My food-splattered recipe books also sport some short observations and random expletives. I don’t remember or understand many of them, going back many years and no doubt written after guests had left following a rather jolly evening. Comments are often less than complimentary. The cook’s fault no doubt, although this is not recognised in the jottings! Wild garlic pesto is likened to ‘pond slime’ and will not be repeated, stuffed cabbage, “ghastly, ghastly, ghastly and in these quantities you have to eat it every day for a fortnight”. However, the best scribbles are those kept in a notebook detailing my ‘entertaining’ for over ten years – a private post mortem of culinary events with friends, food and mostly lots of fun.
My notes centre on the food, the recipes and where to find them if I want to repeat them, which mostly I do. I can laugh now at some of my disasters but my early cooking trials still make me wince. The very worst, over 20 years ago, using fresh pineapple in a jelly for a Christmas trifle (as requested by an old boss). Believe me, it would never, ever have set. Even if you sieve it, add three more packets of gelatine and try freezing it. Putting the custard on the frozen ‘jelly’ pretending there isn’t a problem won’t help either, as the custard will sink and the liquid will erupt and puddle on the top. I wrote to Rowntree’s about my mortifying trifle making. It seems there is an enzyme in fresh pineapple that breaks down the protein in gelatine and de-activates it. Seems I should have used canned pineapple. Duh! Serves the ex-boss right for asking me to make a trifle with jelly in the first place – proper trifle doesn’t have jelly. So, disaster prone, I was drawn to Aliksandra Mir’s The How Not To Cookbook – lessons learnt the hard way. I am someone who needs another cookery book like a hole in the head, but I couldn’t resist this one. I sat in Beatons, Tisbury’s avantgarde café and bookshop, giggling over my coffee on a rainy afternoon. Here are some short examples of other people’s advice on what not to do when cooking: (but buy the book – 1000+ giggles for foodie friends) ○ ‘When you have accidentally added dishwashing liquid to your salad instead of oil, do not attempt to wash it out and serve it to your children, they will be able to tell the difference. Even the teenagers.’ ○ ‘If your water supply is cut off, do not stick your head of lettuce in the toilet bowl.’ ○ ‘Do not put marshmallows in your omelette even if there is nothing else in the house to eat. It’s revolting.’ Why not send us your tips of ‘how not to’ to donheaddigest@googlemail.com? The recipe this month appears in my notebook more often than any other. It is a truly sensational dish and comes from Tamsin Day-Lewis’ book Good Tempered Food, who credits Tim Withers and Simon Hopkinson, the cream of chefs if ever there were any. aif ‘Top-Drawer’ Tarragon Chicken (Chicken Savoyarde) £16.50 when all ingredients purchased in Ludwell. Serves 6 I x 2 kg casseroled chicken or 6 large, cooked, moist chicken breasts (the better the stock for cooking the chicken the better your sauce will be. The meat must be moist and good quality – no skin or chewy bits!) For the sauce and to finish 50 g butter 50 g flour 400 ml poaching chicken stock 300 ml dry white wine 250 ml double cream 100 g Gruyère cheese, grated 1 tbsp Dijon mustard (but go easy!) 50 g chopped fresh tarragon (DON’T scrimp here - it’s essential) 50 g minimum breadcrumbs 25 g minimum grated Parmesan – adjust to ‘crust preferences’ Salt and pepper Preheat oven to 230ºC / Gas 8 / AGA middle shelf 1 To make the sauce, melt the butter, add the flour and cook for a few minutes without browning, stirring constantly to form a ‘roux’ or smooth paste. 2 Gradually add the HOT chicken stock, then white wine and cream. Keep this moving to avoid lumps. 3 Stir until thickened and smooth – watch this stage carefully. (Seriously, if there are lumps it’s not the end of the world. Take a clean pan and sieve your sauce into it and continue – you may not have as much sauce but it has been saved.) 4 Taste to check there is no ‘floury taste’ (if so, cook a little longer) and stir in the Gruyère cheese, mustard and the tarragon. 5 Adjust the seasoning and then simmer very slowly and carefully, stirring often for approx 20 minutes. 6 Mix the breadcrumbs with the grated Parmesan cheese. 7 Butter a gratin dish/oven proof dish – max 2” depth 8 Place the chicken pieces (large bite size bits) into the base of the dish, pour over the sauce and sprinkle with the breadcrumb mix 9 Bake in a preheated oven for 20–25 minutes until the dish is golden and bubbling well around the edges. Serve with buttered new potatoes and a crisp green salad with french beans. Absolutely the best and naturally..… Truly Scrumptious anytime of the year.
