Mostly Kerry

Well, that was a busy weekend and then some. We went to Killarney for a funeral on Saturday. Somebody got the time wrong and we could have got up and left at 7.30 instead of 6.30, but at least it was a reasonably fine, dry day and the church was right beside Killarney National Park so we were able to enjoy a walk and stretch our legs.

In the town:

In the park - it was wonderful watching the swallows swooping and diving over the long meadow grass.

We stayed the night in Tralee, with the bonus of rabbit-watching. As long as I can remember there have been rabbits along the driveway of the house behind where we stay.

On to Kenmare on Sunday to visit my dad and cook dinner.  When we left I managed to leave behind not only my good loaf tin which had had a fruit-cake I had baked for him, but also a spare punnet of strawberries which was not intended for him, as I'd already left some mixed strawberries, raspberries and blueberries. Oh well...

Bridge at Kenmare

Dewy spider's web

Back home, and then up to the North on Monday, for a total of over 700 miles. This was a rainbow I photographed through the car window on our way back home last night.

These days I try to cook in advance when we visit my dad, and bring stuff that really just needs heating and a carbohydrate and vegetables to go with it. But since we were leaving home early on Saturday, with no idea when I'd have access to a fridge, that wasn't practical this time. I thought if I did a stir-fry I could have the vegetables with me, and the sauce ingredients mixed, and we could just buy some chicken down there.

This is what I cooked:

Chicken and Cashew Nuts (serves 4)

12 oz chicken breast, sliced into 1" pieces and tossed in 1 tblsp cornflour (cornstarch )

Seasoning: 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp toasted sesame oil, 1 tblsp light soy sauce, 1/2 tsp sugar.

1 cup cashew nuts

2 green onions / spring onions, chopped

1 small onion peeled and cut into chunks

1" fresh ginger root, peeled and thinly sliced

2 cloves garlic, sliced thinly

3 oz snow peas, sugar snaps or mangetout

2 oz bamboo shoots, thinly sliced

Oil for frying.

Sauce: 2 tsp cornflour, 1 tblsp Hoisin sauce, 3/4 cup chicken stock.

Mix the seasoning ingredients together, pour over the chicken and leave for ten minutes.

Fry the cashew nuts till golden brown, and drain on paper towel.

Heat 2 tbslp of oil and fry the onions, ginger and garlic for 2-3 minutes. Add the peas and bamboo shoots and fry for another 3 minutes.  

Remove from pan, clean the pan and heat another tablespoon of oil. Fry the chicken for 3-4 minutes, till cooked. Add the vegetables back into the pan, along with the spring onions. Mix together the sauce ingredients, add to the pan and cook till heated and thick.

C being fussy about whole garlic I used crushed garlic rather than slices.

Although the recipe called for bamboo shoots, the photograph in the book showed beansprouts, and since I was able to get them in Tralee that is, in fact, what I used. I also added some pineapple chunks.

Feeding Birds

Chaffinch

Robin

I think the sound in the background of the robin clip must be a train. It's not that I don't hear them - I do. If I'm awake early and hear the first one go past at ten to six, it usually registers on my awareness that that's the first train I've heard, so it must be ten to six. And if I'm going out in the car and going to be crossing over the railway line, I might realise that I've just heard a train go by so it's a safe bet that the level crossing will be open. But to hear the level of noise on the video surprised me. I've seen that little robin starting to venture into the back porch where all the seed is kept, but he's so much more timid than last year's ones - the slightest movement and he's gone again.

I tried a different curry over the weekend, using a Mughal-style Masala. C is not (to put it mildly) a fan of cardamom. I don't like it on it's own, but as part of a background flavour I tell him it's like trying to paint a picture and not having any yellow - or whatever colour. So I use it anyway, and just do my best to remove all the pods before serving, or he's bound to bite into one. Anyway, this recipe had a LOT, so I was surprised that he said he liked it and I could make it again some time. Admittedly I cut back a bit on the cardamom - there was so much in the Masala that I left out the extra 1/2 tsp of ground powder that was meant to be added also.


Spicy Lamb ( I used beef, our last curry was lamb).
2 1/2 lb lamb or beef, cubed.
1 tsp ground turmeric

2 tbslp oil
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1" ginger root peeled and finely chopped (I usually grate it)
1 tblsp curry powder
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper / ground red chilli
1 tblsp lemon juice,
salt
* 1 tsp Mughal style Garam Masala
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
2 green chillies, seeded and chopped
2 tbsp chopped fresh mint
3 tomatoes skinned and chopped
fresh coriander / cilantro to garnish

*Mughal-style Garam Masala - this makes 4 ounces, I knew I'd never use that much, so I scaled it down.
4 ounces green cardamom pods, husked (I'll admit I'm not clear if this is the weight of seeds or of the pods before husking - I went with seed weight)
2 cinnamon sticks broken in pieces
1 ounce each whole cloves and black peppercorns
1 tblsp ground nutmeg.
Roast in a small heavy pan over medium heat for about 5 minutes. Grind to a fine powder and store for up to 6 months in an airtight jar.

