On a knead to know basis...

I love bread, and making it, although it can take a while due to the rising and proving stages, it doesn't usually involve much "hands on" time.  This is especially true now I can use my kitchen aid mixer to do the kneading - my left wrist has never been the same since I severed the tendon in my ring finger 13 years ago and kneading can be a bit painful. 

Granny and Mum always made delicious brown bread with my Grandpa's flour in my childhood, and Mum made great focaccia with rosemary and olives on, so breadmaking runs in the family. My cousin who is a proper chef and studied at the Culinary Institute of America is a fabulous baker and has an artisan bread Facebook page, check out "Nessa's Artisan Bread".

Anyway, today I decided to make fig, fennel and walnut bread, inspired by a friend, but I didn't have any sort of recipe.  I did a bit of googling, and most recipes used dried figs, but I had got some fresh ones, I found a recipe and adapted it, also substituting the rye flour for normal wholemeal along with the strong white and guessing the amount of yeast and water!  It was difficult mixing the fresh figs into the dough (cut into chunks but they were quite squishy) but I managed it and proved my two loaves on the front room windowsill as it was a sunny day.  Considering all that it wasn't at all bad!  Slightly overdone perhaps, but a great crust - the recipe suggested I put a mug of water in the oven to create a steamy environment and it seemed to work.  I liked it!  Goes well with cheddar cheese.

before cooking...

...and after.

 

I'm a big fan of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and always use his "Magic Bread Dough" recipe for pizza bases and flatbreads, the latter dry fried and drizzled with garlic oil. It uses half strong white flour and half normal plain.  Nigella also has a great recipe for "lazy loaf" which uses muesli and doesn't need kneading or proving. You just mix everything up to a thick porridgy mixture and chuck it in a lined tin, put in a cold oven, turn on to 110 degrees C, then after cooking for 45 minutes, turn up to 180 degrees C and cook for another hour.  Almost fool proof! - although a certain friend of mine managed somehow to make it go wrong!  Another Nigella favourite is Irish Oaten rolls made with stout and honey (only I used golden syrup) - the only soda bread I've made that's been successful - see later.  I've made a loaf with Weetabix too.

I used to have a bread machine, the good points being waking up to the smell of freshly baked bread in the morning and just chucking in the ingredients and pressing a few buttons.  However the downside was it took up too much space on the worktop for something that didn't get used very often, the little paddle that mixed the ingredients always got stuck in the bottom of the loaf, and the tin was a pain to clean, also you only get one size of loaf. It doesn't keep well either.

Attempts at making soda bread have not been too successful, with the exception of the Irish oaten rolls -  it always seems heavy and never done properly in the middle, even Riverford's carrot, walnut & thyme version. My attempt at naan bread was also a complete disaster, I'm blaming it on the fact that I haven't got a tandoor oven to cook it in.

 So all in all a mixed set of experiences with breadmaking - I've still got lots to learn but my top tip is don't cover your bowl of proving dough with a tea towel, in case it goes bonkers and sticks to the tea towel - SO hard to wash bread dough out of cotton tea towels"!!  At the risk of being slightly less green, use cling film.

 Thank you for reading - more soon!

 Caroline :-)

 

Souper!

I'm aware that the title of this post sounds like the title of a Jilly Cooper novel, but the similarities should end there. My daughter has recently been making soup at school, and I have been enjoying the results. She made a vegetable soup, and a pea and pancetta soup, and they were both delicious. The next week she made hedgehog bread, which was fab too.  I'm a big fan of soup, though my husband doesn't class it as any sort of  meal, more as a drink... but I disagree and think you can definitely class a hearty soup as a main course.

Also, last night I made a very special soup, for the starter of a family dinner with my parents today - using two (frozen) lobsters. Here is the end result:

 

 

It may not look like much, but it is the soup equivalent of understated glamour - 2 hours of cooking, brandy, wine, flambéing, double cream and a lot of love went into it!  It's the second time I've made it and it's definitely been the pinnacle of my new recipe project.

