Chicken Stock

It seems very strange to me that every instruction for stock making suggests that you should bring the liquid up to a simmering temperature.  I use stock a lot, and used to find it rather a chore.  Now it is easy because I cook it very slowly indeed for a long time.  No need to skim or clarify, and you get a beautiful, deep flavour.  

We have a roast chicken for Sunday lunch about every other week.  Once the cats have eaten the legs and thighs (actually cheaper than cat food, and they actually eat it rather than the disdainful sniff that most pet food gets), the carcass goes into a big saucepan with the saved leg and thigh bones.  An onion, with any papery skin removed but the rest of the brown outside left on will give some colour.  A stick of celery and a peeled carrot are both important.  I am probably wrong but I think carrot skin can be bitter.  A dozen whole peppercorns and a couple of bay leaves complete the pot. Pour in cold water to within 1/2" of the top.

I put it on at the lowest possible heat on the smallest gas burner which is the one inside the big ring on our hob, with a heat diffuser under the pan, without a lid.  There should be no bubbles whatever, and the only  movement being slight swirls of oil, if that. This can be left overnight, but it needs 8 to 10 hours.  Strain it and you will have about one and a half pints of stock.  I usually remove all traces of fat with a piece of kitchen paper towel laid gently on the surface and then reduce this by half over a low gas.  Once the bones are out and there is no fat, there is nothing to make it cloudy.

Alternatively a low oven, say at about 80 to 90C, would work I guess but I have never done it that way.

Bingo!

Courgette tian, a simple, easy lunch or supper dish

1 courgette

1 leek

½ oz butter, or a little more

3oz Pecorino Romano, Gruyere, Comte, Manchego or similar

Salt, Pepper, nutmeg, Tabasco

4 eggs

Parsley and or chives if you have them - optional

Heat the oven to 160°C fan.  Butter a tian or similar ovenproof shallow dish.  Melt the butter in a frying pan.  Slice the leek thinly and add it to the butter.  Grate the courgette, add to the butter and leek and season well.  Cook until most of the liquid has gone.  There should be less than a tablespoon.  Beat the eggs till frothy.  Grate in 2/3rds of the cheese, add the courgette and leek mixture and stir well.  Pour it into the tian and sprinkle the remaining cheese on top.  Bake till set, about 25 minutes.  Carefully loosen the bottom with a palette knife.  Turn out and serve.

This is also good cold and makes excellent picnic food.

To warm and cheer...

Yesterday, as I mentioned below was a grey damp November day.  I was cold when I came in and wanted something cheering.  Try this.  Oolong tea, a level teaspoon of sugar and a wallop of Gosling's Black Seal Rum.
It was so good that I had it twice.  The tea has a richness, almost chocolate-ey, that works really well with the rum!

Caraway Cabbage

I see that I have not given a recipe for the cabbage that we had last night.  Here goes.  Dry vermouth is a great kitchen standby for anything that needs white wine.  I actually used a 2003 good reisling spatlese which we were having before supper, which was very good.  If the wine is sharp, you may like to add 1/2 a teaspoon of sugar.  If you have butter roasted a chicken recently and kept the fat, use that, it is wonderful! 

For two:
A small cabbage, I prefer Savoy but anything will do
Butter
Salt, pepper, nutmeg and caraway seeds
White wine or dry vermouth

Put 1/2 oz of butter in a large pan with 1/2 a glass of wine, seasoning (careful of the salt, this is all going  to reduce to a coating) and 1/2 a teaspoon of caraway seeds.  Cumin seeds work too, but I think the result is a little coarser.  Boil fast for a minute or so to let the fat and liquid emulsify.

Shred the cabbage.  5 minutes before you want to eat (this will put up with hanging around once cooked for a very few minutes but not for long), get the fat/liquid mix back to a fast boil, drop in the cabbage and keep turning it over to that it all gets coated.  By the time that the liquid has evaporated, it should have become a brighter green and be ready.  Taste to see if it need more seasoning or more butter - we like lots!

This came I think, from a recipe in Jane Grigson's Vegetable Book.  If you don't have a copy, get Santa on the case!  The cabbage was quickly boiled, all the water squeezed out, finished with cream and served with a bowl of cinnamon sugar on the side for each person to sprinkle on to taste. 

