waffle with syrup

Feel like a gooseberry?

2006-08-17T22:35:00.000Z

The time for making the most of British summer fruit will soon come to a close...

Deceptively unprickly, the gooseberry is not the easiest fruit to come by, unless you happen to have a bush in your garden, have a good farmers market nearby or frequent a really well-stocked supermarket. We've just been graced with a shiny new Waitrose full of esoteric fruit and veg, and lo and behold, their plumply English gooseberries were going cheap (as usually happens when fruit is seasonal), so meandering through the shop in a food-daze, I bought some without really thinking what I was going to do with them.

Health-wise, this somewhat odd looking green fruit has a relatively high vitamin C content packed within its taut flesh, which supposedly (unable to do my own titration test here, I can only go on what I have read) does not diminish during the cooking process, as it would with most other fruits and vegetables. Handy for our small stripy friends then, since they (like other berries in their family - blackcurrants, redcurrants and whitecurrants) need to be cooked in some kind of manner before consumption - red dessert gooseberries being the exception.

Given that the weather was not permitting hot desserts at the time I thought up this dish, and that a gooseberry fool would just be yawnsome, it occurred to me that the tart tingle of a rivulet of green running through a cool, sweet vanilla ice cream could be just the thing to refresh oneself in the summer heat. But rather than just make the puree and serve it atop a scoop, the idea of the fruit mingling sourly in with the custardy ice cream appealed to me. Thus the Gooseberry Ripple was born.

I made a puree out of the entire punnet, but you only really need a few tablespoons for the recipe. You could therefore make a very small amount (say 100g gooseberries and 1 and 1⁄2 tbsp sugar) but it's pretty easy to make up a batch and then use it in a variety of things - sandwiching sponge cakes or meringues alongside a layer of cream/mascarpone, spooned over yoghurt for breakfast, or turn it into a sorbet in itself. Or a gooseberry fool - if you really must.

Gooseberry Ripple Ice Cream

For the puree:

450g gooseberries, washed, topped and tailed
1 tbsp water
50g sugar
2 tbsp elderflower cordial

For the ice cream:

284ml carton of double cream (proper stuff - no Elmlea or half-fat rubbish)
150ml full cream organic milk
3 free range egg yolks
50g unrefined caster sugar (you can easily make this - or icing sugar - by grinding down unrefined granulated sugar in a blender or Bamix grinding mill)
vanilla extract

If you are doing this the luddite way (like myself) make the ice cream first and then cook the puree whilst its freezing. If you're making it in a sorbetier then you'll probably want to try and make the puree first, or at the same time.

Puree:
Place the gooseberries in a heavy bottom saucepan along with the water, set on a medium high heat and cover, shaking the pan occasionally. Once the gooseberries have boiled, broken down and look pulpy, add the sugar, turn the heat down a little to a slow simmer, stir occasionally and reduce the fruit down for about 10 minutes or so until saucy. Once you take it off the heat, stir in the elderflower cordial (which is optional - don't buy any especially, although mixed with sparkling water it does form an aspirational Summer in a glass). Leave to cool a little and then pulverize with a blender until smooth, to make a thickly opaque puree. I don't care much for sieving things, but the cheffy perfectionists among you may want to strain the mixture to remove the seeds. I've specified such a small amount of sugar here because the ice cream is so very sweet, that the gooseberries provide a slightly sour and much needed contrast against it. If you make the fruit as sweet as say, a jam would be, then you may find the resulting ice cream too sickly.

Ice cream:
I've been put off making ice cream and for no good reason. The thought of making any variety of custard-based thing used to spook me. I have no idea why - maybe the horror stories of disastrous splitting, the extravagance of egg yolk usage coming from a frugal background. I can't really fathom it. Now, I've realised just how simple it is, how you really have to be quite, quite inept to mess it up and how easy it is to freeze the spare egg whites until you have enough to make a decent crop of meringues.

So: Put the cream and milk in a saucepan (or one of those nifty, wide Pyrex jugs where you can measure the ingredients, put it straight on the hob and then pour it with accuracy when needed) and heat until just below boiling point, giving a quick stir now and then. At the same time as you're heating this up, place a saucepan with an inch or so of water on to boil, making sure it is the correct size to sit the mixing bowl you will be using (for the resulting custard mix to be cooked in - you will see below) comfortably atop the pan. I use this method just to be completely confident I'm not going to split the mixture. It does require that extra bit of time and patience to reach the required consistency but is virtually fool-proof. However, the more season custard-makers among you may wish to simply pour the custard straight into a saucepan and heat it up directly, rather than use the method stated here.

Whilst that all comes up to the desired temperature, whisk the egg yolks with the sugar in a large mixing bowl until voluminously lighter in both colour and texture. Once your cream has reached the stage where it looks as though it's about to bubble, pour it in a very thin, steady stream, over the eggs, whisking the canary-coloured concoction constantly and consistently. If think your bowl will slip around whilst you furiously whip one-handed, just wet a piece of kitchen paper, wring it out and it place underneath your awaiting mixing vessel.

Once you have poured all the cream in, continue to whisk away for a little bit, and if you're suspicious that there may be a few cooked eggy bits straggling around the bottom (this is where a see-through mixing bowl pays off), sieve the custard into another bowl - being aware that this one will now need to also be a good fit over the saucepan. Don't panic if it's not - just pour it back into the first one.

When your saucepan with water is at a simmering point, place the bowl with the soon-to-be custard on top of it and stir continuously. Silicone spatulas are an amazing breakthrough for recipes such as this, allowing you to both stir and scrape the mixture down off the sides constantly. If you don't do either of these things, the custard will cook unevenly and you'll have horrible over-cooked lumps, or a ring of crusty custard around the edges. So stir and scrape and stir and scrape and be patient. This is not the time to wander off and watch the telly. What's really important to remember here though is that you are not aiming to turn the custard into a fully-fledged, thickened sauce, but just a back-of-the-spoon-coating-consistency. Think about all the ice creams you've ever eaten where they've partially melted, and what those melty puddles were like. They were thin, almost milky, but not all that runny, no? That's all you need to thicken the custard to and no more.

Once it has reached the melted ice cream stage, just pull it off the heat, stir in the vanilla extract to your own taste and let the whole thing cool slightly. You can then proceed to churn the ice cream, following the instructions according to your ice cream maker, drizzling in the gooseberry puree once it's just about solid enough to marble through. If you're worried it will blend it in too thoroughly, do this last stage by hand once you've transferred the ice cream to its awaiting container.

If you are doing this all without mechanical assistance, pour the custard into some Tupperware, or other freeze-able container (preferably one with a lid). Place in the freezer and then check on it an hour or so later, forking the frozen edges back in with the liquidy middle. Continue to do this every hour/ hour and a half, until you end up with the nearly perfect ice-cream texture - before it's too solid, but whilst it's still moveable enough to mix around. It will probably take about 3 to 4 hours in all. At this stage, drizzle in blobs of the gooseberry sauce and pull through the ice cream with the handle of a teaspoon until it's rippled through. Let this freeze solid now.

I'd always ignored the instruction to move ice cream to the fridge half an hour or so (depending on how cold your fridge is) before you want to serve it, but it makes the whole dishing-up process much easier, and the ice cream is at the perfect density to eat enjoyably, consistently throughout the ice cream, opposed to all melty around the outside of the tub and ice-hard in the middle. Plus, if you then put the tub back in the freezer, it retains the texture that you so patiently created without hardening up around where it may have melted had you left it out in the kitchen to soften. So do it. You'll love it so much more.

So there you go: more subtle than its raspberry contemporary in looks, but most certainly not in taste. Richly creamy yet astringent, and perfect for the summer. That's if summer ever comes back.

"skon"/"scoane"

2006-06-14T13:18:00.000Z

The most ridiculous debate ever. Purely academic and nothing to do with the case in question. I refuse to pontificate on such pointlessness.

It's "skon" just for the record.

It all started with an oozily crushable bunch of white grapes that I had in the fridge. Half of them had been devoured, the rest were on the shelf, a little too squidgy to eat as they were, but still edible. If you don't catch fruit at its zenith then at least there's a few day window in which to do something about it before it plummets nadir-bound. And why break with age old traditions? If you can't eat them, preserve them.

Grape jam doesn't seem to exist in Britain, but Americans are no strangers to the concept of grape jelly, yet that sweetly dark goop was not what I had in mind. Recipes for what I did visualise (something palely beautiful, if you must know) sounded laborious - "skin all the grapes...boil the mashed flesh...then chop up the skins and add them once the grapes have cooked down". No thank you. But does one really need to find a recipe? No, one just needs to think about the principles of conserving fruit and work with them.

As a general rule, jams tend to consist of equal weight of fruit and sugar and rely on the pectin in the fruit itself or an added source of pectin to make it set to a dense consistency. In terms of sugar, fruit spreads like (the highly recommended) St. Dalfour which do not add any cane sugar use grape juice to sweeten the product instead, so it was not a far stretch to think that making a jam from grapes would be sweet enough and probably not need such a high amount of added sucrose. In terms of pectin, the less ripe the fruit, the higher the pectin content (as the fruit ripens, the pectin is converted into sugar) so my overripe grapes probably needed some help to transform into a glossy, viscous mass. I wasn't sure how well a 'setter' grapes would be anyway but remembered my mum always adding lemon juice to her jams if she knew they needed assistance in such matters. However, I didn't have any to hand - the only thing I could muster was a standby bottle of lime juice. I believe apple juice also works too but I didn't have any there and then. Lime is fine and it would seem that you don't need to add so much that it ends up flavouring the result.

Being the maverick that I am (ahem), not content with bringing just a grape jam into this world, I felt it necessary to embellish it with a complimentary ingredient. With the flavour of being somewhat delicate, it had to a be similarly exquisite substance, and as the pairing with elderflower is old old old, what more fine a flavouring than rosewater?

With the jam made, my busy hands and busier brain were still not sated. This jam on a plain old bloomer? I think not. No, something had to be created in its honour. Something that would not carry it, but elevate it to the top of the cake stand.

There is no more lovelier vessel for a daub of jam than a scone - but not just any scone, a cake-like biscuit born entirely for the purpose of partnering that jam alone. Your run of the mill raisin scone will hold strawberry Bonne Maman just dandy, yet spread with mine: grape overkill. What would work, I thought, would be an apple scone. And it did.

The quantities for the grape jam here are doubled, since my paltry 250g of fruit yielded barely enough to half-fill a slim little jar, but just work out the ratios based on what you have (if it is just 250g of grapes it still makes enough for a whole batch of scones). I'd feel sad if you specifically went out to buy spankingly new grapes just to make jam with. There's a reason why this process became a method of preserving and it's got nothing to do with newly picked/bought fruit (unless it was an excess, of course).

The scone recipe is oh-riginal too. Bake them now, thank me later.

Grape and Rosewater jam
(yields one 350g jar)

500g ripe/overripe white grapes
3-4 tbsp sugar (depending on ripeness - the riper the fruit, the less sugar you need)
3 tbsp rosewater
1 tbsp apple juice

Pulse-blitz the grapes in a blender (hand or jug - either works) until crushed and pulpy but not pureed. Place in a heavy saucepan on a low heat, stew gently for about 20 minutes, stirring every few minutes. Still at a low heat, add the sugar, rosewater and apple juice, stir continuously, scraping the sides of the pan down, until all the sugar is completely dissolved. Once this happens, turn up the heat and boil the mixture for 15-20 minutes, stirring continuously. The jam should reduce and may still look liquid. Thermometers are really not necessary for this - it's less faffy to let drop a little of the stuff onto a small plate that's been in the fridge, allow the sticky coin-shaped substance to cool down and then test how set it is by pleasurably sliding a finger through it. You may have read things about this test making the jam 'crinkle' on its surface but really and truly, it just 'feels' and looks the consistency of, well, 'jam'. Anyone who's eaten the stuff knows what that's like, and well, if you haven't, aside from asking yourself what you've been doing all your life, you probably should eat some before you attempt to make it yourself. Also taste it to check whether the flavour of roses actually permeates through and if not, add a few drops more to the mixture and continue heating for a couple more minutes and test the jam again. Pour the finished result into a sterilised jar (easily done by washing a glass jar and its lid in soapy water, rinsing thoroughly and then placing in the oven at 180°C for a few minutes). If you have those waxed paper discs too then I assume you know what to do with them anyway so I won't bother detailing it, as it's not really necessary. For those that don't bother, allow the whole thing to cool with the lid atop the jar, but not screwed on and then close once completely cold.

Apple Scones

225g self-raising flour
50g strong plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
40g cold unsalted butter
50g sugar
1 egg
1/2-1 Cox's apple, chopped into 1/2 cm pieces (depending on how appley you feel)
50ml milk (or thereabouts)
extra beaten egg (optional)

Sift together the flours and salt into a bowl, and add cubes of the fridge-cold butter to the mixture, crumbling it all together until breadcrumb-like. Add the sugar, and then the beaten egg, stirring gently but comprehensively to combine. Fold in the apple and then, dribble in a little milk at a time, thoroughly turning the mixture with a spoon after each addition, until the whole thing comes together as a sticky dough - you might not need to use all the milk, so it's best to add it gradually instead of ending up with a soggy stateful mess (which is easily remedied with a little flour - but try not to get locked into the whole "needs more flour...oops, there's too much flour now, it needs more milk" loop because it will affect the resulting scones).