 

First I removed the meat from the defrosted lobsters and set it aside.  That part was fun, I used cherry stoners and poultry shears with a skewer to get the claw meat out. Then I broke up the lobster shells and cooked them with carrot and onion in butter, flambéing in brandy (Armagnac left over from the Christmas goose recipe) and then simmering in fish stock and white wine for 20 minutes.  Meanwhile I made a roux with butter and flour, adding boiling milk to make a thick white sauce.  This sauce was then added to the lobster and vegetables and simmered gently for an hour to allow the flavour of the lobster to go into the sauce.  After that, I removed the big pieces and sieved the rest, adding a bit more hot water as it was a bit too thick, and there wasn't very much of it for six of us! However, after reheating with a splash more Armagnac and some double cream and adding the chopped lobster meat it was perfect.

 

 

 

This is how much meat you get out of two smallish lobsters - shown in a cereal bowl - definitely quality rather than quantity.

 

 

Before the flambéing stage... I think next time I'll use a rolling pin to break the shells up a bit more. Note the bay leaves from my tree.
 

Nearly there...just the sieving to go. 

Last autumn half term, we went to visit my Uncle in North Lincolnshire, who is a keen gardener and he sent us home with a huge box of his home grown tomatoes, so after having eaten some just as they were, I set about turning the rest (three and a half kilos of them) into tomato soup. I made it in my massive stock pot (see below) and based it on a recipe from "A Celebration of Soup" by Lindsey Bareham - cooking the tomatoes (no need to bother skinning them as the skins will be sieved out later) with softened shallots, garlic and a bouquet garni with seasoning until mushy, then adding vegetable stock and simmering for 20 minutes, before sieving and reheating with a splash of cream and a pinch of sugar, which really brings out the flavour of the tomatoes.  There was such a lot I froze some for another day.

 

One of my other favourite soups was from celebrity Come Dine With Me - Linda Barker made cauliflower soup with goats cheese and truffle oil and I loved the sound of it - and I served it to my friends at my own CDWM night where it was deemed the highlight of the meal.  The goats cheese is passed through a tea strainer and mixed with truffle oil before a little dollop of it is placed in the centre of the soup and garnished with chives.

 

Another favourite started life as an Annabel Karmel baby puree but was so yummy that with a bit of extra seasoning and larger quantities became an adult meal - using red lentils and sweet potato.

 

I also love green soups, a fast and healthy one is maltese pea and cumin soup, made in minutes using frozen peas; also pea and tenderstem broccoli where you blitz half and not the other half to give it a bit more texture.

 

You can't go wrong with a nourishing chicken soup, made with the leftovers from the Sunday roast, or a miso prawn soup with noodles and spicy chilli, leek and butterbean soup with herb butter.. the list goes on.  Other soups I've made and enjoyed include beetroot & orange, fennel, pumpkin, celeriac, parsnip, and carrot & ginger.

 

Presentation can be fun too, okay it's just a liquid, but serving it in teacups or shot glasses, garnishes, fried onions, breadcrumbs, bacon bits, herbs, serving it with cheese toasts or interesting bread can make it look a bit more special.

 

 

 

One thing I've never tried making is a chilled soup, but I plan to give that a go when the weather warms up.

 

Thank you for reading,

 

Caroline :-)

 



Saute.... or fricassee?

The title of this blog post comes from some dialogue in an episode of the fourth series of the best TV comedy series ever:  Blackadder.  When Baldrick is cooking his rat, the difference between the two cooking techniques is only the size of the rat involved...  it made me think, do we really need to know the difference between a sauté and a fricassee as long as the result tastes nice?  Probably not. If you ARE wondering, according to "Larousse Gastronomique" - the wonderful 1206 page cookery encylopaedia - sauté means to cook meat, fish or vegetables in fat until brown, using a frying pan, sauté pan or heavy saucepan - and fricassee is a 17th century French term denoting various dishes with chicken, fish or vegetables in brown or white stock ie cooked in a thickened liquid, without browning (and nothing to do with marinating it in a puddle and stretching out under a hot light bulb!!) So now you know!  The photos below are not my cooking but give you an idea.

