Donegal Dinner

Lightly smoked salmon with asparagus, courgette rolls and mustard cream sauce

2019-11-12T13:48:00.002-08:00

Put double cream, white wine and some mustard to boil and reduce.
Use a peeler to take strips the length of the courgette. Sit them on a dry fryingpan for bout a minute, then roll them into coils.
Boil water and cook the asparagus. Refresh under cold water.
Cook lardons until crispy
Rub salmon with oil and pepper and grill until just done.
Grate cheese onto an oiled flat plate and grill until crispy.
Reheat veg under the grill.
Put the ricotta parcels in boiling water for two minutes.
Plate.

Monkfish Ragout

2019-06-13T14:37:00.000-07:00

I thought of this dish when I saw a fine monkfish tail on a fish counter and found new Jersey Royals in the veg section. Monkfish can be tricky, but it's truly excellent cooked this way. Just remember to remove the outer layers of grey 'film'. It peels back towards the tail quite nicely.

Ingredients:

1 monkfish tail
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
1 yellow pepper
olive oil
salt & freshly-ground black pepper
large glass of white vermouth
splash of tomato passata
Fresh green herb (I chose fennel leaves, but tarragon or even thyme would do)

Remove the monkfish from the bone by cutting down each side of the spine. Chop the spine into pieces and set to simmer gently with about 500 ml of water. Half the potatoes lengthwise and throw them into the stock pot, making sure they're under the surface of the water. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a wok and soften the onion for a few minutes without taking on any colour. Add the garlic and sliced yellow pepper. When softened a bit, add the vermouth and passata and give it a stir. The spuds should be nearly cooked, so rescue them from the stock pot and add to the sauce. Strain some of the monkfish stock onto the sauce and stir everything together. After a minute or two add the monkfish, cut into bite-sized pieces. Stir it all together, making sure to break a spud or two. Throw in the green herb and check salt and pepper. Add drops of lemon juice if required.

Serve with mayonnaise and french mustard.

Yum.

Transport of delight

2018-03-08T23:51:00.001-08:00

On very rare occasions something strange happens when I eat food: I can only describe it as 'being transported somewhere else'. I start to eat a dish and find some time later that I have eaten and been absolutely oblivious to time, people, sounds or anything else: the food has taken over my entire being. I can remember it happening when eating a few dishes in restaurants, some humble, some at the peaks of gastronomy, but I don't think I can remember it happening when I cooked something for myself. But yesterday it happened. I started to eat and then a short while after, I realised that I had been eating, but had been absolutely oblivious to everything else.

I started off making a dish I could describe as 'chilli prawn noodles', but that's the only concept I had in mind as I started to cook. I developed the recipe as I went along, and the result knocked my socks off. I'm not making any great claims to gastronomic pinnacles, but here it is, anyway:

I was cooking for myself, so the portion is for one. You can easily grow it to feed more people.

160g raw king prawns
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin
1 onion peeled, halved and cut into thin half-moons
2 cloves of garlic, peeled and smashed with the flat of a knife
Splash of Soy sauce
half a red chilli cut into rounds
one green chilli, cut into rounds
half a packet of stir fry vegetables (mine had cabbage, onions, edamame beans)
Third of a packet of bean sprouts
2/3 packet of fresh egg noodles
2 tablespoons of oil (I used arachide, but sunflower would be fine)
2 spring onions, cut into 3 cm. pieces

Put the oil in a wok and add the cumin and coriander. Fry the spices for a minute to release their aroma. Add the half-moons of onion and fry until soft, but not too coloured. Throw in the garlic and stir it in. Add the shredded stir-fry vegetables and the chillis and stir-fry for about 2 minutes, flipping them over regularly to make sure they're all cooked down a bit. Add the prawns and bean sprouts, stir-frying for about 2 more minutes, until the prawns go pink. Throw in the soy and spring onions. Stir for a few seconds. Add the noodles and stir to heat them through.

Eat and be transported.

Interlude is over

2017-02-09T09:37:00.001-08:00

I stopped writing this blog a few years ago due to appearing on the Irish Masterchef TV programme (I had to intensify my research and spent all my time creating and testing recipes, so had no time for blogging of any kind), and got out of the way of keeping it going.

Now it's back.

I have recently been baking bread. A lot of bread. And I have researched yeast, flours, recipes, kneading techniques, shaping, forming, proving and baking methods. I'm not too keen on fancy breads with lots of ingredients, so I mainly use just water, flour, yeast and salt, and maybe a little olive oil.

One of my most recent experiments was creating my own yeast (well, capturing it is more accurate) from the atmosphere and creating a 'starter' from that. Basically, you mix flour and water, then leave the bowl - covered with muslin - outside to capture airborne wild yeast spores. I left it outside for a couple of days (bringing it in at night) and waited a few days for bubbles to form. Once the bubbles started to appear I began a regime of feeding the starter (up to three times a day!) with fresh flour and water for around 10 days. This process of growing and strengthening the starter is very wasteful, with lots of surplus starter going on to the compost heap during this time. Once the starter is mature, however, it can be stored in the fridge and brought back to life over a couple of days before using a portion of it and then putting the 'mother' back in the fridge again. So it's really only the initial creation of the starter that's a problem. This process makes hard-core sourdough and results in bread with a thick chewy crust, a very open texture and great depth of flavour: quite excellent, and it's good to have done it, and it creates a benchmark. But not everybody has time or patience to go hard-core, so I have been experimenting with an intermediate technique whereby a starter is created using instant yeast and left overnight to mature a bit before using it as part of a more conventional process the next day. This results in an excellent loaf and I'll be describing the whole process soon.

I have been making home-made pizzas for many years now and I only recently bought some pizza stones. These ceramic disks are pre-heated in the oven and the pizza is constructed and then baked on top of them. The results are quite excellent, and I wouldn't think of making pizzas in any other way now. I also use them for baking other breads and rolls.

