

Children's Summer Party

2010-07-09T13:42:00.011+01:00

"Summer time, and the living is easy". For the children, it's also a glorious time of discovery. Nature seems to explode all around us, and even the magical, mysterious seeds we planted many weeks ago have finally revealed themselves.
Tomorrow is the annual summer party at our kindergarten, and I've volunteered to cook vegetable muffins. I often find that such events abound with sweet choices but leave the savoury side sadly neglected, so I always like to contribute something other than cake. I've made these muffins with both carrot and courgette, and either works very well.

Beef Roulade

2010-06-25T18:51:00.012+01:00

Today's lunch box contained a beef roulade with coleslaw salad, and - not shown in the picture - grapes and vineyard peaches (a white, flat variety) as well as radishes and slices of cucumber. I also packed some crispbread with pumpkin seeds and an apple per person.

Rhubarb Tarte Tatin

2010-06-21T11:59:00.010+01:00

From rhubarb with apples it but a small leap to rhubarb without apples - and I thought it worth experimenting along the principles of a tarte tatin. The result was sheer bliss, the sweetness of the caramel beautifully off-set against the tartness of the rhubarb. Almost better than the apple version, if you ask me, because of the counter point to the candy. And blissfully easy to make, too. The only point to watch is when you turn the ready made tarte onto a plate, be aware that there will be hot, liquid caramel desperate to escape!!

White Tuna

2010-06-19T19:33:00.018+01:00

Yes and no. I cooked tuna after a recipe by Marco Pierre White, and could not resist that title. ;) In colour, my fish was a deep reddish brown, though. I'm currently cooking my way through Marco Pierre White's "Canteen Cuisine" and was irresistably drawn to a recipe entitled 'Grilled Tuna, Ratatouille, Tapenade, Beurre de Tomate'.

Royal Rounds

2010-06-17T18:37:00.009+01:00

I'm always on the look-out for a healthy dessert for my children's lunch box. When we were on holiday, we bought strange looking over-sized balls of dried fruit at the market in Freiburg as a little snack. This has inspired me to create these little bento-size gob-stoppers.

I call these Royal Rounds because they are fit for a queen!

Apricot Dumplings

2010-05-23T07:53:00.008+01:00

Sweet dumplings are a regional specialty of Southern Germany and Austria, and there are two I am particularly fond of, steamed poppy seed dumplings and apricot dumplings. The latter are called 'Marillenknödel', marille is simply the southern name for apricot. These dumplings are very easy to make, and are delicious as a main course - serve two per person - or desert (one will suffice). You need to prepare a quark-based dough at least two hours in advance; I prefer to do this the evening before if I want to eat these for lunch, and the remaining cooking time will be no more than twenty minutes.

Marinated Salmon

2010-05-18T17:22:00.010+01:00

When browsing my numerous cookbooks for ideas and inspiration, I find myself irresistibly drawn to food preparations which one might prescribe as projects: preparation times of several days, at the very least, resulting in what most people would only ever buy in a shop. I, on the other hand, instinctively say top myself 'I've always wanted to try this!'. Invariably, the results are more than worth the effort. The following recipe is a good point in question.

Asparagus Appetizer

2010-05-18T17:03:00.011+01:00

Although the permanent cold and rain might fool any one, it is supposedly spring time, and May, in particular, is asparagus season. Here's a simple starter of green asparagus - if you want to serve it as fingerfood, I would, however, suggest cutting it into smaller pieces, it will be easier to eat. I served these together with raw celery sticks and cherry tomatoes stuffed with chevre persillade, creamy goats cheese mashed up with a fork and flavoured with finely chopped garlic, parsley, olive oil, salt and pepper. A few pieces were left over and made nice bed fellows for the following day's lunch box.

Cheese and Onion Tartlets

2010-04-24T14:41:00.016+01:00

Tomorrow, we are going on holiday, so I've plotted and planned provisions to take for the journey. I am never happier than when I can orchestrate something like this. I usually start with grand plans, plenty of research, only to down tone this to a manageable degree at a later stage. Clearly, one needs to stay realistic both in terms of how much and which type of food will be eaten and regarding time and effort spent on preparing such a feast. And if you are setting off on holiday, another consideration is that you may want to use up perishable goods from your fridge and larder.

Roast Potato Salad

2010-04-24T14:16:00.008+01:00

I saw a recipe for potato salad with similar ingredients in a magazine, happened to have the basics at home, and set out to design my own version. I boiled the potatoes in advance, and thus was able to wash and assemble the rest of the salad while the potatoes where gently frying in the pan. Maybe I should tell you that in our family, there are two schools of roasting spuds - my husband fries them raw in the oven at a high temperature while I use boiled potatoes which I fry over a medium heat in a frying pan with clarified butter. Both ways produce delicious results but for this salad, I did it my way.

Fingerfood Pasta Shells

2010-04-23T11:05:00.012+01:00

Yesterday, I made a big pot of meat ragu. I hesitate calling it a bolognese sauce, as its main ingredient hailed from much further North, namely from Thuringia in Eastern Germany. You see, I asked my butcher to sell me the meat of my favourite sausages - sans casing or eggs - for my sauce, a Thuringian Bratwurst. I sweated off a few onions, added the meat, and simmered it for a good long while with a generous swig or two of Gewürztraminer and a few skinned, de-seeded and chopped tomatoes. The sausage meat provided most of the seasoning. Its ingredients are a closely kept secret but my feeling is that the seasoning consists of caraway seeds, marjoram and coriander, possibly a little paprika. I added some chilli flakes as I like it hot.

Scotch Eggs

2010-03-18T19:38:00.015Z

A Scotch egg, i.e. a hard-boiled egg encased in sausage meat, is the ultimate picnic food, portable, nourishing and a world apart from your ordinary supper fare. I had wanted to have a go at them for a long time but without a deep-fat fryer, it is virtually impossible to fry a round object evenly, and I did not fancy either a half-cooked or burnt result. So I was pleased to come across a recipe which used cooked ingredients, namely cooked ham instead of raw sausage stuffing.

Pasty and Sausage Tart Bento

2010-03-10T07:06:00.007Z

As I had a little spare dough from the sausage tart, I made these pasties, filled with cubed potatoes and parsnips with celery and roquefort. And below you can see today's bento with sausage tart, green salad and tomatoes at the bottom, a pasty, kiwi and dried cranberries at the top.

(Not) Just for Children

2010-03-09T17:44:00.012Z

A healthy treat for my children's lunch tomorrow: a sausage tart. I am not kidding!! They'll be very excited about it, yet it's full of hidden goodness: the custard contains spinach, as you can see but also small cubes of potato and parsnip. A little roquefort to enhance the taste and boost their immune system with friendly bacteria. The little veal sausages are low in fat and, like the spinach, a good source of iron (a side salad and fruit with vitamin C will help process this), and with a few slices of this tart, they will eat a lot more vegetables than meets the eye. Did I mention that the pastry is made with whole wheat flour?

Lazy Lunches

2010-03-05T12:48:00.007Z

Today, my little boy and I had lazy lunches; spaghetti frittata for him (fry a few rashers of bacon until crispy, add a little oil to the pan and fry a handfull of left-over spaghetti until crispy; beat two eggs together with a fork, season with salt and pepper and pour over the spaghetti. Reduce the heat and cook for about two minutes either side; cut into wedges).

Half a Cake

2010-02-19T05:44:00.009Z

Two considerations have kept me from baking frosted, filled cakes namely that a) I did not own two cake tins of the same size, and thought it an extravagant purchase; b) even though we all like cake, I could not envisage how we would finish a big cake like that before the cream-based icing would go off. The obvious solution is, of course, bake half a cake! Only needs one tin and will result in less cake, so can be eaten in time. Why did I not think of this before?

Poppy Seed Cake

2010-02-11T15:01:00.010Z

Do you remember a time when life was less complicated? I recently wondered how much unnecessary worry forms part of modern adult life. It's not always easy to detect but it hit me the other day just how many foods I grew up with are no longer considered safe. Not necessarily outlawed quite yet, certain products are harder and harder to get. Take milk, for instance. I'm not even talking raw, unpasteurised milk here, but all of a sudden, it's almost impossible to avoid homogenized milk (horror of horrors!). Why would I want to be able to keep milk in the fridge for up to three weeks? No one's consumption can be that low.

Stromboli

2010-01-26T08:42:00.008Z

Amongst my much appreciated Christmas presents is "Mama's Italian Cookbook - Just like mama used to make" published by Love Food, Parragon Books, in 2009. I've tried a few recipes, and all turned out very well. None more so than 'Stromboli' which I can see myself making over and over again. Essentially, it is a pizza roulade, and unlike similar concoctions made with puff pastry, the pizza dough cooks evenly through. Once cold, the pizza loaf makes a great starter or snack (or lunch, if you happen to be my children).

