Recipe time

 It's been a long time since I posted a recipe. 

I have several bread books which C has a habit of occasionally browsing through, and then he pins a note to the noticeboard in the kitchen with a few recipes he would like to try - eating, that is. Not baking himself. Anyway, oliebollen, Dutch in origin,  have been on the list for quite some time, and last weekend I decided the time had come to make them while I had fresh oil in the deep fat fryer.

In fact the recipe he had come across was for a firmer dough which you could shape into proper neat balls. It will be worth trying some time, it called for both orange and lemon zest and cinnamon in the dough, which sounds pretty good to me. However, I went for the recipe my mother used to use, which comes from the 1978 Golden Anniversary recipe collection produced by the Chatelaine Institute. I think this must have come from her two aunts in Canada. Even now after all these years I can remember their ZIP code from writing thank you notes each Christmas and birthday, although I no longer remember the house number. 

I halved the amount, and we managed to eat them all by Sunday evening. I worked on the assumption that there was no instant yeast around back then so the yeast would be active dry yeast, and I used one teaspoon. 

So for a half batch I used 1 tsp active dry yeast in 1/4 cup (60 ml) warm water and a pinch of sugar. 

To make the dough/batter I also used 

2 cups (500ml) flour

3/4 cup (190 ml) lukewarm milk

1 egg

1 tblsp  sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla, 1/2 tsp salt

and 1 cup golden raisin and a medium size Bramley cooking apple chopped to about the same size as the raisins.

Mix everything together, cover and allow to rise for 1 1/2 hours. Fry in bathces hot oil (350F, 175C), dropping in a spoonful at a time. I think mine were rather bigger than the heaping teaspoon suggested, more like a soup spoon, and they took a little over 2 minutes each side to fry. 

Fried, and dusted with cinnamon sugar and enjoyed. 

Seville Season

 It's Seville orange season here just now. We're well stocked on marmalade, but I have a couple of other recipes that I always like to make when the oranges have that extra tang and zest. I see that in 2010 I posted my "bottled sunshine". This year I am trying it with vodka instead of brandy, in the hopes that it will be something like an orange version of limoncello. On fishing out the old magazine page with the original recipe (I'd say it's at least 20 years old), I saw that it also included a Seville orange curd, so I tried that while I was at it. In all honesty I'm not sure how much different it tastes to lemon, perhaps a little sweeter, and without the colour cue it might be hard to tell the difference. But we've been enjoying it on homemade crumpets.

SEVILLE CURD 

Use sharp, tangy Seville oranges as an ideal alternative to lemons Makes about 280 ml (1/2 pt) 

The finely grated rind and juice of 4 Seville oranges

85 g (3 oz) butter, cut into cubes 

230 g (8 oz) caster sugar

 3 eggs, size 3, lightly beaten and strained

 Warm sterilised jars, covers and labels

 Put the grated rind and juice of the oranges into a heavy-based pan or double boiler with the butter, sugar and strained eggs. Heat gently, stirring all the time until the mixture has thickened – this will take about 30 minutes.

Leave to cool slightly, then pour into warm sterilised jars, cover and label. Leave to cool completely. Chill until required.

Hopefully I can drop some duck à l'orange somewhere into our meal plan over the next couple of weeks, too. 

I was busy on Sunday and forget to change my header. I have a couple of shots with some Spring bulbs in the folder for last March, but I settled on this one of a tree instead. 

Warm off the needles, recipe time

C took this photo - so it's not the best, but it's better than the one I took of the tunic laid on the floor. Sorry -  I'm not looking my best  either, it was housework day, I'm pretty tired at the moment and the sun was shining right into my eyes. 