 

I think that the recipe above could be finished with cream, but I'd want a very little flour in there to stabilise it.  A few pages on, there is a recipe for cabbage leaves stuffed with a curd cheese flavoured with caraway and paprika.  That's one for the "to try" list!

Yesterday was one of those damp November days, all blows and squalls.  We wanted a casserole, but I had to make a cake first and it was 7pm before I got to it, however.....I had bought an end piece of fillet steak, and we had some mushrooms, so I thought it should be possible to fake something.  This is quick and simple.  I use a small non-stick stir fry pan.

For two:
A piece of beef fillet say 6 - 8 ozs
1 long shallot
6 -8 Chestnut mushrooms
Butter and olive oil
Plain flour
Madeira
Soy sauce
Balsamic vinegar
Stock
Salt, pepper, nutmeg, dried thyme or tarragon. Sweet smoked paprika

Peel and slice the shallot, and cook it in a scant 1/2 oz butter with a twist of the salt grinder.  Slice the mushrooms thinly.  When the shallot is just on the edge of browning, add the mushrooms to the pan and give them several good shakes to mix well.  Add plenty of pepper, some nutmeg and a good pinch of dried thyme or tarragon.  I like to add a little paprika here too but be careful not to let it overpower.
Whilst the mushrooms are cooking, trim the fillet if it needs it, and cut into approx 1" cubes.  Put a teaspoon of plain flour into a medium sized mixing bowl and add some pepper. 
The mushrooms should be ready by now.  Add a small wineglass of Madeira, a very little soy and ditto balsamic vinegar to cut the sweetness of the Madeira, and boil to reduce by 2/3rds.  Add 3 or 4 ladles of good stock and reduce by 1/2 over a strong heat.  All this should take 10 minutes or less.
Put the shallot, mushroom and sauce mixture into a bowl.  Wipe the pan and add no more than a dessertspoon of good olive oil (or walnut if you have some, better still).  The pan should be no more than thickly coated; you don't want the meat to swim about in the oil but almost dry fry.  Let the pan get hot. 
Toss the cubes of meat in the flour and pepper so that they are all well coated.  Do not throw away the surplus flour.  Quickly sear them in the pan and keep tossing them for a couple of minutes so that the flour coating is cooked.   Remove them to a plate.  Add 1/2 oz butter or so to the pan, swirl it around to deglaze and add the rest of the flour - there won't be much.  Cook for a minute or two and add back the sauce mixture.  Taste and check for consistency.  It may need a little more reduction, but remember that the cooked flour on the cubes of meat will thicken it a little.  Add the meat, reheat and serve.

We had crushed roast new potatoes and caraway cabbage.  Just the thing for a November evening!  Mashed potato would be good too.

Professional Masterchef this evening.  Call me picky if you will, but here's my draft letter to Ms Galetti and Mr Wallace....unfair?  the only reference on the web that I can find about the boiled juice is...surprise ...on a Roux website.  I wouldn't mind, but they are so precise about there being only one "classic" way to do everything!

Mr Greg Wallace and Ms. Monika Galetti
Professional Masterchef
BBC

I watched the Professional Masterchef programme this evening with great pleasure but was surprised to see the suggestion that the orange juice for a Sauce Maltaise should be boiled to concentrate the flavour, partly as I had never heard of this and partly as I would have thought that boiling would alter the actual blood orange flavour.

In our kitchen is a bookshelf with only around 100 books: the selection of books is very varied and does concentrate towards a number of writers, but it spans quite a wide range.  When a new book is acquired, another has to go – harsh but fair!

I thought that it would be amusing to trawl throught he likely candidates to find a reference to boiling the orange juice when making a sauce Maltaise.  Here is the list of books that I consulted.

 The recipes that suggested fresh juice and zest (sometimes blanched and shredded, sometimes grated raw) to be added to a basic Hollandaise were in La Repertoire de la Cuisine 1979, Elizabeth David’s Summer Cooking Penguin edition, Michel Gueraud’s Cuisine Gourmande, Art de Culinaire Moderne by Henri-Paul Pelleprat 1937, Andre Simon’s Encyclopedia de Gastronomie 1939 and my old Penguin Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

 There was no mention of Maltaise at all in the Escoffier, Ma Cuisine (1965 English edition), any of my three Boulestins, Connie Spry, Prue Leith or Paul Bocuse’s New Cuisine (in English). I looked in several others too.