One thing that fascinates me about bread recipes is that each chef has their own technique for mixing, kneading, shaping and baking; each claiming that their way is the only way to do it. Some books explain the theory behind their techniques and certain nuggets of information keep reappearing, such as 'you need to knead for 15 minutes to strengthen the gluten'. There's no doubt that there's plenty of science behind these theories, and they consistently reappear, but I recently read about a no-knead technique for making pizzas, so decided to give it a go:

No-knead pizza dough

Ingredients:

1 sachet dried yeast

2 tsp olive oil

380g strong bread flour

10g salt

250 ml water

Method:

Combine yeast, flour, salt and olive oil in a bowl. Add water in stages, just bringing it all together. Leave for 15 minutes.

With a running tap, wet fingers then bring one edge of the dough to the middle with finger tips and press down. Repeat with 3 more corners. Do this 3 more times, wetting fingers as you go. Cover the bowl with clingfilm or a wet cloth and leave to rise until doubled in size.

It shouldn't work, but it does.

I have also used some leftover dough to make bread rolls and flatbreads, and I wouldn't trust it to make good stand-up boules or cottage loaves, but for pizzas it's very quick and easy.

Give it a try and let me know how it goes.

More potatoes

2012-04-02T11:34:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I get ideas out of the blue, and this is a typical example. I was intending to make a potato cake from mashed potatoes which are pressed into a hot, oiled, frying pan to brown on both sides, but just as I was getting ready to put them into the frying pan I thought "I wonder what would happen if I stirred an egg into these before I fry them?". So I did, and the result was a delightful, fluffy, light cake. They accompanied the Boeuf Bourguignon very nicely.

Ingredients

5 medium sized yellow potatoes, such as Rooster
1 egg, beaten
salt and freshly ground black pepper
oil to grease a non-stick frying pan (I used a wok)

Method

Peel the potatoes and cut into chunks. Put them into a pan of boiling, salted water and simmer until they are just tender to the point of a knife. Drain and then mash them, checking seasoning with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Oil a non-stick frying pan and put over a hot heat. Stir the beaten egg into the potato mixture and press the mixture into the frying pan, smoothing the top surface. Reduce the heat and allow the potato mixture to crisp and brown underneath (about 5 minutes). Put a plate over the frying pan and invert the pan so that the potato cake drops onto the plate. Slide the cake back into the pan so that the other side of the cake can crisp and brown for another 5 minutes. Slide or invert the pan again to put the cake onto a serving plate. Serve cut into wedges.

Potato cubes

2012-03-25T11:54:00.000-07:00

I made these to go with grilled Mackerel with tomatoes and capers, but they would go very well with chicken, or as part of a buffet.

Ingredients:

About a pound of yellow/waxy potatoes, like Roosters
A good glug of Olive oil
Splash of White wine
Salt & freshly ground black pepper
Clove of garlic

Method:

Peel the potatoes and cut into 2 cm. cubes. Slice the garlic very finely. Put everything into a frying pan over a medium heat (I used a non-stick wok) and stir to mix. Allow the wine to evaporate, stirring occasionally, then as the frying sound starts, let the edges of the potatoes crisp and turn them from time to time. When the potatoes are tender to the point of a knife, drain and serve hot.

These would probably be best made in portions no larger than indicated above, since you want every potato piece to be in contact with the oil at all times.

Amazingly tasty and easy to make, although you might have to dance a little at the end to stop the potatoes from breaking up.

Smoked salmon on spaetzle with asparagus and a mustard sauce

2012-02-25T02:56:00.000-08:00

I have been working on this one for quite some time, and I think it's now ready for human consumption.

(the measures are vague, but since I don't measure, anyway......)

Spaetzle is a pasta-type 'filler' from northern France/Switzerland/Germany, depending to who you talk to.

I made this for two people.

For the salmon:

2 lightly-smoked salmon fillets
2 tsp mustard with grains still in
small splash white vermouth
large splash double cream
1 tsp mustard

For the spaetzle:

100g flour
big pinch salt
1 egg
4 tbs water

For the asparagus:

Asparagus spears
boiling salted water

For the garnish, and as a sauce base:

Handful of pancetta cubes

Method:

Put the flour and salt into a bowl and break the egg in, stirring to mix. Slowly add the water, and beat for a couple of minutes until you have a smooth paste. Put the bowl into the fridge for 30 minutes to let the flour absorb the water. Coat the upper surface of the skinned salmon fillets with mustard and leave aside. Render the pancetta cubes slowly until they are just beginning to crisp and have given up most of their fat. Remove them with a slotted spoon, keeping their fat in the pan. The rest of the process should take between 10 and 15 minutes, so time accordingly. Drop the asparagus into boiling salted water for 5 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon, retaining the water, and keeping it at a rolling boil. Heat the plates in an oven and keep the asparagus warm. Pop the salmon under a hot grill. Don't bother to turn them: they're already cured, so you're just sealing the mustardy top. Reheat the pan with the pancetta oil and throw in the vermouth, letting it sizzle for a few seconds. Stir up any sticky residue from the lardons. Add the double cream and extra mustard, stirring for a few seconds. Reduce the heat and simmer slowly while finishing the spaetzle: slowly pour the paste through a large-holed sieve or a slotted spoon (I used a potato ricer with the large holes) into the boiling asparagus water. It will break up into little pieces and will separate and float as you stir. Remove with a slotted spoon, drain through a sieve, and divide between the plates. Put a salmon fillet on the spaetzle and dress the plates with the asparagus and the sauce and sprinkle over the pancetta cubes.

This is my kind of food.

Souflee tarts

2012-02-03T16:11:00.000-08:00

These were inspired by Raymond Blanc's current TV program: The very hungry Frenchman.

Essentially we are making a quiche, but the baked mixture is a souflee mix, rather than the conventional custard: the results are wonderfully light, and the flavours are what I can only describe as 'expanded'. I urge you to make these. Now.

The amounts mentioned assume we're making 2 tarts.

For each tart:

Pastry Base:

I used bought shortcrust pastry, but if you have the time, make your own.

Start the oven to pre-heat to 170 c.