I had bought some lovely undyed natural Blue-Faced Leicester yarn  (made by the West Yorkshire Spinners Ltd) in a closing-down sale last year, and the time had come to use it. Each hank came with its own  numbered certificate of authenticity.  Now that I think about it, when I worked in Yorkshire over thirty years ago I took a trip to the Dales to visit some relatives and I remember seeing Jacob's sheep in various shades of brown. I decided to buy a pattern produced specifically for the brand of wool and it turned out well - though I didn't read it properly and my back is patterned the same as the front, while it was meant to be plain. I had plenty of wool, not a problem.

Recipe time: when I was at the greengrocer's last weekend, there were some lovely beef tomatoes and I thought they looked really nice. When I got home, in spite of the fact that it must be over  20 years since I last made this recipe, I knew exactly where to look - in Rose Elliot's The Supreme Vegetarian Cookbook. And they were very nice. 

Tomatoes with spicy stuffing:

4 large beef tomatoes

4 tblsp oil

1 large onion, chopped

450g / 1lb potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/4" / 5mm dice

2 cloves garlic, crushed

2 tsp cumin seeds

1/2 tsp turmeric

2 tblsp roughly chopped coriander/cilantro

salt and pepper to taste

Cut off and reserve the tops of the tomatoes. Scoop out the pulp (I missed my old curved serrated grapefruit knife for this, but I managed). Discard any woody bits and roughly chop the rest. Season with salt and pepper, and put in the base of a dish the right size to take all four tomatoes.

For the stuffing, fry the chopped onion in the oil over a medium to low heat till soft but not coloured. Add the potato and garlic and cook for another ten minutes. Add the spices and coriander/cilantro. Cook for another 5 minutes, or till the potatoes are fully tender. Season as required with salt and pepper.

Use this to fill the reserved tomatoes, and cover them with their lids. Place over the chopped pulp in the dish.

Bake for about 20 minutes at 200°C/400°F, till the tomatoes are just tender. I cooked some spicy yellow rice to serve with ours.

I forgot to change the blog header over yesterday. It's some New Zealand Flax, growing along the seafront in Greystones. 

Recipe time and a miscellany

I was looking through one of my books in the quest for something different by way of soup the other day, and thought I'd give this a try. It was very nice indeed, and we'll definitely be having it again.

I think the quantities are a bit off - the description said  serves four, can be served as a hearty meal or an appetiser. Well, I halved it and then made a little bit more because two pak choi was more than half, and we both felt we would have eaten more if it had been there. I did make a vegetable stock to use, which I often don't in "busier" soups. What was in the fridge was celery and carrots, to which I added an onion and a few slices of ginger. It's really a thin broth with a sweet-sour taste and the pak choi cooked in it.

Chinese Cabbage Soup: 

450g/1lb pak choi
600 ml/1 pint vegetable stock
1 tbsp rice wine vinegar
1 tbsp light soy sauce
1 tbsp caster sugar
1 tbsp dry sherry
1 fresh red chilli, deseeded and finely sliced
1 tbsp cornflour
2 tbsp cold water

• Wash and dry the pak choi. Trim and chop the stems, shred the leaves.
• Heat the stock in a larg pan. Add the pak choi and cook for 10 - 15 minutes.
• Mix together the vinegar, sugar, sherry, and soy sauce, and add to the stock along with the sliced chilli.
• Bring to the boil, reduce heat and simmer for 2 minutes.
• Blend the cornflour and water till smooth and add to the soup, stirring well till it thickens.
• Allow to cook for another five minutes and serve. 

Serves four (see comment above). We had a sourdough roll each with it, and some creme caramel for dessert and it was quite sufficient.
Taken from 1000 Vegetarian Recipes.

And a few miscellaneous photos. Some wildflowers sown under a tree alongside the road, the fountain in the English Market in Cork, and a beer drop.

Recipe time: Flaounes

A work colleague had a lot of cheese and eggs that she was bringing in to share around; I think that someone she knew in the food business had received stuff she hadn't ordered and was unable to return. There were some little tubs of  buffalo burrata, so I thought that I would make Cypriot cheese breads for lunch today - Flaounes. I've had this recipe, which originally came from a BBC Good Food magazine,  for about 25 years, and there are more authentic recipes available now - I had to look online because I wasn't sure I could find this one, scrawled on an index card. Halloumi is definitely easier to come by now, whatever about the esoteric Cyprus seasoning that should be used rather than mint, but I stuck with what I'm used to, after finding a scrawled index card tucked away on top of the microwave.