I would be really grateful to know what classic books must be missing from my little kitchen library, or is it a little unfair, given the above, to expect chefs (who are given a sparse 15 minutes to make three sauces) to know that they should boil the blood orange juice? 

Stuffed Chicken Breasts
This came from a friend who cooks brilliantly and I have lost the original recipe.  Here is the version from 17th November 2012.

for two:

2 smallish, skinned chicken breasts
1 tablespoon of breadcrumbs
1 egg yolk
4 or 5 firm brown mushrooms
1 shallot (not round - one of the long ones)
4 thinnest slices Parma ham or similar
Olive oil
Butter
Salt, pepper, nutmeg and a pinch of dried thyme or (better) tarragon

Trim the breasts and, if you can, remove the central sinew without damaging the meat.  If unsure, don't.  Take a piece of clingfilm about 12" square and lay it onto the worktop.  Brush with a good teaspoon of oil.  Take another piece of cling, lay it on top and press all over so that both pieces have an even layer of oil.  Take the top one off, put a chicken breast in the centre, and replace it.  This is much the easiest way of bashing a piece of meat flat!  Do you have a meat mallet?  Some say a rolling pin will do the trick, or a good heavy pestle. Best to get a mallet - you are going to want to do this recipe again! Beat the breast so that it is maybe 1/2 a cm thick or a touch less. Leave it in it's film and repeat the process for breast no 2.

 

Chop the shallot as finely as you can and cook it slowly in 1/2 oz or more of butter with salt pepper and nutmeg.  Cut the mushrooms into paper thin slices, or chop (less elegant) and add to the shallot with the dried herb.  Cook gently to start then fast to concentrate any mushroom moisture back intot he mixture.  Beat the egg yolk and the crumbs, add the shallot mushroom mixture and stir well so that it is completely amalgamated.  (If you don't have any crumbs, add a teaspoon of plain flour to the mushroom mix at the end but make sure that it is well cooked, then put the mixture into a bowl with the yolk and mix well). 

 

Lay two pieces of Parma ham alongside each other on a board.  Remove the top film from a bashed breast and gently lay it (breast down/bottom film up) onto the middle of the ham.  Ideally it should be squareish and sit in the centre with 1cm or so of a ham border but it doesnt matter too much.  Take half the stuffing mix and lay it down the middle of the chicken, then roll it up, tucking in the ends.  You will have a neat, fat ham-wrapped cylinder, I hope.

 

Cook very slowly for about 30 minutes in a frying pan in as little butter as possible, turning every 5 minutes or so to get the chicken completely cooked. 

 

These are very good.  Sometimes I add a teaspoon of white truffle paste (from a jar) to the stuffing, or into a mushroom sauce for them. 

Stoved Jerusalem Artichokes

18th September 2012 - Sunday.  We really like the routine of a Sunday.  Tea and coffee, then porridge, maybe an egg.  Lunch, pretty much always a roasted joint or chicken, then a movie on the sofa.
We had roast beef - a piece of topside - not a joint that I'd usually want to roast, from City Meat on the King's Road.  It was nearly black - maybe hung 6 weeks?  The butcher was most insistent that it would be great and that I mustn't cook it for too long.  I guess it weighed 24oz, and was wrapped in a piece of pork fat. 

Preheat the oven to 250C fan.  Into the roasting tray goes an onion, a peeled carrot and a couple of sticks of celerey, all in chunks and tossed with olive oil.  Beef on top.    Put the beef into the oven and immediately turn the oven down to 150C.  35 minutes, then out, covered with foil and several teatowels to keep it hot to rest for 40 minutes.  It was red pink throughout and carved very thinly; it was a bit chewy, perhaps, but great flavour.  I took the carrots out and put them in with the roasting potatos to finish them off.
Brocolli, roast potatoes (Yukon gold - not convinced) and..... the reason for this post......  