Place the bowl in the fridge for half an hour and go do something nice. Or wash up, if you feel you really have to. Once the dough has rested, preheat the oven to 200°C. Place the mix on a flour-dusted work surface and roll/pat out until about 1 inch thick. It may not look like you can do it, but you can squeeze roughly eight 5cm shapes out from this quantity. Inspired by Tesco's finest scones I decided to cut mine square, but it's all about self-administered pleasure here so do as you wish. Although 5cm doesn't look like much, once baked, they puff and swell to a pleasingly perfect size. If you want big scones, make them that way though - you glutton, you. If you are using egg wash, then now's the time to do it. If you are somewhat of a perfectionist, make sure you only brush the top surface with the egg. Place on a baking sheet, making sure each has room to grow, and bake for 15-20 minutes. They should rise proudly and although they appear lumpy and dense, are very much the opposite.

With the stupid phonetics out of the way, what is a more pertinent question is whether you layer yours with jam then a good mound of Devon clotted or whether you ardently champion cream then a fat splodge of jam. A poll on nicecupofteaandasitdown suggests that jam should be applied first, with thickly set cream spread on top. Not one to go against the grain, I agree and that's how I had mine. Best served in the park. Or in the Ritz's Palm Court where they hold their Afternoon Tea. They might not be too happy with you bringing your own food in, though.

Dim Sum all day

2006-05-21T17:29:00.000Z

The feeling of your stomach hollow with hunger, your thoughts weakened and bent over to one dish only. Eating it, alone, will sate your appetite - the notion of any other food is unappealing, ridiculous. Consumption of another meal will leave you unhappy, unfulfilled. You know what you want and you won’t be able to rest until you have it.

I am craving dumplings. Not Atora-rich, spongy baubles sat atop a beef stew but Chinese-style, delicately wrapped objects that are plucked from bamboo steamer baskets and dipped in salty soy. I want to sink myself into the chewy dough, through to the springy, subtly seasoned filling. I want to bathe it in dipping sauce, lovingly, before cramming its entirety into my mouth. There are many places in London where I could get my dumpling fix - most places in China Town, obviously, along with contemporary attempts like Ping Pong. Going to any of them would be a jim-dandy idea. Sadly, seeing as my craving is not a one day event, but a month long extravaganza, eating dim sum out on every needy occasion would prove to be a costly fixation. So there is only one thing for it: I need to make a glut of them myself.

Dragon's Inn, Gerrard Street

I may love to devour them but I am no expert, so I go to my two most readily available resources - my flatmate and the internet. My flatmate and his girlfriend are accomplished dumpling makers and turn out the most perfect parcels worthy of any dumpling bar. He attempts to show me how he folds wontons with an imaginary wrapper, held in mid-air, but befuddles himself with his middle-distance dumpling folding. I’m not helping by asking a torrent of unanswerable questions. Sometimes, I'm not sure I make an apt pupil. Later on, he gets the definitive method from his girlfriend and everyone is happy.

The internet, as usual, is comforting and confusing all at the same time. Clicking through unhelpful page after unhelpful page, I'm not sure whether there is a precise science to what goes in a dumpling, and finding alternative folding techniques (just for a bit of variety) seems impossible. What I eventually learn is that fillings are pretty arbitrary in their ingredient ratios and it is up to the individual as to what to season them with. In terms of how to wrap them, there seems to be very little advice on this. A fan of Siu Mai (open faced pork and prawn dumplings, literally translated as "make and sell"), I find a do-able recipe for the filling and then after much digging, glean a solid method on how to assemble them. I know I will have to end up roughly tripling the quantities based on the amount of pork mince I've already bought and stashed in the freezer - this is obviously important because it means I need to make sure I get enough dumpling skins together.

I make my excited excursion to China town and pick up the rest of the things I need - light soy sauce and most importantly, dumpling wrappers. For this first attempt I decide to use pre-made ones since I don't want to fret about getting the dumpling dough's consistency perfect - the main objective is to end up with a stockpile of dumplings - not impress Alan Yau.

The end result was just that - I made over 50 and they live in my freezer now, anticipating the fragrant heat of the bamboo steamer. They're fantastically convenient and are the most classy frozen ready meal you could ever hope for. Frozen dumplings are perfect for when you come home from a hard day's graft because they require little attention whilst they cook. It means that rather than standing over the stove stirring, you can go have that necessary shower and then come back to a steamingly delicious basket of bundles. What's not to love?

One thing I do need to mention is that if you are cooking dumplings from frozen, they do need more time and although they may look steamed through, they may not be (it's not too pleasant biting into what appears to be a cooked dumpling only to find the middle is still an oozy raw pink). I'd give them about 20 minutes to be safe.

Actually, there's another thing. My last point that needs pontificating: the pork:prawn ratio should be 50:50 but I had no where near as much prawn as I did pork mince and was unable to get hold of more before I made my dumplings. I will adhere to these proportions on my next attempt, meaning that I will have to increase the seasonings accordingly and use more wrappers. You would probably need another packet or two. With this recipe, it's doubtful that you will be lucky enough to use all the filling up and all the skins. If you have spare mixture, you can form it into balls and steam it nakedly unwrapped, and perhaps then float them in a steamy noodle broth. If you have wrappers left, cover them tightly with clingfilm and freeze for when you start your dumpling production line again.

Siu Mai (Pork and Prawn Dumplings), wrapped three ways
(makes roughly 50)

For the filling

500g free range pork mince (not too lean)
200g raw prawns, shelled (I found that Waitrose sells some in their freezer compartment which are supposedly 'sustainably sourced')
3 spring onions
1 large piece of ginger
2 small cloves of garlic
2 ½ tbsp light soy sauce
2 ½ tbsp rice wine (I used sake because that's what I had)
2 ½ tbsp sesame oil (very important - it is this ingredient that gives the Siu Mai their distinct flavour)
3 tbsp cornflour
½ tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
3 packets of wonton/dumpling wrappers (there’s roughly 18 in each)

Place the pork in a large mixing bowl and stir to soften until it looks glossy. If it still seems a little unyielding, add a tablespoon of vegetable/flavourless oil and stir through. Chop your prawns up so they are in tiny chunks but do not go so far as to turn them paste-like. Stir these thoroughly in to the pork mince. Finely mince the spring onions, garlic and ginger and stir in with all the seasoning ingredients and flour until completely combined. Now for the wrapping. I bought both round and square skins but I ended up preferring to work with the round ones. When you're wrapping them, using a pastry brush to wet the edges of the pastry means your fingers stay away from dough-damaging water and will make your folding much more competant. Bear in mind that the skins do dry out easily, so try and keep the wrappers your aren't using covered and also do the same to the dumplings you've assembled.

Making 50 does take some time but I'm a lover of repetitive fiddly tasks, so the idea of making dim sum all day does not bore me in the slightest.

'Proper' Siu Mai

Spoon the filling in the centre of a round wrapper, wet the edges and then lay the whole lot carefully over an encircled thumb end forefinger and push downwards so the filling and half the wrapper drop through the hole made by your digits and the wrapper begins to wrinkle. Place the half-formed dumpling on a surface and continue to pinch and pleat the edges together to form a open topped, dumpy cylinder. Top up with a little more filing and press it down to make sure it fills the interior fully. Using your finger and thumb again, squeeze halfway up the dumpling to give it a waist and tap is gently on the work surface to make sure its posterior is flat enough to make it stand up by itself. As you can see I was a little conservative with the filling so I'd fill them up to the top next time.

Wonton/tortellini style

Spoon a little filling the in centre of a circular wrapper and then wet the edge of half the pastry round. Fold the wrapper in half to make a semi circle and press the pastry down working from the filling outwards in an attempt to exclude all the air. Once sealed down, wet the two corners and gently pull them together (I'm not talking about folding them over the lump of filling but pulling them down towards each other as if you were trying to draw the imaginary other half of the circle with them. The rest of the dumpling will curl up. You should then be able to just overlap the points and stick them down.

Pyramidal shaped

Ok, so I saw these in Ping Pong and thought they were smart. I invented my own way of folding these just for some variety. After placing some filling on the centre of a square wrapper, wet all the edges and bring all the corners up to the centre of the filling. You then need to painstakingly pinch all the touching sides together, one by one. This is the most impressive shape and good for novelty value, but don't judge a dumpling by its covering - they taste the same regardless of how you wrap them and since this is time consuming, the wonton/tortellini method is best for speed and ease.

Whichever shape you make, you then need to cook them. Open ones and pyramid shaped ones should be steamed to preserve their form but the tortellini can be boiled in broths. Bamboo steamers are traditional and impart their own flavour to the dumplings. They can be picked up really cheaply in Chinese supermarkets - don't get ripped off by big commercial kitchenware shops.

So there you have it: my first, very basic attempt at dumplings. The ones you see here are not authentic in the slightest. Restaurant Siu Mai use extremely thin wrappers that remain papery once cooked but when steamed/boiled, these bought wrappers swell to a much larger thickness. Regardless, the filling tastes just as aromatic and juicy as that in the Siu Mai found in dumpling bars, so if you just need to quash a craving, these don't do too badly.

waffle...with...syrup

2006-04-25T20:54:00.001Z

Those of you old-school Wafflers will have noticed that there's been a recent re-vamp of this lil' blog of mine. Although I adore cookie cutters, it's never terribly gratifying to look like you were formed by one when it comes to web design. And that's sadly what the case was three or so weeks ago.

(The full picture where the banner was cropped from)

From the start, I'd always had the intention to make my blog look like mine, but then you begin to find that other silly small things get in the way like writing or cooking. Grrr. The template I had was passable but you could see the very same colour scheme and banner on a trillion other blogs. But I finally managed it, one very industrious morning. The kind where you sit down to work, still in your bathrobe, before you've even had coffee or breakfast and end up working until the afternoon without even noticing the time, let alone your state of undress.

Well, at least I managed it partially, in the ways that matter most. In doing this I feel like I've forged a touch more identity and hopefully sometime in the future (I'm refraining from using the words "not too distant" here because I'm really not sure), the layout will be entirely my own design. What mattered most was changing the banner image to something appropriate and beautiful. Really, there was only one option succinct enough to define what this blog is.

Waffles are my favourite food ever. Some of my fondest childhood food memories are of my mother making them in her charming, brick-red Tefal waffle iron (I'll grace you with a picture some day) which was one of those every-housewife's-dream gadgets at the time. It came complete with sandwich toaster plates and grilling plates from Family Circle magazine, along with the wrong instructions - or so the story goes. It has been with her for just about the same amount of time as I have.

Just able to see over the counter, I'd strain to watch this machine turn out these steamy, spongy squares, the kitchen redolent with an aroma not dissimilar to a baking sponge cake. We would eat them standing up in the kitchen, and as I hazily recall, unadorned. The syrup came later in life, along with thick chocolate spreads that stuck in the roof of your mouth and required the waffle to be devoured using utensils.

Practically every time I go back to my parents' home, my mum will dust off the waffle iron and I'll mix up a batch of batter for breakfast. They are nothing like the waffles of Brussels, I know this. They do not possess that yeast-inflated texture, or contain the dried pools of crystal sugar within their walls. But to me they are just as sublime and they taste no different to the ones I ate as a child, or at least I'd like to think they don't.

The ones pictured here were made at home and transported back to London. They were, more fancily put, cryogenically preserved until I woke up to the sunniest morning I'd seen all year. That's when I knew it was time to implement the syrup bottle. Sadly, I knew I would only be able to use part of the image, which is why I wanted to show you the finest results from the shoot in all their sun-kissed glory. The recipe below is not a defining method for making waffles by any means, but I'm rather attached to it. It comes from an equally old Bamix cookbook and is therefore in imperial measurements. I've listed the metric ones because I'm lovely like that.

Waffles (makes 4-5 square ones)

4½ oz. (130g) Unsalted butter
4½ oz. (130g) Plain flour
4½ oz. (130g) Caster sugar
½ tsp. baking powder
3 eggs (preferably free range)

As with any kind of sponge cake: cream the butter and sugar together until voluminous. Beat the eggs in, one at a time until blended and then sift in the flour and baking powder, incorporating gently with a folding motion. Ladle the batter onto an awaiting waffle iron (the amount varies depending on your machine - trial and error is usually the way to dose the perfect amount) and cook until they feel springy (their done-ness is your call - some people like their waffles more crisp than others). What you eat your waffle with is your business. No rosettes will be awarded, however, for guessing what I like mine with.

'What's for Pud?' I'll tell ya what...

2006-04-23T19:04:00.000Z

The moment I read the brief for this St. George's day blogging event, there was little doubt in my mind what I wanted to make.

