West Essex Deli

Life is a bowl of cherries...

2011-07-10T13:21:00.000-07:00

Well, this afternoon was, anyway. We went to the Cherry Festival at Brogdale Farm in Kent. Although it has been raining a lot on and off recently, this afternoon while we were having our tour of the fruit orchards it was warm and sunny, so we couldn't have asked for better weather. We got to see and sample lots of different types of cherries (they have nearly 300 different varieties), all of them lovely and ripe and juicy and just picked from the tree, so that even the commercial varieties we tasted were wonderful and sweet. There were small cherries and large cherries, dark ones that were very nearly black, pale red ones and white cherries (the ones with yellow flesh and yellow and red skins, and even one variety that had a purely yellow skin, something that I had never seen before), sour cherries and not so sour (Dukes) which are good for cooking. I had read about Dukes, Montmorency and Bigarreau cherries in cookery books (Jane Grigson's Fruit book one of the main ones), but never actually seen or tasted any apart from the Morello cherries we have grown ourselves recently. Some of my favourites were Turkish Black, a small black variety (this particular one tasted better than some of the other small black varieties I tasted, I'm not sure if it's because some of the others were perhaps a bit overripe and not so sweet because of it), Napoleons (a sweet 'white' cherry), Donnisen's Gelbe, a variety with pure yellow skin, and I loved all of the three commercial varieties that I tasted - Stella, Lapins and Hertford. I think I had a slight preference for the Stella over the Lapins. We bought a punnet of Hertfords to take home. They had several varieties of cherries for sale, but the Hertfords were the only ones of those available that I had tasted on our orchard tour.

Varieties seen and/or tasted:

1. Durona di Vignola - dark red, didn't like this so much
2. di Pistoia - dark red, medium size, tough skin, didn't like this so much
3. Florence - light red with just a bit of yellow, hard skin, not really sweet or sour
4. Techlovicka - small, black, very soft and juicy
5. Donnisens Gelbe KnorpelKirsche - yellow skin, very nice, a favourite X
6. Strawberry Heart - small, light red, pointy end, very nice
7. Badacsonyi Orias - large, hard skin, but juicy and sweet
8. Wellingtons - medium size, dark red, very juicy
9. Magyar Pork - large, medium red color, quite nice
10. Vosenka - small, black, very soft and juicy
11. Alma - small, black, tough skin, I didn't like these
12. Early Buckenhays - very small, very shiny black, looks like a berry, very nice X
13. Pivka - old Czech variety, tasted possibly over-ripe
14. Mai Bigarreau - pale red or red/yellow skin, pale yellow flesh, juicy, not at all sour, one of my favourites, and D's also X
15. Sweetheart - red and yellow skin, small to medium size
16. Hoskin - looks like the major commercial varieities, size a bit smaller
17. Montmorency - small, light red, look like Morellos, maybe not quite as sour
18. Grosse Schwarze Knorpel - did not quite live up to its name; medium size, dark red
19. Techlovicka - medium size, nearly black
20. Centennial - small, red/yellow skin, D loved these, he thought they had loads of flavour X
21. Mramorovona - medium size, very black, possibly overripe but still sweet
22. Mary Jane - medium to large size, looks like the commercial varieties, not too sweet
23. Polstead Black - small and very dark
24. Olympus - large, medium red
25. Norwegian - small to medium size, red/yellow skin
26. Vic - looks like the main commercial varieties
27. Vega - pale red
28. Van - a main commercial variety, large, dark red
29. Amber - red/yellow skin
30. Pointed Black
31. Ironsides - from Midlands, red/yellow skin, not so sweet, but not so sour as Wesson Unknown
32. Mansfield Black - small, black, D liked these, but the one I tasted was too soft and not so tasty X
33. Inspector Lohnes - small, dark, pointy shape, nice, very soft and juicy
34. Black Glory - Kent, heart-shaped, quite dark
35. Wesson Unknown - yellow skin with some red, slightly sour
36. Hooker's Black - small, very dark red, nice flavour
37. Stella - a main commercial variety, self-fertile, large, dark red, dark flesh, juicy, one of my favourites X
38. Lapins - also a commercial variety, not quite as dark as Stella, I thought they weren't quite as sweet, and had a slight preference for Stella over Lapins; these ripened on the tree so probably taste better than ones we may have bought in the supemarkets X
39. Hertford - also a commercial variety, dark red, maybe a bit smaller than Stella and Lapins, maybe a bit darker skin, also juicy and delicious X
40. Napoleon (clone V1009) - red/yellow skin, yellow flesh, quite sweet, both D and I loved these X
41. Turkey Heart - small, black, ripe, not sweet (possibly overripe), tough skin
42. Turkish Black - very small, very black, nice, one of my favourites X
43. Kentish Morello - similar size and colour to the ones from our tree, sour
44. Kent Bigarreau - small, red/yellow skin, not so tasty
45. May Duke - not so dark red, a bit sharp
46. Schattenmorelle - small and light red, like ours were before they were fully ripe (our tree is apparently a Rhenish Schattenmorelle)
47. Morello (EMLA) - similar to the other Morellos, quite acid
48. 2002-143 - small, very black, not sweet, possibly overripe
49. Holovouska - medium size, black, tough skin
50. Werdersche Braune - black color, nice but possibly overripe