Stoved Jerusalem Artichokes.  Mostly Jane Grigson from her Vegetable book, but no garlic or parsley, which I think would fight with the beautiful flavour of the artichokes.  Choose the least knobbly ones and make sure that they are stone hard - if there is a tiny bit of give - cook something else.

Jerusalem artichokes
dash olive oil
1/2 oz + of butter per pound of artichokes, but 1/2 oz is the minimum if only doing a few.
Salt, pepper, nutmeg
1/2  a lemon

Squeeze the lemon into a bowl of cold water.  Peel the artichokes as far as possible to a uniform, roundish size, dropping each one into the acidulated water as they are done.  In a saucepan in which they will loosely fit (you are going to need to shake/turn them) put a splash of oil, the butter - if in doubt use more - a couple of turns of the salt mill, several of pepper and about 6 scrapes of a nutmeg down the grater.  Put over a low heat, add the artichokes and cover the pot.  Cook as slowly as you can (I use a gas hob - a small burner at the lowest heat - just sizzling) for about 40 minutes, giving them a firm shake everyso often, and gently turning them every so often if the shaking isn't doing so.
Mine didn't go the crusty brown she suggests, but were utterly delicious.

Word of warning - artichokes are fickle things and similar looking ones will cook at entirely different speeds.  I cooked 10, a bit smaller than a golf ball.  Only one collapsed to mush (still yummy).  Maybe I was lucky. 

The star of the show was a bottle of Vieux Telegraphe, Chateauneuf du Pape, 1995.  I opened it at 10pm the night before and put the cork loosely back in the bottle.  By 1pm on Sunday it still had a touch of tartness and iron filings, the fruit was struggling to get to the top.  At 5pm when we had lunch, stunning.

I have just been given Niki Segnit's Flavour Thesaurus, and am gradually working my way through it.  There are lots of interesting nuggets.  I like the way she peppers the entries with tasty irrelevances.  On Pork and Beef, p33 she tells us that Vinnie, in Goodfellas, says that for authentic meatballs, three types of meat are needed; beef, veal and pork - "You gotta have pork - that's the flavour".

I often mix meats for meatballs but I've never used these three, partly because if I am just cooking for the two of us, you need such a niggardly quantity of each one, and our butcher's team all, I think, regard our manifestly tiny appetites as pathetic; we often only need one chicken breast between us, for instance.

But I am wandering.  MEATBALLS.  Meatballs have become our casserole of choice recently.  Versatile, tasty and a pleasant texture.  I brown them well in a frying pan and then cook them very slowly, preferably the day before they are wanted.  Here's what I did earlier this week, loosely following Marcella Hazan, Classic Italian Cookbook.

400gms good beef mince
2 tablespoons dried crumbs, soaked in full cream milk
1/2 a large shallot, cut as fine as you can
Chilli flakes
Pepper
Dried oregano
- I didn't use a tablespoon of grated Parmesan, as she suggests, and rather wish I had.  If you do, cut the salt
- I didn't put in an egg either - safer but makes for a denser texture.  Only one MB broke up!

Mix very well, form into balls and fry in 2 - 3 tablespoons of olive oil.  This is where Ms Hazan and I part company

1/2 bottle robust red wine
same quantity of stock (I used a tin of Waitrose beef consomme)
splash anchovy sauce (instead of salt)
1 good heaped teaspoon of plain flour
big pinch of dried thyme
a dozen black peppercorns and twice as many pink
scant teaspoon of fennel seeds
the other 1/2 of the shallot plus a second whole one, sliced
6 good fat cloves of garlic in thin slices
a stick of celery, strings removed and cut into big matchsticks
2 bay leaves
Squirt of (sundried, preferably) tomato paste
1/2 a small tin crushed tomatoes

Once the meatballs have browned, remove them to the casserole that you are going to use, and put in the bay leaves.  Add the sliced shallot to the pan, cook till just beginning to soften, then add the garlic and celery.  2 - 3 minutes on a low heat, stirring, then add the flour.  Cook it for a couple of minutes, add the wine and bring to a rapid boil.  Add the fennel, peppercorns, thyme and anchovy sauce (don't worry - it won't be in the slightest bit fishy, just a deeper richer flavour) and reduce by half.  Add the stock and tinned tomato, reduce with a quick 3 minute boil and pour over the meatballs.  Into an oven at about 120c for 4 hours, or longer and slower if you like.  Degrease with 2 or 3 thicknesses of kitchen towels before serving.