Ever since I saw Food and Drink’s Michael Barry joyfully pressing a lemon into a small amassment of butter and sugar with his thick fingers, I’ve been intrigued by the much forgotten Sussex Pond Pudding. I was about 12. As a general rule, watching someone with big ol’ sausages manipulating stodgy pastry inspires emotions close to disgust, but no, seeing that retina-burning vision did little to put me off, even at such a tender age. It was so fascinating. Beautiful, even. Simple elements, barely mixed together, yet the alchemic end product looked like it came from the hands of gods. Nothing could have dissuaded me from staring at that screen. Even if Mr Barry had stripped down to the waist and babyoiled himself up.

peek-a-boo

But the pudding was sadly never mine. The fact is though, food and memory are so inextricably entwined, so much so that forgetting food you've always wanted is an exacting task. It stays in your subconscious, bubbling subcutaneously until someone hands you a cue to remember. 'What's for Pud?' was a little like looking back through old school photos and seeing all those tiny faces you once shared classes and pencils with. Just like you and your best friend at Primary school, childhood and puddings go joyfully hand in hand. Memories made in sugar and eggs and butter. It doesn't matter that you may have never gotten to eat your longed-for-dessert either. You just had to dream of it.

Sussex Pond pudding is called as such because once made and inverted on a plate, cutting it open unleashes a molten flood of sauce consisting purely of butter, sugar and a whole lemon (buried inside like a toy surprise). Continuing to pour, the golden tar then encircles the low-looming pudding, forming a pond of sorts. Its name supposedly originates from the similarities between the dessert and circular, man-made 'dewponds' which are found in Sussex's downs. The few times I’ve seen this dish on TV have been like small wooden spoons stirring up old memories. Best of all, the pudding is oh so very English - how could it not be my entry for this event? Of course, being a fan of variation, there is the extreme temptation to hide a lil' lime in there instead of the more yellow member of the citrus family, but I am well aware it is not fitting for this particular occasion.

Problem number one: I am put-off making steamed puddings time and again for the sheer fact that they take, on average, 2 to 3 hours to steam. I’m not averse to the wait, but the idea of running a stove for that long makes me anxious to receive the next gas bill.

My second dilemma is that pudding staple: suet. Beef or vegetable? One is made from fat originating in parts of cows I doubt I’ll ever want to see, the other comprises mainly of brain-solidifying trans-fatty acids. So after much self-debate, rather than compromise my ethics, I plumped for the health-risking vegetable version. Standing in the supermarket aisle the whole argument imploded; Sainsbury’s only sell original beef-licious Atora. What’s a girl to do?

yum

So, vacillations aside, I bit the bullet. I knew it was time to put a pudding to steam, lie back and think of England.

Sussex Pond Pudding

Suet Pastry:

225g self-raising flour
a decent pinch of salt
110g shredded beef or vegetable suet

Melting middle:

175g Demerara sugar
110g unsalted butter
1 squeaky clean lemon

Check that your 900ml pudding basin fits in your saucepan (which must have a well-fitting lid too) and check how much water you need to fill the pan with to get the level halfway up the side of the bowl by doing a dummy run with cold water. If you don’t check this you could overfill the pan and displace a load of boiling water all over your thighs, which is careless, seeing as I’ve just warned you about it. Plus you could flood your pudding which would be possibly more tragic (I jest – scalding is a horrendous fate I wish on no one). Once you’ve done this, generously butter the basin.

To make the suet pastry, sift the flour and salt into a large mixing bowl, tip in your suet and combine with a knife (I like to use knives with plastic handles to ensure that the heat from my hand isn’t conducted down the blade and therefore doesn’t affect the pastry). Add the water in a tiny splash at a time, making curved motions with the knife through the mixture to incorporate it. Be light and swift and try not to overwork the pastry. Once enough water has been added to make the pastry clumpy but not wet, get stuck in with your hands and bring the lot together. The amount of water you use may end up being less than stated as many weather-type factors can affect pastry making. Regardless, it should feel firm and elastic and leave the bowl spanking clean.

Turn it onto a very lightly floured surface and set aside a quarter of the dough. Gently sculpt the three quarter amount into a round and with a floured rolling pin, gently but decisively stroke the pastry out, turning the dough a quarter of the way round every so often to keep it as circular as possible. Rather than there be a massive overhang of pastry, it needs to just line the bowl so don’t sacrifice thickness (which is what I did since I had no idea how the pastry would behave but with hindsight now know I could have kept the round a little smaller and had thicker pastry as a consequence). It will look as if it has a bad case of cellulite, but this is normal. Repeat the same with the quarter amount of pastry for the lid, rolling it so it is nearly as big as the diameter of your pudding bowl.

Lay the larger circle into the bowl and press it lightly to fit it to the interior. Try not to pound it so hard that you distort its thickness. However, if you do tear it, suet crust seems to be pretty forgiving and is easily patched up by using a little from the edge as a bandage (a healing kiss is not obligatory here, you will be pleased to know).

Measure out your butter and sugar separately. Cut half the butter into cubes and place into the lined basin with half the sugar. Stab your lemon all over with anything thin and sharp (knives better than forks here) and nestle it into the fat/sugar.

Pack in the remaining butter cubes and demerara around the lemon covering as much as possible. Dampen the edges of the lining and place the lid onto the filling, folding and pinching the two pastry edges over to seal in the goodness. See? It’s all very simple.

Now take a big sheet of foil, lay it shiny side down and place an equal sized sheet of baking parchment (or greaseproof paper) over it. Holding both, fold a pleat into their middle and place them over the basin with the foil now on top, so the pleat lies centrally. Smooth down across the sides and tie tightly round it with string, making a handle with another piece too. Make sure your knots are tied the right way too so that when you pick up the handle, they don’t come apart and you drop the whole load.

Lower crane-like into the pan of water which should now be boiling, Steam for three whole hours, which will give you time enough to continue your patriotism and perhaps watch two whole Britflicks. Bear in mind Trainspotting and things with Ewan McGregor sadly do not count. About an hour and a half into the steaming time (or after the first film), lift the pud out and top the water back up with a boiling kettle.

Three hours later, disrobe the basin and place a plate on top, inverting the whole unit ever so swiftly. If you hesitate midway, you may find a substantial dripping of sauce in places where it isn’t welcome.

Yes, it might look like a brain but don’t be put-off. It might look unsophisticated but this pudding is far more complex and luscious than it looks. Grab a spoon, dig in and let the sauce just flow. As the pastry deliquesces in the mouth, the tongue forms thoughts of a Demerara-crunchy, subtly bitter marmalade. Eat it how you like it – cream, custard or, like me, enjoy it just as it is. I promise it would put the most beatific smile on any face on anyone who consumes it. Even if they had just seen a half-naked, greased-up Michael Barry.

Tagged with: What's For Pud? and St George's Day

Selling like hot(cross)cakes

2006-04-18T10:31:00.000Z

I’ve been feeling guilty (in a blog sense) that I’ve practically ignored Easter’s bountiful traditional grub. Silly really, considering I’m in no way shape or form a Christian, but that’s beside the point. So I’m remedying this right now. As one may be able to guess from past blog entries, I’m very partial to a bit of bread baking, and I’m especially fond of things pungently aromatic with spices, so it is tragically predictable what my Easter offering is.

aren't they pretty?

Traditionally, the hot cross bun should be made on Good Friday, when it is supposed that all bread made on this day will keep for 12 months. I made mine on Easter Monday, but considering that the things are virtually sold all-year round, being three days late can’t count as a sin (at least I hope). Besides, as any sane person will agree, they’re so damn delicious that it’s impossible to keep them for more than their life-expectancy. The notion of sacred mould-free bread therefore has little sway.

Aside from being, subjectively I’ll concede, far more exciting than the Easter Egg (give me that big hulking bar of chocolate, if you please), you’ve got to love the hot cross bun for its controversial nature. We’re not just talking Cromwellian legend either. Call it the burkha of bread, if you will, because much like the Muslim head garment, it too has been banned for its visible display of religiousness. Some schools in Britain are now calling for the buns to have cross-ectomies, or flat-out bun-bans because they are worried they may offend non-Christian pupils. Lord, is nothing sacred? (Yes, as it would seem, things are in fact too sacred). Another point to note is that some believe they are actually of pagan origin and were yet another tradition adopted/robbed by Christianity. The crosses actually represent the four quarters of the moon and were baked to celebrate the goddess Diana. Now that’s more like it.

It may seem a ridiculously lengthy operation to home bake these fine fellows because they are sold tout le annee (pardon my awful French), but take a supermarket’s packet in your hand, flip it over and all manner of horrors will make themselves apparent as you peruse the shockingly long list of ingredients. Hand-making these are the only way to ensure that you’re not going to end up imbibing a whole host of chemo-tastic substances or be wrist-slapped by St. Jamie Oliver this Easter.

I perused the web long and hard for a bun recipe which a) contained most of the ingredients I had in the house, b) could be done during the day and did not require a slow night-time rise c) used a mixture for crosses that was not a watery, drippy consistency. I can only explain why the last point mattered in that I am freakishly obsessed with being in control, so the crosses had to look clearly visible (hard to achieve when you’re dribbling the mixture on with a teaspoon). Yes, I know I’m not a Christian or a Pagan, but we’re making hot cross buns here, not, erm, ‘Hot Buns’ (which would be a whole different creative endeavour).

I digress. Did I find an exact formula which met my unreasonably high criteria? No. So I did what came naturally and concocted a new one from a few different recipes I found. The basic mixture came from the culinary wonders found here (I am a little embarrassed to mention the site by name, but you’ll see for yourself), but I added citrus (lemon in this instance) zest on the advice of several recipes such as Paul Hollywood’s and Nigella Lawson’s (in 'Feast'), and rather than ready mixed spice, mixed my own. I appreciated Nigella’s idea of using cardamom, but it seemed predictable to use it in the dough itself – I decided to give the sticky-icky glaze a fragrant twist and infuse it with some of the crushed pods instead. The method for the crosses came from a Waitrose Food Illustrated recipe which uses the flour and water to form a pliable(ish) dough rather than a paste. Finally, not being a big lover of those retro-fantastic bags of mixed dried fruit, I brought my own combo to the party and used some raisins, dried apple and dried cranberries. Post-consumption I now believe the last fruit would be better substituted for dried (not glacé) cherries because the cranberries punctuated the bread with such acrid (yet mercifully brief) sourness, it made me wince. However, this may just be the particular batch of Holland & Barrett berries I used. Really, you should use whatever dried fruit turns you on. Same with the spice balance – mine was quite, quite arbitrary – just add what suits your tastes and your kitchen cupboard.

There are three excellent reasons to make these:

1) The buns outshine any you could pick up from Mr Sainsbury or dare I say it, Mr Lewis, with their tightly-packed texture and oven-plumped fruit.
2) You get the satisfaction from the bread-making catharsis and also from the knowledge that you know exactly what went into the things.
3) During their baking and subsequent toastings, the whole flat/house becomes aromatically akin to a spice merchant’s chest. This is everyone’s fantasy, obviously, not just mine.

I beseech thee: go forth and bake, my children!

Hot Cross Buns

Dough:

450g strong plain flour
1 tsp salt
½ tsp mixed spice
¼ of a nutmeg, freshly grated
½ tsp ground cinnamon
⅓ tsp ground cloves
⅓ tsp ground ginger
1 sachet (7g) easy blend dried yeast
225g mixed dried fruit (I made this up with 75g each of raisins, chopped dried apple rings and cranberries)
110g soft light brown sugar
250ml organic milk
50g unsalted butter
1 free range egg, beaten

For crosses:

75g plain flour
4 tbsp water

For glaze:

2 tbsp sugar
6 tbsp water
3-4 cardamom pods, lightly crushed

Whilst your butter is melting in a pan, sift your bread flour, salt and spices into a large bowl and mix in the yeast, dried fruit, sugar and some Easter cheer.

Stir the milk into the melted butter heat gently until tepid. Blitz the egg in before pouring the entire lot into flour mixture.

Combine well until it comes together into a sticky dough. Turn it onto a floured work surface and knead heartily for a good 10 minutes until you feel its texture change and become elastic and smooth.

Split the dough into 12 equal pieces and roll into smooth bun-shaped balls. Arrange the doughy babies on a large non-stick baking sheet making sure each one has a little room to breathe. Cover with a clean tea towel or lightly-oiled cling-film and leave to prove in a warm place for about one and a half hours until the buns have swelled. Do not fear if they don’t puff up as much as you expected – mine didn’t and the texture was beautiful. If yours do swell up until they start reaching out and touching each other this doesn’t matter as they are easily split post-baking.
Preheat your oven to 200°C.

To make the crosses mix the flour with the water to make a pliable dough. Roll it out to the thickness of a pound coin and cut it into 24 equal strips. Score each bun with a cross shape using a sharp knife, dampen each strip with a little milk to help them stick and lay them in a cross formation on each bun.

Place the tray on the middle shelf of your oven and bake for 20 mins, until the rolls are tinged baked-bronze. You’ll smell the moment they’re ready.

As the buns are baking, prepare the glaze by heating the sugar and water gently (you are dissolving the sugar – not caramelizing it here) with the crushed cardamom pods in a small pan for

5-10 minutes. When the buns are ready, brush the sticky sugar glaze over them immediately and allow to cool a little before greedily shoving one in yer gob. You don’t even need to split, toast and butter these but I wouldn’t hold it against you if you did.

Lush.

Happy Easter!

Affairs of the tart...

2006-03-29T16:34:00.000Z

I am a lady of my word.

You may think it's a touch frivolous, but food can take me to extremes. I really am that devoted to the culinary cause that I will travel. And not just around the country. To a different country. And not just for the general cuisine of a nation. For one thing. In fact, a thing which is of such miniscule dimensions, you can demolish it in one whole bite.