Stir the turmeric into the meat and leave for half an hour.
Heat the oil and fry the onions, garlic and ginger till soft and golden-brown.
Add the curry powder  and cayenne and fry for one minute.
Stir in the lemon juice and salt, then add the meat and stir till it's coated with the spices.
Add the Masala, cardamom, green chillies, mint and tomatoes, cover and simmer till tender - obviously longer for beef than lamb. I added some water as well, as we tend to prefer a wetter curry. This was quite hot, even though I scaled the cayenne back a bit. The chilli peppers available just now are pretty hot.

I don't think I ever posted a favourite card for April. There are three or four I really liked and enjoyed making, but I'd say these two are my favourites.

Feed the Birds

I was meeting my sister in town on Friday afternoon, and it wasn't really worth coming home first. As we finished work exceptionally early maybe it would have been worth it after all, but I had a few things to get - coffee beans, hulled pistachios and so on, and I filled in some of the time in Stephen's Green.

It's been quite a while since I made this. I remember making it once when I was catering for an outdoor activity weekend. There were several vegetarians that particular weekend, and some people who would eat fish but no meat, or chicken and beef but not pork, so the organiser suggested it would be easiest just to go vegetarian. I did offer a fry at breakfast, and I think I may have done a meat option for Sunday dinner, but I made this for the night we arrived, as I had the filling already made. It was very popular.
C had suggested an omelet, but there were tomatoes that needed using up, so I made this instead. For the two of us I halved the filling, but didn't want to go to the bother of halving a beaten egg; we managed to eat almost the entire topping between us.

Mexican Chilli Corn Pie
1 tblsp oil
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 each green and red (bell) peppers, seeded and diced
1 stick celery, diced
1 tsp hot chilli powder
14 oz can chopped tomatoes
11 oz can (approx) sweetcorn, drained
7 1/2 oz canned kidney beans, drained and rinsed
salt, pepper, t tblsp chopped coriander (cilantro)
Topping:
4 1/2 oz cornmeal
1 tblsp plain flour
1/2 tsp salt, 2 tsp baking powder
1 beaten egg
6 tblsp milk
1 tblsp corn oil
4 oz grated mature Cheddar or similar cheese.

Heat oil, fry garlic, peppers and celery for about 5 minutes till they start to soften. Stir in the chilli powder, tomatoes, sweetcorn, beans, salt and pepper. Bring to the boil and cook for about ten minutes. Add the fresh coriander and spoon into an ovenproof dish.
For the topping, sift all the dry ingredients together into a bowl. Make a hole in the centre, and add in all the wet ingredients (whisk them together first), whisking till just mixed. Spoon over the filling and sprinkle with the cheese. Cook in a preheated hot oven (220C, 425F, Gas 7) for 25-30 minutes, till golden and firm. I think it's better to add the cheese halfway through. Also I use a mix of fine and coarse cornmeal.

An oddity

 and a semi-preserve is how The Penguin Book of Jams, Pickles and Chutneys describes lemon curd. I've had a hankering for it for a while, and made some last week. The recipe in this book called for the rind and juice of 4 lemons, 4 eggs, 4 oz (half a stick) of butter and 1 lb (2 cups) of sugar. The recipe in Penguin Cordon Bleu Puddings and Desserts called for 2 lemons, 3 eggs, the same amount of butter and half the amount of sugar. I reckoned that less butter to sugar had to be good thing and went with the first recipe. It made three jars, one of which we brought away with us for the weekend.

We're having unscheduled oranges in caramel tomorrow. I was making a risotto tonight, and as there was some rhubarb that needed cooking I put some sugar and water on to boil up to a syrup, and then forgot about it. Luckily I went over to stir the risotto just when it had reached a beautiful rich caramel and before it burnt the pan!

Recipe Time

We were going to finish up some leftover lamb curry for dinner last night. Plan A was to make some naan bread to go with it. Plan B was not to bother with the naan bread because I had a stinking headache, and by the time I'd got home from work and done all the housework I didn't feel like making bread. Plan C was to make the bread after all, because after I'd had a lie down I felt somewhat better, and I wanted to make it to use up some yoghurt that was in the fridge. The problem was that there turned out to be less curry than I had thought, so I needed a reasonable vegetable dish to do duty as half the meal - and there wasn't a lot in the fridge. No cauliflower, no green beans and no cabbage, which are my go-to veg for a main dish. There was a courgette, but I didn't feel like that. A quick look in one of my books turned up this recipe which was a success and will be going into my repertoire.

Green Pepper and Potato  (serves 4 as a side dish)
3 tblsp oil
pinch of asafoetida (optional - sometimes I use it, sometimes I don't want the lingering smell)
1/2 teaspoon each mustard and black onion seeds (kalonji)

9 oz potatoes cut into 1" cubes
9 oz green (bell) pepper cut into 1" pieces
1 tsp each ground coriander and ground roasted cumin seeds
1/2 tsp each salt, garam masala. turmeric and cayenne/chilli (I used less of the chilli, mine is a hot one)
1/4 tsp garam masala and 1 tblsp chopped fresh coriander/cilantro for garnish.

Heat the oil and fry the asafoetida, mustard and onion seeds till they start crackling. Add the potato pieces and fry till lightly browned, stirring often. Add the pepper and cook for one minute. Stir in the dry spices, reduce the heat to low and cook for a further ten minutes, or until the vegetables are tender, stirring occasionally. Sprinkle with the garnish and serve.