Saute potatoes

 

Mushroom fricassee

There's a lot I still don't know about cooking, despite what some of my family and friends might think.  The other day someone asked me to define what a thermidor was, and I had no idea and had to resort to Google and Larousse again. I don't think anyone is quite sure but some say the term thermidor was first attributed to the dish lobster thermidor, which was first served in January 1894 in Paris, on the evening of the premiere of a play called Thermidor, which was named after the eleventh month of the French Republican calendar, which in its turn was named after the French word thermal, which comes from the Greek word thermos meaning heat!!!!  What a complicated explanation!  The dish is lobster mixed with a creamy mustard sauce and served in the shell sprinkled with grated cheese and grilled - or variations thereof!

There's a lot of confusing terminology about when it comes to food and I personally would rather understand what I'm getting in a restaurant rather than guess or have to ask and hope the staff know what they're talking about.  Or it would be nice to have an explanation printed on the menu so your meal out could be an educational experience!  For example, what is the difference between "jus" and "gravy"?  Essentially they are the same thing, the cooking juices from a roast or from when a pan has been deglazed, thickened and flavoured.  The French also use jus to mean thickened stock or even freshly squeezed fruit juices.

I asked some of my friends what they find confusing in the culinary world. US terms can be confusing - for example, some people haven't any idea that "broiling" is simply the American term for grilling.  Many found it tricky changing US and Canadian "cups" into g and kg.  And how much is a stick of butter? 125g if you were wondering.  My daughter thinks that the words teaspoon and tablespoon are too similar and easily confused when trying to follow a recipe.  She'd vote for a global change in terminology to "small spoon" and "big spoon".  And talking of equipment, the word potato "ricer" is a bit misleading as you don't do anything to rice with it! It's called a ricer because the diameter of the holes in it through which the potato is forced are about the same diameter as a grain of rice. Most vegetables can be more easily pureed in a blender or processor (see later) but potatoes go glutinous when over processed and are gorgeous when "riced" - there are NEVER lumps.

Another friend was confused as to the differences between a blender, a juicer and a food processor.  You can blend and juice with a processor (depending on model and attachments), but you can't blend or process with a juicer, or juice or process with a blender!!!

However the funniest and stupidest misunderstanding EVER was one of my very own, when I was given a recipe for a boiled cake and the method stated to boil together all the ingredients in the left hand column.....  I asked the person concerned if I could borrow their left hand column, as I didn't have one!  That was a long time ago, mind you.

Thank you for reading, more soon, and feel free to share this blog.

Caroline x

Handy Hints and Good Ideas

A friend recently said "Cooking is like life, you won't know how it turns out if you don't try it."  Wise advice.  I thought I'd write a post about all those tips that have been passed on to me from the older generation, friends, books and from my own experience... so that in the future my children can read this post and pass it all on to their own children. My daughter is already quite good at baking, recently she's made heart shaped iced cookies and a very light and delicious lemon drizzle cake, as well as several chocolate cakes for her school friends and her own birthday cake - and my son is getting seriously handy with a peeler, so this post is for them. It's also for all my friends and family who passed on their tips, including some very wise advice such as: "Keep trying even though it may not turn out right first time" and "Eat the whole tub of Philadelphia before someone else does"!!!