But love is love and it makes the individual an irrational being. So, as promised, I travelled to Portugal in search of the king of tiny kings - the Pastéis of all Pastéis: The Pastéis de Belém. In my defence, I did need a break and when considering places to escape to, Lisbon was everything I desired in a city (seafood, lard-based pastries, interesting architecture). But yes, it was those palm-sized perfections that took me there too.

A concentrated locale of monasteries, pastries and shrines to the sea, Belém is a tram/train ride away from the centre of Lisbon. As mentioned in a previous post, the place is home to what are thought to be the best Portuguese custard tarts in the whole wide world, served by one eatery alone - Pastéis de Belém. Pilgrimages are made to the shop, such is its cult status (my own journey a testament to this). It would seem that in Belém, religion is not just found in its monastery. To eat in, customers sit down and meditate over a small pile of pastries, whilst those martyrs more pressed-for-time lean at the counter and consume theirs whilst standing. To take away, which by the way, is a novel experience as the Portuguese seem to have no concept of eating food anywhere else but the place they buy it, a hexagonal-shaped tubular box is filled for that special epiphany on the move. However you buy them, accompanying the tarts are celestial dustings of cinnamon and sugar (given to you in sachets if you choose them to-go). The cafe itself is of a similar darkness to the neighbouring monastery and as we were not blessed with the best weather throughout our stay, we chose to get five to eat outside, since the sun had just made an exclusive pope-like guest appearance.

Box de Belém

Sitting excitedly on the benches, I tipped out a tart into my hand from the box. It was still warm from the oven and looked not dissimilar to the one's I get from Sid's. After a brief dust of cinnamon and sugar, I tentatively bit into the Pastéis. Its pastry was crisper than I was used to. The residual heat emanating from the filling lent it a slightly wobbly mouthfeel. But (and this is a big "but") despite the pastry's superior texture, it wasn't quite as delectable as the ones back home, whose vanilla-scented filling is whipped butter-smooth. The Pastéis de Belém's interior in comparison had a slight lumpiness to it, and depended on the cinnamon to give it that boost in flavour. This is not to say it wasn't delicious (I did consume my entire share with a contented, sugar-high smirk) - it just wasn't as good. Sacrilegious? Probably. No doubt the people of Belém are mapping out some kind of warped monastic blood vengeance in response to this, but then they are 985 miles away (give or take) so I'm not exactly quivering like the custard in a freshly bitten Pastéis.

The Pastéis de Belém

Well, that, and they'll never find me.

Cup of Chai?

2006-03-13T19:06:00.000Z

Nothing in this world seems to be original anymore.

I’ve been dredging the depths of my creative conscience to think of an excitingly flavoured cake to bake and I really thought I was being supremely novel with my idea of one spiced with chai, but no, it’s not a new suggestion in the slightest. One bright morning last week, curiosity abound, I had a little search on the internet and to my sort of surprise, there was an abundance of recipes using the delicately scented ingredient. Most of them are in the neat form of cupcakes and are found, unsurprisingly, in America (home of the ‘extra hot, extra wet, skinny, grande chai tea latte’. Oh, and it still amuses me that they say “chai tea”, both words being synonymous) as far as I can tell. But it doesn’t matter – sometimes you just have to admit you’re already behind the times. Coincidentally, I’ve been really inspired by Flickr’s cupcake conclave recently, mostly by the very talented Sean Gin and his beautiful creations and photos. The cakes he takes pictures of are such perfection in two layers that you can’t help running to the kitchen to line a bun tin with paper cases.

So I’ve moved from the notion of one cake to many smaller versions. This recipe is, at least, original in that I concocted it myself, but knowing my luck…

(My muffin cases are too large for the tray resulting in fairly mishapen cakes)

Makes 12

For the chai extract:

2 chai teabags
water

For the cake:

125g unsalted butter
50g soft light brown sugar
75g golden caster sugar
2 free range eggs, beaten
125g plain flour
½ tsp baking powder
1 ½ - 2 cardamom pods's black seeds, ground (depending on how fragrant you like your food)
½ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground ginger

For the icing:

115g unsalted butter
225g icing sugar, sieved through to make sure there are no lumps
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
ground cinnamon, for dusting

Place the teabags in a small saucepan/heatproof jug, cover with as little water as you can manage and bring to the boil. Occasionally press the bags lightly to release as much flavour as you can, and once the fragrant liquid is as dark as you can get it, remove the bags and reduce the tea down to 1-2 tablespoon’s worth of ‘essence’. Leave to cool quietly as you line your bun tin with some pretty little paper cases and then continue to make the cake batter. Preheat the oven to 200°C. Make sure that your butter is extremely soft* by beating it for a moment, add the two sugars and cream together like there’s no tomorrow. Once you have attained that ethereal fluffiness and the mix is a fair few shades paler, beat in the eggs, a little at a time (if the mixture metamorphoses into a curdled mess, do not panic, the flour will remedy this). Stir in the cooled tea. Sieve in the flour and baking powder, add the spices and fold gently until you have a smooth, thick mound of batter. Divide into the awaiting cases (I gloss over this part in one sentence because I know it’s fiddly but with some two-spoon dexterity and a lot of practice you can become quite adept at doing this quickly and equally). Place in the upper realms of your preheated oven and bake the wee bairns for 15-20 minutes (check them at 10, just in case) until they are cooked through (insert a knife into one and see if it comes out clean) but not coloured. Remove from the oven and leave the cakes to cool in the tray for five minutes before releasing them to an awaiting rack and letting them cool down completely. Once they are cold, make up the icing by beating the softened butter with the sieved icing powder and vanilla until it becomes thoroughly blended and voluptuous. Taste to check whether the amount of vanilla is to your liking – add a little more if it seems bland. Blob the icing on each cake and then swirl or slap or apply in whatever creative manner you desire. If you’re a perfectionist, you could pipe it on, but as these are reminiscent of the aromatic hot beverage, I’m not certain that perfect rosettes are called for here. Dust ever so lightly with a sprinkle of cinnamon and the cake is complete. If you want to serve these some time in the future you can store them un-iced and be all arty later.

The result is the most perfumed, tender crumb smothered in a viscous vanilla velvet. A great spin on the cute cupcake and a worthy addition to any afternoon tea.

*In the winter I do this by placing the mixing bowl with the measured out butter in the oven and turning the fan on and the oven’s temperature settings a millimetre up from 0°C a bit in advance, obviously pre the preheating. I suppose if you have a microwave you could put the butter in, very cautiously, on the lowest setting for a brief moment. The result may not be as even as the oven method's though and you really don’t want to risk melting the butter.

If food be the food of love...

2006-02-15T10:03:00.000Z

When Will penned 'Twelfth Night" he clearly wasn't being served desserts made with the most loving of intentions (just to rip this misquote wildly out of context). Forget about music - to me, food is the medium through which you can gently but firmly pluck at the tenderest of heart strings. And what better way and day to do it than with a precarious tower of effulgent, enormous raspberry meringues on Valentine's?

Tradition between me and my man states that as Valentine's Day is a bit of a rubbish commercial concept, the best way to celebrate it is to bake presents for each other (or something to that effect - as long as it involves sugar and your own handiwork, it's ok). Last year for the event, sadly just before my blog came into being, I made a set of 'Love Buns' much to the tune of Nigella's recipe from Feast. They were visually satisfying, but were all style and no real substance so this time I wanted something which would fulfil both criteria. The idea of the individual portion still appeals when it comes to offerings from the heart, so flicking back through my memory bank of 'good ideas' I remembered The Raspberry Meringue. Konditor and Cook (also known as the finest cake emporium in London) sell these from a big stand, stacked high and billowing. They are the kind of meringue which only seems plausible in dreams - a dissolvingly brittle, cream-coloured carapace housing a thick marshmallowy interior, punctuated by lightly jammy raspberries - achieved only by folding them in to the mixture fresh. The streaks of caramelised raspberries running through the powdery shell are so much more elegant an idea than adding pureed fruit and mixing it through to make a uniformly coloured (and frou frou) meringue, and much more complex to the palate.

The cloudy little babies here are inspired by those but are not the very recipe as such - they are merely one of those curious experiments that result from adapting a similar recipe to fit the idea. The general rule for making standard meringue is 60g of sugar per egg white. In retrospect, they could have done with a longer baking time and smaller raspberry pieces (I threw them in plumply whole). Mine looked very cooked from the outside but they were really gungy on the inside, and the raspberries were softened but not gummily sticky.

Oh, and to those who recoil in horror from such activities because of lack of an electric whisking device, the only power here came from my arm and a regular balloon whisk.

Fresh Raspberry Meringues

(makes 9 very, very large meringues but you can always make smaller ones and shorten the cooking times accordingly)

5 large egg whites
360g caster sugar
125g of raspberries

Preheat your oven to 140°C. Line two baking trays with bake-o-glide if you can get it, or parchment. Take a very large mixing bowl, clean it thoroughly, making sure that it is entirely grease-free (wipe some lemon juice around the bowl if you really want to be obsessively certain). Drop in your separated egg whites and whisk until the mixture peaks softly and holds its shape when pulled upwards with your whisk. Measure out the sugar in a separate bowl and tentatively whisk a tablespoon of it in to the beaten whites. Continue this laboriously slow process until all your sugar is incorporated (and also, unlike me, try not to fling the sugar all over your kitchen with the whisk). The meringue should be pvc-glossy and voluptuous. Slice each raspberry in half or so and add to the white mass. Fold in gently and don't over-mix - you don't want to colour your meringues pink - you just want a rose-tinged marbling.

For each meringue, drop a couple of very large tablespoons in mounds onto the lined trays and then using the end of a teaspoon, pull out little peaks and swirls all over the blobs, to give them texture and interest.

Bake in the oven for an hour at least and then, if you can bear it, break one open to check their progress - this is a matter of personal taste - I like mine chewy on the inside, but you may prefer one that is completely crisp throughout, in which case you will need to let these be for some time more.

If you've done these on bake-o-glide, you can technically, cautiously, lift them off whilst they're still warm. If not, then wait until they're completely cool before you even think about moving them. Once cold, stack them high on a plate, and wait for well-deserved admiration.

Ooh, and if you're wondering what wonderful present I received...

...chocolate truffles!

Tart with a heart...

2006-01-31T15:08:00.000Z

Balancing anxiously on a wafer-like edge, I hurriedly pay the man. I rush you home and furtively disrobe you from your papery precinct. A tender vanilla perfume drifts languidly upwards, dissipating softly. You are beautiful. Hues of ingots, burnt caramel and sunlight meld resplendently on your surface. Gently placing you on a plate, running my finger contemplatively around your edges, I know I want to dismantle you slowly, meditatively. You are my new obsession. You are my Pastéis de Nata.

Or a Portuguese Custard tart to most people. I entirely apologise for my Mills & Boon introduction, but it seemed vaguely appropriate for such an object of desire. As I have come to this culinary phenomena relatively late in life, we are still very much in our honeymoon period together. Being obsessed with baking from the earliest of ages, I really can’t understand why I never came across them as I incessantly molested the pages of my mother’s cookery books or magazines. Perhaps it was because I was never a great lover of the bog-standard egg custard tart, that grainy, rubbery, sneezed-upon-with-nutmeg affair, found boxed in pairs in your average supermarket. It’s plausible that a fondness for these may lead you to seek higher planes of tartdom and you subsequently find the aforementioned golden child. Nor had I been blessed with any exciting bakeries in my hometown that would purvey anything more exotic than a French baton – growing up around Continental bakeries would perhaps lead you to a speedy discovery of Pastéis de Nata. This is all speculative though – I’m not entirely sure how or why I managed to miss out on these mouthfuls of perfection until now, given all the patisseries and bakeries I’ve been to, but I did.

I was in fact introduced to the tiny beauties a couple of months ago by my lovely boyfriend as we were standing at the counter in Sid’s on Lamb’s Conduit Street and I excitedly pointed at the most petite pie I’d ever seen. “It’s a Portuguese Custard Tart!” exclaimed Gareth, possibly slightly taken aback that I didn’t know that myself, “They’re delicious – have you never seen one before?”. I hadn’t, but it didn’t matter. Looking at it there, behind the glass like a puppy at the pound, I knew I’d love it. It looked nothing like its matt, bland English sibling. Rather than the Mr. Kipling, factory-uniform shortcrust, its filling was contained by the most delicate, crisp, sprung-apart layers of a puff-type pastry. The custard itself was glossy and burnished and suggested melting crème patisserie underneath, opposed to a thickly set interior which you could bounce a spoon off. But I didn’t buy it. I knew that it had to be saved as a treat or a comfort – there would be a moment when I’d know I needed it, and when I got it, it would solve everything (albeit briefly).