Swiss Chard and Artichoke Tart

2010-01-21T10:14:00.012Z

I am playing a game with myself: how long can I keep going this year without repeating myself, in culinary terms? (I exclude cold, uncooked food such as sandwiches or raw fruit.) So when I unpacked a lovely bunch of Swiss chard from my vegetable box this week, I dismissed all thoughts of my usual ways of cooking it and sought inspiration for something new. In an Italian Cookbook I came across a Torta di biete e carciofi. Naturally, there had to be a few adjustments, I added pine nuts for extra crunch and feta cheese, which I think complements Swiss chard ever so well. The olive oil based pastry was new to me, lovely to work with and crunchy when warm but it does not compare to ordinary short crust when cold, so I think this tart needs to be eaten straight from the oven.

Swiss Chard and Artichoke Tart
500 g flour
1 tsp salt
4 tbsp Olive Oil
250 ml cold water

Mix the above and knead until you have a smooth dough. Cover and leave to rest while you prepare the filling.

1 onion
500 g Swiss Chard
500 g of artichokes (tinned)
100 g feta cheese
parmigiano, fresh herbs (optional)
breadcrumbs
50 g pine nuts

Finely chop the onion and sweat off in olive oil. Wash and cut the Swiss chard, and add to the pan. Drain the artichokes, add to the pan and increase the heat so that unnecessary moisture will be cooked off. Mix Feta, parmigiano and pine nuts with the vegetables. Season with salt, pepper and fresh herbs, if you like.
Roll out 2/3 of the pastry and line a springform with it, cover the bottom with breadcrumbs - these will absorb moisture and prevent a soggy bottom. Add the folling, press down and roll out the remaining pastry to make a lid. I found the pastry extremely pliable, it lends itself well to nice decorations. Brush pastry with olive oil and cook at 200 C for 15 minutes, reduce temperature to 190 and cook a further 40 minutes. Serve hot!

Baumkuchen

2010-01-18T16:42:00.014Z

When I was a little girl, my mother occasionally took us to a Cafe to eat cake. I remember that we frequented several different establishments, and one particularly old-fashioned coffee house nearby was famous for its Baumkuchen, literally translated as "Tree Cake". It is essentially a layered, marzipan flavoured sponge cake. Thin layers are baked individually until golden brown to achieve dark lines throughout the cake, the annual growth rings of trees. Traditionally, the cake is baked on a spit to create numerous rings, thinning and thickening. They were on show in the Cafe's display window, and we marvelled at enormous cake towers, covered in different types of chocolate glaze.

You can buy inferior versions in many supermarkets today but I always suspected I could do better. Naturally, I do not have a spit for baking cake with, so opted for a simpler design, namely baking the cake in a rectangular form, and cutting it up into squares. Topped with just enough chocolate glaze to show a pretty drop or two trickling down its side - delicious! Fancy a bite?

Baumkuchen
6 eggs
120 g sugar
200 g marzipan
200 g butter
100 g icing sugar
8 g vanilla sugar
100 g flour
chocolate glaze (optional)

Preheat the oven to 250 C. Cut up the marzipan and mix with the butter, add icing sugar and vanilla sugar. Separate the eggs, adding the yolks to the dough, mix in one or two at a time. Beat the egg white with a pinch of salt until stiff, add the sugar. Gently fold into the dough mixture.

To bake, spread out two tablespoons of batter thinly.
Bake for 4-5 minutes until golden brown.

Add another layer of batter and bake again.

Repeat until you have used up all of the dough.

Leave to cool, then cut into small squares

and cover with a chocolate glaze.

Cornish Pasties

2010-01-15T18:02:00.020Z

Cornish Pasties
Not a quick fix but easy and well worth the effort. This makes ten good-sized pasties. Traditionally, one would use stewing steak for the pasties but I find minced meat - I like a mixture of pork and beef - gives better results. You can substitue lard for part of the butter in the pastry; if you do not have any, all butter is fine.

Pastry:
2 small eggs
1 tsp salt
250 g flour
125 g butter.

Filling:
2 spring onions, chopped
4 carrots, cubed
500 g mince meat

Mix butter and flour until you have a crumble mixture, add salt and bind with the eggs. Rest in the fridge while you prepare the filling. Fry off the spring onion and carrots in olive oil, add the mince. Sweat over low heat until cooked through, season to taste. I think a little English mustard and sweet paprika work well. This makes more filling than you need for the pasties; use the remainder with or without tomatoes on pasta.
Roll out the dough and cut into round circles. Add filling and fold in half, sealing the edges. Cook in a hot oven (200 C) for ca. 20-25 minutes, until golden brown. Lovely warm and cold.

Winter Hot Pot

2010-01-09T14:57:00.005Z

We were promised a blizzard yesterday; we certainly had a reasonable amount of snow during the night so we arranged to take the children out sledging today. I knew we'd come home hungry and cold, so made a few preparations (chopping up my ingredients) before we left for what turned out to be a most satisfying meal. Sorry, I did not take any pictures. The recipe comes via the Wagama Cookbook by Hugo Arnold; I made some minor changes. The following quantites are enough for 4 adults. With two children making up our number we did not finish all. I broke up the remaining salmon pieces into flakes and mixed everything together with the rice, and it made a lovely salmon-rice salad cold.

Salmon Hot Pot
800 g salmon fillet
2 leeks
1 shallot
3 carrots
3 sticks of celery
1-2 garlic cloves
olive oil
salt and pepper
100 ml light soy sauce
8 tablespoons of water
brown rice

By the way, I recently discovered that brown rice can be very tasty indeed, if you can manage to get your hands on brown basmati rice. Firstly, prepare you ingredients, leeks and shallot should be finely chopped, carrots and celery cubed. Skin the salmon filet and cut into cubes. At this stage, you can cover everything and leave it ready to be cooked later.

Preheat the oven to 180 C. Wash the rice and bring to a boil. Heat up a little olive oil in an oven proof casserole dish and sweat off the vegetables on a medium heat for 10 minutes. Add the chopped garlic, simmer for another minute. Add the salmon, season gently with salt and pepper, add the soy sauce and water, cover and place in the oven for 15 minutes. Remove and rest for another 5 minutes. Serve in big bowls on top of the rice.

I presume this might also be very tasty using a good stock instead of the soy sauce and water mixture.

Welcoming in the New Year

2010-01-01T19:10:00.010Z

Starting the year as I mean to continue, our first cooked meal in 2010 was a success on every level. Making thrifty use of left-overs and a few solitary ingredients from our vegetable basket, yet delighting all who partook of it, especially my husband who allegedly does not like soup - or so he claims every time until he has eaten a bowl full or two...

Celeriac Soup Meets Three Friends

Soup Ingredients:
1 head of celeriac
1 leek
1 onion
3 potatoes
1 garlic clove
1 apple
a knob of butter
coarse sea salt
pepper
fresh thyme
a bay leaf
a dollop of mascarpone

The soup was roughly inspired by a recipe in "River Cottage every day" but this is my take on it. To prepare the soup, roughly chop up the celeriac, leek, onion, potatoes and garlic, and sweat off in a little butter. Top up with ca. 1-2 liters of water, season with coarse sea salt and pepper, add a few sprigs of thyme and a bay leaf and simmer for ca. 20 minutes, until the vegetables are soft. Remove the bay leave, add a spoonful of mascarpone and puree. Adjust the seasoning. Serve with several garnishes and oven-warm bread rolls.

I served this soup with three accompaniments. The first one was a plain salad of beluga lentils I had made the previous day: boil lentils until soft, season with salt and pepper. Chop and fry off a shallot in olive oil, add to the lentils and add sherry vinegar to taste. We ate this as a starter yesterday, topped with smoked goose breast. Obviously you would not want to overdo it on the vinegar but as they were, our lentils made a pretty and substantial garnishing for the soup.

The soup's second friend is an old crony, namely crumbled blue stilton cheese. Celery and stilton soup is a classic, but I wanted to give my children the choice to discover this playfully at their own speed, so I served a piece of stilton on the side, making crumbles with a fork which we stirred into our soup.

The third accompaniment was a bowl of fried apple pieces, adding both sweetness and tartness. Peel and core an apple and cut into small pieces. Fry off in hot olive oil with several sprigs of fresh thyme. Serve with the oil which you may want to sprinkle over the soup. Enjoy!

Steamed Delights

2009-12-31T08:24:00.016Z

The year is drawing to a close, and I want to share my most exciting and unsuspected culinary discovery with you: steamed puddings. They are not part of my own culinary heritage, and until I made my own, I only ever came across it in institutionalised form - o horror of horrors! I thought it was a peculiarly English perversion that sane people would stay clear off. I never imagined I would eat a steamed pudding ever again, or even bother making one myself, far less enjoying it! Well, it's always worth keeping an open mind, in particular with regard to food. The man who changed my mind is Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, although he does not know it. One of my (much appreciated) Christmas presents is his "River Cottage every day". It includes many delightful recipes, including one for a Lemon Sponge Pudding. The picture was appetizing and I happened to have the ingredients at hand, so I made this for our Christmas Day desert. What unimagined delight! I discovered that steamed puddings are easy to make, delicious warm, while any left-overs can be eaten cold as cake. Our lemon sponge disappeared too quickly to be recorded on film, but such was my excitement about this new type of food that I made a chocolate sponge pudding the following day, along the lines of Huggie's lemon recipe; I'll give those ingredients in brackets so you can duplicate both. Which was better? My family loved the chocolate version, while I adore lemony deserts, so both had their fans...