Flaounes are traditionally made at Easter.

12 oz strong flour, ½ tsp salt

1tsp yeast, 1 tsp sugar, (that is active dried yeast, use less for instant, more for fresh)

enough water to mix

1 tblsp olive oil.

Make dough and allow to rise

Filling: 4 oz coarsely grated cheddar

and 2 mozzarella,

mixed with two beaten eggs,

½ tblsp each mint and flour,

½ tsp baking powder.

Makes 7 or 8.

Divide the dough and roll into 4” circles. Spoon filling into the centre. Pull up four “corners” or the three points of a triangle and pinch together, covering most of the filling.

Allow to rise.

Brush with beaten egg, sprinkle with sesame seeds and bake for 12-15 minutes in a hot oven (220°C).

Happy Easter

There's no sense of scale, but these are actually the little miniature daffodils about 6" high, and the ground was too damp for me to kneel down to eye-level. I spotted them yesterday on my way to collect a package.

Slightly thankful for the cold weather this weekend, as it meant I was able to leave these Hot Cross Buns (sans crosses, too much trouble, and anyway we were eating them today) rising overnight in the back porch and they were just perfectly ready to go in the oven this morning. 

I've been making this recipe for many, many years - over 35 anyway. It comes from a National Trust book "Christmas and Festive Day Recipes" which my father brought back from one his school trips to London, and I distinctly remember cooking from it when my parents were still living in Greystones.

Hot Cross Buns:

1/2 pt (250ml) milk and water mixed, blood temperature with a teaspoon of sugar mixed in

3/4 oz (22g) fresh yeast, under 1/2 oz, 11 gr active dried, probably one sachet of instant

1/2 tsp each ground cinnamon, mixed spice, grated nutmeg and salt

1 lb (450g) strong white flour

2 oz (50g) castor sugar

2 oz (50g) soft butter

2 eggs beaten together

6 oz (175g) currants or raisins

1 0z (25g) candied peel finely chopped. Optional - and I often use cherries instead.

For the glaze - 2 oz (50g) sugar, 2 tblsp water.

If you want crosses - 2 oz (125g) shortcrust pastry.

Depending on your type of yeast, activate it in the milk and water or add the instant to the flour and spices mixed together.

Beat the butter and sugar together till really creamy, then carefully add the egg. I find this easier than the way the recipe adds them. Add this to the flour in a large bowl, along with the yeast. Knead till smooth and elastic, adding more flour if required. Allow to rise till doubled. Knock it back and allow to rise again for another half hour.

Cut into 12 pieces and shape into balls. If you're adding crosses, leave the buns for about 20 minutes, then roll out the pastry, cut thin strips and add crosses to your buns, sticking them on with water.

In another half hour or so they should have risen again and be ready to bake in a hot oven for approx 20 minutes, till golden brown. 

Put sugar and water in a ban, bring to the boil slowly and then when the sugar has dissolved, boil rapidly to the syrup stage and glaze the buns. 

Happy birthday yesterday, Lorraine, I hope you had a lovely day.  I had such fun making this snowbird - except maybe the miniature pompoms. I have enough trouble with big ones! It always seems that whatever I use to tie the wool together always seems to break when I try to pull it that little bit tighter. I ended up using fine nylon for these. 

Taken from the top of the bus, hence the many odd reflections - but we have a beautiful sea of daffodils on the road to the park gate just now. The tulips should be showing up next.

This month's header is a photo from St. Catherine's Park last April. Interestingly I see that the header I used last April was also from St. Catherine's Park (the Highland cattle), so it appears to be a popular time for us to visit.