I'm always happy to listen to advice, but I don't always follow it.  My Mum said to always follow a recipe the first time, before adapting it, and I don't do that.  Ditto the advice about not trying out new recipes on guests! However, here follows just a (slightly random) selection of tips that you might or might not find useful:

• It's ALL in the planning. Prepare ahead whenever possible, do some chopping before work, or make a freezeable pudding a week ahead for a dinner party.
• Trust your instincts.
• Mark your favourite recipes in books and magazines with post-it tabs.
• Don't try to slice lemons when you've had a few glasses of wine, or are crying from onions, while using a blunt knife.
• Don't balance sharp edged baking trays on top of the fridge freezer - I have the scars to prove this one.
• Use oven liner.
• When you're making a roast dinner, don't skimp on the gravy.
• Use good quality stock cubes or concentrate.
• Add fresh herbs at the end of cooking or the flavour will be lost.
• Don't open the oven until at least two thirds of the way through a cake's cooking time, and don't open it until the very end if there's Yorkshire pud in there. I've got an oven without a glass panel in the door on purpose so it doesn't show the dirt but the downside is not being able to monitor whatever's in there.  You can usually tell when baking is done because you start to smell it.
• A lot can be stuck together or covered up with butter icing and lots of sprinkles.
• Pour hot sugar syrup over cupcakes when they come out of the oven to keep them moist, there's nothing worse than a dry cupcake.
• Chill onions before slicing to minimise tears, if you do cry, running your wrists under cold water will make you feel better.
• Use a plastic spatula to scrape out every last scrap of mixture from the bowl.
• Never use "cake covering" - supermarket basic level real chocolate is cheaper and much nicer.
• Choose clever gadgets - like the silicone garlic roll that peels garlic so easily without making your fingers smell.  I've got one of these and several of my friends have too, it really works!

 



• Talking of smells, fishy or other strong smelling packaging should go straight in the outside bin, then you won't have to change the indoor one before it's full due to the whiff.
• Younger children are not always so helpful in the kitchen, so have a stack of DVDs or a playpen to keep them out of the way and save accidents happening.
• If it goes wrong, bluff your way out of it (the story of the "wholemeal" potatoes may be saved for a future post...).

And if all else fails, have a spouse or partner that loves cooking and will do it all for you, including the washing up!

More soon, thank you for reading. There may be a follow up to this post as there are probably loads more tips that I can't think of just now.  What's yours?

Caroline :-)

Food and wine matching - part 2.

This post has been delayed a bit, as I gave up drinking alcohol for the month of January, partly to make sure I could, partly for weight loss and partly to give my liver a break after the excesses of the festive season.  I missed wine, and Bailey's, but didn't find it too hard.  I mostly switched to fizzy water with a slice of lemon, but sometimes had sparkling grape juice or fruit presse out of a wine glass to make it feel a  bit more special.

I had tried two out of the three remaining free Asda wines before the self-imposed drinking ban started, and the first of these was the Pinot Grigio Trentino 2012. I'm not usually a fan of Pinot Grigio and this didn't do anything to convert me. It was nice and fresh and went well with my Italian inspired taleggio cheese omelette with prosciutto crudo and fennel seed salami (plus peas) but I don't think I'll be rushing out to buy more.  It was just a bit, well, watery and boring.

It was to Italy again for wine number five out of the six, and a red, the Barbera 2011.  This won silver at the International wine and Spirit Challenge 2013, and deservedly so. We paired it with Italian fennel and garlic sausages, roasted vegetables and cabbage.  It was very smooth and robust, and a definite thumbs up.

The final wine was a mouthful in more ways than one.  French this time: Viognier Pays d'Oc Indication Geographique Protegee 2012.  A gorgeous, dry, high quality white wine from the Languedoc, the label said it would be good matched with fish dishes, mild curries and chicken.  We had it with a roast tandoori-style chicken and naan bread, accompanied with cucmber and kalonji pickle salad (see below) which is very thinly sliced cucumber, shallots and kalonji (also called black onion seeds or nigella seeds) with lemon juice, mint and pomegranate seeds. The wine was as fresh and delicately flavoured as the salad, but unlike the Pinot Grigio it had character and flavour.

 

Thank you to Asda for the six free wines, Valentine's day will bring the last of my husband's birthday case which he has kindly been saving to share with me :-)

 

I'm not giving up wine again anytime soon, but definitely believe in quality rather than quantity from now on.