Steamed Chocolate Sponge Pudding
25 g muscovado sugar
a little cream (juice of one lemon)
pure cocoa and chocolate flakes (grated lemon zest, juice of another lemon)
100 g unsalted butter
2 eggs
100 g flour
1 teaspoon baking powder

Dissolve the sugar in the cream (lemon juice), and pour into a pudding basin. In lieu of one, use a heat-proof ceramic bowl. Make a batter of the remaining ingredients: mix together butter, cocoa (lemon zest) and sugar, add the eggs, then flour and baking powder. Stir in the chocolate flakes (lemon juice). Spoon the batter on top of the sugary liquid,
cover the bowl with a double sheet of aluminium foil and tie a string: around the bowl to hold the foil in place, then make a handle so that you shall be able to take it out of the pot.

Place a small upturned saucer in the bottom of a large sauce pan, place the pudding bowl on top and pour water half-way up the pudding basin.

Bring to a simmer and steam for 2 hours with the lid on. Remove from the pot, take off the foil and with a knife loosen the edges of the pudding.

Turn upside down onto a plate and serve hot with cream. And on this note I shall leave you for today.

HAPPY NEW YEAR
to us all!!

PS. Rather than New Year's resolutions, I have a New Year project: cooking portable lunches (warm and cold) for my children to take to kindergarden. Watch this space to see the story unfold...

Winter Salad

2009-12-31T08:17:00.005Z

I feel I need to counterblance all of these baking recipes with some 'real' food. It's not that we don't eat proper, tasty food, only most of the time it disappears so quickly, that there is no time to take pictures of it; and there are so many meals, I simply cannot record them all. But this little salad was as delicious as it looks in the picture:

It contains lambs lettuce, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, walnuts, pomegranate and a dressing made with olive oil, lemon juice and crumbly goat's cheese. A super combination, even if I say so myself.

Three Stars

2009-12-14T19:04:00.006Z

You may have noticed that I spend a lot of time baking for Christmas. Maybe I should clarify that while as a family we are, admittedly, fond of food, this is not just for our own consumption but a nice home-made present for friends. Now there is one person who has introduced me to a marvellous new biscuit - new for me, at least - and deserves a little thank you for that. So these three stars are for you, Amelia!

PS. If you want to recreate this, bake Amelia's Ovis Mollis, cut into star shapes and fill with a mixture of jam and honey. Cranberry fits the season perfectly, although my taste buds prefer strawberry in this biscuit - the ideal use for cranberry jam, if you ask me, is spread on scones with creme fraiche. But if you go for cranberry, make your own: gently heat up equal amounts of cranberries and sugar, until the sugar dissolves, then boil rapidly for a few minutes until it begins to set. What could be easier?

Baking for Christmas

2009-12-10T16:19:00.006Z

I had promised you my recipe for mince pies. Alas, Christmas preparations are taking their toll and - spare - time has vanished. If you come across it, let me know, I could do with a little extra! But first things first, this plate is for you, enjoy!

My Mince Pie recipe originally came from Nigella Lawson's "How to Be a Domestic Goddess"; naturally, I have fiddled over the years. This year's first batch went down a treat, I am hoping to find enough time to bake some more tomorrow. Actually, once you have made your mince meat, it takes no time at all to make these, but that's how pressed for time I am just now!

Pastry:
300 g flour
150 g butter
juice of one orange
pinch of salt

Rub the butter into the flour until you have a crumbly mixture. Add the salt and use enough orange juice to bind. Leave to rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes. Roll out thinly and cut out circles large enough to form a little pastry case with. Also cut out a matching number of christmas shapes to use as a topping, a little star will do the job.

My trick: I use a cutter a little bigger than the moulds of my muffin tray, then use the circles to line the tray with; this gives me perfect little pastry cases. Fill with your own mince meat - for my version confer to the last entry - but do not overload or you'll have to deal with a very sticky muffin case.

Top with a small pastry shape. Bake in a hot oven (220 C) for 15-20 minutes. If you like, once cool dust the pies with icing sugar. Find a small decorative box, fill it with pies and you have a lovely home-made Christmas give for someone.

Advent Approaches

2009-11-28T20:28:00.006Z

Tomorrow is the first Sunday of Advent, and I mean to celebrate it. Not just for the sake of the children but because it marks an important part of the year for all of us: waiting for Christmas, days getting darker and shorter, reaching the end of another year; a new beginning. Temperatures drop, the icy outside offsets the cosiness of one's home to its best advantage.

Easily my favourite time of the year, although from a parental perspective all "Gemütlichkeit" is rather hard earned. I started my preparations very last minute; life with small children does that to you, however well-organised you were before. I bought an Advent Crown with four red candles, to be lit one by one every Sunday. Dug out my Christmas table linen, a little worn with age but hand-embroidered by my great-grandmother. Spent the afternoon crafting stars and snowflakes, as well as baking enormous amounts of biscuits to be consumed in style tomorrow. In my book, every Advent Sunday should include a church service - whatever your beliefs this is the time for the most inspiring and moving church music - and an afternoon tea time with home made biscuits - many special types are dedicated to this period only - or cake(s), preferably shared with friends. And I will listen to Christmas music and read an Advent poem or short story to the children. This is the run-up to Christmas, and Advent Sundays should be little havens of peace, there to counter balance all the rushing and organising for the festivities.

I will certainly bake more biscuits, four weeks is a long time! I like to give them to my friends, and this year, I will send some online to Serena's Cookie Exchange, too. Today, I limited myself to a few types. With all this energy spent on baking, it seemed natural to do a simple supper, preferably using the oven and and left-over eggs. We therefore had little puff pastries filled with cooked ham and mozzarella, liberally brushed with my remaining egg yolks. If I had had a large intersting cutter, I might have been tempted to produce a fancy shape, as it was I settled for round pastries.

As for the biscuits, my selection must start with the Ovis Mollis from Amelia's Z Tasty Life. I urge you, try it, these little sheep are indeed soft (heaven!). I followed her recipe, using potato flour and orange zest. I tried a different version the other day, replacing the ordinary flour with ground almonds, and using cranberry jam; more brittle than the original but just as tasty. I cannot show you a picture as they are all gone, they went down very well with a friend on a gluten free diet.

Almond Macaroons
When I was little, my mother would sometimes let me choose a pastry at our local bakery. This was one of my top three choices, the other being a 'Hanseatic' cookie or an almond-marzipan pastry. For twleve large biscuits you need:

6 glace cherries, halved
150 g icing sugar
200 g ground almonds
2 egg whites
12 wafers

Miy the icing sugar, almonds and egg white into a dough, spoon onto the wafers and garnish with hald a glace cherry. Bake at 150 C for 10-15 minutes.

Chocolate Marzipan Angles
200 g marzipan paste
icing sugar
cocoa powder

Work the marzipan paste with cocoa and icing sugar until you have a smooth, not very sticky brown paste. Press into an angel-shaped silicon mould to form little angels. Place on a lined baking tray and scorch in a very hot oven (250C) for 1-2 minutes.

Plain Biscuits
180 g butter (soft)
180 g sugar
4 g vanilla sugar
1 egg
280 g flour
1 teaspoon baking powder

Mix sugar and butter until frothy. Add the vanilla sugar and egg, then flour and baking powder (if you like, you can colour and flavour part of the dough with cocoa). Let the dough rest in the fridge for ca. 30 minutes. Roll out and cut out Christmas shapes. Bake for 10-12 minutes at 180 C. When cold, adorn with anything that comes to hand, or leave plain. I used a little bit of coloured icing, and used a mixture of jam and honey to paint other biscuits or sandwich two together.

As I had most of the ingredients at hand, I also started on my Christmas Cake (more later), and made a jar of mince meat for mince pies. The recipe I have used for years comes from Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess. I never saw the need to change it, yet today I did not have all the 'right' ingredients so used what I did have, and the result is certainly a winner. It's a vegetarian version since having grown up suet free, I feel no inclination to introduce it into my diet at this stage in life. This makes about two kilos, enough for several batches of mince pies. And believe me, they will be called for.

Mince Meat
250 ml cranberry juice
250 g muscovado sugar
400 g cooking apples
600 g cooking pears
125 g dried cranberries
100 g almonds
250 g raisins
150 g currants
rind of one orange
juice of half an orange
1/2 teaspoon Christmas mixed spices
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
optional: 6 tablespoons rum, brandy or similar

Stir the sugar into the juice and heat up in a pan large enough to take the remaining ingredients on board. Peal, core and cut apples and pears into small pieces, add to the sweetened juice with all of the other ingredients. Cook for roughly thirty minutes, until soft. If you like, add some alcohol - if you are catering for children you may want to leave it out or add it early to let the alcohol cook out. Keep in a sterilized jar until you want to use it. I'll keep you posted when I make mine!