Recipe time - and a mixed medley

February has been a testing month here - but I thought I ought to get one quick post in before it's time to pick out and share my favourite cards later in the week.

With snow on the way this week, I'm starting with a snowman on our green beside the bus stop. We had a brief evening on snow one Monday night, C was coming home from Swords and said it was beautiful out that way. There was still enough here for someone to either stay up very late or get up very early and create a life-size snowman.

We have also had  a few lovely sunsets. I suspect these actually date back to January. Come next February I'm going to have trouble finding a suitable photo from this month to use for my blog header.

We were in town this afternoon and I spotted this lovely utility box. We were on the other side of the road and the sunshine was quite strong - but we'll be in the area again and hopefully then I can make time to get the bunny and the fox on the two ends of it.

And a recipe: as we needed to be in town by 1.30, we just had a good breakfast. In January I had been making Posy's Russian Black Bread from The Bread Book, A Baker's Almanac (a lovely rye, but time-consuming as it requires making polenta and mashed potatoes before even starting on the rest of it) and C was looking through the book. He made a list of several recipes he wanted to try, and the following is one of them.  We also thought the French Bread with Beer sounded interesting. I was asking a work colleague if he thought that the beer would simply give a sourdough taste with the lightness of a regular bread. At first he said he thought it would also add some extra leavening...and then he asked how old the book was. Well, I knew I'd had it for at least twenty years, so he reckoned that any widely available beer in America back then would have had no leavening effect and be purely for the flavour. We'll try that one another day. This morning we had these, and they're on the "make again" list.

Maple Buttermilk Muffins

1 3/4 cup white flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs
1/3 cup buttermilk or sour milk
1/4 cup melted butter or light oil
1/2 cup maple syrup
3/4 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

Preheat oven to 400 F, about 180 C.
Sift all the dry ingredients together.
In a large bowl, beat the eggs till light and slightly thick.
Add the buttermilk, maple syrup and melted butter, whisk to mix.
Add the sifted dry ingredients: blend with a spatula or wooden spoon, stopping before the flour is fully absorbed. The mixture will be rough and lumpy.
Spoon into buttered muffin tins (I just used paper cases), filling about two-thirds full.
Bake for 15 - 20 minutes.
Yield: 12-14 medium muffins.

Choices

I needed to make bread for C's lunches this week...
I wanted to make doughnuts because I put fresh oil in the deep-fat fryer yesterday and I usually take that as a chance to make them...

So I made both.

We slept too late this holiday Monday for me to make the doughnuts for morning coffee and I was going to leave them. The bread baked while we had lunch, and then C contacted the friend he was hoping to visit this afternoon and found it didn't suit...so I started the doughnuts and we had them for afternoon coffee. Knowing C, he's quite likely to broach the bread and have a slice or two later on, though.

My current recipe uses the two flours shown - 4/5 white to 1/5 malted. Even when used on its own, the malted isn't what I would call very malty (but it has nice flakes of wholegrain in it), so I also add a big tablespoon full of barley malt extract, and it's making a very nice loaf.

I'm afraid to admit that out of a batch of 8 doughnuts there are only 2 left because C thinks they are nicest fresh from frying. (I'm not averse to leftovers warmed in the microwave for breakfast). The only place I've ever had doughnuts that match homemade ones is from the doughnut sellers on the beaches in Crete and Corfu - but there's no jam in those ones. And possibly we might have had some pretty good ones in Paris too.

My doughnut recipe is an old one which pre-dates the easy availability of instant yeast, meaning no mental debate over how much to use. We recently bought some flour advertised as "French Baguette Flour", but the recipe on the back of the package is less than useless as it says 2 tbslp of yeast - fresh, instant, or active dried. Only one of those is going to be right...

Bread:
50 ml boiling water, 100ml cold water, teaspoon of sugar 1 tblsp active dried yeast.