I recently turned up this photo which I had mislaid after taking several off a noticeboard. It's an old photo, but I thought I'd share it - it's always made me smile. I still don't know how he got into that pot!
Brambles was one of my parents cats, acquired from a friend of my brother's who was leaving the country. Before that he'd been a much loved and cosseted only cat who had always lived indoors. Moving to a house where there were already two other cats and a dog was a bit of a shock to his system, and for a while he didn't leave two upstairs rooms. Then he gradually started venturing out via my parents bedroom window, and he started mixing with the other animals. When they moved down to Kerry he became a fully-fledged country cat - and happy to be one, as you can see. He was a sweetie - big and good-natured.

Today was almost a day for basking just like Brambles - even now at 9.30 in the evening I still have one of the attic skylights open.

Scraps

of photos, scraps of food.

Lichen on a sign post.

I had a vague idea from my gardening books, and after looking at one again today, I think these little blue flowers in Farmleigh are Scilla (Squill).

They inspired this card with its blue flowers.

We had some lovely corned beef from the butcher recently - tasty and tender- but after having already once reheated it in the cooking broth I wanted to find something to do with the leftovers. I remembered a recipe from Ronald Johnson's An American Table, which made a good dinner for us last night. I think he called it Hashed Corned Beef with Eggs. Corned Beef Hash was a favourite of ours when we were little, but I know my mother always made it with the tinned stuff. This recipe called for about 2 cups of finely chopped corned beef - no problem. Cook some potatoes in their skins in the broth. When they're cooked and cool enough to handle, peel them and crumble them in with the corned beef. Chop and fry some onion in a little butter, then stir in the beef, potatoes, a little cream, plenty of chopped parsley and seasoning. Press into a buttered shallow dish, dot a little more butter on top and bake in a hot oven for 15 minutes. Remove from oven, reduce heat a bit, make indentations in the top and break an egg into each one. Season and return to the oven till the eggs are cooked.
The one I remember from my childhood had the lots of parsley, but it was chunks of meat and potato, and had a tin of tomatoes and some Worcestershire Sauce for a bit of zing, cooked on the stove top.

The Curse of the Everlasting Cabbage...Musings on Minestrone

It's a bit unfair to call it a curse, actually, and it's not quite everlasting, but...
I bought a cabbage when I did a big supermarket shop last week (normally I buy most of my veg in a local greengrocer, but when I'm doing a supermarket shop I'll top up there), and I hadn't quite realised how big it was.
We had a quarter that night in the form of Gujerati Style Cabbage and Carrots as our main dish, with a small amount of leftover lamb curry, and naan bread. We had a quarter last night  just as plain boiled cabbage. A quarter went into this big pot of minestrone which was our lunch today and will do two more meals!

And that still leaves a quarter - I think I'll try an Indian recipe for cabbage and peas early next week.

The last minestrone we had was a vegetarian version; today I used a different one and added a small amount of pancetta which added just the right amount of smoky richness which I had missed from the vegetarian version, nice as it was. Trust C to spot the difference straight away and ask what it was. Since he also didn't believe that cabbage was a standard ingredient, it was out with Marcella Hazan's Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking  (one recipe, no bacon of any sort, cabbage) and Elizabeth David's Italian Food (three recipes for what I would consider "classic" minestrone, all with cabbage, all with some form of bacon). After his follow-up reading I'd like to think he now knows that parmesan is also a standard ingredient, but I know he'll reject it if I offer it grated on top the next time we have it. Since I intend making a parmesan and rosemary focaccia, if he doesn't get it one way he'll get it another.

It was not so windy today, but still wet and grey and gloomy. I didn't even bother taking a camera when I walked down to the vegetable shop, but I did try a new recipe for gingerbread with orange juice. It's just afternoon coffee time now, so I'll see how it turned out.

C is for Collection

I took a photo of one of these display shelves for the current SCS challenge which was to take the same picture with and without flash. But it had been in the back of my mind all week that they would have been a good subject for the C challenge, so today I took photos of all three of them. They are all atrociously dusty - I do the tops every week, but no way am I taking each and every thimble out. With so many, and going back so many years, at this stage I don't even remember who some of them came from, which is a pity. Most of the enamelled ones came from Portobello Market and little shops around Covent Garden, from when I worked in the UK. The Chester one was when I met DH in Liverpool at his sister's after we got engaged. We bought his wedding ring in Chester. I am guessing that my Dad probably got the Science Museum one as he used to take a school trip over to London every year. There are two tailor's thimbles, those are the ones with no top - they are also called sewing rings. I find them quite easy to use, but in fact my regular sewing thimble doesn't live here at all, but on the mantelpiece in the sitting-room.
It's hard to choose a favourite - I like the Brambley Hedge ones, and the little hand-painted Christmas robin, and the cedar waxwing.
I think I'll have to try for better photos another day - the one I originally took for the photo challenge was when we had bright sunshine flooding in, whereas today has been wet, wild and extremely windy all day.

Some time back I gave a recipe for what my sister calls Jammy Chops. Last weekend, while looking through one of Ronald Johnson's books I found a similar idea for pork chops, and tried it out. It was very nice -we don't eat a lot of pork, but I'll remember it to try again.