The time came when I was weak of body and spirit and happily, I administered my self-prescribed pastry. Devouring the little mite from the comfort of my bed, it lived up entirely to my expectations. The correct term for the shell is massa folhada and is Portugal’s version of puff pastry. One of the most perplexing aspects of the tart is the way the casing spirals at the bottom, and instead of the layers springing apart upwards, as is convention, it does so sideways. It’s no real mystery however when you give it some thought - to achieve this effect, the technique employed is to roll the thinned-out buttery pastry into a log shape (creating a spiral) and then slice it into thin rounds and press these, flat side down, into the tins. The spiral then puffs outwards. The sumptuous custard which is contained within it is an eggy mixture stabilised with cornflour, like a crème patisserie, helping it to not curdle in the high temperature ovens. In large portions, you could potentially cripple your stomach in one sitting but the Portuguese Custard Tart’s grace is that it is the epitome of “small but perfectly formed”. Not only are they intriguing to behold, but they are divine to eat and just diminutive enough to feel sated but not saturated.

Delving deeper into the culinary history of these miniature wonders reveals a past as rich as its ingredients. Although eaten all over Portugal, one bakery claims its origins. Antiga Confeitaria de Belém is the place in question, using the same secret recipe employed by bakers 200 years previously around the nearby Jerónimo's Monastery. Well, clearly the tradesmen themselves weren’t that clandestine, selling the recipe during the 19th Century revolution, but the bakery now keeps it under wraps. Apparently their particular formula and method surpasses all others, and the result has been bestowed its own distinct name: Pastéis de Belém, locals beating their chests proudly upon its mention. Rumour has it that many residents claim to be able to pick out a Pastéis de Belém from dozens of other bakeries’ Pastéis de Nata in blind taste tests. Strong stuff. So, aside from their complicated past, what makes these tarts especially super-special? What else but that most elusive of all culinary practices: the secret ingredient. I have yet to taste one of these mini kings of the pastry world, so much to my dismay, I can’t analyse what this elusive component could be. Apparently most individuals have actually given up on trying to discover it, such is the successful secrecy of Antiga Confeitaria de Belém. Some say it doesn’t even exist - it is just a myth used to add enigmatic intrigue.

For me, it seems impossible to better my feelings for Pastéis de Nata but I'm open to enlightenment, thus making my obsession a great excuse to for a sly sojourn to Portugal. And when I go, I shall be sure to give you an overly detailed description of my findings. What I do know for now though is that an attempt to home-make them may not quite result in anything as glorious as those supplied to Sid’s. As much as I would relish baking these, upsettingly, there are some dishes and desserts that are best left to the professionals' techniques and technology. General consensus states that you need a truly hot oven – one that emits a far fiercer heat than any domestic one can go to – in order to blast the pastry to make it really, really crispy. That rules me right out, given I can only get up to 250°C. However, if you do want to try it for yourself, the most plausible recipe I’ve found on the web (along with a terrific article which jovially peeks into the Antiga Confeitaria de Belém) is here http://www.latimes.com/features/printedition/food/la-fo-pasteis8sep08,1,6411433.story?page=1&ctrack=1&cset=true&coll=la-headlines-pe-food

Oat my boat

2006-01-08T17:04:00.000Z

I have always thought of plain muesli as the austere Aunt of cereals. Its stead, wholesome nature exists for your own good, cleansing and teaching your innards a good, long, slightly harsh lesson, after they’ve been extremely naughty. In the end, you feel all the better for it, but the whole experience may have not been that pleasurable. Granola on the other hand, is the cool, vibrantly fun, young Auntie that purports to be your best friend. Knowing you’ve been bad, she tries to get a similar message across but does so in a much, much sweeter way.

To be honest, like any two members of my family, I love them both equally – they simply have different methods of achieving an end result. And just like your more severe aunt, muesli has the capacity to be a softer, more exciting entity. Anyone who has had the pleasure of staying at a Swissôtel will have hopefully experienced their signature Swiss Bircher Muesli, a breakfast ambrosia if ever one existed. I had never come across Bircher until my stay there, but a moment’s light research revealed that this thickly harmonious blend of straightforward cereal, natural yoghurt and succulent fruit (and often a mischievous addition of cream) soaked to perfection, is a Swiss staple. It is near dessert-like in its eating and although sensationally good for you (sans cream), tastes anything but. Bircher requires some pre-mediation, as it must be assembled at least the night before in order for the cereal to swell and become fecund with the liquid components. Yes, I know it requires more volition than most people have before they go to bed, but I promise you it is worth it.

I did have a look for recipes for the dish, but in the end, I trusted my own culinary instincts. There are times when food is about chemistry and measuring, and others when it is wholly intuitive. When it comes to a dish like this, there seems little point being finicky with scales and measuring jugs. What you will need:

muesli base (you can get good, cheap ones from Holland & Barrett or other such health food stores)
oatbran
raisins
hazelnuts
a mixture of you favourite fresh fruit (such as blueberries, raspberries, braeburn apples)
natural yoghurt
greek yoghurt
whole milk (I like all of these to be organic, but it’s not necessary)
runny honey (I use New Zealand Clover Honey for its marshmallowy goopyness)

I tend to make this in individual breakfast bowls so a) you can tailor it to each person depending on what they want in it and b) it saves on washing up.
In each bowl, pour in as much muesli base as you would normally eat plain, sprinkle over a little oatbran and toss in as many raisins and hazelnuts as you see fit. Add your fruit, either whole if it’s small (in the case of berries), or chopped up (in the case of apples). On a small sidenote, if you are using apples, I recommend something sharp like a Braeburn opposed to a floury apple, because their acidity and texture hold their own within the mixture – a less crisp pomme falls apart quite unpleasantly and barely resembles an apple in flavour once soaked.

Cover the mixture with milk completely and add a generous splodge of both the yoghurts. I’ve put Greek yoghurt in place of the cream here, for the sake of your arteries, but if you are using the more naughty of the two, then dispense of it at this stage. Drizzle in a scant teaspoon of honey – more or less depending on the sweetness of your tooth and then fold the lot together. It may seem very thin and runny, but there is no reason to panic here – the cereal has an extraordinary capacity to absorb it all and in turn, make the remaining liquid rich and viscous. I take great pleasure in crushing some of the blueberries whilst I’m doing this too in order to make them burst, their violet juices marbling into the cereal. Cover with clingfilm and place dutifully in the fridge overnight. When you stumble blearily into the kitchen the next morning, what you should find is a sweet, opulent mini-feast waiting readily for you to savour with a large spoon. For those who are more decadent than I, a little lightly whipped cream could now be folded in, turning a chaste breakfast into a debauched dessert.

Bircher

Sometimes, no matter how delicious it is, a soft, slushy breakfast is not appropriate. Yet the idea of something dripping with grease or yeastily puffed doesn’t seem quite right either. When you want cereal and you want crunch (and not the kind of crunch beginning with a ‘k’ that is so full of sugar you might as well have chocolate cake for breakfast) Granola is your best bet. With the risk of sounding like a Sunday School teacher, tucking into a bowl of it is akin to eating a mouthful of a sun-blessed field before harvest. It’s heartening and healthy but sweet and scrumptious. Buying it readymade is ridiculously expensive though, especially given that I can eat a whole bag in two days, so I set out to make my own. There were a multitude of Granola recipes out there, some which had more ingredients than I cared for (like the one in Lawson’s Feast) but the formula that I began to use, adapt and love is Merrilees Parker’s from an issue of Olive Magazine (September 2005). The recipe published here is pretty much hers in terms of quantities – I’ve just substituted the amount of walnuts for almonds and used oatbran instead of wheatbran. It also contains an (entirely optional but entirely elevating) addition of sunflower seeds.

Granola

100g bran
150g jumbo oats
25g sesame seeds
2 tbsp sunflower seeds
100g almonds, roughly chopped into large pieces
3 tbsp sunflower oil
6 tbsp maple syrup
very generous handful of dried fruit (raisins, cherries, cranberries – used on their own or mixed)

Preheat your oven to 190°C (160°C if fan-assisted). On a non-stick tray, combine all the cereals and seeds, and then drizzle over the oil and the maple syrup. Stir until everything is coated evenly; shake the tray to uniformly distribute the mix over its surface and bake for 20 minutes or so. During the baking time, make sure you keep a close eye on the mixture to ensure it doesn’t catch and stir it a few times, spreading the granola from the centre of the tray to the outside and vice versa. This should guarantee it toasts evenly and doesn’t colour too much. (The first time I made it, it I didn’t realise I needed to do this, and ended up with a tray of cereal that was overly brown around the edges, tasting a little closer to burnt than I would have liked. You can see it pictured above in all its autumnal glory – my later efforts look a little more summery). The Granola is ready when it crisps-up and is palely tinged gold. If you drop a spoonful back on to an empty part of the tray it should make a bit of a racket compared to the soft sound the uncooked cereal produces. Remove from the oven and allow it to cool completely on the tray. Stir in the dried fruit, and store in an airtight container. Serve with milk or sprinkled into yoghurt.

Yule love this

2005-12-11T17:16:00.000Z

For the last two years, I have celebrated an extra Christmas day with my London friends because I go to my parents’ home for the holidays.

Everyone contributes to this dinner in some way and unsurprisingly, my donation has always been dessert, in the form of the Yule Log (in truth, a chocolate roulade). Someone has bought a Christmas Pudding each time, but due to the unsurpassable popularity of chocolate over fruit in the camp, it never even makes it out of its wrapper. This year is no different, except that I’m catering for a smaller crowd. Strangely, the dessert has managed to stay the same size. I’m not sure at what point exactly things become ‘a tradition’, but I figure that the third occurrence of this Yule Log means it is now my very own Christmas custom.

This is roughly a third of the entire log

If your Yule log could speak it would tell you that its origins are rooted in pagan, Viking tradition. The festival Jol/Jule (pronounced “Yule”) was celebrated around the winter solstice to big up the Norse god Jolnir (aka the notorious Odin), and, as typical of those merry-making Scandos, involved copious drinking and feasting and a little random arson. Ok, not so much arson as burning a log for twelve hours, which was supposed to usher in ye olde magiks pertaining to health and fruitfulness. Anyway, history lesson over – it’s time to get back to the food. If you want the full story, check out wikipedia’s account.

The recipe for the sponge is adapted from a Good House Keeping Chocolate and Prune Roulade recipe by Henry Harris, ripped naughtily from my Mum’s magazine collection years ago. The ganache is a Linda Collister formula from the divinely compact ‘Heavenly Chocolate’ and it makes a darkly dense, truffle-like filling which melds moussily with the whisked sponge. The chestnut puree is my optional addition, but adds a grainy sparkle of festivity. I choose not to slather the outer side of the roulade with any kind of icing since its interior has creaminess aplenty and the cracked sponge is gracefully reminiscent of tree bark. However, if you do want that kind of 70’s cookbook styling, you could double the ganache, or find a separate icing recipe that will spread fluidly.

The beauty of this cake is that it gets better as the days go by. The filling and sponge somehow ripen and mature together, becoming symbiotically thicker and more complex. It pays to make this a couple of days in advance, and leave it wrapped up tightly in parchment (helping to set its shape) somewhere cool. Dare I say it, this recipe could be eaten at other times of year, perhaps even flavoured with any of the plethora of ingredients which marry with chocolate. I’ve never done so though. I can’t bring myself to part with tradition.

Christmas Chocolate Roulade

For the sponge:

175g good quality dark chocolate (like Green & Black’s), broken into pieces
6 free range eggs, separated
175g golden caster sugar (if you can’t get hold of it, normal caster sugar will do), plus a little extra for dusting

For the filling:

200g dark chocolate (as above)
175ml cream
1x 250g tin of crème de marron (sweetened chestnut puree)

You will also need to make sure you have plenty of baking parchment. Rather than a swiss roll tin, I use a shallow tefal patisserie tray (37cm x 27.5cm), which makes a vast vista-like sponge of perfect thickness. Whatever tin you use, line it with the parchment and preheat the oven to 180C. Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of lightly simmering water. Once melted, remove from the heat and leave to cool down slightly as you beat the egg yolks and sugar together until thick and airy. Beat the chocolate into this mixture. In another bowl, whip the egg whites until they peak softly. Fold a large tablespoon of the whites into the chocolate mixture to slacken it in preparation for the careful, gentle addition of the rest of the cloudy mass. Fold until combined, but do not worry about blending the entire thing together perfectly as you’ll knock all the air out –small flecks of egg white should still be visible. Spread onto the lined tin and then bake until firm to the touch (around 20-25 minutes). Let the sponge cool for 15 minutes and then cover with a sheet of parchment/greaseproof paper and a tea-towel that has been wetted through and wrung out thoroughly. Leave covered for at least 4-6 hours or overnight.

The most important thing I’ve found is to not uncover the sponge until you absolutely need it, i.e. not until you have made the ganache icing and let it thicken. If you leave it uncovered whilst you make that cup of tea and go to the loo, it will begin to dry, harden and consequently will break clean through when you try to roll it. Trust me, I know.

Tip the crème de marron out into a bowl and stir to make sure it’s soft and spreadable.

Chestnut puree

To make the ganache, heat the cream to just below boiling point and whilst you do it, chop the chocolate finely - food processors and those whizzy mini-mills are stars for this job – and place it in a small heat-proof bowl. Pour the heated cream over the chocolate and stir continuously until the molten mixture is glossy and uniformly mixed. Leave to cool completely. Once cooled, whip it briefly to thicken it ever so slightly. The mixture should still be entirely spreadable so don’t let it thicken and harden too much – if you’re not sure, it is better to be a cautious wimp and keep it a runnier consistency.