After tasting so many different varieties I think we were all cherried out, our taste buds were saturated, and it was hard to tell which variety we preferred over which other any more. We thoroughly enjoyed our day out and look forward to going back again next year. Pictures coming hopefully soon.
29/07/2011 Photos added.

Citron

2011-05-19T13:19:00.000-07:00

I bought a citron in Whitechapel Market yesterday. How cool is that!

Usually I look for candied citron before Christmas, to use in cookies and fruitcakes. Here in the UK I can usually only get it in the boxes of Sundora mixed peel, which have a lot of orange and lemon peel and only a smaller amount of citron peel.

I have never come across a raw citron anywhere, although I know they are grown in places like Sicily and Calabria.

I wasn't actually thinking of citron when I bought this green knobbly citrus fruit in the market yesterday. They often seem to have a variety of greenish citrus fruits in the Whitechapel Market. We had bought one, which I think was some type of sweet lemon, a few years ago, but apart from being quite expensive, I don't think it was particularly interesting.

Yesterday quite a few of the stalls had several varieties of greenish citrus fruits, in particular, some small, oval, very smooth-skinned ones, and some larger ones with knobbly skins sort of like the skins of Kaffir limes, except that the fruits were shaped more like large lemons.

I inquired from some of the stall-holders, who said that the small ones were used for juice, while the large knobbly ones had more flavour, and were for eating. So I bought one of each.

When I got them home, it was immediately obvious that the large, knobbly fruit had a very aromatic zest compared to the small smooth-skinned one. When I cut it in half, it had a very thick layer of pith, which is when I thought, 'citron'.

So I was off to the internet and Wikipedia to find out whether citrons were used in Bangladeshi cuisine. Apparently citrons are indeed grown in Bangladesh, and they are eaten raw with rice.

Pictures coming soon.

29/07/2011 Finally I got around to uploading some photos.

Memories of Canada

2011-03-04T16:55:00.000-08:00

Unexpectedly caught an old (from 1972) Gordon Lightfoot concert on BBC4 about an hour and a half ago. I just walked into the living room as a music show that D was watching came to an end, and the Gordon Lightfoot concert came on. Wow! That took me back.

I don't consider myself a country music fan, but I've been a Gordon Lightfoot fan probably since the late sixties, and went to at least a couple of his concerts when I was a student in Canada.

Isn't it strange how words you haven't heard or thought about for years and years suddenly come out of your brain sometimes, though - like the words to most of the Gordon Lightfoot songs that I hadn't heard in ages, yet I could still remember almost perfectly. How are they all stored away?

Forever Nigella: Chocolate Raspberry Heart

2011-02-16T13:10:00.000-08:00

This is my first ever entry submitted to a blogging challenge, the Forever Nigella challenge started by Sarah of Maison Cupcake.