Pork Chops with a Currant Glaze - from Ronald Johnson's Simple Fare

4 large loin pork chops, seasoned with salt and pepper
3 tblsp oil
1/4 cup chicken stock (2 fluid ounces)
1/4 cup redcurrant jelly
1 1/2 tblsp Dijon mustard
2 tbslp red wine vinegar

Heat the oil in a frying pan of suitable size to take all the chops. Fry them over medium heat till golden brown on each side. Pour out almost all the fat (leave about 1 tblsp), add the chicken stock, cover and cook over a low heat for half an hour. Add more stock if necessary, and I turned mine over half way through. Warm the redcurrant jelly and mustard, stir to mix and add to the pan after the half hour. Cook for another 15 minutes, turning once. Remove and keep warm while you add the vinegar to the sauce in the pan and boil rapidly to reduce to a thick sauce.

Recipe Time

I was so sure this recipe was here that when I wanted to make it yesterday, this was my first port of call. Second port of call was all my sent e-mails - now it's where it should be in my Recipe folder. The amounts are all a bit random because it's a recipe that has developed over the years from a recipe I got for a raspberry cheesecake from a Scottish girl who was over here for a wedding, over 25 years ago.
C's brother was coming for dinner yesterday, and since I've picked up C's cold I wasn't doing anything that was too much trouble - glazed loin of bacon, a gratin of  potatoes and some vegetables. But with a new bottle of Baileys, and cream cheese in the fridge I sent C out to buy some digestive biscuits.

Baileys Cheesecake:

For the base - 8 oz. digestive biscuits crushed, and 4 oz melted butter. Press into a lined 8" tin with a loose base.
Filling: I used 1 leaf of gelatine, which I think is equivalent to one generous teaspoon, (5ml measure) and I dissolved it in the Baileys, in a mug sitting in a saucepan of hot water. With powdered gelatine you should put the Baileys in the mug first and then sprinkle the gelatine on top, and leave for a few minutes before warming to dissolve. I guess I must have used at least 3 or 4 tablespoons of Baileys at this stage.
Beat together one large pack (as close to 250g as possible, because there's a smaller one) of cream cheese  and 2 ounces of caster sugar. Stir in 1 small carton (1/4 pint or150 ml) natural yoghurt. Try not to use one with too sour a flavour,  Greek yoghurt would do equally well.  Gently fold in  one 250 ml (1/2 US pint) carton of cream, whipped till thick but not stiff. Stir in Baileys and dissolved gelatine, adding Baileys to taste - no idea how much I used. Pour over the base and chill.

I splattered this with some melted dark chocolate after removing from the tin. This makes a light cheesecake topping, it will hold its shape when you cut it, but is still creamy rather than set. With slight variations it's the same recipe I use for strawberry and lemon cheesecakes too.

A crow of delight

The birds were out in force this morning - which was bright, sunny and cold.
I can't quite tell what tasty snack this crow found but it didn't last long...

Then I watched a flash mob of starlings finding some bread that somebody had thrown out on the grass - it attracted the gulls quite quickly. They were still there when I was on my way back. It amused me seeing the three birds in this picture, and the pigeon behind the gull made me think of a game of "Grandmother's Footsteps".

Evidently someone had been driving across the grass last night or this morning - a green road to nowhere.

I wanted something spicy and apple-y today. First recipe I turned up called for semolina, which doesn't figure in my store cupboard. It must be one of those things you love or hate - it's my aunt's comfort food. My mother's comfort food was buttered bread cut into squares with warm milk poured over, which was really odd because she normally didn't like milk at all, and especially warm milk, having grown up with boiled un-pasteurised milk in France. I don't think I know what mine is!

Sour Cream Apple Squares - recipe from Boston Tea Parties

2 cups flour
2 cups brown sugar, packed down
1/2 cup butter
1 cup chopped nuts

1 1/2tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp soda, 1/2 tsp salt
1 cup sour cream
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg
2 cups finely chopped apple

In a large bowl mix the flour, sugar and butter together till it resembles fine crumbs. The recipe called for soft butter and beating at low speed. I used chilled butter and my pastry blender, as the amount was too large to fit in the Magimix. Stir in the nuts, and then put 2 3/4 cups of this mix into an ungreased 13" x 9" pan and press down firmly.
Add the cinnamon, soda, salt, vanilla, egg and sour cream to the remainder of the crumb mix, stir to mix well and then stir in the apples. Spread this over the the base. If you wish you can sprinkle an extra 1/2 cup of chopped nuts over the top.
Bake at 350F, 170C for 25-30 minutes. Makes 4 dozen - which means I cut mine too big!

Recipe Time

It's been a long time since I last made these little bread rolls. And to be honest, I don't remember any of the butter leaking onto the oven floor and creating a stink last time - the second batch were on a baking tray with a rim, but by then the damage was done. I know I've done these when cooking for camps - maybe the kitchen was just too warm this evening. They were still lovely, and we managed to eat half the amount I made, along with a carrot, potato and celery soup.

Aberdeen Rowies - recipe from Elizabeth David's English Bread and Yeast Cookery
She describes them as "nice high flaky knobs of uneven size and shape", with a "homely" appearance.