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As a child living in North Wales, I occasionally went to stay with my grandmother, who lived in a cold angular 1960’s house, overlooking the Conway estuary. It was an awkward relationship made all the more difficult by my dreading mealtimes when I would find myself seated at a pale blue formica table with its cold steel rim, in stilted conversation.
As a very young girl, I made an innocent mistake on one of these visits. One of those that you play along with because you feel its too embarassing to admit to your stupidity. It was all about ‘my favourite meal’. In my defence I was still quite young and I hadn’t quite sorted out in my head what were crisps and what were chips - often confusing the two. Chips, as I was to learn, were the real rarity and when served with sliced ham, had to be part of the best meal in the world. Hot, crispy yet fluffy potato served with cold juicy ham – just the best. However, this was one of those confused moments and I told her my favourite meal was ham and ‘crisps’. She checked with me that this was what I really wanted and I, salivating at the possibilities of what I was later to realise were ‘chips’, said “yes, yes please, ham and crisps”. So, right into my teens, everytime she ‘cooked’ for me, she would proudly serve me a couple of slices of cold ham, a handful of Smiths plain crisps and a few quarters of tomatoes. I cringe to this day as I remember always eating with a smile and over played enthusiasm, whilst flushed with embarrassment. Serving ham now always reminds me of those days. This still, topped with an organic poached egg, gets pretty close to my favourite meal, (of course with chips!). Try the Grove Arms if I have rekindled your wish for such comfort food, as theirs is excellent, or cook your own ham, as described this month and serve with a couple of organic eggs, poached or fried and of course with home cut, double fried chips. Whole hams or gammon joints are often at the centre of the table at Christmas. Although they make great joints anytime enough folk gather together with their feet planted firmly under the table. No wastage; easy to cook and good value. You need to soak dry cured hams in water for several hours before cooking. Some prefer to boil their hams first and then finish in the oven with a glaze. The recipe here includes creating a blackened crackling - so certainly not for boiling first. To ensure a great crackling, thoroughly dry it by removing the gammon from its plastic wrapping, wipe with paper towel and score well with a sharp knife. Store in the bottom of the fridge, uncovered for a couple of days to dry it out. If boiling first, place the ham in a large saucepan and cover well with water. Add an onion studded with cloves, a couple of carrots, parsley, bay leaf and peppercorns. Simmer for 20 mins per 500g. When cooked, lift from the pan and allow to cool enough so that you can handle it. Remove the skin, trim the fat to an even layer, score in a neat design and glaze. Return to the oven and bake for 20 minutes, basting occasionally. Alternative glazes (suitable for average 2kg joint):- Honey & orange - blend grated zest of 2 oranges, 1 tbsp orange juice, 3 tbsp honey, 2 tbsp demerara sugar; 1 tbsp plain flour Treacle & Ginger - blend 2 tbsp treacle, 3 tbsp soft brown sugar, 1-2 tbsp ground ginger, 2 tbsp finely diced preserved stem giner with 1 tbsp syrup from the jar Pineapple & Lemon - blend 1tsp grated lemon zest, 175g light brown sugar, 3 tbsp pineapple juice, 1 tbsp lemon juice, 2 tbsp plain flour and ½ tsp cayenne pepper. aif ‘Black Gammon’ with Rum and Raisin Sauce (with a grateful nod to Delia). Serves 8 in quantities given, however easily amended up or down to suit £1.75 per person when all ingredients purchased in Ludwell. 2.25kg Gammon Joint, smoked or un-smoked (known as green) 1tbsp Black Treacle Salt - sea salt preferably – used sparingly For the sauce 1 Large juicy orange 1 Zest and juice of a lime 75ml Dark Rum 75g Raisins 110g Soft brown sugar 1tsp Arrowroot 1. Prepare the gammon for cooking 2-3 days in advance as described overleaf and start making the sauce, again at least one day in advance. 