This is where the fun commences. Uncover the sponge still in its tray and sprinkle evenly with a light dusting of golden caster sugar. Place the parchment (you may need a fresh piece as it must be bigger than the entire tray) over the sponge, cover back with the teatowel, and grabbing the sides of the tray so you’re holding the two coverings tightly over the top, flip the entire thing over and place onto a large flat worksurface with the short end closest to you. The more room you have to manoeuvre here, the better. Lift the tin off, and carefully peel the parchment from the sponge. If you’re nervous, it’s easier if you do this tearing big strips off, rather than one swift magician-like motion.

Dollop on the ganache and spread it evenly over the sponge, keeping it a centimetre or so from the sides. Now smear on the chestnut puree in a similar fashion. If you’re really lucky and your ganache is perfect consistency, it will form a second layer over the chocolate, but do not worry if it marbles in with it instead.

Take a deep breath, relax and smile. If you’ve had an argument with someone: go make up. If you’re worried about where your life is heading: stop. Like dogs and horses, roulades smell fear and negativity and they will absorb your pain, break, and in turn magnify the awfulness of the aforementioned life-events. You need to be a zen master/mistress. Holding the end of the parchment and tea towel that’s closest to you, start lifting and pushing it away from your body, so that the sponge rolls up back on itself (see the action shot below). Points will be deducted for hesitation here. The steadier and more consistently you do this, the less chance you have of the whole thing cracking messily.

As the ganache may still be a little liquidy, if you remove the roulade to somewhere else immediately, it may begin to gently collapse. In which case (and this is particularly helpful if yours has cracked or seems a bit angular) wrap it firmly but not tightly in the parchment so it forms a proper roll and leave to set (which is what I had to do this time).

To finish it, dust liberally with cocoa powder and a little snowy coating of icing sugar. The entire roll could easily serve about 8-10 people. This year it’s serving 5.

If you would like the original Good Housekeeping Recipe, email me and I’ll send you a scan. I apologise in advance for the grubbiness of the page.

Let's bake breakfast...

2005-11-26T22:00:00.000Z

Sometimes when you are swept up in an urge to cook you spend the day embroiled in ingredients, being vaguely visible to others through a flurry of food.

Today I had such a day. It started when I woke up, determined to bake breakfast. There is something profoundly pleasurable about this activity - you wake up to a peaceful flat, and quietly work away undisturbed. Yet you are also graced with the knowledge that you aren't necessarily alone and that when everyone else wakes up, they'll do so to the smell of something delectable wafting under their bedroom door.

I'd had my eye on a recipe in Baking and the Art of Comfort Eating: Norwegian Cinnamon Rolls, which looked like perfect breakfast fare and had just the right amount of effort for a morning. Being a bread recipe it made it doubly cathartic too - it's clichéd, but there really is an inexplicable joy about the work that goes into things that need yeast. I've made muffins and such before for breakfast, but you just throw everything into a bowl and they aren't nearly as satisfying to make in comparison. There's a fantastically basic quality to bread and all the different stages it needs to go through that make it seem like a bona fide achievement, which is to me exactly how I want to feel at the start of my day.

Norwegian Cinnamon Buns from 'Baking and the Art of Comfort Eating' by Nigella Lawson (words by me)

For the dough:

600g strong plain flour
100g sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 sachets/3 level tablespoons of easy-blend dried yeast
100g melted butter
400ml milk
2 free range eggs

for the filling:

150g softened, unsalted butter
150g sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 free range egg (for glazing)

Line a large, deep roasting tin or deep cake tin (roughly 33cm x 24cm) - round or square, doesn't matter - with baking parchment.

To begin making your dough, place all the dry ingredients in a capacious bowl. In another container, beat the eggs and milk together and then whisk in the melted butter. Pouring a steady stream, add the milk mixture to the flour and stir until combined. Bring the dough together with your hands and then turn out onto a lightly floured surface and knead until puffily elastic. Shape into a ball, and place in a lightly oiled bowl, cover with clingfilm and set it aside for 25 minutes somewhere warm-ish to let it prove and rise.

During that time, whip all the ingredients for the filling together in a small bowl. Once the dough has had its time, pull of a third and roll it out so it fits the base of your tin. Roll the rest out into a rectangle about 25cm x 50cm and then spread the cinnamon butter over, covering the surface's entirety. With the longest side facing you, roll the dough up as if you were forming a Swiss roll. You should end up with a long, thick cylinder. Cut this dough sausage into 2cm slices. You should end up with roughly 20 pieces. Places these rounds into your tin to cover the base (they may not fit together tightly but post-proving, they will). Slather the tops with the egg glaze and leave once more for 15 minutes. They will rise and swell and grow together. It's probably a good idea to put the oven on now to preheat, to 230C.

Once the swirls are sufficiently inflated, bake for 20-25 minutes until risen and golden. Let cool for 10 minutes, and then tear and share whilst warm.

Due to the quantities of the recipe making much more than Gareth or I could eat alone, I halved it. Or at least I thought I did. As I was adding the liquid ingredients to the dry, I noticed that the mixture was looking worryingly wet and I still had lots of it left. Looking back on the recipe I then realised that I put the stated two eggs in, instead of halving the quantity. After momentary annoyance, I figured it wouldn't be too much of a disaster, threw in a little more flour and hoped that the only difference would be a richer dough (which is by no means a catastrophe as far as I'm concerned).

The rest of the recipe went as planned, although after 10 minutes of baking it seemed that the bread does need to be in a deep tin as the gooey butter/sugar/cinnamon mix will ooze down the sides of the tin and gleefully spread itself all over the bottom of your oven. No matter though. The result was sticky, pillowy snails of richness (sounds odd but just go with it). The dough is akin to a brioche with a sugary crust and sinfully sweet cinnamon butter marbled through it. Its formed especially to break off individual rolls by hand. Definitely best carried ceremoniously back to bed whilst oven-warm and enjoyed with oversized mugs of coffee.

However, there was the small matter of the milk/egg/butter mix that was eyeing me from its jug. I couldn't face chucking it away; good free range eggs and butter and delicious organic milk do not deserve to end their life being poured into a kitchen sink. So, knowing that Gareth's brother was coming round the next day, and that I'd be cooking a dessert anyway, I decided to make a cake from it. I also had a bowl of cut orange segments (with peel) that no one was going to eat, but couldn't bear to dispose of so I thought about incorporating them in some way. My recipe follows as such but please, I urge you to double it for a result more substantial in size than mine - I was just using what I had.

For the Cake:

75g self raising flour
25g cocoa
90g butter
50g dark brown sugar
50g golden caster sugar
1 egg
completely unmeasured egg/butter/milk mix (about 100ml of it)

For the Marmalade Syrup

½ an orange, with peel left on, cut into thin segments
2 tbsp of sugar
1 tbsp water

Cream the butter and sugars together until pale and fluffy. Beat in the egg and then the milk mix. Sift in the flour and cocoa powder and fold it carefully in. Bake in a small tin at 175C for around 15-20 mins or until the cake is risen and springs back when pressed.

Whilst the cake is in the oven, place the syrup ingredients in a pan, cover with a lid and bring to simmering point. Simmer until the orange peel is soft enough to bite into and then uncover to allow the syrup to reduce. I reckon if you have some orange liqueur to hand it wouldn't be a bad idea to slug some into the mix at this point. Actually, some Amaretto may also work in this syrup (based on my love of Amaretto and orange juice). If the liquid thickens too much, add a drop of water. It needs to be of a consistency that will allow the syrup to soak through the sponge.

Once the cake is cooked let it cool down a little (but not get cold as such) and turn it out onto a plate. What we are looking for here is moistness, so placing it onto a plate will allow less steam to evaporate from the cake and keep its crumb subtly damp. Using a thin sharp knife or a cake tester, prick holes all over the sponge and evenly pour the syrup over a little at a time (holding back the oranges with a spoon), allowing it to soak through before pouring on more. Once all the syrup has been absorbed, pile on the orange segments. This is excellent served with double cream - it soaks into the sponge and makes it a mile more luscious.

Note: There's nothing particularly innovative about the recipe but it makes a good basis for experimentation. If you were feeling particularly exploratory, you could add a scant amount of fresh red chilli strips to the syrup or you could play around with the cake mix and use polenta or ground almonds instead of flour. The whole idea as such begs to be meddled with - plain cakes with ginger and lime syrup or an amaretto syrup topped with toasted almonds. Frangelico syrup poured over an intense mocha sponge, topped with some chocolate covered espresso beans - the list goes as far as your own taste and imagination take you.

I digress. Still not tired from this I strode on to make a fabulous Steak and Guinness Pie as previously discussed. We didn't make the aforementioned pudding on account of the fact that waiting three hours for it would be kitchen overkill. However, we did bake the shortcrust pastry lid separate to the pie, which worked out much better than past attempts. A nice cold kitchen helped it remain really short and buttery too.

A mildly productive day then, I guess.

Malteser Displeaser

2005-11-22T21:48:00.000Z

Nigella doesn't get it right all the time.

I was treated to some company this afternoon by my friend Sophie, who I met whilst working in the recruitment agency (she temped through us). Given she currently works about three minutes away from my flat, we thought it silly not to see each other. Coffee and cake were on the agenda, and given that I am trying to save pennies as I currently have no income, I thought going out for this would be far too decadent. Also, I've been itching to make a cake for a couple of days now.

Knowing that chocolate is usually Sophie's Choice* for something sweet, I checked out Nigella's Chocolate Cake Hall of Fame in Feast. I'd already made the 'Quadruple Chocolate Loaf' cake from the section with tremendous results, so eagerly decided to try another. I selected 'Chocolate Malteser Cake', given that I had all the ingredients to hand, and exactly the amount of eggs for the recipe, which for some inane reason is always a clincher for me. The cake looked fun and childlike from the picture, which is how I always think of mine and Sophie's friendship, given we mostly talk about how clumsy we are over bags of Haribo. Perfect.

So, everything was going swimmingly until the addition of the flour, Horlicks and cocoa powder whereby everything but the flour incorporated properly into the mix. I'm not sure why this happened, but I was left with a very wet cake mix with tiny white lumps suspended in it. I folded away, attempting to smoosh the coagulated flour bumps against the side of the bowl to disperse them and had I really been bothered, I guess I could have eradicated them with the magic of the sieve. However, time was paramount so I pressed on, and, having got all the big lumps out, poured the mix into the tin (well, it should have been in two tins but I only seemed to have one suitable one), taking comfort in the fact that American muffin batters go into the oven barely stirred and that when I pulled the cake out of the oven, it would probably look beautiful and homogenised.

30 minutes into the baking time, I checked on the cake's progress. On the cake's surface, the tiny white bits had now cooked solidly into, er, tiny white bits. SIGH. I put the cake back in since the middle clearly wasn't springing back to the touch of an inquisitive finger.

15 minutes later, the cake still didn't seem fully cooked and now was rising slightly unevenly, a dent occurring an inch from the centre on one side, and a large nubble rising proudly on the other. Maybe the oven needs calibration, I'm not sure. I place it back in the oven once more.

10 minutes later I decide the cake is cooked before I even see it in the oven, and frustratedly pull it out. What was a nubble is now a majestic peak, and the dent now looks akin to the sea of tranquillity. More worrying still is the leathery resistance the cake has when touched. I pray that what it lacks aesthetically, it makes up for gastronomically.

After leaving it to cool a little, I flip it out of the tin. This is where I really can't believe my bad luck. It would seem that the crater in the cake not only exists on the top, but on the bottom too, meaning that at one point, the cake is roughly a centimetre thick (the rest is about four). In an odd way, it looks pleasingly stylish because the contour of this dip is, at least, remarkably smooth and chicly off-centre. Deciding that this is now a plus, I go on to slather the thing in buttercream and then as well as studding the circumference with maltesers, I fill the concave part with a mini pool of the little devils. It actually looks passable.

Sophie arrives and in anticipation of culinary disaster, I apologise before I cut her a slice. My instincts were correct. The cake is not entirely unpleasant, but in terms of texture it has a terrible rubbery quality and its taste has a tangy bicarb finish, which I suppose is part of the cake's malty oeuvre, but coupled with the former problem, becomes a problem in itself too. I apologise once more and she graciously comments "The icing's really nice". Subcutaneously, the flour lumps barely exist, but the top of the cake, which has now become the bottom of my finished cake has a bit of a crust and when I clear Sophie's plate I can see that she's quietly left it there like people do with fish skins and anything else that belonged to their food that they didn't want to eat.

I think my oven was partly to blame, as was I for not splitting the mix into two tins as the cakes may have risen more evenly in thinner layers. However, I am not entirely sure that the recipe is solid either. The cake has very little fat in it and quite bizarre ingredient ratios and realistically, I think that even if everything had gone to plan, it would still have a definite boing boing factor. I think you could make a sufficiently malty chocolate cake by adding the Horlicks to an existing choc cake formula (and subsequently removing an equal weight of flour), rather than concocting an off-the-wall ritual involving melted butter and hot milk. I actually ate one (sans maltesers) from Waitrose's Patisserie section which was fantastically soft whilst being densely chocolatey and maltily resonant. I imagine it was not made with the Nigella method either.

In support of my disaster, I've found numerous accounts of this recipe failing in other peoples' blogs. I'm not publishing the recipe, by the way, because I think it's a waste of time.