Make a regular plain dough using 3/4 lb (about 2 3/4cups) strong white flour,2 tsp salt, 1/2 oz fresh yeast and about 1/2 UK pint (10 fluid ounces) tepid water. The dough should be a little soft, not too firm.
Cover and leave to rise in a warm place for about three-quarters of an hour.
Take 6 ounces (3 sticks) butter and cut into small pieces, divide in two and put half in the fridge.
On a surface dusted with cornflour or rice flour, roll the dough out into a rectangle approximately 10" x 8".Dot the butter over two thirds and fold as if you were making puff pastry. Roll out and turn a couple of times, again as for puff pastry. Cover and leave in a cool place or the fridge for about fifteen minutes.
Repeat the process with the other half of the butter, and again cover and leave in a cool place for at least fifteen minutes.
Roll out once more, making the rectangle as neat and regular as possible. With a sharp knife cut into approximately 24 pieces.
Arrange on baking sheets (with rims!!) which have been dusted with cornflour or rice flour.
Cover and leave in a cool place (not warm, or the butter will melt too much) for half an hour.
Bake in a hot oven - 220C, 425F, Gas 7 for about fifteen minutes, till golden.
Yes, it's a lot of butter - but then you don't butter them when you're eating them and I do try to balance our diet out.

I am so glad to have discovered that the Polish shops stock fresh yeast - even if it never seems to keep quite as well as the yeast I used to get from the Irish Yeast Company. Now I just need someone to tell me what all the various types of flour they also stock are and what they equate to.

Athens

Thinking laterally about interpretations of "Berried Treasure" made me think of the bottom drawer of my freezer, and the fact that it has far too many packs of cranberries in it, given that they'll be appearing in the shops again soon. So I made these:
Cranberry Spice Squares
1 cup cranberries
1 tsp each soda, cinnamon, cloves, ground nutmeg
1 cup brown sugar
1 cup milk
2 cups plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter
1 egg

Chop the cranberries coarsely. Sift the flour with the salt, soda and spices.
Cream butter and sugar together till light and fluffy, then add the egg. Add the flour in three parts alternately with the milk. Stir in the cranberries.
Bake in a greased 8" square pan at 350F / 170C for about an hour. Cool in the pan for ten minutes before turning out.
There's an optional frosting which I have tried but don't usually bother with - 3 oz cream cheese beaten till light, then beat in 2 tblsp cranberry sauce, then 3 1/2 cups icing/confectioners sugar.
This recipe comes from Boston Tea Parties - Recipes from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
A much loved and well used book. Back in the days when C started his job in a fine-art supplies company there were three members of staff and the boss, and I used to make a batch of cookies for them every week. By the time I joined the company there were six members of staff including a couple who were not too disciplined and the cookies didn't always last even a day, so at some stage I gave up making them, but by then I had worked my way through a considerable amount of recipes from Boston Tea Parties.


I'm starting my brief tour of Athens with a picture from our last day. We met relatives of C's sister-in-law and had a lovely time with them. They met us at the bus station and we went to where B works before they brought us back to their apartment. From up on the roof there was a great view across to the Acropolis!

I think we were lucky in that both times we were in Athens it was actually cloudy and overcast much of the time and consequently not too hot. It was such a mixture of old ruins in amongst all the buildings. The Parthenon itself is undergoing extensive restoration.

Parthenon

Temple of Athene Nike (I think)

Little Boxes...

...makes me think of the Pete Seeger song, but these are not at all ticky tacky, just very rich and chocolatey. I made an easy dinner for my sister, and put more effort into a prepare-ahead dessert. These used to be my dessert of choice on my birthday when I was growing up, although Mum used to make them with After Eights. In hindsight I wonder how on earth we managed to eat them - they would have been bigger, and these days I couldn't eat more than two After Eights in a sitting, never mind the cake and chocolate cream. And as my sister pointed out, she's sure we didn't used to have chopped pistachio either, just birthday candles.
The recipe comes from an old Family Circle Christmas magazine dating back, I think, to the early sixties. At least, we presume that Mum brought it with her when she moved here from Canada - she'd certainly never have got it here back then. I can remember doing some of the crafts from it, too. There are lovely string balls made by dipping coloured yarns in starch and wrapping them round balloons. Then when the starch is set, you burst the balloon and are left with a lovely lacy balloon shape. I remember we made those one Easter...

Saint-Honoré Chocolate Creams (Saint Honoré is the French patron saint of bakers and pastry chefs)
12 servings

Boxes:  4 squares unsweetened chocolate, 1 6 0z package semi-sweet chocolate pieces and 2 tblsp butter. (Given that we STILL can't get unsweetened (as in Bakers) chocolate here in the year 2010, no wonder my mother opted for After Eights back in the seventies!!)
Combine these ingredients and heat gently over hot water till melted. Line a cookie sheet with tin foil and spread the chocolate into a 13"x10" rectangle. When cool but not totally set, mark into 1 1/2" squares and then leave for several hours till set firm.

Filling: 1/2 cup butter, 3/4 cup sugar, 1 square unsweetened chocolate melted and cooled, 1 tsp vanilla, 2 eggs.
3 slices pound cake cut 3/4" thick.
Finely chopped pistachios.

For the filling, cream the butter till soft, and then add the sugar very slowly (take about 10 minutes) beating continuously. Mix in the cooled chocolate and vanilla. Add the eggs one at a time, beating for 4 or 5 minutes after each addition. Chill till firm. Although it starts out slightly granular because of the sugar, in the end it is ultra-smooth and rich and creamy. And I suppose not to be made if you think your local eggs might be contaminated with salmonella.