Roll the pastry out (floured work surface, floured rolling pin) until it is 2-3 mm thick. Line a 15 cm. loose-base tart tin with the pastry, making sure the pastry is eased into the base and pinch/raise the edges to 2mm above the tin edge. Prick the base all over with a fork and refrigerate to relax the pastry.

Bake the tart shells until lightly browned, around 20 minutes.

Filling base:

Make a veloute by putting a walnut sized lump of butter into a pan over a gentle heat and then stir in an equal amount of white flour. Stir until the flour is just taking on a very light colour. Stir in milk until the mixture makes a thick sauce, beating quickly to avoid lumps. Stir in half a teaspoon of Dijon mustard. Off the heat, stir in two egg yolks (keep the whites for the next step). This makes 2 measures of filling, and is intended for two tarts.

In a clean bowl, beat three egg whites with a few drops of lemon juice until they form soft peaks. (reserve the last egg yolk for sealing the bases).

Filling 1)

Slice half a chicken breast and 4 mushrooms very thinly. Melt some butter in a pan and throw the chicken pieces in, stirring until they turn white (2 minutes or so). Add the mushrooms and stir for another minute. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Stir in half of the filling base.

Add a quarter of the egg whites and stir to mix. Fold in another quarter of the eggs whites very gently, just to amalgamate.

Filling 2)

Dice some lightly smoked salmon. Stir in half of the filling base.

Add a quarter of the egg whites and stir to mix. Fold in another quarter of the eggs whites very gently, just to amalgamate.

Pre-baking:

Heat oven to 180c.

Brush the baked tart bases with the remaining egg yolk and bake for 2 minutes to seal the base. Remove from the oven for filling.

Building the tarts:

Grate some Cheddar or Gruyere cheese over the base to lightly cover. Spread the filling over the base, piling slightly in the centre. Bake for 20 minutes.

Eat and smile.

Pork shoulder twice

2012-01-18T11:25:00.000-08:00

I think the shoulder is a very much ignored cut of pork, and I like to cook it from time to time in the following way:

Put a couple of teaspoons of fennel seeds in a mortar along with salt, pepper, a few cloves of garlic and a handful of parsley. Grind into a paste. Rub the paste all over the exposed surfaces of a pork shoulder (bone in) and leave in the refrigerator overnight.

Preheat the oven to as high as it will go and put the pork into the oven on a rack over a baking dish to blast it for 45 minutes. Then turn the heat down to 90c and let it roast for up to 4 hours, basting from time to time.

At the end the outside will be dark and crusty, but the inside will be wonderfully soft and moist, with the aniseed and garlic flavours permeated throughout. The shoulder is a difficult joint to slice cleanly, so it's sometimes just as handy to pull the pork away from the underlying bones. It is tender enough to do this very easily.

This way of handling shoulder of pork is based on an old Italian recipe where the prepared joint was taken to the local baker to be cooked in the cooling down oven after the day's baking had been done. I have noticed a distinct similarity between Italian cooking processes and Chinese cooking processes, (and the pulled pork is very reminiscent of crispy aromatic duck) so the following idea jumped into my head when I was wondering what to do with the leftovers:

Take any leftover pork off the bone, and shred very finely with a couple of forks. Beat 2 eggs in a bowl with some salt and pepper. Heat some oil in a wok (or a wide non-stick frying pan) and pour the egg in all at once, tilting the pan in all directions to guide the egg around the pan and make a very thin omelette. Remove from the heat just as the last bits are setting (the whole procedure should take less than a minute). Put the omelette on a plate and add a pile of the shredded pork to the middle. Add a sprinkling of chopped raw spring onions. Roll the omelette up into a tube, enclosing the pork and onion. Repeat the process for each person.

I'm going to name this dish: "Italian/Chinese crispy pork stuffed omelette"

Post holiday respite

2012-01-13T17:02:00.000-08:00

The Christmas/ New year break is always an excuse for us (ok, an excuse for me) to overindulge and eat and drink far too much. But given the historical importance of the passing of the shortest day, I'm sure that people have been exuberantly celebrating the return of the longer days for quite some time.

I got a few new cookbooks as presents (I'm sure there's a bit of background research that goes on to make sure that I don't already have the book(s) involved!) and I can thoroughly recommend:

"The Good Table" by Valentine Warner, who writes cookbooks like they should be written: every page contains something that I want to eat (and every aspiring cook should have this book as far as I'm concerned).

Food from Plenty, by Diana Hendry is a book with wonderful food, but I feel that the name of the book is completely wrong. It isn't a celebration of abundance, but it's a really worthwhile book about using what's best at the right time and at the right price. I fear the title might put many people off:

And although I have a very representative selection of the best of the new cookbooks to be published in the past 30 years, I managed to miss the first River Cottage book, which has just been re-issued in an updated version:

I genuinely promote those books without hesitation. One could happily use them for several years and not regret a day.

For relaxation (!) I'm reading "The Food of France" by Waverley Root, first published in 1958. This huge tome discusses the evolution of French food with regard to the political history and geography, and thoroughly covers ingredients, cooking techniques, trends and personalities. There are no recipes, but many dishes are described in the abstract, so I was able to 'reverse engineer' this excellent recipe tonight:

'Far'

Ingredients:

Greens, to include cabbage, spinach, chard, spring greens
Leeks and onions
Bacon (I used pancetta)
Eggs
Double cream

The quantities must be inexact, but the ratio of greens to sauce doesn't really matter all that much.

My method:

Chop up the greens and leeks/onions and simmer in water for about 30 minutes. Allow to cool and then squeeze to remove as much water as possible. Render the bacon/pancetta in oil or lard until just crisping and then add the chopped greens and simmer the lot very slowly for another 20 minutes stirring from time to time. Break 3 eggs into a bowl and add 250 ml. of cream. Whisk thoroughly. Put the egg and cream mixture into a pan and heat over the lowest possible heat, stirring all the time until it just thickens. Combine the greens and the cream mixture over a very low heat, just to make sure the amalgamation takes place. Season to taste with salt (careful!) and black pepper.