Salmon En Croute

2009-11-17T17:28:00.003Z

Some days, everything comes together. I made puff pastry last night in anticipation of some fresh spinach in today's vegetable box, and suddenly found myself with spare time to visit the fish monger this morning. Thus we had salmon en croute for supper tonight. The children adore fish, and served this way, even spinach was a big hit. One note on the pastry, if you buy it, search for all butter puff pastry, or make your own - it's very simple.

Salmon En Croute

300 g puff pastry (see recipe below)
500 g salmon filet, boned and skinned
500 g fresh spinach
1 garlic clove
2 tbs creme fraiche
1 egg, beaten
salt, pepper

Firstly, prepare the spinach: wash thoroughly, throw into a large pot and heat up quickly. When beginning to wilt, strain it, and press the remaining water out of it with a spoon. Chop up roughly, add creme fraiche, garlic, salt and pepper to taste.
Roll out your pastry long enough to cover the piece of salmon. If your slamon is very uneven in thickness (mine invariably is), cut off the thinnest part and place it on top to achieve relatively even thickness throughout. Season on both sides with salt and pepper. Arrange fish and spinach on the pastry - you may want just a spinach topping or a wrap-around bed of spinach spread over the pastry. Brush the pastry edges with beaten egg, then fold over into a parcel. Pinch the sides closed, make a few angular cuts in the top to let steam escape. Brush with beaten egg.

Place in hot oven (200 C) until done. I cannot tell you how long that will take, only that the pastry tends to take longer than the fish; I had to give mine 30 minutes for a golden brown pastry; the fish was a little overdone but still succulent. Mind you, rolling out the pastry as thin as you can is certainly a good idea, as the fish might be happy with as little as 8-10 minutes!

Puff Pastry

This quantity makes 400 g (you might as well). I have a little left over for a desert in the coming days. It really is ridiculously easy to make, and you can extend the resting times to fit your schedule. In terms of active attention, all puff pastry demands are a few minutes here and there. The key to success is keeping it cool, if at any time the dough gets sticky or buttery, put it in the fridge until sufficiently cold to continue.

Rub 25 g butter into 180 g flour and make into a plain dough with ca. 150 ml cold water and a pinch of salt. Cool in the fridge for 30 minutes. Take a piece of butter weighing 155 g, and flatten to an oblong of ca. 3 cm height (I cover it loosely with cling film and batter it with my baking pin).

Roll out your dough to an oblong roughly three times the length of your butter and a few centimetres more in width, and place the butter in the middle. ** Fold over both ends, then turn the parcel 90 degrees and roll out to its original length. Repeat the folding, roll out once more and fold again. Cool for another 30 minutes.

Repeat from ** twice more, with resting time as prescribed. The dough is then ready to use; or keep in the fridge. Now, was that so difficult? Just wait until you taste the difference, and you'll understand why it is worth making puff pastry yourself.

Now, That's Quince Enough!

2009-11-03T13:15:00.002Z

I fear my blog is slowly looking as if I am trying to win the 'quince queen 2009' award. Relax, I am not. Even better, I have used up my last dozen quinces, so this is the final entry on this particular fruit - for this year! Although, there are a few interesting recipes I have not tried yet...

My last two quince recipes are complementary in that one uses quince juice, the other the pulp. I have made quince wine and a coconut-quince sweetmeat. For both recipes, you will have to grate 12 quinces and boil them in 2 liters of water for ca. 30 minutes. Strain, preserving both juice and grated fruit.

Quince Wine

Dissolve 475 g of sugar in 2 liters of warm quince juice and add the juice of one lemon. Leave to cool, when cold, add a slice of hot toast on which you have spread a little fresh (baker's) yeast. Cover the pan and leave for 24 hours.

Fermentation should have started now. Bottle but do not cork or leave in its pan with the lid slightly open, and leave to ferment for another week. It is important not to cover the wine, while the yeast is spliting sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide - the latter needs space to expand and escape.

My wine is still fermenting, so please read this entry again in a few days and I will tell you how to proceed. The original recipe, see below, keeps the wine in a demijohn for 7 to 8 months. At the current stage, my quince wine smells and tastes very much like new wine and may therefore be drunk young. I'll keep you posted.

Fermentation Diary:

Day 1: the liquid is very frothy; very sweet, like juice.

Day 2: less visible froth; marginally less sweet, slightly bubbly. Very much like new wine.
Day 3: stronger quince flavour, more astringent; still quite sweet and low in alcohol.
Day 4: quince flavour more pronounced, less sweet and more alcoholic - it's turning into wine!
Day 5: caught it in an active phase, fizzy and yeasty.
Day 6: it has turned into wine! Might be ready for bottling but I will give it one more day and see.

Recipe from: http://www.greenchronicle.com/recipes/quince_wine.htm

Coconut-Quince Sweetmeat

Trying to decide which, of the many I tried, is my favourite quince recipe, I have come to the conclusion that, to me, the ideal quince dish must be along the lines of sweet, candied fruit. I love quince cheese, and the grated quince jam was a major success, too. As quinces are very overpowering, I prefer to eat small, sweet morsels. So I came up with this idea for a quince-coconut sweetmeat. Don't be put off by the colour of the fruit preparation, the muscovado sugar, turns it an unbecoming shade of brown but this will be covered up with a dark chocolate coating. Another delicious, home-made gift no one can resist!

1 kg soft-boiled, grated quince
1 kg muscovado sugar
200 g desiccated coconut
Dark chocolate (coating)

In a large pan, mix together all ingredients safe the chocolate and bring to a boil, all the while stirring. Boil and stir until the mixture is noticeably drier and begins to thicken. Line a baking tray with parchment and spread out the fruit mixture to a thickness of ca. 1 cm, pushing it into a large, compact square. Given the raspy structure it is important to compact it or it will easily disintegrate. I kept pushing one side after another with the blade of a long knife; a dough scraper would work just as well.
Dry in a low oven, two hours at 75 C should do the job. Leave to cool, turn upside down onto a fresh sheet of parchment and leave to dry until no longer sticky. You may want to put it into a low oven again or jut leave it out, uncovered, over night. Cut up into roughly even squares, and coat with melted chocolate.

chocolate-covered and plain

Quince-essentials

2009-10-27T21:01:00.003Z

My stock of quinces is dimishing so fast, I'd better give you the quince-essentials now. What have I been cooking since the last entry? PS. I hope you are not bored with quinces yet... I still have a few left!

Quince-Apple Pie

The combination of quinces and apples is classic, and sticking the fruit into a pie crust does not require great imagination, admittedly. Yet the resulting, deeply musky apple pie is decidedly worth making. I made my pastry with wholewheat flour which provides a heavier, nuttier crunch factor but the airy lightness of ordinary wheat flour would work well here, too.

Make a short crust pastry: rub 225 g butter into 340 g flour, 1-2 tablespoons sugar and 1 teaspoon of salt. Add just enough ice cold water or cream to bind your crumbles into a dough. Divide into 2/3 and 1/3, press into disks and leave to rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Roll out the larger piece of pastry and line a springform, bottom and sides, with it (I roll the pastry out on a piece of baking parchment which I then press into my baking mould). Sprinkle a few breadcrumbs or crushed biscuits over the bottom, so that the filling will not cause a soggy pastry disaster!

For the filling, peel, core and slice 3 apples, grate two quinces and mix with a few walnuts; my fruit-nut mixture weighed 610 g to which I added 125 g muscovado sugar. Transfer into your pastry case and roll out the smaller piece of pastry to make a lid. Press any pastry overhanging at the sides onto the lid with a fork and make a few holes in the lid so that steam can escape.

Pretty Pie
before and after

Brush the top with a beaten egg, if you like with some added sugar or maple syrup. Bake at 200 C for 10 minutes, then reduce temperature to 180 C and bake for a further 45 minutes. I like to eat it cold.

Quince Mostardo

It is but a short leap from your traditional sweet quince preserves into the realms of chutneys etc. The italians make a wonderful preserve of fruit boiled in a sugar syrup which is then flavoured with mustard. This spicy condiment goes well with cheese and meats, and naturally, I had to try out a quince version. Having never made mostardo before, I read through various recipes, and even found a 'mostardo di Venezia' made with quinces and candied lemons. However, I wanted to use quinces, apples, pears and green grapes, for no other reason than it seemed a natural combination to me, and therefore went my own way. I follow the general method for candying fruit, namely reducing a sugary syrup day by day. Mustard is added in the final step and the fruit then needs to be bottled and mature; naturally, I will taste along the way and report back to you once I open my first jar of mostardo.

I used three apples, pears and quinces as well as some green, seedless grapes, a grand total of fruit weighing 1160 g. Add half its weight in sugar, i.e. 580 g and the juice of one tangerine. Leave open for 24 h, stirring occasionally.

Day 1: strain the fruit, and reduce the syrup by half. Add the fruit and leave to infuse for another 24 h.

Day 2: repeat, as per day 1.

Day 3: repeat, as per day 1. Dissolve 25 g of mustard powder in a little white wine, and boil until smooth. Add to fruit and opur into sterilized jars. Leave to mature for several weeks.

PS. We have recently opened the first jar, it's utterly delicious. I love it with cheese. I should not have given away so many jars...