To assemble: cut 12 strips of double-thickness tin foil 1" high by about 7" long. Make a cardboard form 1 1/2" square and using paper clips to hold it, form the foil into square collars. Put on a board.
Cut the cake into squares a bit smaller than 1 3/4 inch, so that when you fit the chocolate around them, it will fit. Put a square of cake into each foil collar, and then carefully slip in the chocolate squares. Fill generously with the chocolate cream and sprinkle with nuts. Chill till serving time. To serve, unclip the paper-fasteners and remove the collars.

I went the whole hog and tried making a pound cake as I didn't think I'd ever made one before (well, I made a half-pound cake, as I didn't want too much left over), but I think if I make these again I'd make something lighter like a Genoese sponge.
We ate six on the night, my sister took a couple home in a doggy bag and we'll finish them off tomorrow.

Mixed Bag

The WT challenge on SCS this week was to use buttons. It was time to use the most beautiful button Lorraine sent in a package for my birthday. Vintage isn't my normal style, but the button seemed to call for it.

We had guests on Friday night as well as Monday. I couldn't remember how punctual M was, and he's been living abroad for nine years now so I was allowing that they might be delayed by traffic too, so I chose a low-maintenance, delay-tolerant  dinner. Ronald Johnson's Buttermilk Fried Chicken, with baked potatoes, a green salad and a carrot, orange and date salad, followed by Baileys Chocolate Chip icecream, chocolate sauce and meringues. I felt I had to do icecream - when we met up at the BBQ we were at on the Bank Holiday, he was reminiscing to his wife about a kiwi and passionfruit icecream I used to make, back in the days when he was still in college and this was highly exotic. I remember too the first time he invited us round for dinner. He asked was there anything we didn't like, to which C replied he didn't like pasta and he didn't really like chilli con carne (gosh, he's become a lot more tolerant over the years). M said that in one fell swoop that eliminated his student repertoire. I can't actually remember what he did give us - although I seem to recall profiteroles, perhaps.

Buttermilk Fried Chicken (Ronald Johnson, The American Table)
1 chicken jointed into 4 pieces ( I usually buy breast pieces on the bone)
buttermilk
1/4 cup finely chopped parsley
1 small onion, half a carrot, one stick celery, 1 bay leaf
seasoned flour
oil for frying

Cut the tips off the chicken wings and put in a pan with the carcase, neck and giblets. Add water, and the onion, carrot, celery and bay leaf and simmer for at least an hour. Drain and reserve stock.

Marinate the chicken in buttermilk to cover, with the chopped parsley, for several hours or overnight.
Lift the chicken pieces out of the buttermilk and straight away shake in seasoned flour till well covered.
Heat 1/2" vegetable oil over medium-high heat and fry the chicken till golden brown on both sides, two pieces at a time. Place in a ovenproof dish which will contain them all in one layer. Pour the buttermilk in so that it comes about halfway up the chicken pieces.
Cook, uncovered, for 1 1/2 hours at 300F, 150C, till tender and crisp on top. Remove the chicken pieces and keep warm.
Add some of the stock to the buttermilk in the cooking dish, then liquidise till smooth. Return to the heat and cook over medium heat adding more stock as necessary to get the consistency of thick cream.
He suggest serving this with hot biscuits - but I can imagine C turning his nose up at the idea - they are definitely not a European accompaniment to savoury dishes. He would expect them for morning coffee or an afternoon or high tea, not dinner!

I haven't seen the heron on the Liffey for a long time. But on Friday morning it was a very low tide and he was standing on the bank just below James Joyce bridge. Then he flew up river towards Heuston Station. I like these pictures as they are such a different setting to the usual park ones. You can see the seaweed in the first one, when he was on the mud bank at the James Joyce bridge. In the second I like all the ripples, even if they might make it a hard picture to look at if you had a headache! And the third one, although it's not a good exposure because all the light reflecting from a still patch of water made it too contrasty, I really like the arty feel to it with the burnt-out white "frame" round it.

Currently reading...

  
...The Garden in the Clouds by Anthony Woodward. I got it from the library the second last time I was there. Last time I went,  earlier this week, I discovered that they have 'upgraded' to self-service. Which is a pity, really; I always enjoyed the personal exchanges with a librarian. The system is still not fully bug-free, either. Four of my books wouldn't return via self-service and had to be returned manually. While I waited for that to happen, so I could take out more without my card overflowing, I let someone go ahead of me. Ignoring all on-screen instructions he put his card in for returns, and then nearly left without it. And I can tell already that The Garden in the Clouds won't work as a self-service return, it doesn't have the requisite magnetic insert.
Anyway, it's a delightful book, which will be going on my list of suitable gift books, and taking a place in my favourite gardening-related books along with Amanda Hesser's The Cook and The Gardener, and James Fenton's A Garden from a Hundred Packets of Seed. I was reading his chapter on bee-keeping on the bus on the way home from work today, and I laughed till I had tears in my eyes. It brought back a lot of memories of when we had a hive in the garden - the stickiness that he wrote about when harvesting the honey, the intoxicating smell, bees trying to get into the house...

We had this lamb dish over the Bank Holiday weekend. I don't know where my sister got her recipe, which she calls Jammy Chops. Mine originally came from an Australian Women's Weekly book, Best Ever Slimmers Recipes. I once worked for a very weight-conscious woman, whose kitchen was well furnished with books like that, and Rosemary Conley's Hip and Thigh Diet. I have it titled as Herbed Lamb Chops.