2. Remove the zest from the orange in strips, avoiding the white bitter pith. Slice into very fine strips - thin as a needle if you can. 3. Grate the zest from the lime and squeeze the juice. 4. Place all the sauce ingredients (other than the arrowroot) in a pan, and mix well, then sprinkle on the arrowroot, whisking in before gently heating and it starts to simmer. 5. When the sauce looks clear remove it from the heat, stirring well. Allow to cool. Cover and refrigerate. Preheat oven to 240°C / Gas mark 8 / AGA grid shelf centre of top oven 6. To cook the gammon, warm the treacle slightly and lightly cover the skin of the gammon with the warm mix. (It will just slide off if too cold) 7. Sprinkle with sea salt crystals, pressing them in well (this is a messy business) 8. Place the gammon in a foil lined roasting tin, and place in the hot oven for 25 minutes. Reduce the oven temperature to 180°C / Gas Mark 4 / AGA grid bottom of top oven with cooling shelf above. 9. Continue to cook the gammon for just under 2 hours, depending on the size of the gammon (estimate for 20 mins per 500g plus 20 minutes extra.) It should feel tender when tested with a skewer. Remove from the oven. 10. Cover with foil and rest well in a warm place for up to 30 minutes. 11. Serve sliced with the blackened crackling, celeriac or Jerusalem artichoke mash, greens and the warm spiced rum and raisin sauce. For a quick potted ham, put a handful of curly parsley with a clove of garlic, a couple of gherkins or capers (optional) and a couple of spring onions into a food processor. Whizz, and then add a couple of thick slices, (left over chunks) of cooked gammon. Whizz again until it is a spreadable consistency. Then, with the machine still running, add about 50g melted unsalted butter. Season with black pepper, put in a suitable pot - e.g. ramekin, cover with a further 15g melted butter to seal and store in the fridge until set. Serve spread on warm toast with spicy chutney. A truly, truly scrumptious dish. An impromptu day out recently, found me eating a picnic with friends in the hail, at Stourhead. Undetered, we created a makeshift tent and enjoyed the finds of my fridge from which I had conjured up a red onion, thyme and feta cheese tart,, roasted vegetables with orzo pasta and crisp green salad. Nothing could dampen our enthusiasm for a tasty lunch off plastic plates although we moved to the warmth of the car for hot coffee and the first of british stawberries.
The finds from my fridge included a bag stuffed with wild garlic collected on my walk near Pythouse the previous day. Ramsons or wild garlic, as the name suggests, grow unchecked in their massess in damp woods and in our lanes, often cheek-by-jowl with bluebells. They are easily recognisable, first by their pungent smell and then by their broad leaves, like those of lily-of-the-valley with a pretty white head of starry flowers. So far as the flowers are concerned, they are around now, finishing by mid summer. A handful of these flowers brought a burst of taste and colour to our picnic. The flavour is softer, more pleasant than cloves of garlic bulbs and the smell less intense. You can also make fritters from the whole flower heads by dipping them first in a tempura style batter (two parts flour, one part cornflour, salt and chilled fizzy water, blended into a light batter.) Dip these into hot oil and they are ready in a couple of minutes - great as garnish with fish. The garlic leaves can be made into a pesto although I prefer to stuff the leaves into the cavity of a chicken and roast. The meat and the juices will have been infused with a hint of garlic, nothing too assertive and the juices allow for the making of a tasty gravy. Discard the leaves. Rhubarb too is filling my fridge these weeks and I notice Ludwell stores is selling their own home-grown rhubarb. These dark; rosy luscious stalks have become the staple of crumbles, tarts and fools in my home. It seems very English to me but I believe rhubarb originally came to us from Northern Assia. For a change, I want to use rhubarb to make an acidic relish, to