Quince Heaven

2009-10-25T18:39:00.005Z

Are they not beautiful? I have cooked with quinces all day and still have enough of these stunners sitting on my kitchen worktop, emitting their sweet fragrance and waiting for me to try any and every quince recipe I come across. Naturally, I have read extensively and will bring my own ideas to the cookery task ahead. Quince recipes seem to be variations on a few popular themes - quince tarts, candied sweets or roast quince, the latter either as desert or accompanying a meat dish - and naturally, I want more. With so many quinces to use, I am determined to stumble across the ultimate quince delight! I want to be in quince heaven. Anyone know the way?

Scientific methodology demands to use my stock in as many, diverse ways as possible. I already made quince cheese and jelly a little while ago - and referring back to that entry, I should probably tell you that I have now bottled my raspberry vinegar and started to use it. The clear version might be prettier in the bottle but do not underestimate its ugly sibling; I mashed up the raspberries for a coarse, thickish vinegar and it makes for incredibly fruity salad dressings. Years ago I had such a dressing in one particular restaurant and always wanted to discover its secret. I think I have.

Back to the quince. In my research I read somewhere that quince seeds are supposed to contain small amounts of cyanide. Not sure whether to believe this (I have used quinces, seeds and all, for years without adverse effects) but just to be on the safe side, I have now started to de-seed my quinces.

Quince Vinegar
This is truly experimental, and the results will not be due for another few weeks. But I thought it worth a try. I can think of many succesful kinds of fruit infused vinegar, so why not a quince version? Wash and quarter two quinces, core them - keeping the seeds - and cut into small chunks. Leave open to oxidise for up to a day, if you are after a deeper colour; or use straight away. Place into a pot with a little white wine, cook gently until soft, ca. 10 minutes. Pour into a sterilized jar and add 1/2 l of white wine vinegar. Leave to infuse for several weeks.

Quince Jam
I also made a sweet quince jam, inspired by a recipe I found on Turkish food blog. I liked the idea of using grated quince, and the result is a jam with strings of candied fruit. I am not sure I would want to eat great quantities on bread but I could imagine it as a condiment with cheese or as a filling for small jam tarts. Or with creme fraiche on home-made scones?
Surprisingly, grating quinces is easier than cutting them, and the riper the fruit the easier it will be to handle. One of my quinces was so very ripe that I tried a small piece raw. Indeed, I can now believe the claim of some that a very ripe quince may be eaten raw. It was certainly far less adstringent than your ordinary quince. So give them time to ripen! Another positive side effect of letting your quinces mature before you use them is that they sweetly perfume your home in the meantime.

The ratio is, as often, 500 g of fruit to 600 g of sugar; you will also need one tablespoon of lemon juice and a little water. I got three jam jars worth out of these quantities. Wash and grate your quinces; quarter the remains (obviously, you can only grate so far if using a handheld grater) and extract the seeds, if you want to collect them; discard the rest. By the way, I keep my seeds covered to prevent them drying out. Put the grated quince in a heavy saucepan and just about cover with water. Boil until soft, ca. 10 minutes. Add your sugar and boil again until you reach jam consistency. This take a little longer, maybe up to 30 minutes. Add a spoonful of lemon juice, boil again and pour into sterilized jam jars. Turn these upside down for a few minutes, turn again.

My Treasure Box

2009-10-25T14:26:00.002Z

Look at this. Any idea what's inside? If only you were here, the smell would give it away easily, I could not keep from sticking my nose inside the box every time I walked past to smell wafts of honey-infused fruitiness. Yes, you are right, I am the lucky owner of a whole carton full of quinces. Not to forget pears and medlars which I have neither seen or read about before, imagine my excitement! I unpacked my treasure this morning and started on the first of many happy projects-out-of-this-box.

I had made some sweet short crust pastry last night to make a pineapple tart, only to find that the pineapple had spoiled. So instead, I made a caramelised pear tart to have with our lunch (loup de mer with kohlrabi, courgette and fennel, yummy!). My pears are still somewhat underripe which was perfect for the tart; set off against a custard mixture made with malty muscovado sugar, what can I say... other than it put a huge smile on a certain grumpy person!

Caramelised Pear Tart

For the sweet short crust pastry, mix 120 g flour, 60 g butter, 2 tablespoon icing sugar until you have a crumble mixture and bind with one egg. Rest in the fridge for 30 mins or longer. Bake blind at 200 C for 15 mins, then prick the base with a fork and bake open for another 5 mins at 180 C.

Prepare your filling: mix 150 g of double cream or thick dairy product of your choice with dark muscovado sugar to taste. Add two eggs and slices of peeled and cored pear. I used 5 smallish pears. Pour into the baked pastry case and bake for another 35 mins at 180 C until the sugary custard begin to caramelise.

bon appetit!

Child-friendly Tiramisu

2009-10-11T12:47:00.005+01:00

I never intended to post this but my family insisted I write about it. Well, as you can see, only a small piece remained when I decided that, yes, I would tell you about my child-friendly version of Tiramisu. It is a simple concoction and, obviously, does not contain alcohol or coffee. Similarly, I did away with the raw egg, not because I am worried about salmonella - although like this, the dish would be safe for very young children and pregnant women, too - but I simply see no great benefit in adding it. It was not missed.

I cannot give exact quantities as I never thought of measuring what I used and, naturally, I do not know how large your dish is. Line the base with savoiardi biscuits, and spoon a liquid over them. I used a mixture of cold drinking chocolate and hazelnut sirup. You want the biscuits to soak up as much as possible. Top the biscuit layer with a mixture of mascarpone and muscovado sugar, maybe add a little cream to achieve the desired consistency, thick but spreadable. Cover and leave in the fridge over night, sprinkle a little cocoa powder over the top before serving. Bon appetito!

Ginger Nuts

2009-10-09T16:19:00.003+01:00

We enjoyed my favourite biscuit with our afternoon cup of tea, and I want to share the recipe with you. It is so very quick and easy, today's batch was made by four year old Mimi and she achieved the perfect biscuit straight off. She managed with very limited help from me as, obviously, she cannot read the scales yet. The key ingredient is muscovado sugar which depending where you live is either a staple (lucky you!) or almost impossible to obtain. I had to search hard and, now, I am blissfully happy as I found a local supplier; if you cannot easily find it, I suggest you try your local health food store. Muscovado sugar is dark brown and slightly sticky, and so delicious one could eat it unadulterated and be in sugar heaven. You can replace it in the following with ordinary brown sugar but the taste will not be the same.

The following makes enough dough for two baking trays:

225 g plain white flour (or 200 g spelt flour)
225 g muscovado sugar (or ordinary brown sugar)
115 g butter
2 teaspoons powdered ginger
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 tablespoon milk
1 egg

Make a crumbly mixture of the flour, sugar, ginger and butter. Dissolve the bicarb in the milk and stir in the egg, add to your dry mixture, knead with your hands. The dough should be only slightly sticky. Divide into two, and form into small balls. Place on a lined baking tray with plenty of space between as the biscuits will spread out. Bake at 160 C for ca. 15 mins, leave to cool down on a biscuit rack. This is the ideal biscuit for dunking into steaming tea. Don't tell the queen that's what I do! Ginger nuts are also very good if you have a queasy stomach. I ate quite a few when I was pregnant, and not surprisingly, my children love them, too.

Cydonia Oblonga

2009-10-09T06:31:00.003+01:00

May I introduce a beloved friend: Cydonia oblonga, better known as Quince. Named after ancient Kydonia, now Chania on the island of Crete. You only have to smell the sweet perfume of a quince to understand its allure. Related to the apple, quinces were possibly cultivated even earlier, and many story apples may in fact have been quinces, such as the apple given by Paris to Aphrodite.

The fact that their season is short and they are not frequent guest at our table adds to my desire to preserve their luscious beauty; indeed, they must be cooked, raw they are hard and bitter. I had a kilo of quinces this week and made a quince sweet and some jelly. I also preserved some late raspberries in red wine vinegar and in a few weeks I will have a good supply of home-made raspberry vinegar. Just look at the beautiful threesome. Can you tell, I feel very virtuous...

Quince sweets are known under many different names, yet the English Quince cheese does not conjure up the right image, if you ask me, so I settle for sweet as sweet they are. They are easy to make but require a little bit of manual labour - a true labour of love, if you ask me!

Wash your quinces to remove their fluffy fur. No need to peel and core, simply cut into small chunks and throw into a pot and cover with water. Cook until soft. Strain your fruit, preserving the liquor - boil this with the required amounts of preserving sugar to make quince jelly (I read one can make jelly even with ordinary sugar, the ratio being quince juice divided by 1.2 = amount of sugar needed; quinces are full of pectin so I imagine this would work; I used up my preserving sugar).

Now for the arduous part: rub the fruit through a fine sieve. This is hard physical work but trust me, well worth the effort! Weigh the resulting pulp and add an equal amount of sugar. Heat up, stirring to dissolve the sugar. After a little while you will notice that the mixture begins to thicken, this is the time to remove it from the heat and pour it onto a lined baking tray. Leave to dry either in at room temperature (this will take several days and you will be well advised to turn the sweet once the top side has dried), or in a very low oven (try 50 C) for several hours. Once relatively dry, cut into well sized squares; the edges will, of course, not make pretty squares - cook's treat! And I need hardly remind you that you need to keep tasting your quince sweets to check their progress while drying...