Herbed Lamb Chops
1 clove garlic, crushed
4 loin lamb chops
1 tsp cornflour / cornstarch
1 tblsp chopped fresh mint
pinch of dried or chopped fresh rosemary
1 tblsp mint jelly ( personally, if I didn't always have plenty of homemade mint jelly, I'd use redcurrant any day, rather than a commercial mint one)
1/2 tsp sugar
2 tsp vinegar - I usually use mint sauce for this, as like mint jelly, I always have a jar of homemade mint sauce in the fridge.

Lightly oil a pan, heat and fry the garlic and chops, till chops are cooked as preferred. Remove from pan and keep warm.
Mix all the sauce ingredients together, add to pan and stir till it has come to the boil and thickened. Return chops to pan and stir briefly.
As C likes wet rather than dry dishes, I usually add about half a cup of cold water to the sauce ingredients, so that it's a sauce rather than a glaze.

Where Does Time Go?

It's already Friday, and I haven't had time to size down my photos from Farmleigh. We're leaving work early today and heading up to Northern Ireland for the weekend, so it certainly won't get done in the next couple of days either. One thing we are going to do is change C's motorbike boots. One day last week he came home with wet feet! Or a wet foot - one was still dry. The boots are quite new - he only bought them in March, and in the summer he usually wears different ones anyone. But it just goes to show that it's the first drenching rain we've had on a weekday since he bought them! I made some delicious Cashew Brownies to bring with us. Now, I like rich, dark fudge-like brownies, (and chocolate cake) but C likes lighter cakey things, so he thought these were way nicer than a regular brownie. The recipe comes from Linda Burum's book Brownies, which has some wonderful luxury brownie recipes, as well as some "healthy" ones.

Cashew Nut Brownies

9" square metal pan, lined and greased.
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1 cup sifted flour, sifted again with 1/4 tsp each salt, baking powder and baking soda
2/3 cup butter at room temperature
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1 large egg

1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup light cream or milk
1 1/4 cups coarsely chopped roast unsalted cashews

Gently melt chocolate and let cool a bit.
Beat butter till soft, and then beat in the sugar in three parts, beating well after each addition.
Add the egg and beat till smooth.
Stir in the vanilla, milk and chocolate to mix thoroughly.
Fold in the flour mixture and 1 cup of the nuts.
Bake in an oven preheated to 350F for 25 -30 minutes, till the centre is just cooked.
Cool in the tin, then frost if required, sprinkling with remaining 1/4 cup of nuts) and cut into 20 or 24 brownies.

One of the suggested frostings was a coffee brandy buttercream which sounded lovely, but I wasn't sure it would stand up to a whole day in the car, even in a cool bag. So instead I made this one:

Fudge Frosting (enough for an 8" or 9" square tin)
1 ounce unsweetened chocolate
2 tblsp /  1 ounce unsalted butter
1 large egg yolk
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 cup powdered sugar (icing sugar)
1 tblsp milk or cream.

Melt butter and chocolate over a very low heat.
In a small bowl, mix egg yolk, vanilla, cream and sugar. Stir in chocolate mixture and blend till smooth. Let cool, and add a little more milk if it's too thick to spread.

When we holidayed in Brittany, C fell in love with the sweet crepes they make there - totally unlike what we get here. You can buy packs of them, like the one shown here - and we used to have them for breakfast. We picked up a couple of packs at the airport when we were over for the funeral - alas, all finished now. They also make a savoury one with buckwheat flour - these ones are often served with ham and a fried egg, or other savoury fillings. In the local restaurants and snack places, they are traditionally served with cider in a little earthenware bowl.Much lower alcohol content than our Irish cider, and delicious!
Again when we holidayed there, Pierre brought us to an old lady who used to make them for tourists - she'd pretty much retired by the time we visited, but as Pierre was a local, she was happy to oblige. I still remember her old-fashioned kitchen!
 For a couple of years one of the restaurants in the Tuilieries Gardens in Paris served Breton style crepes and both dry and sweet ciders in bowls, but then the franchise changed.

This is a large dinner plate - the crepes must be at least 12" diameter.

Staying Cool

The SCS challenge this week was Beat the Heat. Well, it's not quite so hot here as it has been, and it's been pretty rainy too, so I had to do a bit of lateral thinking on this one. As I had 3 egg-yolks in the fridge waiting to make icecream, that quickly gave me one photo. It was going to be vanilla, but C has requested rum and raisin - again....

 I make the custard base for my icecreams with 3 egg yolks and 3 ounces (just under half a cup) of sugar beaten together. Bring a half imperial pint (1 1/4 US cups) full fat milk to the boil with a bit of vanilla pod split open. Mix the milk and yolks together, and then stir over a low heat till it thickens. Chill, and then churn along with just under a half pint of cream  - a 250ml carton, or a US cup. With an icecream machine you don't need to whip the cream, because the churning adds a lot of volume. Before we had one I'd whip the cream and fold in in, and whisk a couple of times during freezing. Mostly we have vanilla from this recipe, but sometimes I add Baileys, chocolate chips and some homemade praline, and C's current favourite is rum and raisin. He was wondering would it not just be cheaper to throw the egg-yolks out - but who would want to do that!