400g strong white flour, 100 malted flour
75 ml boiling water with 1/2 tsp salt and 1 tblsp barley malt extract stirred into it.
125 ml milk
1 tblsp oil - or an egg.

After the yeast has been activated, mix everything together and knead till smooth and elastic. Cover and allow to rise till doubled.
Shape, place in a greased tin and leave to rise till doubled.
Bake in a hot oven for about half an hour.

A Surprise and a Soup

The current photo challenge over on SCS is animals, and I was expecting to find it difficult - apart from people walking their dogs. However, when I walked over to the library on Saturday to pick up a DVD I had reserved, I came across something of a surprise!

I also managed to snap a grey squirrel up in the tree tops - it seemed to be pulling all the tender tips off and dropping a lot of them on the ground - not so good for the tree.

I wanted a change from the soups that I usually make, and since I had just been tidying through my store cupboard and was aware that I had some green split peas, I tried this recipe from Anna Thomas' "Love Soup". It was really good, we both liked it and I will make it again. But next time I will allow the split peas to soak longer, or give them more cooking time. They were quite old and I probably didn't allow for that!

Carol's Finnish Pea Soup with Apples from "LOVE SOUP" by Anna Thomas
Serves 6-7

1 1/2 cups / 12 ounces dried green split peas
2 large carrots
2 medium stalks celery
1 tsp chopped fresh thyme or 1/2 tsp dry
1 bay leaf
1 large onion (250g)
3 tblsp olive oil
1 1/2 tsp salt plus more to taste - I don't think I used this much
1 large apple (250g)
12 ounced (350g) frech or frozen green peas
1 tsp coriander seeds roasted and ground
1/4 tsp fresh grated nutmeg
1 tblsp Dijon mustard
1 tblsp cider vinegar
2 cups/500ml light vegetable broth
Hot paprika or cayenne to taste

Wash the split peas and put in a large pot with 6 cups/1 1/2 litres water. Peel and finely dice the carrots, trim and finely dice the celery and add to the peas along with the thyme and bayleaf. Bring to the boil, reduce heat, cover and cook for about half an hour.
Meanwhile chop the onion and sauté it in 1 tblsp of the oil, with a little salt, till it is soft and golden brown.
Peel and core the apple and dice finely. She didn't say whether this should be a cooking apple or an eating one - I went for a slightly tart eating one that would keep its shape better. Add to the soup, along with the sautéed onion, and cook for another fifteen minutes. Then add the fresh/frozen peas, coriander, nutmeg, mustard, vinegar, salt, pinch of paprika and the vegetable broth. Simmer for another fifteen minutes. Add more salt if required, and more cayenne/paprika if you would like it spicier. Stir in the remaining olive oil just before serving.
I partially liquidised mine with a wand blender ; she says it can be served as it is or puréed, but I like some texture in my soups so I went with a half and half option.

A Recipe, Rain, and a Wet Bird.

I was cooking for my mother-in-law on Saturday, and when offered a choice of desserts, C opted for panacotta. I think he was hoping for the rum and raisin one I usually make. But, while tidying and purging old magazine cuttings recently, I had come across a Gordon Ramsay recipe for lime panacotta which I really wanted to try. Well - no tequila here, and I was going to be back from the shops long before licensing hours would have let me buy any. So I decided to try a coffee-flavoured one with either Tia Maria or Kahlua, of which I had plenty. 

So I took the basics of Paul Flynn's rum and raisin recipe, which was:

450ml cream

two-and-a-half leaves of gelatine, soaked until soft in cold water

55g caster sugar

Bring half the cream to the boil, take off the heat and add the sugar and the gelatine. Whisk in thoroughly. When they are dissolved, add the rest of the cream and pour into dishes. Chill overnight

I lightly crushed one ounce of coffee beans and let them infuse in the heated half of the cream, let it cool down, strained it and then reheated it and went on as usual, though I reduced the sugar a bit as I didn't want them too sweet. I made some hazelnut tuiles to serve with them. 