These sweets, the jelly and vinegar make lovely presents, too - if you are prepared to share them, of course! Is there a better way to tell your friends you love them than by giving them something you covet yourself?

PS. Reading up on quinces, I stumbled over the curious fact that quince seeds, like almond stones, are said to contain small amounts of cyanide! I cannot substantiate this either way but now you are warned, it might be better to discard the seeds. And naturally, I will take no responsibility for what you do with this (potentially) dangerous fruit.

Plum Tart

2009-09-17T15:53:00.005+01:00

My love for plum tarts goes back to my childhood. My mother hardly ever cooked for the family - this role was assumed by my father - but once a year she would make an enormous plum tart, hardly confined by the baking tray it was made on. People may argue that memories are elusive, yet I find food-related memories are acutely present and accessible. The difficulty is rather to recreate what you only remember. I normally can express such thoughts very well and cook what I desire, however, for years, one dish has defated me time after time: my mother's simple plum tart. I have tried a variety of different recipes, with the same result, not a complete failure but no relative however distant of THAT tart. So every year I bake, decide to give up on my quest , only to try it 'one last time' the coming year. And now I have finally found it - thank you, Nicole of deliciousdays.com! Naturally, I had to fiddle a little, for her recipe, click here.

Plum Tart

275 g flour
10 g fresh yeast
50 g sugar
100 ml milk
50 g butter
1 egg
1 kg plums
sugar and cinnamon

Firstly, your ingredients need to be at room temperature, so get them out of the fridge in advance. You may even want to warm your milk up just a little to luke warm. Yeast needs a little warmth to work its magic. Start the dough about two hours before you want to eat your cake if, like me, you love nothing better than a piping hot piece of yeast-based fruit-topped cake. I have two more tipps: weigh rather than measure your ingredients, it is much more accurate, and stretch and punch your dough well. I am not sure whether kneading describes this activity adequately; the right technique is masterfully explained in Richard Bertinet's seminal book 'Dough'. I cannot praise this book highly enough!

Heap the flour into a large bowl, make a well in the middle. Crumble your yeast into the well, add 8g sugar and enough milk to cover (I used 25ml). Stir your milk-yeast-sugar mixture and cover teh bowl with a tea towel. Leave for 20 minutes by which time the mixture should have risen and started to bubble. Now add the remaining milk and sugar, butter and egg. Handle the dough until no longer sticky. Form into a ball, dust lightly with flour, put int the bowl and cover again, this time leave for 1 h in a warm place until doubled in size.

Towards the end of the resting period, preheat your oven to 180 C and prepare your plums. Wash and quarter them, discarding the stone, and marinate in a bowl with as much sugar and cinnamon as you like. I tend to err on the side of caution as I do not want to spoil the fruit's tartness. Roll out the dough to fit a baking tray, place on the lined tray and arrange the fruit on top. Bake for ca. 30 mins, making sure to check the bottom of the pastry towards the end of the cooking time. I should be golden brown and still soft-ish - unless you are aiming for a plum pizza!

PS. One could, of course, add a crumble topping: I loved this from one of the many recipes I tried in the past: crush 10 junpier berries and mix with 26 g sugar, 65 g butter and 70 g flour to make big crumbs.

Beetroot Boy

2009-09-16T11:39:00.002+01:00

I am typing this having just served four (or five?) bowls of beetroot soup to Charlie-the-Carnivore. I was astonished and pleased as it is the kind of food I selfishly cook because I like it. Although thinking about it, I can see why such earthy sweet flavours would appeal to a child. My enthusiasm admittedly waned when he declared himself finished, and pushed the last serving onto the floor. It left a lovely red pattern over a large area, and he proclaimed, with great satisfaction in his voice: 'messy'. At the time of writing, floor and boy are clean again and we may call the experience a (be) true(d) success!

1 large beetroot
4 spring onions
2 carrots (I had purple carrots which complement the beetroot in taste and colour)
6 small potatoes
tomatoe puree
creme fraiche
salt
pepper
fresh herbs (I used salvia, rosemary, oregano and parsley)

Slice and fry off the spring onions in a little olive oil. Add the washed and sliced carrots. Peel, slice and add the beetroot. Peel and slice the potatoes, add with enough water to cover the vegetables generously. Add your herbs and a little salt and cook until the vegetables are done; I left it all to simmer at a low temperature while I attended to other matters. When you are ready to eat, add the creme fraiche and tomatoe puree - quantities depend on your tastebuds - and puree until you have a thickish, chunky soup. Season and serve.

One Scoop or Two?

2009-09-14T20:21:00.002+01:00

Blue like the sky,

or the tiles of a 1970s public swimming pool,

first creamy,

then frothy,

one scoop or two?

At a push, this is edible but I can easily restrain myself. While it looks indeed very appetizing, the above is not ice cream but home-made... play-dough! It is so easy to make I wonder why I ever bought this stuff. You need:

1/2 cup of salt
1 cup of flour
1 cup of water
2 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
food colouring

Mix the ingredients in a saucepan, heat up gently all the while stirring to get from the luscious creamy texture seen above to a thickish paste. You need very little heat, I used a hot plate which I had just turned off. Your dough is ready in no time, you need to knead it to make it supple and store it in an airtight container. Anyone for raspberry? Lemon?

Summer Memories

2009-09-14T16:14:00.001+01:00

Looking out at the grey sky, listening to the rain and enjoying the cosy warmth of a well-functioning central heating system, there is no denying it. Summer is over! And still, I feel a strong urge to prolong that feeling of relaxed mellow easiness with any means possible. Of course, we are once more talking about food and drink. I have decided to fight the unwelcoming and unwelcome weather not with sturdy soups and hearty dishes but a batallion of vitamin-rich, mouth-wateringly fresh, summer-reminiscent dishes and drinks. I may need plenty of hot tea to keep warm but I will not give in quite yet.

Bubbly Redcurrants
There are still some summer fruits at our local market next to a growing assortment of different plums and their relatives. If you can still get redcurrants, this is how you can keep young children amused for hours: plop a few currants into a glass of sparkling water (you may even add a sprig of fresh mint for grown-up sophistication) and watch them bubble up and down... crush a few and you have a sparkling, entertaining pink drink. It even tastes great!

Iced Tea
Another favourite of mine is home-made iced tea. The key ingredient is, of course, a good tea, I prefer to use a well-rounded red fruit infusion, in particular strawberry or raspberry tea. Make the tea and leave it to cool. Add about a third of its volume in freshly pressed orange juice, add some lemon zest and sweeten to taste. If you enjoy drinking this, you may want to store some larger sugar granules in a jar with lemon zest to create a ready suply of lemony sugar. Lime zest would work just as well.

Autumn Already

2009-09-06T18:48:00.002+01:00

Summer came late this year and would have been a welcome guest for a while longer but all too quickly autumn has arrived. Here in wine country, grape harvesting has begun and will continue for quite a while, until after the first frost to create the justly famous "ice wine''. Autumnal delights include new wine - grape juice that is just beginning to ferment and tastes differently every day - traditionally accompanied by an onion tart. A heady smell of wine whifts through our city, and, today, we took the children for our Sunday walk through a country-side filled with ripening grapes, roses, rosehips, elderflower... apple, pear and plum trees were heavy with fruit and I even spotted the first wild sloes. I will return to pick some later in the year for my home-made sloe gin.

Sloe Gin
If you find sloes growing near you, I can recommend this delicious recipe but only pick fruit you recognize clearly as edible - I will take no responsibility for your pickings! If in doubt, buy plums instead. The rest is easy: batter the fruit a little to release the juice, mix with sugar and store with gin in an airtight container. I cannot give exact quantities, I use about two hands full of fruit to a bottle of gin and am careful not to add too much sugar. Shake from time to time and leave to macerate for several months in a dark place. Filter and bottle. Such home-made liqueurs keep well, and their taste is unbeatable. This method can be used successfully with other fruit and other clear alcohol. Last year I made

Quince Liqueur
The principle is as above. You need to wash and cut some quinces - this is the hardest part - and let them macerate in vodka with sugar. Shake quite regularly at first so that the fruit soaks through quickly. The longer you leave it before filtering and bottling, the more intensive the flavour. Can I invite you for a glass of prosecco flavoured with quince?

PS. Reading up on quinces, I stumbled over the curious fact that quince seeds, like almond stones, are said to contain small amounts of cyanide! I cannot substantiate this either way but now you are warned, it might be better to discard the seeds. And naturally, I will take no responsibility for what you do with this (potentially) dangerous fruit.