This month's theme was Seduced by Chocolate, and what could be more appropriate for the month when we celebrate Valentine's Day, than the Chocolate Raspberry Heart recipe from Nigella Lawson's Feast. The recipe can also be found in this Daily Mail Online article from 10/02/2005, called Nigella's Valentine feast, which is an extract from her book.

OK, so my main deviation from the recipe will be immediately obvious - it doesn't look like a heart. I didn't have a heart-shaped baking tin, so I had to make-do with two 9-inch round cake tins instead. Apart from that I followed the recipe faithfully.

I used Green and Black's cocoa powder for the cake, and Green and Black's 72% cooking chocolate for the ganache.

I didn't use a Kitchen Aid either, so I had a little bit of trouble folding the flour evenly into the mixture. I think I am more used to North American methods of mixing layer cake batters, and I often have problems with British instructions.

My sponges came out rather dry, but I blame that on my fan oven, which has been causing me a lot of baking problems recently.

The ganache was just right in consistency - it didn't set too quickly, before you have time to spread it on the cake, nor did it refuse to set after the cake had been iced.

The assembled cake looks very pretty, if I do say so myself, with a lovely glossy chocolate icing. Unlike Ms. Lawson, however, I don't have any young children, so I have to take full responsibility for the icing not being perfectly smooth!

See the Forever Nigella web page for all the other entries and this month's winners.

My Top 10 Rhubarb Recipes

2011-02-16T07:30:00.000-08:00

After a very cold start to the winter, which saw everything covered in snow for the better part of December, we have been having rather warm, wet weather for most of February, and the spring plants are making up for lost time. In our front garden, the daffodils are just about ready to bloom, and in the back garden the rhubarb is growing.

Most years, although the rhubarb starts coming back up around Christmas, I figure it doesn't really get big enough to eat until around Easter. This year, Easter is late, and the rhubarb seems early - although none of the stalks that have come up are full-sized yet, if we picked the small stalks we have now it would probably be enough for a small rhubarb crumble.

The appearance of the rhubarb leads me to reflect on my favorite rhubarb recipes, so here is a list of my top 10.

1. Stewed Rhubarb and Ginger, from The English Country Cooking Diary 1988 by Maxine Clark.

2. Lamb and Rhubarb Stew, from The Legendary Cuisine of Persia by Margaret Shaida.

3. Upside-down Rhubarb and Ginger Cake - from Rachel's Favourite Food at Home by Rachel Allen. (See the recipe here on the UKTV Good Food Channel website.)

4. Rhubarb Ice Cream, from Rachel's Favourite Food for Friends by Rachel Allen.

5. Rhubarb and Strawberry Crumble, from Bake by Rachel Allen.

6. Rhubarb Sponge, from Rachel's Favourite Food for Friends by Rachel Allen.

7. Rhubarb Chutney, from The Guardian Weekend, March 2, 1996 by Rowley Leigh.

8. Rhubarb and Date Tart, from The Archers' Country Cookbook by Martha Woodford.

9. Rhubarb Crumble, from Delia Smith's Complete Cookery Course.

10. Rhubarb Fool, from The Cookery of England by Elisabeth Ayrton.

La-Lot Beef Soup

2011-02-08T15:04:00.000-08:00

Having come across some la-lot leaves for the first time in an Oriental supermarket the other day, I got out my Oriental cookery books, and found that I only had 2 Vietnamese recipes which called for la-lot leaves after all. This seems to happen to me over and over again when I come across some new ingredient which I'm sure I've read about in some cookbook or other. When I actually buy the stuff, I can't find the recipes I was sure I had for it, lol.

I ended up using the la-lot leaves in this very tasty as well as colorful Vietnamese soup, from Simple Art of Vietnamese Cooking by Binh Duong and Marcia Kiesel, and I'm sure we'll be making it again. The la-lot leaves, piper sarmentosum, are apparently related to the vine that produces black pepper.