Goat Cheese and Black Pepper Mousses with Truffle Honey

Discovered at lunch at the Chelsea Arts Club and this version seems to be close to theirs.

For 4

150gm log of soft goat cheese – nothing fancy

120dl of full cream milk – that’s a scant quarter pint
Bay leaves of a sprig of fresh thyme
½ teaspoon of black peppercorns
1 whole egg and one yolk
2 tablespoons crème fraiche – I guess you could use yoghurt instead
Oil for greasing custard pots
Truffle honey and maybe some whole truffles

4 metal custard moulds, or ramekins

A baking tin in which they will fit
Foil to cover the tin
A small saucepan
Pestle and mortar, or a peppermill set to very coarse
Electric kettle

Preheat the oven to 170c or about 160c fan.

Grease custard cups generously.  If using ramekins, don’t bother as it will be better to serve them without turning them out.  Less disaster potential!

Lightly smash the peppercorns so that there is nothing bigger than ¼ sized pieces
Heat milk with bay/thyme and peppercorns to simmer, turn off and leave 20 minutes. Boil the kettle
Mash the goat cheese into the milk, add the eggs – (prebeaten if you like but that’s more washing up), mix very thoroughly and add the crème fraiche
Put your moulds/ramekins into the baking tray. Pour the mixture into them, put them onto the oven shelf, cover with the foil, being sure that it doesn’t touch the surface of the mixture, pierce it a few times and bake until just set.  
Take the results from the water bath carefully – no water onto the mixtures please!  Allow to cool then chill.
Peel the truffles if using them and chop very finely, then mix into the honey.  If you can do this a few days before, so much the better
If using moulds, dip for a minute, no more, in boiling water, invert onto the individual serving plate, thumbs on top and fingers round the plate, and shake well to turn out.  You will hear a gloop
Serve chilled with a teaspoon of the honey, well stirred, and leave the honey on the table

Cheese Biscuits - last made 18th September 2012

Equal weight of soft butter, plain flour and a grated hard cheese - Parmesan is good, so is Manchego, or Pecorino Romano.  You can use one of the Gruyere/Beaufort/Comte tribe, or Cheddar, Wensleydale, double Gloucester, but the biscuits wont be quite as crisp.
Some powdered mustard, and any one of the following: dried thyme, oregano, chilli flakes, nigella seeds, mustard seeds.  About a heaped teaspoon to an 80gm mixture of each ingredient.

Preheat the oven to 160-170c fan.  Grease a baking tray very lightly.  An 80gm mix of each ingredient will need a tray about 40cms square I guess.

Mix all the ingredients together very well.  Take about a teaspoon at a time and gently form into balls,  Do not overwork.  Put on the tray so that they are at least as far apart as twice the diameter of each little ball.

Bake about 12 minutes.  The edges should be beginning to brown and the tops pale.  Take a palette knife and carefully lift each one onto a rack to cool.

Done.

You can freeze the mixture beforehand but they are not as good.

3^rd January 2011 and 19th September 2012

Moroccan spiced cauliflower & almond soup.

BBC Good Food website

This is really very good indeed but I made a few twists which I think improved it. This is a very filing soup.

For 4 smallish servings

A medium cauliflower

2 tablespoons olive oil, or walnut even better

½ teaspoon each of ground cinnamon, cardamom, cumin and one of cumin seeds

1 scant teaspoon rose harissa

100cl good stock, or a  bit more depending upon how thick you like your soup

50g split almonds

25g pine nuts

Coriander leaves

Greek yoghurt

Home made spiced sherry (optional, and if you don’t already make it, do so immediately!)