And afterwards we must have a glass of new wine with a slice of onion tart. I suppose every cook has a few dishes which never quite live up to their ideas of them, I can think of two, onion tart and plum cake. Or should I say could? While I am still working on recreating the perfect plum cake from my childhood - contributions welcome! - I have finally arrived at THE onion tart, for the moment, at least. It came about on the spur of the moment and has convinced all who ate it. The secret ingredients are a head of kohlrabi amongst the onions which was not detected by anyone but prevented the onions being overpowering. The other is bacon - not unusual, only this time I used the fatty part and sweated it down to crackling. It stayed beautifully moist and was a much better ingredient than the meatier part which often turns hard as leather when cooked in a tart. Enough preliminaries, here is the recipe (for more details on the technique, read the chapter on "quilch").

Onion Tart
Make a short crust pastry to fit your chosen tart dish. I use 120 g flour, 60 g butter and 1 tea spoon salt. Knead into dry crumbs, then add very little water to bind. Leave to rest in the fridge. Preheat the oven to 200 C. In the meantime, cut the bacon fat into small cubes and sweat in a frying pan until you have crackling. Move onto a plate lined with kitchen roll to absorb excess fat, keep the remaining fat in the pan to fry your vegetables in it. Peel and chop three or four onions coarsely, peel and grate the kohlrabi finely. Fry in the bacon fat until soft but not coloured, set aside.
Roll our your pastry, line your tart tin and bake blind for 15 mins. Remove your baking weights, reduce temperature to 180 C, prick pastry base with a fork and bake open for a further 5 mins. Prepare the filling: combine 200 g cottage cheese, two eggs, some grated parmigiano or other hard cheese, the vegetables and crackling. Season with salt and pepper. Fill the pastry case with this mixture and cook in the oven for a further 45 mins, until nicely browned. Bon appetit!

Hello Kitty Birthday Cake

2009-08-05T21:08:00.004+01:00

It was a great 4th birthday party! While I don't think there is much point going over the top with extensive cooking and preparations for small children, surely, a birthday cake is a must and an outlet for creative energy. My daughter currently loves Hello Kitty and all things pink as you might guess from the photo. I had never done any cake decorating before but bravely took the plunge and, frankly, felt nicely pleased with the result. I spent some time researching what others have done to conlude I really had to go my own way - but I do feel I need to mention Bakerella's amazing Hello Kitty Cake Pops: http://bakerella.blogspot.com/2009/02/here-kitty-kitty.html - they are absolutely stunning...

I kept it a lot simpler. I baked a plain chocolate buttermilk cake in my springform tin. The pink frosting has as its base a white chocolate ganache and is decorated with Hello Kitty faces and pink and white peppermint chocolate buttons and red and lilac mini smarties. This is what you need:

250g flour
200ml buttermilk
125g butter
200g sugar
3 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons pure cocoa powder
100g white chocolate
250g mascarpone
100ml creme legere (substitute creme double if you like)
red food colouring
black food colouring
rolled fondant (white)
icing sugar
mini smarties (red, yellow, lilac)
peppermint chocolate buttons (white, pink)
liquorice rotella wheel

The cake is very easy to make, plain and tasty. Firstly, set aside your dry ingredients, namely the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate, cocoa and salt in a separate bowl. Then cream together butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. One by one, add the eggs, then alternate between the dry mixture and the buttermilk. Pour into a prepared tin and bake at 180 C about 40 minutes until done. Let cool on a wire rack and place upside-down on your serving platter. This has two advantages: the cake has thus a very flat surface and the slightly convex shape makes it easier to frost at the bottom (or rather to tidy up the platter after frosting).

The frosting, again, is a very straightforward affair, all you need to do is to melt the white chocolate in a mixture of mascarpone and creme legere while you are heating it up. Add red food colouring to create your desired shade of pink. Whisk well then leave to cool down, the mixture will thicken as it cools. You might want to bake and frost the cake a day in advance, as I did. Keep it in the fridge over night but do not decorate it until shortly before you want to eat it. The disadvantage of this kind of frosting is that after a while, the smarties will leak their colour into it. I suppose one could avoid this problem using pink icing but, personally, I find icing in great quantities too overwhelmingly sweet. And I happen to like chocolate ganache. As I said, I am new to cake decorating and don't own fancy equipment so I applied the frosting with a tablespoon, several layers to cover well, and made the swirly top with a teaspoon.

You won't need me to tell you how to drop smarties etc. onto your cake, this, however, is the secret of those lovely Hello Kitty faces. If you are seriously contemplating baking such a cake, you will surely find a Hello Kitty image somewhere at home; make a drawing and cover it on both sides with self-adhesive clear foil, then cut out the image. Roll out your fondant to the desired thickness and place your template on top. Mark the outline with a toothpick or knife and cut along this line. You now have your basic kitten face. For the nose, I used half a mini smartie in yellow, glued on with a sticky paste of icing sugar and a few drops of water. Spread a little of this onto the cheeks to apply the whiskers which you cut from an unrolled liquorice rotella wheel. Eyes were made from a thick paste of icing sugar mixed with a few drops of black food colouring - I found handling this paste and implanting the eye with the tip of a toothpick easiest. The red ribbon was simlarly fashioned from a paste of icing sugar with a few drops of red food colouring, a red smartie placed in the middle. Keep your kitties in an air-tight container at room temperature until ready to use.

Meow, meow.

You Shall Have a Fishy in a Little Dishy

2009-08-02T11:18:00.002+01:00

Cooking with left-overs is great. Planning a meal with or around whatever is left facilitates the task and leaves one feeling thrifty and virtuous at the same time. There are always many different options, so I try not to repeat myself to often. Today, I had some sea bass filet left over from yesterday. It would make a great base for a quick pasta sauce, for instance with curry spices and some other sea food, or stuffing for ravioli, won tons or similar. If I had a little more, I would be tempted to make fish cakes. By the way, this is the secret of

Superb Fish Cakes

Make a batter of mashed potatoes, beaten egg and fish, fresh herbs, e.g. parsley or chives, and spices and form into little balls (wet your hands repeatedly), cover and leave to rest in the fridge for some time. When you are ready to eat them, cover in fine breadcrumbs and fry in a frying pan. My children love them with Daddy's special sauce (HP), I would opt for a home-made remoulade or some sour cream. The one thing to remember is that fish cakes are not meatballs, i.e. make a batter of fish, egg and beadcrumbs and live with the result...

Today, though, it had to be a fish pie for me. As with the fish cakes, it is hard to give quantities, as it all depends on what you have at hand. Thus my fish pies tend to vary greatly but follow this basic plan: I use either cooked ingredients or such with a short cooking time, season and cover it all in thickened cream or bechamel and top with a layer of mashed potato. I stick to two rules regarding what can go into a fish pie: avoid too much moisture, so if you want to add e.g. tomatoes, make sure to skin and deseed them; and pay attention to the colours involved. The potato top will provide yellow, and I find I also want something green, chopped parsley, spinach or mangold etc., and somthing orange or red such as smoked or cooked salmon, carrots, tomatoes etc. Today, I had very little fish left over but had bought some fresh prawns to add to the pie, so these will now have to be the major fish element.

Sunday Fish Pie

Peel some potatoes and cut into smallish chunks, boil in salted water until done - you need enough to cover your pie dish with; mind you, left-over mashed potato comes in handy, too. Meanwhile fry off an onion and some chopped carrots, add chopped spinach and garlic, season well. Pour in enough cream to cover, boil for a little while to thicken the cream. Take off the heat and add the cooked fish and raw prawns - the latter will be cooked in the hot liquid in no time - and pour into a pie dish. Mash your potatoes and cream with a little milk and butter, season with nutmeg and salt & pepper, as desired. Cover the fish pie with mashed potato, and make nice patterns with a fork - a rough surface will translate into lovely, crispy bits. You may store the pie in the fridge until needed or cook it straight away. It is as such cooked and only needs warming through, about half an hour at 190 C should do that.

A Fish Feast

2009-08-01T20:07:00.002+01:00

I simply love fish! I bought a lovely whole sea bass today which I cooked in the oven, in a parcel of aluminium foil on a bed of vegetables. This is by far my favourite method for cooking whole fish, it's almost fool-proof, yields amazing results and is ever so easy to handle: amongst family, I serve the fish on its tray or a platter still in the foil, and fillet it at the table, leaving skin and bones in the foil parcel. Also, I usually only serve half of the fish to begin with (in the vain hope for left-overs), close the parcel again and the rest keeps nicely warm.

This is what I did: First, I covered a baking tray with two large sheets of aluminiuim foil, large enough to envelop the fish. My sea bass had the following bed-fellows: two carrots (chopped), three spring onions (chopped), some fresh spinach, a few twigs of rosemary, two tomatoes (sliced), four prawns (cooked - a gift from the fishmonger, so in they went, too), a hand full of black olives, salt and pepper, and a sprinkle of olive oil. I cleaned the fish, stuffed a few slices of lemon inside, placed it on the vegetables, sprinkled a little sherry on top and closed the foil parcel. I gave it half an hour at 190 C and the fish was cooked to perfection. Obviously, cooking times will vary depending on the size of your fish but I would start with about 20 minutes for a smaller specimen. You can always take the fish out, open your parcel and check whether it is cooked through, so this is a great cooking method to learn from and by. I served this with the aforementioned vegetables, a tomato salad and some crusty baguette. Simplicity itself. My only regret is that I do not have much in the way of left-overs, as we were unexpectedly joined by the youngest fish aficionado of the family... however, there is a little left for a fish pie tomorrow, I think. I'll keep you posted.