La-lot Beef Soup
4 cups chicken stock
1 1/2 cups steamed white rice, preferably long grain jasmine rice
2 whites of scallions (spring onions), thinly sliced
1/2 t ground black pepper
3 T Vietnamese fish sauce (nuoc mam)
8 ounces lean beef (top round), cut into very thin slices
3 T vegetable oil
1/2 t dried chili flakes
2 stalks lemon grass, flattened with the side of a knife, and cut into 2" lengths
2 medium tomatoes, cut into thin wedges
10 la-lot leaves, cut into wide strips

In a large bowl combine the scallions, black pepper, and 1 T. of the fish sauce.

Add the beef and toss to coat. Set aside to marinate for 10 min.

Put 1T of the oil in a small saucepan over high heat. When a chili flake sizzles, drop in the rest and remove from the heat. Set the chili oil aside.

Bring the stock and the lemon grass to the boil in a large saucepan, reduce the heat to low and simmer for 10 min.

Heat the remaining 2 T. oil in a wok over high heat. Whent he oil starts to smoke, add the beef and brown it on both sides, stirring once or twice. Add the tomatoes and stir fry until the beef is cooked., about 2 min. With a large spoon, add the beef and tomatoes to the soup. Bring the soup to the boil over high heat, add the remaining 2 T. of fish sauce and the reserved chili oil. Remove from the heat and stir in the la-lot leaves. To serve, spoon rice into each soup bowl and ladle the soup over it. Eat with chopsticks and soup spoons.

London on a Grand Scale

2011-02-08T14:28:00.000-08:00

Got off the tube at Green Park this morning, a part of London I haven't seen in many years. I was immediately impressed by the tall, grand, old buildings, as I passed the Ritz Carleton Hotel, what seemed to be various other grand hotels, Patisserie Valerie, and then as I walked down St. James's past a window displaying Cuban cigars, and another window belonging to a perfumery. I was headed for King's Street, and the famous auction house Christie's. I had been told that Christie's were having an auction of impressionist paintings in the next few days, and that prior to the auction the paintings were on display and could be viewed by members of the general public, something that would never have occurred to me. I thought that with my track record as regards art galleries (I managed to live in Paris for more than a year and never set foot inside a gallery or museum, but that's another story...), I had better take the opportunity to see these works of art. The display was quite impressive, several rooms of paintings, all from private collectors, featuring painters like Picasso, Renoir, Gauguin, Pisarro, Chagall, and many others that, not being an art expert, I had never heard of before. There were also a few Rodin sculptures and a Henry Moore. My favorite painting was one of a blue vase with pink flowers on a blue background, Les Lys Magiques, by Marc Chagall. I also loved the colors of Terrasse a Vernon by Pierre Bonnard, the blues and greens, and for some reason I also decided I liked the pale mauve monochromatic Brume sur l'Oise by Gustave Loiseau.

Saint-Exupery

2010-10-18T06:49:00.000-07:00

Have been listening to the Afternoon Play on Radio 4, an account of
Antoine de Saint-Exupery crashing his plane in Libya in the 1930's.

I remember watching the Miss Canada Pageant on TV in 1966 or 1967. Miss Montreal, the eventual winner (Marie-France Beaulieu, I believe), recited a passage from Saint-Exupery's Le Petit Prince for the talent competition. It was only a few years ago that I realised that Terre des Hommes (Man and His World in English), the theme for Expo '67 (the Montreal World's Fair) is the name of a novel by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

Chocolate (again) and Cookbooks

2010-06-17T12:02:00.000-07:00

Discovered that there is a Paul A. Young Chocolates shop in the Royal Exchange building near Bank when I went past it on the bus this afternoon. I will be sure to check it out at the next available opportunity.

While I was browsing in a vintage bookshop I came across copies of two vegetarian cookbooks that I think were very popular in the 1980's before I left Canada - The Vegetarian Epicure Book Two by Anna Thomas, and the New Laurel's Kitchen by Laurel Robertson. I read on the back cover of another cookbook that I was browsing through, that the author had a collection of something like 750 cookbooks! Where did she keep them all.