Cut the cauli into florets; put two aside for garnish. Toss the nuts with the cumin seeds and a big pinch of sea salt in a frying pan till browned.  If you burn them, they go into the bin and you do it again as they will make everything bitter.  Unless you use a big pan, it will be easier to do it in two batches.  Put aside about a sixth for garnish.  Preheat a deep frying pan and dry roast the spices for a couple of minutes, adding plenty of ground pepper.  Add the oil and the harissa and fry for a minute or so, then add the cauliflower and toss so that the florets are coloured with the spice. Add the stock and half a small glass of the sherry.  Simmer till the cauliflower is soft.  Pour into a food processor with the nuts and cumin seeds and blitz till very smooth.  You may need to add a glass or two of water or some more stock to get it to the consistency that you prefer though it should be quite thick.  Put it back into the pan.  Taste for salt and season. 

Cut the remaining cauliflower into the tiniest of florets.  They should be no bigger than a pea, and preferably smaller, but don’t chop the poor little things.  Reheat the soup very gently; it will behave like a boiling mud pool and throw blobs all over your kitchen if it is too hot, unwatched and unstirred.

Pour into bowls.  Put a ring of bits of cauliflower round the edge.  A big neatish pinch of coriander leaves goes into the middle next, and then scatter the salted nuts as evenly as you can.  Finally, with two teaspoons, place a tidy blob of yoghurt on top.  If you can be bothered, and the harissa has plenty of oil on the top, sprinkle a few drops around the middle.

The recipe only uses the nuts and looks frankly, very beige. My version is a warming, pale, rustic orange.  We had it as a supper but the flavour is good enough to serve at a dinner party.  If you do only a tiny potion as it is surprisingly rich.  I have no idea how you would garnish it in a coffee cup; please do let me know!

Courgette Flan - from the wonderful Nathalie Hambro's Particular Delights

Called a flan but has no pastry.  As ever, some deviations from the original.  This is a delicious supper or lunch dish, and is nearly as good cold as hot.  Good and original picnic food.  The flavour of the courgettes and tarragon is delicate and I'd either stick to this or do something entirely different.  I am going to try it with lettuce, peas and a smidge of onion soon, for instance.

You will need a dish in which to bake it.  I use a provencal tian; earthenware, glazed inside, sloping sides (which make it easier to get the flan out), about 8" across, which is good for the 4 egg quantity.

For a supper dish for two:

4 eggs

2 medium courgettes

a 1/2 coffeespoon dried thyme, the same of oregano, twice as much tarragon

some fresh chives and parsley, chopped finely. (any mix of herbs is good but the tarragon needs to predominate and I would avoid basil)

2 tablespoons thick cream, or creme fraiche

butter, softened

3 - 4 oz grated cheese.  Pecorino Romano is good.  The original suggests Gruyere which is a little stringier.  Manchego would work.  Not cheddar, I think, nor Parmesan unless mixed with one of the others

salt, pepper, nutmeg, tabasco

Heat the oven to 160C fan.  Put a large pan of water on to boil.  Give the dish a good brushing of butter; I use about 1/4oz.  Grate the cheese finely.  Beat the eggs with the cream, salt, pepper, nutmeg, as much Tabasco as you think will make a difference without making the dish spicy and the dried herbs.  Top and tail the courgettes and slice them longways with a vegetable peeler into the thinnest of ribbons.  They do not need to be neat.

Once the water is boiling fast, salt it and drop in the courgettes.  Watch it.  As soon as it comes back to the boil, tip the courgettes into a colander and press them a bit to get rid of the water.  If you have time, let them cool a bit. 

Put the courgettes in the bottom of the dish, pour over the egg cream mixture and sprinkle on the fresh herbs.  Arrange the grated cheese as evenly as you can on top.  Into the oven for about 25 minutes.  It will rise slightly and the top should be brown.  I turn the oven onto grill for the last 5 minutes.

Remove from the oven and gently loosen all round and underneath with a flexible pallette knife, so that the slices will look neat, and slice into quarters.  Seriously yummy. 

Braised Sausages and Lentils – loosely based on Emily Watkins

 

8 good sausages

1 onion (red?)