 

Thank you for reading, more soon.

Caroline x

 

#asdawine 

The Ragdale Hall Dining Experience

A few months ago I went to Ragdale Hall in Leicestershire with three friends for a spa break.  Their philosophy is "Healthy food tasting good" - and it certainly did!  My friends bought me the Ragdale recipe book while we were there so I could attempt to recreate some of the experience at home.  The breakfasts, served in your room on a tray, and actually onto your lap while still in bed if you wanted, were amazing!  Lunch and dinner were both three course extravaganzas - though the portion sizes were small, you were always full afterwards - possibly because you don't use up that many calories on a spa break as most of the time is spent relaxing!  I did do one class of fitness yoga, but on the whole chilling out was the order of the day.

 

 

The breakfast choices were given to us pretty much as soon as we arrived, while relaxing with a cup of tea in the garden room.  There was a list divided into categories, where you could choose one item from each section - juices, smoothies, hot drinks, dairy, protein etc...  There were things you would never be bothered to make for yourself for breakfast - such as smoked salmon crostini, warm emmenthal and tomato wrap, maple syrup porridge with berry compote, granola parfait, pots of fruit tea, fruit salad... you get the idea!

The lunch, eaten in your robe in fabulous wood-panelled and chandeliered surroundings, took the form of starter and dessert served to your table, and a buffet style main course where you could eat as much as you liked. Examples of starters: chicken and pork roulade with vegetable marmalade; caramelised onion and stilton tart; and pea soup.  The buffet main course was nothing short of truly magnificent. There were olives, salads, cold meat and fish, hot dishes and all manner of side dishes.  Here follows but a small part of what was on offer. Lemon and lime chicken. Sliced cold belly of pork with beetroot and horseradish puree. Marinated tofu - the best tofu ever - it can be quite hard to make tofu taste of anything at all but this was so delicious that I had three helpings. Harissa marinated salmon.  Baby roast potatoes. Hot roast beef and little Yorkshire puds. Thai chicken curry.  Potato salad.  Hot piri piri chicken.  Seared tuna.
Dessert choices included lemon meringue pie, rhubarb crumble with crème anglaise served separately in a little jug on the side, and a silky vanilla panna cotta with chocolate decoration and a raspberry on top.  It was also perfectly acceptable to have wine at lunchtime, provided you were not mad enough to want to be exercising in the afternoon. There is a limit of one bottle of wine per person!  It was so decadent to be drinking pink fizz in your dressing gown in the middle of the day.

 

The dinners were similar to the lunches with the exception of the main course being served to your table and not buffet style.  We tended to get dressed for dinner, although it was fine to still be in your robe if you wanted.  Starters such as breasola with fig compote and salad; roast asparagus; and lentil soup went down a treat.  Mains on offer included fillet of beef; mackerel with pea shoots; and bream with caper sauce. Sides to accompany were shared between the four of us on the table so we could have some of everything. Diced potato with tomato, mange tout, rocket and cucumber salad with yogurt dressing; couscous.

Desserts were similar to those at lunch time, small portion sizes but that was just what you wanted - a rich chocolate brownie with ice cream; mint crème brulee with chocolate biscotti; or a cheese platter.

 

After dinner the chef sometimes came out to talk to you and he was happy to accept constructive criticism (such as the crème brulee didn't have a crunchy enough topping).

At the end of the meal a hot drink was served in the lounge, verandah bar or garden room, and I usually had peppermint tea for the digestion!

 

A fair bit of champagne and chocolate was consumed too over the course of the weekend, and the post spa break glow lasted a very long time.  As did the pedicures.

 

 

Thank you for reading.

 

Caroline :-)

 

Food and wine matching - part 1.

"Good wines if you can afford 'em, tra la la la la la la la, will soon do away with boredom, tra la la la la la la!" Or so go to the words to the champagne chorus in the opera "Die Fledermaus" - in which I will be singing the part of Ida next February.