eat with oily fish, duck or pork. Sophie Grigson, in her edifying book ‘Meat Course’ has a section ‘in praise of fat’. Pork fat in particular she describes as unfashionable and although this writing is now fifteen years old, I don’t believe this fashion has changed. Rather than sneer at it, I have chosen to join Sophie in her praise of fat and include here, a wonderful pork belly recipe that celebrates the fat and allows it to bubble up through finely scored skin, almost frying it to a crisp, yet leaving the meat meltingly tender and moist. Much of the fat will have rendered itself to the bottom of the pan. Pork belly is a bargain and requires very little preparation. Buy good quality, on the bone that has not sat in plastic wrapping. Ask your butcher to score well, right to the edges and loosen the bones, removing them before slicing into chunks. Tempting as it is, suggest you serve this only occasionally to bow to fashion. aif Crisp, Roast Pork Belly with Spring Rhubarb Relish (Relish after ‘River Cottage Preserves’) Serves 4. Pork approx. £1.25p pp, Relish £1.45 per jar, when all ingredients purchased in the Donheads. 1kg Single piece belly pork, skin on (well scored, right to the edges) 1tsp Sea salt For the Spring Rhubarb Relish - makes 4 x 340 grm jars For the spice bag (tie in muslin or a jelly bag) 50g fresh root ginger, bruised (just whack it with a rolling pin) 2 cinnamon sticks, snapped in half 6 cloves 400g granulated sugar 100ml cider vinegar 1kg rhubarb (untrimmed weight) 125g raisins 1. Make your spice bag with the ginger; cinnamon and cloves. 2. Put the sugar, vinegar, 100 ml water and the spice bag into a heavy based pan. (Don’t be alarmed by the small amount of liquid). 3. Heat gently for 10 minutes to dissolve the sugar and soften the spices. Set aside for 20 minutes ensuring spice bag is well immersed. 4. Trim the rhubarb stalks and chop into 2-2.5cm chunks. 5. Add the rhubarb and raisins to the spiced syrup. Cook gently for 15-20 minutes until the mixture is thick but the rhubarb is still quite chunky. 6. Remove and spoon into warm sterilized jars and seal. Serve cold. Oven - 200C / Gas Mark 6 / AGA top oven, rack on first rungs 1. Lay the pork, skin side down, in about 2 cm of salted water in a heatproof pan or flat-bottomed roasting tin and simmer for 5 minutes. Remove and pat dry. 2. Rub the skin with the sea salt 3. Place pork, skin side up on a rack in a roasting pan adding water to just below the rack. 4. Bake for 90 - 120 minutes, topping up the water as necessary 5. Turn your oven up to 220C / Gas mark 7 or AGA users move roasting tin to the top of the top oven. Cook for a further 20-30 minutes until the skin puffs up and turns crisp, but don’t allow it to burn. Remove and rest. 6. Remove bone piece and slice along the scored lines, then into chunks. 7. Serve hot/warm with the cold rhubarb relish Best served with something fresh - a crunchy salad of cos lettuce; rocket or watercress, french beans; warm new potatoes, garlic flowers, apples and walnuts with a dressing of oil, vinegar, apple juice and French mustard, is a perfect match. A truly, truly scrumptious dish. I heard my first Christmas jingle a couple of weeks ago. It was still October and I was whisked back in time to a fairly hideous, squirm making early career in hotel management. It was the 1980’s. I was the Operations Manager of the largest leisure hotel in the country. To this day, I can’t think why I took the job. Seems I always relished the almost vertical learning curve opportunity. A leisure hotel is quite different from your touristy hotel. Their whole business relies on ‘all day entertainment’ and high volume, low cost accommodation. A cabaret team performed seven nights a week; there were three ballrooms; swimming pool complex, a nightclub and four bars, not to mention conference and dining facilities. Most of the guests went ‘full board’ in high season, which meant producing 3,500 meals a day. A big, exhausting operation. Much like Butlins, with 500 rooms stacked up over thirteen floors. To top it all, the hotel was shaped like a boat and the lift didn’t go to the 13th floor! The hotel