1 smallish carrot

1 stick celery

6 sundried tomatoes

100gms Puy lentils

50gms red lentils, which will break down and thicken the liquids

chicken stock and a very little olive oil

bay leaf or two

2 glasses of good red or white wine

 

Preheat the oven to 160c.  Fry the sausages in a smear of olive oil till browned all over and remove.  Finely chop the onion, carrot and celery (very finely) and cook gently in the same pan (she adds paprika, without saying if sweet or hot.  I’m not sure).  Add the lentils and turn up the heat.  At this point, we digress.  She adds masses of tomatoes, and gets them to cook down, say 10 minutes.  I think I’d add a glass of wine (the second glass goes into the cook), let it bubble, add the chopped sundried tomatoes or a smidge of tomato paste, bay leaves (or thyme) reduce to about 2/3rds and add chicken stock and the sausages.  She cooks the dish on a burner for an hour or so, I think I’d lightly cover with foil and cook in the oven, and check after ½ an hour if it needed more heat or more liquid.

 

I tried it my way in the oven and it worked well.  You need to watch the level of the liquid.

Crusted Pork Loin – at Petit Feuga 30^th July 2012

Buy a piece of pork loin as large as you need.  It is best not to go below 6”/1+ kilos as anything smaller will be prone to dry out.  Better to buy a bigger bit and have some left for cold.  Amounts below are for a piece about 8” long/2 kilos.  (Would work for pork fillets too – cook ½ an hour?)

• A coffee mug or so of medium to fine breadcrumbs     
• A level teaspoon of dried thyme and ½ of dried oregano (either or both)
• ½ a billiard ball sized white onion, chopped very fine
• 2 good heaped teaspoons of Dijon mustard, or (probably better) 1 Dijon and 1 of a grain mustard such as Meaux
• Enough olive oil to bind.  The mixture needs to be able to cohere.  I would expect about a 1 sec pour/4 tablespoons, but it depends on your crumbs.  Fresh will need no more than that, frozen at least that and dried rather more.

Preheat oven to 170C fan/190C conventional.

Mix together well.  There should just be a little oil seeping out and the mixture will be quite sticky.

Slice the rest of the onion and another very roughly, put then into a roasting tray into which the pork will easily fit.  Toss in a little olive oil so that the onions are well covered and so are the bottom and sides of the pan.  Push them to the middle of the pan so that they will be completely covered by the pork.  Sprinkle on a little salt and if you like some dried thyme.  You could also lay a sprig or two of fresh rosemary or thyme on top of the onions if you like.

Put the pork on top of the onion bed.  Now, take about ¼ of the crumb mix, lay it along the top and pat it down so that it is an even layer about 1cm thick.  Thickness is important, it must be thick enough to stick together and to protect and baste the pork, but thin enough to cook to a crisp top and not fall apart.  Now, a spoonful at a time, build the coating downwards so that it comes almost half way down the joint.  You need to make sure that each addition has thoroughly stuck to the edges of the top.  Any bits dropped in the pan should be removed or tucked under the joint so that they do not burn and sour the gravy.

Cook for about an hour and a quarter.  Check it regularly; the tray may need turning round if your oven heats unevenly.  If it appears to be browning too fast, turn it down to 150C fan/170C conventional.  After 45 minutes, add a wineglass of water.  If you have it, use a cheap Dry Vermouth instead – better than white wine – or ½ and ½ .

When cooked, put the pork onto a warmed dish or a board (it will probably seep some juice), cover very loosely with a piece of foil and at least 2 tea towels to keep it warm.  Allow it to rest at least ½ an hour.

For the gravy, pour off as much of the oil as you can (then gently floating a double thickness of kitchen roll on top to absorb most of it is an easy way to remove a bit more).  Add a wineglass of madeira and a small splash of a good thick balsamic vinegar.  Be careful with this, a cheap sharp one will need very little indeed.  You are just trying to cut a little of the sweetness of the madeira.  Add a splash of water and boil fast for a few minutes to remove the alcohol, and reduce it by about a ¼.

Done.

Alex McKay’s Braised Chicken Thighs in Red Wine  - 11^th August 2012

As usual, I couldn’t help fiddling  with it.  Also I didn’t have enough time to do the marinade, but with a long slow cook it seems superfluous anyway.  Here is my  version.