I also got in some browsing of more current cookbooks in Waterstones, and I came across copies of Cook in Boots by Ravinder Bhogal, and Flavour by Vicky Bhogal. Both have some good dessert recipes, including chocolate truffles, white chocolate and blueberry crumble muffins, and rhubarb and rosewater fairy cakes. I guess in this particular section the books were arranged in alphabetical order according to the author's surname, and I don't really remember which recipes are from which book. I've had a quick look on the internet though, and found that Vicky Bhogal has a website with a download of a few recipes from Flavour, which includes the Rhubarb and Rosewater Fairycakes recipe.

The link is here.

Happy Easter!

2010-04-03T15:29:00.000-07:00

One of the Easter-time traditions in our house is that D makes hot cross buns on Good Friday. I can't remember exactly when he started it, but I think that I was living in a house without central heating at the time, and since the weather around Easter in England is often cold and wet, it would usually be mid-afternoon before the dough had risen sufficiently. After a few years of this, he realised that the dough would rise more quickly if he put it somewhere warm, so now we usually get our hot cross buns before lunch time.

The recipe is from an old Good Housekeeping cookbook that used to belong to his Mom.

The recipe calls for plain flour. I have to say that if I was making this recipe for the first time, I would be tempted to use bread flour with anything that is yeast raised, but D has always used plain flour, and it works perfectly well.

Hot Cross Buns
recipe from Good Housekeeping Easy-Stages Cook Book, Ebury Press, London, 1968.

2 t. dried yeast
5 oz. warm milk
1 t. sugar
12 oz. plain flour
1/2 t. salt
1 oz. lard (or margarine)
2 oz. caster sugar
1/2 t. mixed spice
1 oz. dried fruit (we usually use raisins or currants)
1 egg
1 oz. lard (or margarine) for the pastry crosses
2 oz. sugar and 2 T. milk for the glaze

Dissolve the 1 t. sugar in the warm milk. Sprinkle the yeast on top of the milk, stir and leave for 10 - 15 min, until frothy.

Sift the flour and salt and rub in the 1 oz. lard. Stir in the 2 oz. caster sugar, the mixed spice and the dried fruit.

Break the egg into a bowl and whisk lightly with a fork.

Make a well in the flour and pour in the milk and yeast and the egg. Using a wooden spoon, gradually work in the flour to form a soft dough. Beat well until smooth, cover with a cloth and put to rise.

Grease a baking tray.

When the dough is risen, turn it out onto a floured board and knead lightly. Divide into 9 pieces. Flour your hands and form each piece into a round shape. Flatten slightly and put on the baking tray.

Cover and leave in a warm place until doubled in size.

Rub the remaining 1 oz. fat into the 2 oz. plain flour and add a little cold water, until the mixture forms a firm dough. Knead lightly, then roll out thinly on a floured board and cut into thin strips 2 inches long.

To make the glaze, dissolve the 2 oz. sugar in the 2 T. milk and boil until syrupy.

When the buns have proved, moisten the strips of pastry with a little water or milk, and lay 2 on each bun to form a cross.

Bake at the top of a hot oven (425 degrees F, Gas Mark 7) for 15 - 20 min, until golden-brown and firm to the touch. Brush at once with glaze and allow to cool.

Makes 9 buns.

If time is short, omit the pastry crosses and mark a cross on each bun by making 2 deep cuts.

Happy Easter!

February

2010-02-13T05:27:00.000-08:00

February. The first daffodils, Valentine's Day, usually Shrove Tuesday aka Pancake Day over here, and this year Chinese New Year - the year of the Tiger - as well.

Well, we actually saw the first daffodils on the 30th of January when we were out for a walk, but they don't really count because they were in containers. The daffodils in the ground are way behind this year compared to recent years, and they aren't anywhere near flowering yet.

Valentine's Day is usually associated with flowers and chocolate, so today I am giving you a link to a recipe for a very yummy but easy to make rich chocolate desert, called Truffle Torte.

The recipe is here, at Delia Online. The recipe is also in two of Delia's books - Delia Smith's Christmas and The Delia Collection, Chocolate.

I made this for Valentine's Day last year, using a 200g block of Valrhona's Manjari couverture chocolate that I had bought in John Lewis, so I scaled the quantities of the other ingredients accordingly.