I served this with boiled new potatoes that I sliced and browned in a little lard.

Lard, bacon, eggs, cream....call an ambulance just in case!

Boeuf Bourguignon Pasties

2011-12-02T07:32:00.001-08:00

Yes. You read the title correctly.

I'm quite fond of a beef stew and I have many recipes that I rotate. Occasionally I go the whole way and make Boeuf Bourguignon. Here's my (long and complex) recipe:

For the marinade:

3 lbs. Cubed shoulder of beef
3 onions peeled and coarsely chopped
Bottle of decent red wine
Herb bouquet (thyme, parsley, bay)
2 peeled cloves of garlic, smashed
Splash of red wine vinegar
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Put everything into a large bowl. Stir to mix well and leave overnight in a cool place.

For the stew:

Preheat oven to 150c

Lardons of pancetta (or smoked bacon)
Sprinkling of white flour
Beef stock as required

Take the beef out of the bowl and pat dry on kitchen towels. Get some oil smoking hot in a large oven-proof casserole and render the pancetta until the bacon is beginning to crisp. Remove the bacon with a slotted spoon and reserve. Put a single layer of beef in the casserole and allow to brown on all sides. Remove the browned beef (I pile it into the upturned lid of the casserole) and repeat this browning process until all the beef has been done. Reduce the heat and add the onions and garlic from the marinade and allow them to soften and take colour for around 15 minutes. Sprinkle over the flour, stirring it in and allowing it to take some colour, too. Pour in the liquids from the marinade and stir to amalgamate completely. The sauce base should thicken slightly. Return the beef and bacon to the pan, stirring to mix thoroughly. Top up with enough stock to cover the beef. I usually add a little bit of tomato puree at this point, more for colour than anything else. Add the herb bouquet. Cover and bring to a simmer on top of the stove. Put the beef into the oven, regulating the heat so that the stew just bubbles gently. Leave to cook for 3 to 4 hours. About 1 hour before the stew is ready, prepare the garnish:

Garnish:

Handful of mushrooms, quartered
Skinned pearl or pickling onions (or even shallots)
Knob of butter

Melt the butter in a pan and fry the mushrooms until gently browned. Remove the mushrooms with a slotted spoon and stir them into the stew. Roll the onions around in the remaining butter until the surface takes on a little brown colour. Add the onions and any remaining juices to the stew. Stir the stew and continue to cook it in the oven for the remaining hour or so.

When the stew is ready, remove it from the oven and spoon off any obvious surface fat. Adjust seasoning with salt, pepper and drops of red wine vinegar. This should be served simply, with boiled potatoes or pasta and peas, green beans, or haricots.

Leftover Boef Bourgignon (what??), in common with many other stews, is better the second day. Or it can be used to make these amazing pasties:

For the pasties:

The beef should be a bit dryer having been stored overnight. That makes it the ideal filling for pastry.

Preheat oven to as high as it will go.

Roll out puff pastry into rectangles, put them on thin baking sheets, and brush the border all round with beaten egg. Pile the stew into one half of each rectangle, being sure to keep the edges clear. Fold the empty half over the filled half, pressing the edges tightly together. Fold the edges back on themselves in crimps to ensure a tight seal. Press down along the seal with the back of a fork to make the seal look good. Cut a couple of small slits in the top of the pasties to allow steam to escape. Brush the pasties with the rest of the beaten egg and put into the oven until the pastry is well-risen and nicely coloured. I served these with ratatouille on the side last week.

Talk about the sublime to the ridiculous.

Chicken and chicken

2011-11-23T18:07:00.001-08:00

This dish was inspired by Masterchef - the Professionals currently being shown on BBC2.

Warning! This recipe is not intended for absolute beginners.

The overall intention is to present a high quality chicken breast with an associated chicken boudin blanc on a pea puree with fondant potatoes and a shallot jus.

For two people:

2 chicken breasts of the best possible quality (free-range, corn-fed would be a start)
rasher of pancetta
4 potatoes
Fresh peas
Double cream
Tarragon
Shallot
Glass of white wine

For the Boudin blanc:

Finely chop the pancetta and render its fat very gently in a saucepan. Finely sliver the skin from one of the chicken breasts and fry it with the rendered bacon until crisped. Chop the skinned chicken breast and put into a blender. Add the fried pancetta and chicken skin, a sprinkle of tarragon and double cream. Whizz until the contents make a stiff paste, adjusting texture with the cream. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Oil a sheet of clingfilm and make a sausage shape of the chicken paste. Roll the clingfilm tightly around the sausage, enclosing it completely. Wrap this sausage in a layer of baking foil, making sure the edges are sealed. Refrigerate for 30 minutes to set.

For the fondant potatoes:

Preheat oven to 120C.

Peel the potatoes and cut each potato into two 'pucks' with flat top and bottom. Brown both flat surfaces gently in butter. Place the potatoes in an oven-proof dish and pour in boiling water to half-cover them. Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes, testing doneness by piercing with a skewer or the point of a sharp knife.

For the peas:

Warm the peas in boiling water for 2 minutes. Blitz in a blender with a splash of double cream. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Poach the foil-wrapped boudin in simmering water for 15 minutes. Remove and allow to cool a little.

For the chicken breast:

Grill the other chicken breast under a hot grill, starting with the skin side uppermost and turning 4 times in 15 minutes. Remove from the heat the instant the chicken is done (poke it with your fingers and you will know when the texture changes from springy to firm - a matter of perhaps 20 seconds.)

Let the chicken breast rest for 5 minutes while you prepare the sauce: finely chop a shallot and brown it gently in the chicken grilling pan, scraping up all the juices. Add a glass of white wine and reduce until brown and sticky. Swirl in some butter to glaze.

Slice the chicken breast thickly and place it on a bed of pea puree. Place the sliced boudin and fondant potatoes around and pour over the chicken/wine/shallot reduction.

Timings are critical here, and the boudin is technically difficult. But the result is quite wonderful if you can pull it all together.