My other picture is a fan - and it's terrible, I can't remember whether we got it in Barcelona or in Paris. I slightly think Barcelona, but Paris would be more fitting as I have displayed it on an original 1940's Dior New Look dress which was my mothers. I've worn it a few times to parties, but at this stage I'd need to drop a dress size if I wanted to. It had lovely cream satin cuffs and collar with black braid, but the satin has got very yellow with age.

Sweet Treats

We had a neighbour round for dinner last night. I had half a leg of lamb in the freezer. As we'd had the other half roast for our anniversary, and then had roast lamb a week later when we were out, I did a curried roast leg of lamb instead, along with a split pea dal, vegetable pilau, cucumber and mint raita and little mini naan breads. For a light dessert I made Strawberry Sorbet, with meringues. It was wonderfully creamy - C actually thought that I'd opted to use icecream rather than make the sorbet.
Strawberry Sorbet
I can't find where I sourced the recipe, but it was 500g strawberries puréed with 250 g sugar, and then 2 tsp balsamic vinegar added and a lightly beaten egg white. I added a bit of lemon juice too as it tasted overly sweet. But that may have been because - in an attempt to counteract some slightly under-ripe berries  by leaving them in the sunshine - I'd almost ended up with cooked strawberries, as Monday was the hottest, sunniest day for a long time.
That's just a bit over a pound of berries, and half their weight in sugar. We have an icecream maker, which certainly makes lovely smooth sorbets. But I used to make them without: just freeze the strawberry and sugar purée till almost set firm. Then put in a processor with the lightly beaten egg-white and blitz till slush and mixed. Return to freezer.

That little glass bowl came from my great grandmother. There used to be more gold rim around the edge - I can certainly remember it from when I used to be allowed to use them to make lemon soufflés in when I was young - from tying the collars around them I remember it quite clearly. I have five, although I am sure there must have been at least six at some stage.

Back to our anniversary: I'd done a big supermarket and butcher shop the previous Wednesday. Wednesday night C made an arrangement for us to go to friends for dinner on Friday. On Friday we were invited out for Sunday. So I had stewing beef sitting in the fridge that had to  be used, and no need for a big meal. I tried a recipe for lamb with mint and coriander that was very different to the Hyderabadi one I gave a recipe for a while back. That one was light and zesty and summery. This one was rich and spicy and aromatic. It reminded C of his favourite spicy tomato and apricot chutney. I'm not surprised - that has fennel seeds, vinegar and tomatoes, and this has aniseed,  vinegar and tomato. For me the whole point was that it needed marinating overnight in yoghurt, which gave me a day's grace to deal with the meat. And of course, I used beef instead of lamb, as that's what I had.

Lamb with Yoghurt, Mint and Coriander

1/4 pt  2/3 cup yoghurt
3 tblsp chopped fresh coriander/cilantro
2 tblsp chopped fresh mint
1 tsp each garam masala and ground roast cumin
1/2 tsp each ground mace, nutmeg, cayenne and turmeric.
18 oz diced lamb
3 tblsp oil or ghee
pinch of asafoetida - optional
1 tsp each mustard seeds and ground aniseed
1 chopped onion
2-4 cloves crushed garlic
1" ginger root finely chopped or grated
8 oz canned tomatoes
3 1/2 fluid oz  / 6 1/2 tblsp wine vinegar and the same of water.

Blend yoghurt and fresh herbs together to a smooth paste. Add the ground spices, and then put in a suitable dish for marinating the meat for several hours or overnight.
Heat the oil in a large pan and  fry the asafoetida, if using, for just a few seconds, and then add the mustard seeds and fry till they start popping. Add the aniseed and fry till browned. Add onion, garlic and ginger and fry till golden brown, reducing heat slightly. Remove the meat from the marinade and fry till lightly browned. Stir in the remaining marinade and continue cooking for five minutes or so till it's getting a bit dry. Add the tomatoes and cook again till the liquid is mostly absorbed. Add the vinegar and cook again till the liquid is absorbed. Add the water and simmer till meat is tender. C likes wet curries, so I added more water, as this made a very dry one. Serve garnished with with chopped fresh coriander and green chilli and a pinch of gara masala.

Mount Usher - part two

I think those bluebells almost look like glass!

The night we had dinner at home while we were staying in my aunt's we had chips. I couldn't empty the oil before we left, as it was still too hot. So we had the spicy fried chicken another day before I cleaned the fryer out. I wanted to make a sauce with it, and found this delicious recipe on cooksunited.co.uk. I reduced the garlic from their suggested amount, and probably used a bit more ginger. I can't see that I'll ever buy sweet chilli sauce again - I am sure that if I didn't have a lime, lemon would be an acceptable substitute.

Sweet Chilli Sauce 
60 gm / 1/4 cup sugar
 1 clove garlic
3 cm  / 1 1/2" piece ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
2 red chillies, seeded and roughly chopped
juice of 1 lime
1 tblsp each fish sauce (Nam Pla) and light soy sauce

Put the sugar in a heavy-based pan with 4 tblsp water, stir and heat gently till dissolved, then raise heat and boil till it's a caramel colour. While boiling, process the garlic, ginger, chillies and lime juice to a paste, then add in the soy and fish sauces. Remove caramel from heat and add the paste, being careful in case it splashes. Return to heat, stir till mixed and simmer for two minutes. Cool before serving.