specialised in short breaks, theme weekends or in the case of ‘Country & Western’ a whole tedious week. On these occasions we would be overwhelmed by literally hundreds of people in cowboy hats and boots, line dancing and thigh slapping at unnerving frequency. When you do this sort of thing in small numbers its fun and fine, but we regularly had over a thousand people staying in the hotel at any one time. Christmas wasn’t wasted as a single annual event either. Every weekend from the start of October through to the real thing, the hotel celebrated Christmas and New Year – over four days. So, for at least 10 consecutive Fridays it was Christmas Eve with carols and mince pies. Saturdays, Christmas day. And oh, how we had fun, celebrating with Santa, turkey, crackers, funny hats – the full works. Sunday was Boxing Day that morphed into New Years Eve by the time it went dark, and no one seemed to go to bed. We bundled them into their coaches on the Monday – New Years day of course, to get ready to do it all over again. When the real thing came, the true message of Christmas was completely lost. In contrast, with excellent memories I have chosen a recipe that is just perfect for the chilly weather to come. It tastes wonderful and benefits from being made a day or two in advance, or frozen, which works beautifully. Some people are wary of buying venison in case it is very strong in taste. Some is, but check with the butcher – supermarket venison wont be strong. Buttling’s is selling excellent venison this month, but if you can't get venison or would prefer beef, stewing beef or rump is a good substitute. Enjoy your celebrations, however and how often you like! aif Venison (or beef) Ragout with Chestnuts, Port and Orange (serves 5-6) Around £2.46 for venison or £2.00 for beef, per portion when all ingredients purchased in the Donheads. 900g Diced venison or beef 2 medium onions, sliced – or 225g small whole onions - skinned 1 tbsp plain flour seasoned with salt and lots of ground black pepper 600ml vegetable stock (you could use chicken stock at a push – cubes run the risk of too much salt) 140 ml Port* A few drops of balsamic vinegar 2 tsp redcurrant jelly 1orange – grated rind and juice Sunflower oil (for browning the meat) 200g Vacuum-packed / tinned whole chestnuts (NOT dried, pureed or sweetened) * Sorry, no comparable non-alcoholic substitute for this – the alcohol will all have been cooked out however. The dish benefits enormously by the flavour it helps create, but leave it out if you really need to. Oven 180°C / Gas Mark 4 / AGA – grid shelf on floor of roasting oven or mid shelf Baking oven (4 door AGA) 1. Coat the meat chunks in the flour mix, reserving approx 2 tsp for later. 2. Using a heavy casserole dish, brown the meat in the hot oil, in small amounts keeping the pan hot (too much meat at a time will make for a grey, soggy mess!) Keep the batches of browned meat warm. 3. In a small pan, melt the redcurrant jelly in the port and set aside. 4. When all the meat is browned and put aside, add a little more oil to the pan and lower the heat a little. Add the onions and cook for 10 minutes, scraping the wonderfully sticky brown bits off the bottom of the pan as you go. Stir the onions occasionally so they cook evenly. 5. Dust in the reserved 2 tsp of seasoned flour and cook for a further minute, before gradually adding the (hot) vegetable stock and the balsamic vinegar, stirring continually as the sauce boils. 6. Stir in the orange rind and juice, port & jelly mix and the chestnuts. 7. Replace the meat back in the pan, stir well and cover with a lid. 8. Cook in a moderate oven for 2 hours. 9. Cool completely and either refrigerate or freeze at this stage. 10. Before serving, give the casserole a further 90 minutes, simmering in a moderate oven. (Increase to 2 hours if straight from the fridge) Delicious served with creamy mashed potatoes and braised leeks or carrots. A truly, truly scrumptious, seasonal recipe. |
AuthorThese musings and recipes are gleaned from The Donhead Digest with the permission of AIF, their author. Categories
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