As the recipe says, the torte was well behaved and remained in one piece when I turned it out of the tin onto a plate. I dusted the surface of the torte with Green and Black's cocoa powder.

We served the torte as suggested, with some single cream poured over it, but we didn't add any flavoring or liqueur to the single cream.

I apologise for the photos - the torte does look rather just like a chocolate blob, and when we poured the cream over the slices of torte, the cream and cocoa powder didn't mix, so the cream just sort of slid off the top of the slice and formed a pool around it. But the taste didn't disappoint, and there is a much nicer picture of the torte in Delia Smith's Christmas.

Seville Oranges

2010-01-17T04:20:00.000-08:00

Thank goodness, the last of the snow has melted, at least here in London, so at least for the time being, we are having a respite from the worst of the winter. Several people have been telling me they remember the winter of 1963, here in England. No doubt we will be remembering the winter of 2010.

One of the things I always look forward to in January is the appearance of Seville oranges in the shops. I first started looking for Seville oranges not for making marmalade, but because I had some Mexican and Spanish recipes that called for Seville orange juice. Since I didn't come from an orange-growing country, I had no idea at what time of year they might be in season. Of course, once I managed to find some Seville oranges and extract the juice, it seemed a shame not to make marmalade out of the skins. Now we regularly look forward to Seville oranges in January. We freeze the juice for use in cooking, and we make marmalade. These days, D is the marmalade maker in our house. I have recently been noticing several recipes which make use of marmalade, such as Marmalade Gingerbread, from Rachel's Favorite Food for Friend's, a chocolate marmalade cake from Rachel Allen's Bake, and an orange marmalade cake recipe from Jane Asher's Beautiful Baking.

The first marmalade recipe that I had bookmarked, however, was a recipe for Orange Marmalade Ice Cream from Sophie's Table by Sophie Grigson. At first I thought it was a bit strange. In all my years of ice cream eating in Canada when I must have tried just about every flavour of ice cream produced by Baskin-Robbins I had never come across orange marmalade ice cream. But every time I leafed through the book and saw the recipe, it grew on me a little more. I thought that the flavour combination might just work. Apart from that, the recipe was very simple, just double cream and marmalade. I also thought the texture of the marmalade might just help to prevent large ice crystals forming when the ice cream freezes, an important consideration since we don't have an ice cream maker. So I decided to give it a go, and we were delighted with the result, both taste- and texture-wise. Here is the recipe.

Marmalade Ice-Cream with Walnut Sauce.
Recipe from Sophie's Table by Sophie Grigson.

For the ice cream:
375 g Seville orange marmalade
300 ml double cream

Put the marmalade into a large bowl and beat. Whip the cream until stiff, then fold into the marmalade. Freeze.

That's it.

The ice cream doesn't need beating as it freezes, and it is soft enough to serve straight from the freezer.

The book also gives a recipe for an orange and walnut sauce to serve with the ice cream, but since, apart from the occasional banana split (it's actually many, many years since I had one), I usually eat ice cream on its own, I decided to give it a miss. The ice cream was very rich and perfectly fine without the sauce.

Warming Winter Food

2010-01-08T05:14:00.000-08:00

Wednesday afternoon was another winter wonderland scene outside, with everything covered in snow from the night before, and more fat snowflakes coming down. I haven't seen this much snow since the first winter I was in England. Today when I ventured out it felt cold and crisp like a Canadian winter. Brrr.

This recipe for Sauerbraten is just the kind of warming food one needs on a cold winter's day. I had never had sauerbraten before, but D said the taste reminded him of a beef stew he had on a family trip to somewhere like Austria or Romania when he was a kid.

Sauerbraten
Recipe from The Time-Life Holiday Cookbook, 1976.

Serves 6 to 8.