A journey through my books

2011-11-21T06:33:00.001-08:00

My cookbook collection started in 1973 when I bought Marguerite Patten's "Perfect Cooking". I used that for a year or so and it taught me all the basic techniques using simple ingredients: my journey had begun. Soon after that I bought a few Penguin paperbacks and then discovered "Mastering the art of French cookery" (or 'Mastering' as I call it) as I mentioned before.

I have always been a keen book collector, so my cook book collection began to grow arms and legs as I added older first editions and rare books to my collection. I began to cover the globe, buying cookbooks on Chinese, Persian, Alaskan, Thai, Tibetan, South American: food from everywhere and all times, really. I began to move backwards in time, getting hold of 19th century and eventually 18th century originals. I bought most of the cookbook bibliographies, so that I could find out what books to search for.

Cookbooks are an excellent reflection of the time that they were written in: they are constrained by fashion, availability of ingredients, transport and equipment: some of the earliest cookbooks contain a list of places where they could be bought.

Here is the frontis from my oldest cookbook by Hannah Glasse:

Frontispiece from Hannah Glasse, 1755

As you can see, the book was available from china shops and inns in addition to other named locations. This is the major cookbook of the 18th century, written by a lady who ran off with a soldier. She certainly knew how to write. Take particular note of chapter 22, which contains "A certain cure for the bite of a mad dog". Amazingly enough, we still don't have a "certain cure" for rabies.

In my earliest cookbooks, one of the stand-out features is the absence of foods from the New World. No potatoes, tomatoes, capsicums, maize, chillies or aubergines. I would very much like to see an Italian cookbook of the same time, since we always connect (perhaps not entirely correctly) Italian food with tomatoes. A Scottish cookbook from 1845 has potatoes, but includes a recipe for 'imitation tomato sauce' made from roasted apples coloured with turmeric. Tomatoes were originally shunned because they were widely thought to be poisonous for a long time after their introduction (I was certainly allergic to them until my early teens). I have a few American cookbooks from the 18th century, and these do contain recipes ('receipts') which use the new ingredients, so a great upheaval occurred in worldwide cookery in that 100 years.

Adoption of foods from other cultures took place very slowly, usually depending on mass migrations to enable foreign cuisines to gain acceptance. A typical example of this is the arrival of chinese recipes in english. This took place in the USA in the late 1800's, but the earliest chinese cookbook printed in England dates from 1922. One of the american books on chinese cookery contains the strangest method of measuring I have ever found. It doesn't measure ingredients by weight or by volume (a big american trend), but by price: "3 cents worth of five-spice powder". That book was out of date the day it was printed.

Another feature of more modern cookbooks is the style of images and printing:

This book shouts "1950's":

Esquire party book from 1957

And this is clearly late 60's early 70's:

Casserole cookery from 1969

The mention of "male-slanted food" also shows that what was was once acceptable would no longer be marketable. (I do have other cookbooks from southern USA in the 1950's and 1960's that would probably get me prosecuted if I printed even the back-page precis here.)

Stylistically, it's interesting to note that books from the southern hemisphere seem to reflect the styles of the previous decade from the northern hemisphere.

So cookbooks tell us so much more about society than just food and recipes.

One final nuance for this foray into my cookcook collection (there will be many more) is the political perspective. I have a wonderful French cookbook from 1856 with a Russian spine-stamp on it. This book is of the highest quality (the woodcut diagrams alone would take months to produce, sample below):

Focus on the quality, not the subject

So the book clearly went from France to Russia in the latter half of the 19th century. Given its excellent condition, I think that perhaps it rather went 'out of fashion' and was hidden away somewhere until it was discovered and sent back westwards. The stamp shown below is inside the rear cover. If anyone can read Cyrillic, then perhaps we can understand a little more of its history.

(I do hope it doesn't say "Remaindered, 5 roubles".)

Late edit: I'm told that the label says "Writer's stall, price 6 roubles". I was close.

Pig, potatoes and prunes

2011-11-13T14:13:00.001-08:00

Mustard Pork chops with fondant potatoes, prunes and peas

This is yet another dish inspired by the contents of my fridge.

Two very thick (double rib) pork loin chops
Dijon mustard
Half a dozen prunes
Dash of double cream
4 medium sized potatoes
Handful of peas

For the fondant potatoes:

Preheat oven to 120C.

Peel the potatoes and cut each potato into two 'pucks' with flat top and bottom. Brown both flat surfaces gently in butter. Place the potatoes in an oven-proof dish and pour in boiling water to half-cover them. Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes, testing doneness by piercing with a skewer or the point of a sharp knife.

For the pork chops:

Smear the cut surfaces of the chops with the mustard: the more the merrier. Grind some black pepper over the mustardy surface. Put them in a grill pan under a grill at the highest heat, turning once when the surface is well coloured and bubbling, perhaps 15 minutes a side.

Put the prunes in a small pan and throw in a splash of Armagnac, (or water if you don't have any Armagnac). heat through for a few minutes.

Remove the chops from the grill pan and let them rest on a plate.

Pick out the prunes and add the peas to the liquor and let them heat.

For the sauce:

Add the cream and prune/pea juices to the grill pan. Stir well to deglaze and check seasoning.

Plate by alternating the potatoes and prunes as a garnish round the chops and peas. Wet the chops with the sauce.

This is another dish where the flavours are exchanged and intermingled as the cooking process proceeds.

Seriously good seafood

2011-11-11T14:40:00.001-08:00

'Masterchef, the professionals' is currently showing on BBC 2, and that always gets my imagination going. I half-designed a dish as I was shopping and it was finalised (as usual) during the preparation and cooking.

The dish could appear on a menu as 'Pan fried cod with crab cakes and asparagus'.

First, I prepared the crab cakes:

Ingredients:

100g cooked white crabmeat
1.5 tbsp mayonnaise
1 spring onion , finely chopped
1 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley
1 egg , beaten
2 handfuls fresh breadcrumbs

Mix the crab, mayo, onion and parsley. Divide into 10, shape into balls (this is messy!), then dip each portion in the egg and coat in breadcrumbs. Firm up in the freezer for 30 minutes.