She gets it wrong. I've tasted it with my own mouth, man. Despite claims to being a (domestic) Goddess, she's just like the rest of us imperfect mortals.

*I really couldn't resist the pun. I do apologise.

Cold Comfort...er...

2005-11-21T14:00:00.000Z

Actually, there are many more reasons for loving winter, including all the sweet, comforting cakes and puddings which cold weather calls for.

I have already knocked out two crumbles in the past week – both plum and apple to use up a glut I had in the fruit bowl. I added cinnamon, nutmeg and vanilla to them, but what works even better (but I did not have them to hand at the time) are thick strips of orange zest tossed in with the fruit and then some grated fresh ginger. I am a firm believer that additional flavours should be added to the fruit, not the crumble mix. For me the crumble topping should remain virgin in order to provide the sweet, buttery foil to the scented layer of jewelled fruit underneath. The recipe I use is fool-proof. Some stubborn, luddite part of me always measures it out in imperial. It just seems appropriate, somehow.

per 2 pretty hungry people, 3 slightly peckish people or 4 extreme dieters. Double, quadruple etc etc as necessary. If I was serving more than two people however, I would probably make more just because I know my friends are a hungry lot. Infact I think this recipe mysteriously benefits from being doubled.

Fruit

½ pound of fruit (Any fruit you like – just not bananas, unless you are extremely perverse. I personally think topical fruits of any kind do not work as well as their local contemporaries, but if you must…)

1 ½ tablespoons of sugar (vary this depending on your fruit - unrefined sugars are great for autumnal/winter fruit mixes)

Crumble

4 oz plain flour

2 oz cold butter (if the butter is too soft you might end up making a dough rather than a crumble mix)

1 ½ oz golden caster sugar (or granulated if you want even more crunch)

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Cut your fruit into chunks and place in an ovenproof dish so they cover the bottom in an even layer. Sprinkle over the sugar and any other flavouring you're going to use.

Now onto the crumble. As I am still manual in my mixing, I put the butter into the flour and sugar and then using a sharp knife, cut through the butter and continue like this until the butter is in tiny pieces and is part way mixed into the flour. Then, either with one hand (keeping the other free to answer the phone from potential employers, in my case) or a fork if you're feeling prim, rub/smoosh the butter into the dry ingredients. It should look like breadcrumbs.

Tip the mix over the fruit, and shake it slightly to make sure the crumble covers everything. Bake until the crumble is a pale gold and, if you can see it, the fruit has become translucent and jammy.

I can't decide whether I like this best with double cream or a corresponding ice cream (had Haagen Daaz Praline and Cream with the last plum crumble and it was luscious) . I just go with whatever is available. Gareth likes custard with his crumble. Custard made with Birds Custard powder, more precisely. I'm not saying anything.

Easy as...

2005-11-20T23:34:00.000Z

The temperature has dropped considerably in the last two days, so my thoughts are now turning to dishes that can act as mini internal radiators.

I look forward to winter for two reasons: hefty, intense, meaty pies and substantial soups. I think this coming week may involve a trip to the butcher to get some cubed braising steak to make my absolute favourite, favourite pie: Steak, mushroom and stout. Why no kidneys, I hear you ask? I have nothing against offal itself – if anything, I think that using all the parts of an animal is wonderful and unwasteful but I am not the biggest fan of the texture of our filtering friends. That and they process URINE. URINE. When you buy kidneys, they still contain traces of it. Urgh. Yes, I know that in these times of molecular gastronomy and offal renaissance, I am being rather square. A girl has to have principles though. In the place of kidneys I choose portabella mushrooms to simulate that resistant, juicy mouthfeel without any of the ick factor.

The recipe I'll make this weekend comes from, in method, a Delia one for individual pies, but I make one big, fat pie. I'm not sure whether to use puff or shortcrust pastry, wherever the mood takes me, I guess.

The recipe is pretty longwinded, so I won't pain over putting it in here, but you can find it at http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/individual-steak-mushroom-and-kidney-pies,720,RC.html

Delia makes her own pastry, but for convenience, I buy the stuff from the supermarket. I've made this recipe lots of times and continue to tailor it. I like to cut the onions small, never have beef dripping to hand so just use a combination of olive oil and butter, and substitute half the beef stock with Guinness Extra Stout. It still reduces down to the most sublime, unctuous tar. I'm quite excited this time too because I've just acquired some Geo. Watkins Mushroom Ketchup, which I think will make a rich substitution for the Worcestershire sauce.

Although in total, this does take some time to make, you can break it into stages rather than doing it all in one go. A word of caution: if you must do this all together, please let the filling cool before you attempt to top it with pastry - otherwise you'll find that the pastry starts sagging and tearing before you can even get it anywhere near the oven.

The end result is just fantastic. I would quite like to try making a pudding version of this too...perhaps I'll try it this week. Exciting!

Snap, Crackle and Flop

2005-10-28T17:00:00.000Z

I can deftly royal ice a birthday cake, roll a roulade without turning it into cake carnage and dip truffles in couverture without losing the ganache filling to the hot little hands of the molten chocolate. How on earth I managed to stuff up Rice Krispie cakes tonight, is a mystery.

Actually It’s not, it’s pretty rudimentary science, but there's nothing wrong with taking a little creative license. It being my last week at work, I wanted to make something to take in the following day for the folks there, just to celebrate. ‘Quick’ and ‘easy’ were the watchwords of the evening, since my day at work was rather taxing and our kitchen looked like a student houses’ thanks to last night’s meal. I didn’t really want to add any more washing up to the insurmountable pile that lay next to the sink. The easiest, one-bowl, no-bake treat I could think of was Rice Krispie cakes – that cute staple of the children’s birthday party. Chocolate, butter, golden syrup and cereal – so simple and fuss free. No problem. Usually, I'd make the mars bar version, which is somewhat more sickly (but not in a bad way however) and sticky, but having none of those to hand, and a large bar or dark chocolate in the cupboard, I embarked on a slightly more adult version (not that kind of adult, silly).

Toying with the idea of adding some ground almonds to the mix, I decided to leave it and keep the mixture as pared down as possible since I really didn’t want to experiment and then consequently mess up. Hmpf.

After breaking up an entire 200g bar of choc and putting it to melt using the usual bowl-over-water method, I thought that maybe a little extra heat would get the job done quicker. And it would be fine, since I’d check the pan in a few minutes to make sure things weren’t getting too excitable. I decided that now may be a good time to tackle washing off all the dried-on food currently adhering to my crockery and cutlery. So happily, I waded through the pile, singing to myself and enjoying the thrilling view of my neighbour’s fire escape through the window as I sloshed around with a sudsy sponge. Half-way through, I dried my hands carefully and checked on the chocolate which seemed to be melting at a steady rate. However, not thinking, I forgot to turn the flame down a few notches, which in retrospect was an entirely necessary exercise. Continuing with the washing up and subsequently also taking on an involved conversation with my flatmate about my day at the office, the chocolate on the hob slipped from my mind. I think it was this period of time which really sealed the fate of my chocolaty little offspring. Returning to the bowl, nothing seemed noticeably amiss, and I stirred the chocolate, which was entirely melted and at first glance, fine. However as my spoon came to the end of its figure of eight, I met a few tiny particles of resistance. I stopped inhaling. I knew then and there that I’d blew it, but, I soldiered on, adding the butter to try and remedy the situation, stirring the mix panickedly (which probably didn’t help matters, really). The more I stirred, the more the mixture seized up into a relentless hard ball so, in a last ditch attempt to salvage the mess, I added the rice krispies. ERk. What was once a stirring action had now turned into a kneading nightmare as I smooshed the cereal into the unyielding chocolate. Persisting, I managed to add about a quarter of the weight of rice krispies that I should have been able to incorporate. Angrily, I continued to tip the mixture into a miniscule clingfilm-lined pyrex dish and promptly shut myself away to cool-down whilst I let the dish do the same.

Yes, I know, I heated it up to the point of no return. And it's more than likely with all that time on the hob, a little steam from the water below found its way into the bowl. Yes I know you should keep an eye on melting chocolate. But I didn’t. Crucify me.

Anyway, although no one at work got any treats (and luckily I hadn’t told them that they’d be getting any, so I didn’t have to admit the embarrassing fact that I buggered up kiddie food), Gareth and I actually enjoyed scoffing my mistake. It was, in all honesty, entirely unpresentable, but did tasted remarkably like thicker version of a nestle crunch bar, which is no bad thing. However, from a mix which should have made about 30-40 cakes, it yielded about 12 squares, which isn’t exactly economic. And I’m about to become unemployed.

Lesson learnt.

I like it hot and thick

2005-09-23T15:43:00.000Z

Well, titling this 'Hot Chocolate' would be extremely dull, wouldn't it?

Ahh, it's all going a little bit chilly, I've been ice skating today and I need warming up. Where do I turn to but the king of luxurious winter drinks - the Hot Chocolate. For me it cannot be bettered, even by spiced tea, although it does come close.

The best hot chocolate requires some decent dark chocolate and some good, full cream organic milk, and if you're that way inclined, some double cream. I use about 4 squares per generous mug, which roughly equals 25g, broken up and melted over a pan of simmering water. Adjust to your taste though. Once melted, drizzle in some cream to loosen the chocolate, if you're using it. The milk gets warmed up separately in a pan and whisked gradually into the molten chocolate and then everything gets poured back into the milk pan. The entire lot then sits amalgamating on direct heat for a minute more as you continue to whisk away. I then sit a teaspoon half-filled with honey in every cup and pour the sumptuousness over them but this is not obligatory. I think everyone needs to have their own spoons because frequent stirring is necessary throughout drinking, due to the mixture having some, er, separation anxiety. This doesn't happen so much when you use cream as it acts like a stabiliser between the chocolate particles and the milk.

I think if you really had a bad streak in you, you could make this with half single cream, half full-cream milk but you may not feel like eating for the rest of the day if you do this. I have warned you.

A Mere Trifle?

2005-08-28T14:26:00.000Z

In situations when the effort:deliciousness ratio of a dessert is required to be 1:5, the humble, ever-loyal trifle is, in my eyes, the way forward.

As long as you have its basic elements, there’s barely any mixing required and definitely no arduous baking, finicky melting or cooking necessary. And no, I’m not talking about those multi-layered affairs that stand (too) proudly in their transparent Pyrex bowl, tarting around their gaudily-coloured wares (delicious as they are). I’m talking about a concoction closer to the Tiramisu. And don’t you dare laugh. I still champion this dish, despite the way it is lampooned all over the foodie press.

On a highly necessary tangent, one of the things which terrifically disappoints me about many food critics is their incessant need to deem food unfashionable when it still tastes as wonderful as when it were ‘in’. Food is about more than trends – it’s about the intricacies of flavour and texture and then the enjoyment of these properties. I understand that innovative, exciting dishes and ingredients come around, and they get heralded The New Thing, but there’s no shame in still liking so-called "yesterday’s" food. Including Tiramisu. Rant over.

So if I’m not a snob, why am I picking Tiramisu over the British dessert staple? Well, if you paid close attention to the theme of this article, then you will have noted that it is all about ease (in a kind of non-fiddly way). A proper trifle is easier than other desserts, agreed, but somewhat involved, and can require a few too many ingredients that you might not have already, especially if you go for the jelly option. Something along the lines of a Tiramisu, however, has very few layers and can be assembled all in one go, earning it its status. There is an abundance of recipes for good, traditional Tiramisu out there so I’m not going to bore you with mine (at least not now). What I really want to impress upon you is the versatility of this dish. It gives you two bland elements – sponge and mascarpone cream – which form a basic canvas to paint flavours onto. You just need to think about symbiotic partnerships of flavours to work with, or more so, look at what you already have stocked in your kitchen and work with it. I made a summery version for a barbecue with an amaretto soaked sponge and raspberries folded into the cream (just enough so they bled their acrid pinkness into the cream but not so much that it turned the mixture a homogenised pale salmon). My favourite bastardisation though, is one which I came up with when I needed to make a dessert but hadn’t had a chance to plan. As luck would have had it, I had everything I needed in the kitchen for it. I also made it up in individual bowls, thus dispensing the need to wash up a bigger serving dish, which is always a plus. I know the classic method for making the dish incorporates eggs into the mascarpone, but I usually skip this and just combine it with some lightly whipped cream, or just beat it in a bowl to soften it, this making it even easier. As always, the measurements I give are approximations and because I made this to serve three originally, it serves two very hungry people or four people who want to have pudding but don’t want to feel like they had pudding. If you are making it for more or less than three people, it makes more sense to do this in one big dish.

Banoffee Tiramisu
(serves 3 or thereabouts)

9 Savoiardi biscuits/sponge fingers
6 tbsp caramel syrup or toffee vodka/butterscotch schnapps
3 very heaped tbsp Dulce de Leche
2 small/medium bananas
1 x 250g tub of mascarpone
142ml tub of double cream

Very simply: divide the biscuits between three flattish bottomed bowls, drizzle over two tablespoons of the caramel syrup/vodka (you may need a bit more than this to get the biscuits softened) over each set of biscuits. Whilst you let the fingers soak up the syrup, whip the cream until it billows softly but remain cautious as you do so, ensuring it does not become stiff and unworkable. Beat the mascarpone in another bowl to loosen it and then gently fold in the cream. The aim here is to instil its aeration into the cheese, making it lighter – any vigorous stirring here will rapidly knock out all your prior hard graft with the cream. Spread a tablespoon of the Dulce de Leche over each set of the biscuits and then slice the bananas, divide the amount into three and arrange them in an even layer over the toffee. Spoon a third of the cream mixture into each bowl, spreading it lightly to cover the bananas. Serve with shots of the vodka/schnapps, if you’re using it. If you’re not, don't fret - it holds up perfectly well on its own.