Oven on to 150°C Fan

1 bottle red wine	4 chicken thighs
10ish black peppercorns	6 small shallots, whole, peeled
1 coffeespoon fennel seeds	8 cloves garlic, whole, peeled
1 coffeespoon coriander seeds	1/8” thick slice of parma ham, cut into thin strips
1 coffeespoon pink peppercorns	Olive oil
Strip dried orange peel	1oz butter
¼ coffeespoon cinnamon powder	1 dessertspoon flour
A few dried mushrooms	2 good pinches of sugar
A couple of chopped sundried tomatoes
2 bay leaves and/or some dried thyme

Boil all the ingredients in column 1 till reduced by 1/3^rd

In a frying pan, gently brown the chicken in oil with the skin side getting twice as much as the bottom for about 5 minutes.  Add the shallots, garlic, ham, butter and sugar and cook for another 5 minutes.  Remove chicken, shallots and garlic to a casserole in which they will comfortably fit.

Add the flour to the pan and cook slowly for 3 minutes, stirring and making sure that there are no lumps, then add the wine and spices etc.  Bring to the boil, pour over the chicken, then add enough water to bring the level to just over the top of the chicken.  If there is enough wine, still add ½ a wineglassful of water.  Put it into the oven, uncovered for 2 hours at least.  If you have more time, cook for longer at a lower temperature; 3 hours at 130°C Fan, 4 at 120°C Fan.

Remove the chicken, onions and garlic and strain the sauce (a solid cone strainer is best).  Serve.

The fennel, coriander, pink peppercorns, bay/thyme, parma ham are all mine and are optional, as is straining the sauce, which I wouldn’t do if using the ham.

If you do want to strain the sauce, alternatives would be

1.        to mash the cooked garlic into the strained liquid, and/or

2.       roughly chop the shallots or an onion at the wine boiling stage and separately slowly cook some small whole shallots and maybe button mushrooms in butter with the ham slices (as though making a coq au vin) and add them to the chicken and strained sauce at the end.

This is good.

Moroccan spiced cauliflower & almond soup.

BBC Good Food website

This is really very good indeed but I made a few twists which I think improved it. This is a very filing soup.

For 4 smallish servings

 

A medium cauliflower

2 tablespoons olive oil

½ teaspoon each of ground cinnamon, cardamom, cumin and one of cumin seeds

1 scant teaspoon rose harissa

100cl good stock

50g split almonds

25g pine nuts

Coriander leaves

Greek yoghurt

Home made spiced sherry (optional, and if you don’t already make it, do so immediately!)

 

Cut the cauli into florets; put two aside for garnish. Toss the nuts with the cumin seeds and a big pinch of sea salt in a frying pan till browned.  If you burn them, they go into the bin and you do it again as they will make everything bitter.  Unless you use a big pan, it will be easier to do it in two batches.  Put aside about a sixth for garnish.  Preheat a deep frying pan and dry roast the spices for a couple of minutes, adding plenty of ground pepper.  Add the oil and the harissa and fry for a minute or so, then add the cauliflower and toss so that the florets are coloured with the spice. Add the stock, a little salt and half a small glass of the sherry.  Simmer till the cauliflower is soft.  Pour into a food processor and blitz till very smooth.  You may need to add a glass or two of water to get it to the consistency that you prefer though it should be quite thick.  Put it back into the pan.  Taste for salt and season. 

Cut the remaining cauliflower into the tiniest of florets.  They should be no bigger than a pea, and preferably smaller, but don’t chop the poor little things.  Reheat the soup very gently; it will behave like a boiling mud pool and throw blobs all over your kitchen if it is too hot, unwatched and unstirred.

Pour into bowls.  Put a ring of bits of cauliflower round the edge.  A big neatish pinch of coriander leaves goes into the middle next, and then scatter the salted nuts as evenly as you can.  Finally, with two teaspoons, place a tidy blob of yoghurt on top.  If you can be bothered, and the harissa has plenty of oil on the top, sprinkle a few drops around the middle.

The recipe only uses the nuts and looks frankly, very beige.  We had it as a supper but the flavour is good enough to serve at a dinner party, but a tiny potion as it is surprisingly rich.  I have no idea how you would garnish it in a coffee cup; please do let me know!