Prepare the sauce and asparagus: peel the bottom half of each asparagus stalk and simmer them whole, removing them from the water before they are soft. Cut the stalks in half, put the tips aside and put the bases in a blender cup. In the meantime, gently soften a finely diced shallot in butter and then add a glass of white wine. Allow to bubble and add a little fish stock/juice from the asparagus/juice from the crab meat with a good dash of double cream and some chopped tarragon. Put this mix into the blender with the asparagus bases and whizz until smooth. Check for seasoning and put aside.

Heat a knob of butter in a non-stick frying pan. Fry the crab cakes in batches until golden and remove to a side dish. Keep warm along with the plates which will be used for serving.

In the same pan that was used for the crab cakes, put the cod fillets in to brown, about 30 seconds a side.

Plate by pouring sauce on each plate, put the cod in the centre, add a few crab cakes round the edges, strew the asparagus tips over the whole thing and serve with much panache.

It took an hour from start to finish to prepare and it's one of the few dishes that I have been satisfied with at attempt number one.

Food with a pulse

2011-11-09T02:49:00.000-08:00

I saw a ham hock for sale and immediately got this idea for a lentil/bean/ham/pork soup/stew.

First step was to pull all the meat from the bone, leaving it in bite-sized pieces. I then simmered the bones and rind for an hour or so to get a salty, hammy stock. Lentils don't soften properly if you cook them in salted water, so I cooked half a packet of red lentils in fresh water until they were completely mushed and had absorbed all the water. In the meantime, I peeled and quartered some potatoes and simmered them in the ham stock for a few minutes to absorb the flavour - I didn't want them to soften very much, so took them out to drain. A few remnants of some pancetta lardons were put into a large iron casserole to render and I cut some smoked pork sausages into chunks and browned them in the casserole. Then I threw in two sliced onions and softened them gently along with the meats. I added the drained potatoes and stirred around to coat them with the contents of the casserole. The stock, ham pieces, a handful of chopped parsley, a large grind of black pepper, a squirt of tomato puree and the lentils followed, and the contents were stirred and cooked over a very gentle heat for about 20 minutes, stirring frequently and keeping the mix liquid by adding a little water when necessary. I then threw in a can of drained butter beans and let it all bubble for a few minutes more.

Eat with a spoon and fork.

This dish demonstrates a technique that I often use: mixing and returning flavours between ingredients to maximise and deepen the flavours. The whole thing could be made much more simply by just adding all the ingredients together and simmering, but the result wouldn't be nearly as good. The timing of adding the beans also makes sure that there are different textures in the finished dish: the crunchy lardons, the soft lentils, softening potatoes and the beans just beginning to crack. Absolutely delicious, and just great for a very cold evening.

Eggs for dinner

2011-11-07T10:07:00.000-08:00

In July I took the plunge and got a set of hens (well, the girls bought them for my birthday). I got a coop, a large 40 sq. m. run and 4 hybrid laying hens. The hens were described as 'point of lay pullets', which means 'they haven't laid any eggs yet, but will soon'. As an aside, as we were leaving, the supplier said "Oh yes, and they lay blue eggs. Well, mostly blue".

So there I was with 4 hybrid mouths to feed, and no idea what to do with them. I asked around locally (we live in a very rural location, so there's lots of local expertise) and bought a sack of 'layers pellets', which provide all the basic nutrition required for hens that are being kept for eggs. The coop is enclosed at night to keep out foxes and mink, and the run is over 2m. high, to keep the hens inside the run during the day (or so I thought).

Here are the 4 hens and the coop and part of the run:

Chicken run and coop with 4 hybrid hens

And here's one of the more inquisitive ladies:

Hybrid hen watching me closely to see if I have any titbits

Notice that the comb on this hen is bright red, which means that she's in laying condition, and is either laying eggs, or will be very soon.

The coop is large enough for 7-8 birds, so after a couple of weeks I decided to extend my collection a little and hunted around for information on which breed(s) to get. I wanted to act quickly, because it can be difficult to introduce new hens to an established group. Hens have a number of characteristics that depend on breed, so the first thing I did was to decide what characteristics I wanted. The original hybrids were quite quiet, often staying in the coop for extended periods of time, so I wanted to get more outgoing hens for the second group. I also have no (current) intention to breed, so I didn't want a broody type (hens stop laying when they go broody). I also wanted hens that laid brown eggs, simply because I was already anticipating blue ones, and I wanted a spread of colours. Finally, I decided to get a specific breed as opposed to more hybrids, simply because some of the heritage breeds look so good (and I didn't want those 'brown hens' that everyone else seems to have). I searched around and bought this book, which goes through the major breeds and outlines their various qualities:

I got it for 7 euros, and it's money really well spent.

I came up with a shortlist of Marans (a french breed), Rhode Island Reds (american) and Barnevelders (a dutch breed) with the possibility of Leghorns or Spanish Black - both of which lay white eggs - and went off to see what the supplier had in stock. (I also wanted to make sure that the incoming hens were just slightly younger than my four existing hybrids, so that they would have a chance of integrating peacefully.)

I very quickly liked the look of the Barnevelders, and got 3 of those:

The three Barnevelder pullets

So here is the current flock of seven hens, with the three black Barnies at the back:

The magnificent seven

All four of the original hybrids are now laying, three of which lay blue eggs, with one laying a dusky pink egg:

6 fresh eggs

I think it's wonderful to have REALLY fresh eggs available as and when I want them. They're excellent fried, poached or boiled, but make disappointing omelettes (I have since read that eggs used for omelettes need to be a little older, and that eggs bought in supermarkets are already 4 weeks old when we get them). It's also good to know exactly what the hens are feeding on: I buy organic pellets and the hens get leftover veggies from the garden along with whatever they manage to forage from the run.

The bottom of the coop pulls out for cleaning and the waste (droppings, feathers, straw ejected from the nesting boxes) goes into the compost, which I think makes for a very satisfactory cycle in terms of the vegetable plot.