4 lb. boneless beef roast, preferably top or bottom round or rump, trimmed of fat

For the marinade:
1/2 c. red wine
1/2 c. red wine vinegar
2 c. cold water
1 onion, peeled and thinly sliced
5 black peppercorns
4 juniper berries
2 bay leaves
1 t. salt

3 T. lard
1/2 c. finely chopped onions
1/2 c. finely chopped carrots
1/4 c. finely chopped celery
2 T. flour
1/2 c. water
1/2 c. gingersnap crumbs

To make the marinade:
Crush the peppercorns and juniper berries coarsely with a mortar and pestle.
In a 2- to 3- quart saucepan, combine the wine, wine vinegar, water, sliced onion,
peppercorns, juniper berries, bay leaves and salt. Bring the marinade to a boil over high heat, then remove it from the heat and allow to cool to room temperature.

Place the beef in a deep crock or a stainless-steel or enameled pot just large enough to hold it comfortably, and pour the marinade over the meat. The liquid should come at least halfway up the sides of the meat. If necessary, add more wine. Turn the meat in the marinade to moisten it on all sides. Cover the pan tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 to 3 days, turning the meat over at least twice a day.

Remove the meat from the marinade and pat it completely dry with paper towels. Strain the marinade through a fine sieve set over a bowl and reserve the liquid. Discard the spices and onions.

In a heavy 5-quart flameproof casserole, melt the lard over high heat until it begins to splutter. Add the meat and brown it on all sides, turning it frequently and regulating the heat so that it browns deeply and evenly without burning. This should take about 15 min. Transfer the meat to a platter, and pour off and discard all but about 2 T. of fat from the casserole. Add the chopped onions, carrots and celery to the fat in the casserole and cook over moderate heat, stirring frequently, for 5 - 8 min, or until they are soft and light brown. Sprinkle 2 T. of flour over the vegetables and cook, stirring constantly, for 2 or 3 min longer, or until the flour begins to color. Pur in 2 c. of the reserved marinade and 1/2 c. of water and bring to a boil over high heat. Return the meat to the casserole. Cover tightly and simmer over low heat for 2 hours, or until the meat shows no resistance when pierced with the tip of a sharp knife. Transfer the meat to a heated platter and cover with foil to keep it warm while you make the sauce.

Pour the liquid left in the casserole into a large measuring cup and skim the fat from the surface. You will need 2 1/2 c. of liquid for the sauce. If you have more, boil it briskly over high heat until it is reduced to 2 1/2 c; if you have less, add some of the reserved marinade. Combine the liquid and the gingersnap crumbs in a small saucepan, and cook over moderate heat, stirring frequently, for 10 min. The crumbs disintegrate in the sauce and thicken it slightly. Strain the sauce through a fine sieve, pressing down hard with a wooden spoon to force as much of the vegetables and crumbs through as possible. Return the sauce to the pan, taste for seasoningand let it simmer over low heat until ready to serve.

To serve, carve the meat into 1/4-inch-thick slices, and arrange in overlapping layers on a platter. Moisten the slices with a few tablespoons of the sauce, and pass the remaining sauce separately in a sauceboat.

Serve with dumplings or boiled potatoes and red cabbage.

Sauerbraten may also be cooked in the oven. Bring the casserole to a boil over high heat, cover tightly and cook in a preheated oven at 350 F/175 C for about 2 hours.

I think that this would be even better made with some of the less tender cuts of meat, such as beef shin, that would benefit from the marinating and long cooking time.

Merry Christmas

2009-12-25T10:46:00.001-08:00

I'm sure I don't know what took me so long - I've certainly spent enough time surfing the internet in the past - but I only discovered food blogs several months ago.

It has been amazing to discover how many people out there, all over the world, are blogging about and sharing their passion for food and cooking and baking.

I would like to wish everyone in food blogger land a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Christmas Gifts

2009-12-21T08:46:00.000-08:00

Goodness how the time flies! It seems like just the other day it was the beginning of November and I was just beginning to think of Christmas carols and what to bake this Christmas, and suddenly Christmas is only a few days away. Office Christmas lunches and parties have come and gone, Christmas cards have been sent, even the Christmas baking is nearly all done. I have spent several relaxing evenings in the kitchen mixing up batches of cookie dough and baking cookies while listening to Christmas carols on Classic FM. Is it my imagination or have the evenings (afternoons really) already started to get longer? Yesterday and today when I looked out the window around 4 o'clock, expecting it to be dark, it was still daylight. As I write this it is snowing big fat snowflakes outside, and added to the snow that's been there since Thursday night, it looks like a magical white fairyland. I'm not sure if we've actually had any white Christmases since I've been in England. This time we may just get one. Even if the snow melts before Christmas day, I think it will still feel like we've been having a white Christmas since the snow has come while we've been in the process of making Christmas preparations.