Recently the husband and I decided that life's too short to drink bad wine, and no longer were we prepared to slum it with three for a tenner deals.  For some (who know who they are) life's too short to drink any wine, but that's not for me to discuss here...  We would much rather have something of higher quality and less of it, a bit like our attitude to meat.

Anyway, as luck would have it, I was one of ten lucky people on Facebook, out of over two thousand commenting no less, who were chosen to be wine reviewers for  Asda, specifically for their extra special Barbera as featured in a recent TV advert. The idea was to like the post, and add a comment stating why you would like to be an Asda wine taster.  Not thinking in the slightest that I'd be successful, but at the same time that you had to be in it to win it, I posted the following comment:

"Hubby and I would love to be tasters please.  We are loyal Asda shoppers and regular red wine drinkers. I also write a food blog and I'm planning a post on matching wines with food. :-)"

 

A bit of creeping, I said "please" and insinuated I'd be sharing it, and sort of promised them some publicity, so I hoped I might get picked. I had forgotten all about it until about a week later when a message arrived from Asda asking for my address and phone number so they could deliver me six bottles, and it arrived a few days later.  Three different reds and three different whites - and all that was asked of me was to comment on them on social media including the hashtag #asdawine.

 

 

 

The first one we tried was a Chilean Cabernet Sauvignon Valle de Colchagua 2011. We don't usually go for a Cabernet as they tend to have a lot of tannin and are better with food than on their own, but this was very smooth. We had it to accompany roast gammon with clementines and ginger, plus the remains of the bottle the next day with a vegetable pizza.

 

The next one we had was Spanish. Old vine garnacha 2012, another red.  We paired it with a Spanish dish of poached chicken breast and cavolo nero (black kale) on a bed of butter beans and chorizo with some of the poaching liquid, and sprinkled with smoked paprika. It also went well with a pistachio praline in dark chocolate that I had afterwards by way of a mini pudding. 

 

The third bottle was a white - Chilean again - Sauvignon Blanc Romeral Vineyard 2012.  Hubby said it was the tastiest white wine he had ever had.  It was very floral and recommended with Thai food.  A friend had given us some home made Thai curry paste she had made and I was looking forward to trying it out so after discussion we went for a prawn curry.  I found the recipe on the BBC Good Food website and tweaked it a bit.  Basically you soften onion and grated root ginger in some oil, then add the curry paste followed by a sachet of creamed coconut and a tin of chopped tomatoes.  I added some chopped fresh tomatoes too as they needed using up and it worked very well, making the dish extra fresh tasting.  Then the prawns went in, I happened to have cooked ones so I just heated them through in the sauce, though the recipe stated raw ones and cook for longer.  Served with fragrant rice and a sprinkling of coriander leaves, it was hugely successful, mainly due to the fabulousness of the curry paste, better than any jar!  It was deemed to be the best curry I have ever made.  The wine matched it perfectly, standing up well to the chilli heat.

 

 

My wine and food pairings were partly guided by Asda Master of Wine Philippa Carr's recommendations on the back of the bottle, and partly due to general wine knowledge gained from my Dad over the years, and from reading "Jancis Robinson's Wine Course" ages ago.  I'm no expert,  but I've been to a couple of tastings run by a local company, and like to think I know a bit about wine.  Sometimes it's not about whether to have red or white or rose with a dish, but about how full bodied the wine is and how strongly flavoured the food is.  I'm looking forward to tasting the other three bottles, including the Barbera, and they'll be discussed in part 2 of this blog post.

 

In case you're wondering, all the wines retailed at £5 a bottle, though I noticed in store that that was the rollback price and the full price of the Garnacha was £8-something.

 

A few days later I won another prize on Facebook - a  Lurpak tea towel!  One of twenty lucky winners picked out of about 750 commenting on a post about favourite soups.  I wonder what the third thing will be?  Remember - you've got to be in it to win it!

 

Thanks for reading, lots more planned, and I won't leave it so long next time.

 

Caroline x

 

#asdawine