I recently bought this excellent book of egg recipes written by the master himself:

Here's a recipe that makes unusual use of an egg yolk:

Risotto with Lemon

Ingredients:

Butter and olive oil for frying.

Minced onion

Carnaroli or Arborio or risotto rice

3 times rice volume of stock (I use home-made chicken stock)

Rosemary

1 lemon, zested and juiced

1 egg yolk

Parmesan cheese

Cream

Method:

Melt butter and oil in a large pan, and soften the minced onion. Add the rice and stir around to coat in the oil. Add the stock a ladleful at a time, stirring furiously until it is absorbed. Repeat until the rice is swollen and soft. (maybe 20 minutes). Mix a pinch of rosemary and the lemon zest, adding them about 10 minutes into the cooking.

Combine egg yolk, half the lemon juice, parmesan and cream and plenty black pepper.

When the rice is ready, stir in the egg and cheese mixture and a knob of butter. Taste for salt and lemon.

Over the top

2011-11-07T10:05:00.000-08:00

When my girls come back to stay, I always like to cook a lot of interesting meals so that I can show off my skills (and feed them up a bit).

Here's one of the dishes I made last week:

(I suppose I should mention here that I weigh and measure nothing. I don't think that measures are particularly useful, other than being a rough guide. For example, you might add more tomatoes than I did. That will make it more 'tomatoey', but it won't make it wrong. The same applies to seasonings e.g. salt. The correct amount of salt is the correct amount of salt, found by TASTING. It won't be a pinch or a teaspoon, but it will be the correct amount.)

Grilled lemon poussins with tomato-stuffed peppers, braised lettuce with peas, chasseur sauce and home-made focaccia.

I made this for 6:

Poussins

Cut the poussins in half along the breast and backbone. Line a grill pan with foil. Squeeze some lemon juice over the halves, season with salt and black pepper, drizzle with a little olive oil and grill on a rack under a hot grill, turning every 5 minutes until done. Add squeezes of lemon at each turn, basting with some of the pan juices. Check for doneness by piercing the top of the thighs with the point of a knife. The juices will run yellow when the poussin is ready. Add a little water to the contents of the foil, scrape the contents of the foil into a small pan and skim off as much fat as possible. When you plate up the poussins, spoon a little of the pan juices onto them.

Stuffed peppers

Cut each pepper in half from top to bottom. Scoop out seeds and white pith. Cut cherry tomatoes in half from top to bottom and pack them into the peppers, cut side up, until the peppers are packed full. Drizzle over olive oil, salt and black pepper with some strips of fresh basil. Bake in a 160 Celsius oven until the peppers are softening and the tomatoes take on some colour.

Braised lettuce with peas

Cut a romaine lettuce into large chunks and put into a pan containing a knob of butter, a handful of peas (fresh or frozen) and a splash of water. Heat gently for a couple of minutes until the lettuce begins to wilt. Remove from the heat.

Chasseur sauce

Finely slice an onion and soften it in olive oil over a medium-low heat. Add strips or chunks of pancetta (italian bacon) and stir for a minute or so to release the fats from the bacon. Add some finely sliced mushrooms and stir to soften slightly. Add a glass of white wine (I used Sauvignon blanc) and some tomato puree or passata. Season with black pepper. Allow to bubble for 20 minutes or so and then add some fresh basil leaves.

Focaccia

I used a variant of Paul Hollywood's recipe, which is very demanding in terms of bread-making skills. Basically, the dough is extremely sticky and cannot be handled safely at any point in the process. The resultant loaves, however, are extraordinarily light and contain both large and small bubbles: the sign of a good focaccia.

Ingredients

500g/1lb 2oz strong white bread flour
2 tsp salt
2 sachets dried easy blend yeast
2 tbsp olive oil
400ml/14fl oz cold water
olive oil, for drizzling
rough sea salt
rosemary

Preparation method

1. Turn off your phone (your hands are going to be extremely sticky for a while).
2. Place the flour, salt, yeast, olive oil and 300ml/10½ fl oz of the water into a large bowl, keeping the salt as far away from the yeast as possible at the start. Gently stir with your hands to form a dough then knead the dough in the bowl for five minutes, gradually adding the remaining water.
3. Stretch the dough by hand in the bowl, tuck the sides into the centre, turn the bowl a little and repeat the process for about five minutes.
4. Tip (pour!) the dough onto an oiled work surface and continue kneading with oiled hands for five more minutes. Return the dough to the bowl, cover with clingfilm and leave to rise until doubled in size.
5. Line two large baking sheets with oiled greaseproof paper. Tip the dough out of the bowl and divide into two portions using a large knife. Flatten each portion onto a baking sheet with oiled hands, pushing to the corners, then leave to prove for one hour.
6. Preheat the oven to 220 Celsius. Drizzle the loaves with oil, sprinkle with rough sea salt and some rosemary then bake in the oven for 20 minutes, turning over after 15 minutes to cook the base.

When cooked, drizzle with a little more olive oil and serve hot.

In terms of timing, start the bread first. The peppers can be prepared ahead of time and put into the oven about 20 minutes ahead of the focaccia. Allow 30 minutes for cutting and cooking the poussins. The sauce could be prepared ahead of time or made while the bread is baking. The lettuce and peas take only 5 minutes.

That's the kind of food that makes me giggle when I eat it.

Definitely not for dinner

2011-10-18T01:07:00.000-07:00

I went on a fungal foray to Ards forest on Sunday (yes, this IS my food blog, the wildlife one goes into much more detail about the foray and the findings) and found a good helping of Hedgehog Mushrooms for dinner. Hedgehogs are one of the few fungi that are both safe to eat and easy to identify, so I feel safe in recommending them.

Here's a shot of the underside, showing the spines which give it its common name:

Underside of Hedgehog Mushroom, showing spines

There are two varieties, one with white spines and another with orange spines. Both are safe (and good!) to eat.