Lettuce Salad? No thank you. Thai Beef Salad? Yes please.

2005-07-10T14:34:00.000Z

I didn't think I liked salads. To me they were uninspiring, unfilling wastes of time. Shredded, limp lettuce smothered in throat-catching vinegary dressings; grossly underripe tomatoes hanging around at the edge of your plate. Now that's my idea of meal-time misery. If I was going to eat dinner, I'd rather have a decent, hearty dish. Or at least that was what I thought.

Oh how misguided I was. My embittered perspective was merely, but entirely based on what I'd experienced as a child. Thankfully, the salads of yesteryear have now been triumphantly trumped by verdant, vibrant plates of leaves, dressed subtly and innovatively. In the last decade, the emergence of watercress, rocket and spinach as suitable leafy bulk has reinvigorated my notion of what a salad can be - lettuce just doesn't cut it any more.

Salads come into their own in the hotter months, when the thought of having the hob on for more than a few minutes in an already inferno-like kitchen seems ludicrous. Depending on what you put in them, they don't have to be consigned to starter-dom either. One of the simplest, most delicious summer suppers I make is Thai Beef Salad - succulent, exciting and sating. Thai flavours lend themselves magnificently to leafy dishes and most meats, but beef benefits from the sweetly sour partnership particularly. The dish's faultless quality is its amazingly healthiness - a minimal drizzle of oil is used to fry the steak and the dressing doesn't use any; a welcome, yet no-less-substantial change from steak and chips.

The recipe is an adaptation from Ysanne Spevack's Farmers Market, which is a down-to-earth book with chapters guided by seasonally available produce. The original formula calls for romaine lettuce, cucumber and cherry tomatoes which I have, respectively, substituted and omitted out of pure preference. There is some tinkering with the amounts of ingredients, for example I have upped the amount of fish sauce because I like the dressing to be strong. In fact, I love it so much that if I didn't know better, I would happily drink the stuff straight from the bottle. The important thing to remember with any dressing is that you should always taste it to check if it's to your liking - the amounts are not a fixed chemistry so don't feel bound to the measurements.

Personally, I prefer my steak rare. I get mine from the butcher so I feel confident about my meat's freshness but would advise you to cook the steak all the way through if you are using supermarket bought rump. The end result will be a little less tender but safer on the whole.

Thai Beef Salad (serves 2)

2 medium sized, thick-cut rump steaks (organic/free range British beef from a butcher if possible)
1 small red chilli, de-seeded and cut into strips
1 small green chilli, de-seeded and cut into strips
125g mushrooms (shiitake/oyster if you can get them but closed cup/chestnut mushrooms are fine if that's all that's available)
olive oil

For the dressing

2 spring onions
1 large or 2 small cloves of garlic, finely minced
juice of ½ a lime
2 tbsp fish sauce
½ tsp soft light brown sugar
a generous handful of fresh coriander, chopped

Salad

1 bag of watercress, spinach and rocket salad (obviously get this in an unbagged state if possible)
½ medium courgette

Make sure your steaks are at room temperature. Heat a little oil in a pan until you can see it rippling and then place them in the pan. Fry them for just over 2 minutes on each side if you like them rare, or cook them for longer if you like them more well-done. Once cooked, remove from the pan and leave to rest and cool for 15 minutes on a chopping board (do not slice them yet). Whilst the meat is cooling you should have just the right amount of time to prepare every thing else.

Finely slice the spring onions and place in a bowl with the minced garlic and chopped coriander. Sprinkle over the sugar, fish sauce and lime juice, mix together and set aside. Slice the mushrooms (if you are using oyster mushrooms leave them whole) and using the steak pan, fry them gently with the chilli (be careful not to do this on too high a heat since burnt chillies release an unpleasant, cough-inducing vapour). Either cut the courgette into batons, or using a peeler, shave ribbon-like strips from it. Pile your salad and courgette on two large plates.

By now, the meat should have had enough resting time, so slice it into thin strips on the diagonal, which will make them satisfyingly lengthy. Making sure you have turned the heat off, add these to the mushrooms and chillies in the frying pan to combine and warm through a little. Pour over the dressing and toss through gently. Making sure you don't leave any of the dressing in the pan, arrange the juicy beef mixture on top of the waiting salad and serve, perhaps with a light sprinkling of sesame seeds if the mood takes you.

...and the cupboard was bare!

2005-05-06T13:20:00.000Z

For some people, every night is like Ready Steady Cook.

They have three or four random ingredients in the fridge/cupboard at any one time and their hands are forced to make do making a ramshackle meal from the mere melange. For others (like myself at present) the sheer joy of the anticipation of a planned meal means that unpredictability never factors in to food. However, there was a time (i.e when I was a student) when I would career around from university to a part time job then to my boyfriend’s flat and lastly to my place, barely stopping for breath. Not knowing where I was going to be day to day meant ‘no’ to planned meals and ‘yes’ to a cunningly stocked freezer and a cumbersome stash of dried goods in the kitchen cupboard (every time I opened its door it rained packets of linguine and jars of oregano). However, there were times when the cupboard was bare (well, in honesty, the fridge was).

Nonetheless, I have to say that some of my finest culinary moments have been found in the despair of the sparse food stock. One particular dish which I still hold dear in my repertoire was created when all I could glean from my boyfriend’s freezer was a small packet of cooked prawns and the only carbohydrate he had in his cupboard was a box of dried lasagne. At first glance, there seemed to be no raw ingredients that could form a sauce, but what I did muster was a jar of vivaciously hot chilli oil, meticulously handmade by my Italian friend’s generous mother. Out of these three things, (four including dried parsley, but I don’t count its presence as a culinary miracle) a star was born. I bestow it upon you now, slightly adapted for the planning cook – as is my license – but bear in mind that when pressed, you could really do this with just the main ingredients and do away with the wine if you have none to hand. I don’t really have to say that this also works excellently with some squid thrown in or whatever shellfish you care for most. As well as its fluidity in its ingredients, one of its most attractive aspects for me is its meal for oneness and its super speedy prep time. Oh, and in true Ready Steady I’ve Just Come Home from Work and I Don’t Really Want to Cook style, remember that handily pre-cooked tiger prawns and dried parsley do just fine in this too, as does any oil-gripping pasta shape.

Freeform chilli prawn lasagne

(Per person)

3 dried egg lasagne sheets
10 Medium sized Raw Tiger Prawns (or however many you want, really)
4 tbsp Chilli Oil
3 tbsp White wine
Generous sprinkling of chopped flat-leaf parsley

Put a plate or plates to warm in an oven. Boil and salt your pasta water making sure to add a little olive oil in, as lasagne sheets like to stick to each other. They take between 7-10 minutes and generally, since this is not the usual method for cooking them, there aren’t cooking times on the packet. You just need to stir the water every minute and gently lift a sheet with a wooden spoon to check its progress. When it drapes over your spoon, it’s done. Be careful not to leave it for too long however, as it will not drape so much as tear. Once your pasta is on, and about halfway cooked, heat up the chilli oil and once it’s really hot, add in half of your wine and let it reduce down. When the mixture in your frying pan is glossy and syrupy and the pasta is very nearly cooked, drop the prawns in the oil along with the rest of the wine and the chopped parsley and briefly fry them for a minute on each side, (be careful not to cook them for longer otherwise they will become hard and unyielding – the moment they turn from transparent grey to opaque coral, they should be cooked). The prawn juices, wine, chilli and parsley should amalgamate to form a lusciously green-flecked, spice-spiked jus. Once the prawns are done, remove the pan from the heat and then check your pasta. The moment the sheets are cooked, lift one out onto a warmed plate (fish slices are brilliant for this slippery job) and as quickly as possible, evenly spoon half your prawns onto it and drizzle over a little of the sauce. At similar speed lay the next sheet over it and repeat, reserving some of your chilli liquor for anointing the final top sheet with its amber glassiness. Speed is of the essence at this point as all the flapping around can make the finished dish a little tepid to the taste, but warmed plates certainly help remedy this.

Learning from the mistresses...

2005-03-16T17:08:00.000Z

There’s a magnificent Katy Stewart recipe for chicken breasts and artichokes enrobed in a creamy sauce, then baked with a covering of crisp, buttery parmesan-encrusted bread cubes. Sadly, I'm not going to give it to you right now.

Not because I'm mean, but because it's only a slice of the back story for my main topic. The meal itself is ridiculously indulgent and involves a lot of different processes to prepare it, but one of the basics it has taught me is a fool-proof way of cooking tender, moist chicken breasts – sealing each side and then poaching them in chicken stock. When making the dish the first time, it occurred to me that just from this simple base alone, a plethora of chickeny recipes could be made.

One I concocted that I am particularly fond of (and readily, if not a little vehemently, pass on to others) is a chicken pasta dish. It requires little more than this poaching technique, but tastes like you’ve spent far more time and love on it than you actually have. The pasta assumes an intense chicken flavour from the stock-based sauce, which can be mellowed but enriched with cream, or left as it is, woody and rustic. By poaching the breasts whole and not cutting them up into pieces beforehand, the resulting meat is meltingly soft. I tend not to eat chicken all that much because for me, it needs to be free range and I refuse to buy mine from anywhere but the butcher. As this means I have to buy the entire chicken (albeit in pieces), it’s more of a treat than a weekly necessity.

This method is overly verbose so don’t be alarmed at the length of it – it is honestly very simple – fry chicken, poach chicken, take it out, reduce sauce, shred chicken, cook pasta, add chicken back to sauce and add the cooked, drained pasta. Painless. You could use the darker thigh meat for a more frugal approach to this recipe, bearing in mind that you’ll need two per person, and over all it will have a more matured taste, but be oily with it. Breast is best, I think.

Simple Chicken Pasta
(serves two)

2 skinless, boneless free range chicken breasts
olive oil
350ml chicken stock (I use a Kallo organic chicken stock cube for convenience – they’re fantastically rich for what they are)
1-2 large cloves of garlic
3 tbsp dry white wine (optional)
1 level tbsp dried porcini mushrooms
2 tbsp double cream (optional)
1 tsp fresh parsley, chopped
150g dried egg tagliatelle / pappardelle

Prepare your stock and chop the garlic finely and set aside. Heat a small drizzle of oil in a medium-sized non-stick frying pan that has a lid (if you’re not using non-stick then think about using a touch more oil) and when it’s ripplingly hot, place your two chicken pieces in and sauté for two-three minute until they are tinged with a pale burnished bronze. Flip the breasts over at this stage. Once this side of chicken has had a minute or so, fry the clove of garlic in a free bit of the pan, watching it doesn’t burn. When the chicken and garlic are sufficiently sautéed, pour in the stock and wine, checking it comes halfway up the breasts (add a little more if it doesn’t), add the porcini and lower the temperature to a gentle simmer in order to poach the chicken. After about 6-8 minutes, flip the fillet over and re-cover the pan. Give the chicken another 6-8 minutes and then check if the meat it cooked through (these breasts aren’t going to be used whole so do not fret about butchering them to see whether they're still pink inside). If not, cook for a further few minutes. Once the chicken has turned beige throughout the fillet, place on a wooden board and allow them to rest for 3-5 minutes at least. This stage will make for a more succulent chicken morsel as the flesh evenly reclaims its own juices . Whilst this is resting, turn your attention back to the liquid in the pan – this is going to become your pasta’s sauce. Keeping the heat as it is, or perhaps turning it a little higher (depending on the size of your pan – wider pans evaporate liquid faster but smaller pans require a little more heat) allow the liquid to reduce down in the uncovered pan. In another saucepan, heat and salt your water for pasta but don’t cook it yet. The chicken can wait for the pasta, but the pasta won’t wait too happily for the chicken. Now focus back on the bird. Once rested, the fillets need to be shredded. I use two forks, ripping with one (going with the grain of the flesh) whilst holding it down with the other. I shred the meat because I like the particularly fibrous feel from the natural form of chicken breast and also that it doesn’t result in uniformity – you get the full spectrum from big scraps to little filaments. However, if you want a more polished look, you can take a nice sharp knife to them and chop on the diagonal, which is probably faster, overall (but much less fun and I think the flavour of the chicken becomes less apparent with the meat’s lessened overall surface area). You can now cook your pasta because all the distracting things which result in overcooking it are gone. The sauce should be reduced by now, if not very nearly so and once it is, lower the heat right down, tip the chicken back into the sauce and add the parsley and cream if you’re using it. If you’ve got a while to wait, cover it so no further reduction takes place and the chicken and sauce keep hot. Check the seasoning – I tend to not add extra salt as the stock cube is salty enough but depending on what stock you’re using, you may need to pep it slightly. Once the pasta is cooked, tip into the pan, mix through and serve.