We have had some very wet weather this week. I tried taking a few photos of the raindrops in a kerbside puddle while I was waiting for the bus on Tuesday. It was hard to focus, even with manual focus, so only a couple of photos are worth sharing.

Today I was just preparing dinner when I saw a bird pecking at something on the grass. Curious as to what it was, I got the spotting scope and took a closer look. It's either a very wet hen greenfinch or a juvenile (probably still too early for that, though), who was making a very tasty snack from a dandelion head. I've never seen that before! The windows are dirty from the rain, which didn't make for a great photo, but here she is, anyway.

Recipe time

foraging male chaffinch

I've had a fancy for a while to make gougère, but I couldn't remember what on earth we used to have with it when we made it in the classic ring form. Having picked up some Gruyère, I was partially committed to making it - and in the end, I used some leftover roast lamb with it, I made a filling with some chopped onion sweated in olive oil, then added red bell peppers, courgettes, chopped tomatoes and rosemary, and added the diced lamb near the end of the cooking time.

Gougère is simply cheese-enhanced choux pastry, and can be made as a ring and served with a savoury filling or salad, or made into little puffs like profiteroles, or larger puffs like cream buns.

Since my recipe goes back to when I did my Cordon Bleu course, it's not even in metric, let alone with American alternatives! 

For the two of us I used:

Gougère:

1/4 pt (5 fluid ounces) water

2 ounces butter

2 1/2 ounces strong flour

2 eggs

for the choux pastry, and I used about 3 ounces of Gruyère cheese - most of it coarsely grated, and some diced finely to sprinkle over the top.

Other good cheeses to use are Comté or Emmental.

Make your choux pastry (I always beat the last egg in a cup, and add it gradually so as not to make the pastry too wet), and stir in the grated cheese. Shape into your preferred option, the cooking time will obviously vary depending on what shape you are making.

I baked mine in a medium hot oven (180C) for about forty minutes.

Christmas Catch-Up

 I was making dessert for dinner at my aunt's house on Christmas Eve. Plan A was icecream (Baileys with praline and chocolate chips, in this instance) since I was using up a surfeit of egg-yolks after having made an angel cake. My sister put in a request for a Bûche de Noël - since she furnished the holly leaves for it, this is in its earlier unadorned state.

I was a bit annoyed, after carefully choosing a meringue recipe that gave the weight of the egg white to use (since I was using one that was left from a broken egg, and wasn't sure if it was all there!) to have my first lot of mushrooms come out so chewy that I just threw them straight out, and made another batch ignoring the fact that my weight of whites was higher than it should have been according to the first recipe.

For Christmas Day we had Paul Flynn's Rum & Raisin Panacotta.

Rum & Raisin Panacotta:

Serves 4

450ml cream

two-and-a-half leaves of gelatine, soaked until soft in cold water

55g caster sugar

dark rum to taste

50g blonde raisins

For the caramel sauce 100g caster 110ml approx water

Bring half the cream to the boil, take off the heat and add the sugar and the gelatine. Whisk in thoroughly. When they are dissolved, add the rest of the cream and the rum, pour into moulds and chill overnight.

For the caramel sauce, dissolve the sugar with 80 millilitres of water in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Wash down the inside of the pan with a pastry brush dipped in cold water to prevent crystals from forming. Cook until the sugar turns a deep amber colour. Take off the heat and whisk in another 30 millilitres of water bit by bit. This will splash a little so be careful. Add in the raisins. Allow to cool. To serve, dip the pannacotta moulds into hot water to loosen the pannacotta and tip it out onto plates. Spoon the caramelised raisins around the pannacotta and serve

Another proportional dilemma here, because I have two types of sheets of gelatine, and one is about twice the size of the other, I used two and a half sheets of the large one, since I knew that's all I had when I first tried this several years ago, and it came out fine.

Favourite Christmas cards - since I make these all through the year but don't like posting them on my blog unseasonably early!