Just round the corner, however, I spotted this specimen of the Death Cap, which I'm showing here in order to make sure you DON'T eat it by mistake:

The deadly Amanita phalloides, or Death Cap

The Death Cap (the name's a good clue) is the most deadly of fungi, causing death by liver and kidney failure within 72 hours. There is no known antidote.

Here's an excellent general-purpose reference for fungi:

I have been using this book for perhaps 10 years now (it was recently updated), and I thoroughly recommend it.

Moving on, here's a brilliant chicken dish I made over the weekend:

Ingredients

For the marinade: 1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp smoked paprika (pimenton)

1 garlic clove, peeled

1 tbsp tomato purée

1 tbsp red wine vinegar

2 tbsp olive oil
For the chicken stew: 8 chicken thighs, skinned and boned

2 tbsp olive oil

2 onions, thinly sliced

400g/14oz butternut squash, peeled and cut into bite-sized chunks

1 x 400g/14oz tin chopped tomatoes

250ml/9fl oz chicken stock

1 lime, juice only

Method

For the marinade, place all the marinade ingredients into a food processor and blitz to a smooth paste.

Slash the chicken thighs several times then place into a bowl with half of the marinade and mix until well combined. Marinate in the fridge for at least two hours, or overnight.

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.

Heat the olive oil in a flameproof casserole until hot, add the chicken thighs and fry for 3 - 4 minutes, turning regularly, or until browned all over. Remove the chicken thighs from the pan and set aside.

Reduce the heat to medium, add the onions to the pan and fry for 3 - 4 minutes, until just softened.

Add the remainder of the marinade and the tinned tomatoes. Stir for one minute, then add the squash and stir until coated in the sauce. Add stock and bring to the boil. Allow it to bubble for a minute or two.

Return the chicken to the pan and bring back to a simmer. Cover the pan.

Place in the oven and cook for 45 - 55 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through and tender and the sauce is slightly reduced. Stir in the lime juice and season to taste with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

The sweetness of the squash contrasts wonderfully with the lime and the spices in the marinade.

Books that changed my life

2011-09-30T02:32:00.000-07:00

My cookbook collection goes back some 300 years, and I love every book. I started off with Perfect Cooking by Marguerite Patten, and then moved on to the Penguin book of Cordon Bleu Cooking, along with other assorted Penguin books. Then I bought Asian Cookbook by Charmaine Solomon, which introduced me to food and ingredients from all over Asia. I still use that one quite regularly: it was recently re-published thanks to Clarissa Dickson-Wright, and I recommend it without reservation. Purely as a result of book acquisitions, my early cooking efforts were mostly guided by French and Asian influences, so I made an effort to buy books that covered new countries and cuisines, starting with Italian and Spanish and then moving further afield through the Middle East on to places like Alaska and Tibet. I also began to follow particular authors including Elizabeth David, Marcella Hazan, Arto der Haroutunian, Escoffier, Keith Floyd, Jane Grigson, Edouard de Pomiane, and I plan to discuss their influences on my cooking in blog posts very soon.

Then I discovered Mastering the Art of French Cooking, volumes I and II, by Julia Child et al. This massive work changed my cooking life completely, and I still make reference to them on a regular basis (in fact I have two copies of each book, one pair in reserve for when the originals fall to pieces). In my opinion, these books are the finest work of literature in the English language. I give them as presents for birthdays, weddings, Christmas, anniversaries, and I cannot recommend them highly enough. Whilst they are primarily focussed on French ingredients and recipes, the flavours, techniques, tools and utensils are generally applicable to any style of cooking, and I urge you to buy them now. In passing, I'll mention that these books were the inspiration for the recent film 'Julie and Julia', which was the film of a blog of the books, so I suppose this is a blog about the film of the blog of the books.

Here's another of my recipes:

Ingredients:

Small aubergines (about 10 cm. long: get them from Asian stores), cut in half from top to bottom
1 spring onion, finely chopped
1 red chilli, very finely chopped
1 can white crab meat, drained (prefer fresh crab if you can get it!)
mayonnaise

Method:

Preheat oven to 180.

Put the halved aubergines on a baking tray, cut side up. Sprinkle with a little olive oil and roast to soften for 20 minutes. Meanwhile, fry the onion and chilli gently in olive oil until soft. Allow to cool. Remove the aubergines from the oven and allow to cool slightly. Scoop out the flesh from the aubergines, being careful to leave the skins whole. Mix the aubergine pulp, mayonnaise and crabmeat to form a stiff mixture. Spoon this mixture over the aubergines. Sprinkle the onion/chilli mixture over the crab mixture and heat the lot under a hot grill for a minute or two.

I can eat 10 of these in one sitting.

Here we go

2011-09-27T15:26:00.000-07:00

Some of you will be familiar with my wildlife blog, and some of you will know about my obsession with food. Some will know neither; few will know both. Everyone is welcome.

I have been cooking now for 38 years and have amassed in that time a collection of around 2000 cookbooks. I'm a bit of a book hoarder, and when two of my hobbies collide, then things can get a bit out of hand. Everything about food enthralls me, from ingredients to cooking techniques, through books to entertaining, and growing my own vegetables and keeping hens. The history of food is also fascinating, and my collection of cookbooks has enabled me to understand the migration of ingredients in the relatively short time-scale since the new world was opened up to us.

I intend to share my recipes, recipes that I have found, book reviews, bibliographies, equipment, gadgets, cooking techniques, biographies, growing and foraging hints and tips: in short, everything and anything to do with food and cooking.

Oh yes, and I like making bread.

Here's something I made last week:

Stuffed Peppers

Ingredients:

8 Small (thumb-sized) red/yellow/orange peppers, top removed
1 bulb fennel, chopped finely
1 spring onion, chopped finely
1 anchovy fillet, finely shredded
olive oil
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method:

Preheat oven to 180c.

Heat the oil in a pan and add the fennel, onion and anchovy. Allow to soften over a gentle heat. Stir in black pepper and salt, if required (taste it to find out!). Pack the stuffing into the peppers, sharing it equally. Lay the stuffed peppers on a baking sheet and pop into the oven for 30 minutes.