Tea Time Treat

2009-07-30T18:49:00.003+01:00

I've had blueberry muffins before but blueberry cake? Today, I wanted something more substantial, I wanted my share of a decent-sized cake so I came up with this little concoction, a loaf cake, very simple but certainly not plain. Moist but not soggy, crispy on the outside with an almost jam-like, tart, fruity layer at the bottom set off against a fluffy, sweet cake layer at the top. Almost two thirds of it were demolished before it even had time to cool down - need I say more?

Blueberry Loaf Cake

125g butter
175g sugar
2 eggs
175g flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
pinch of salt
4 tablespoons milk
2 tablespoons mascarpone
200g blueberries

Mix butter and sugar until pale and creamy. Add the eggs, then flour and baking powder and a pinch of salt. Loosen the dough with milk, then add mascarpone and fold in the blueberries. Bake in a lined loaf tin c. 45 minutes at 180 C.

Delicious hot or cold - hot wins by a nose, if you ask me.

Chilli Goat's Cheese Tart

2009-07-30T18:04:00.002+01:00

Somehow I can't seem to stop baking. Anyhow, the results justify the means, I say. The other day I wanted a simple supper for two which I could prepare during the course of the day in between other tasks. I decided for a savory tart and improvised with what I had at hand - mainly a sliced goat's cheese roll which I had marinated in olive oil with chilli peppers some days before - and was impressed enough to want to share this creation with you. I'll definitively be eating this again!

Make a shortcrust pastry to fit your chosen tart tin. Mine works with the following: 60 g of butter rubbed into 120 g flour, plus 1 teaspoon of salt. When you have a dry crumble mixture add just enough water to bind, use as little as possible. Leave to rest in the fridge.

Bake blind at 200 C for 15 mins, then remove your blind baking weights and bake open at 180 C while you prepare your filling, approx. 5 min.s

Mix two eggs with a little cream, salt and pepper and half a bunch of chopped parsley. Pour into the pastry case, sprinkle cherry tomatoes over the top and place your goat's cheese slices on there, too. I also poured a little of the chilli oil over the top. Bake for a further 45 min.s at 180 C.

Apple Crumble and Tartlets

2009-07-19T16:51:00.004+01:00

Somehow I cannot get away from the pastry theme today. Mind you, I am posting, not eating all of this today! Apple crumble is clearly our all time favorite. Of course, I have to fiddle with the recipe all the time but there are two version I keep returning to. Basically, you need apples and a crumble mixture consisting of equal amounts of butter and sugar rubbed into twice the amount of flour. Part of the flour you can substitute with ground nuts, spelt or anything similar.

The simple crumble:

Quarter and core but do not skin some red apples - how many depends of the size of your dish -, cut into small pieces and put in an oven-proof dish. Sprinkle with sugar if you like. Knead 100 g of flour, 50 g of butter and 50 g of sugar to make your crumble mixture, top the apples with it and bake at 180 C until golden, about 25 min.s.

The exotic crumble:

Prepare your apples with or without the skin, as you prefer, and sweat them down in a little butter with cinnamon and sugar. Put in an oven-proof dish. Knead 50 g of flour, 50 g of ground hazelnuts, 50 g of butter and 50 g of lavender-infused sugar to make your crumble mixture, top the apples with it and bake at 180 C until golden, about 25 min.s.

O you little (apple) tarts!

For the pastry, mix 120 g of flour, 60 g of butter and 2 table spoons of sugar to dry crumbs, then add one egg to bind. Leave the pastry in the fridge for 30 min.s if you can. Meanwhile prepare the filling. I use a mixture of raw apple pieces and apple puree.

Skin, core and cut 4 tart apples, mix with a little sugar and a minimal amount of water and boil until very soft. You may puree it or leave it somewhat coarser. I like to add enough sugar to have a relatively sweet puree. Then skin and core another two apples (tart ones, of course) and cut into small chunks, add to the puree. This will give a lovely contrast, providing sweet smoothness with a tart bite.

Roll out your pastry and line bottoms and sides of a muffin tin, and cut out a matching number of pastry lids (I manage about 7 on this amount). Fill the pastry cases and put their lids on, sealing the edges. Don't forget to make a few little holes to let steam out. Bake c. 20 min.s at 180 C.

Orange Sorbet

2009-07-19T14:46:00.002+01:00

I once saw a picture of these quaint little oranges filled with sorbet and one day when I had more oranges than I felt I could ever eat, there was a chance to experiment. The result was certainly convincing! Great as a palate cleanser between courses or as desert.

Use one orange per person. Halve the oranges and juice them, weigh the juice and add ca. 1/4 of its weight in dark muscovado sugar, also a little pepper. Place in the freezer in a little container and take out from time to time, initially after 1 hour, then halve the intervals, and mash up with a fork to crush the ice crystals.

Remove the remaining flesh from the orange skins and pierce the lid with a small knife so that you can attach a laurel leaf to resemble the leaf of a fresh orange. Freeze for a short while to harden and thus stabilize the skins, then fill the bottom half with sorbet and place the lid on top. Deep freeze but remove to room temperature c. 60-90 min.s before you want to eat the sorbet.

Easy Chicken Pie

2009-07-19T14:16:00.002+01:00

There are some dishes that appear on our table in many variations and with regular frequency. This is one of them. We love roast chicken, and this is one option for left-overs. A crusty pastry case filled with meat, vegetables and a creamy cottage cheese mixture. Apart from making the pastry (hardly rocket-science or terribly time-consuming), this simple dish relies mainly on assembly. Lazy cooking in stages which can be spread out over the day as you find time.

Pastry:
250 g flour
125 g butter
1 egg
1 tea spoon of salt

Mix the flour and butter, then egg and salt. You are aiming for slightly moist crumbs, combine into a dough, divide into 2/3 and 1/3 and press into disks, leave to rest in the fridge for at least half an hour.

Preheat your oven to 200 C. Roll out the larger piece of dough and line bottom and sides of a tart tin with it. Sprinkle the base with some breadcrumbs - this eliminates the need for blind baking. Add the filling, then roll out the smaller piece of dough, lay on top as a lid. Take a fork and press the sides on top of the lid, seal and poke a few holes in the lid.

Filling:
As a base, I mix two eggs with 250 g of ricotta or cottage cheese, whatever you have at hand. I would not hesitate to use cream or creme fraiche, come to think of it. Plus a little grated parmigiano? Add your left-over chicken, if you like some other meat for contrast. I had nice results with fried sausages and cured ham. I always add a grated carrot for moisture and minimal vegetable content, some fresh herbs, spices, salt and pepper. And anything else I have at hand, last time some sliced shitake mushrooms but I would recommend anything that compliments your meat(s) and is either already cooked, i.e. left-over, or has a short cooking time.

You may want to brush your bastry with some beaten egg, although frankly I am not fussed. Bake for ten minutes at 200 C, then lower the temperature and give it another 45 mins at 180 C. Let cool (at least a little). Eat with a simple salad or pickles. A great food warm or cold, good for picknicks and small children as it can be eaten without cutlery and relatively little mess (good for the parents, that!).

Autumnal Pear Stew

2009-07-19T10:16:00.002+01:00

This recipe is my interpretation of a traditional northern German dish by the name of Pears, Beans and Bacon. This is hearty, autumnal fare (when does summer start this year?) and a simple way of turning a portion of green beans into a fully-fledged meal. I have to eat it at least once during the season.

4 big floury potatoes
3 pears
1 onion
a good handful of beans
100g bacon rashers cut into strips
400 ml veal stock
400 ml water
olive oil
savory

Peel and cut the onion into small cubes. Sweat the onion and bacon off in a little olive oil. Then add the peeled and cubed potatoes, savory as well as the stock and water. While this heats up, wash and de-string the beans, cut into ca. 3-4 cm long pieces. Cook with the above for 10-15 mins.
In the meantime wash, core and quarter the pears, then cut in half lengthwise and add. Cook for a further 10 mins until potatoes and beans are cooked. Check the seasoning and adjust (the bacon may have provided enough salt). If you like, mash a few potato pieces to thicken the sauce a little.

NB You can replace the stock and water with equal amounts of other good stock.

Nutty Chocolate Loaf

2009-07-19T10:02:00.002+01:00

125g butter
175g sugar
2 eggs
100g ground hazelnuts
75g flour
2 (good) tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
some cocoa dissolved in 4 tbsp of milk (I had a pistachio flavoured one, yummy! but any will do)
dark chocolate buttons or pieces, as many as you like

Preheat oven to 180 C. Cream butter and sugar, add eggs. Then add flour, nuts, baking powder and salt. Mix cocoa and milk and add to the above until the dough has a nice consistency, manageable but not too sloppy. Add chocolate buttons or crumbly pieces. Line a loaf tin and add dough, bake at 180 C for ca. 45 mins until done.