Of course, it is a lot easier to appreciate the beauty of the snowy landscape when one is warm and cosy indoors, rather than stuck in traffic for hours because the snow has brought everything to a halt, which is what happened to my other half, D, on his way home.

Back to the Christmas baking and edible gifts. This year I have been baking Pecan Bonbons, Chocolate Balls, Cherry-Nut Cookies (see the previous post), all from Dolores Casella's book, A World of Baking, and Honigkuchen, from the The Cooking of Germany, in the Time-Life Foods of the World series. I am also planning to bake Candy Canes (cookies) from Margo Oliver's Weekend Magazine Cookbook. For those who have never heard of Margo Oliver, here is a good biographical link.

The Pecan Bonbons and Honigkuchen were first attempts, since I had never made them before. The Chocolate Balls and Candy Canes I had not made since I lived at home with my parents many years ago, but I used to like them back then. The cherry-nut cookies I have made several times in recent years, and they are always very moreish.

The Pecan Bonbons are a sort of pecan macaroon, made with sugar, eggs, finely chopped pecans and a little flour, very crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside.

The cookies were baked in mini-cupcake liners in a shallow bun tin. The recipe gives the option of decorating each cookie with a pecan half, so I baked the first tray without, and the subsequent batches with a pecan on top. D decided that he prefers the pecan-topped cookies, because they have a more intense pecan taste.

I decided that I prefer the way the plain top cookies look, though. The pecan halves sank into the batter while the cookies baked, and caused the tops to cave in and crack more. The photo above shows one of the few pecan-topped cookies where the pecans didn't sink down into the batter.

Chocolate Balls are crumbly chocolate and walnut cookies topped with a walnut half. The dough contains finely chopped walnuts and cocoa powder or chocolate. The dough is shaped into balls, rolled in sugar, placed on cookie sheets, flattened sightly and a walnut half is pressed into the top. The cookies flatten out a bit as they bake, and the tops acquire a crackled appearance.

I found that I still like these cookies as much as I did when I used to make them years ago. They are rather crumbly, and tend to fall apart when you bite into them, but still taste quite buttery.

The recipe calls for 2 Tablespoons of cocoa powder or 3 ounces of unsweetened cooking chocolate (unless I made a mistake when I copied it out, which is always possible, since the usual substitution is about 3 Tablespoons of cocoa powder and 1 Tablespoon of butter for 1 ounce of unsweetened chocolate). I remember I first made them using cocoa powder, but I can't remember whether I ever made them using chocolate. So this time I decided to try using 1 ounce of unsweetened chocolate, which seems to have worked out fine.

Christmas Baking, Part 2

2009-11-29T06:39:00.000-08:00

It hasn't been a very nice day out there today, most of the morning and early afternoon it has been wet and dark.

Just the right time of year to stay indoors and make the house warm and cosy by baking.

So here is a recipe for Cherry-Nut Cookies, another one of my Christmas baking favorites. These are lovely, buttery, melt-in-your-mouth cookies full of cherries, dates and pecans.

I copied the recipe out from a book I borrowed from the public library when I was a teenager (photocopiers in those days did not produce copies of the quality we expect today!) - Dolores Casella's A World of Baking. I first baked these about ten years ago and they became an immediate favorite. I have another recipe from A World of Baking for cookies called Hermits, which are very similar to these except that they are made with raisins, dates and walnuts. I tend to alternate the two in my Christmas baking, making Hermits one year, and Cherry-Nut Cookies the next.

Cherry-Nut Cookies
recipe from A World of Baking by Dolores Casella.

4 c. sifted plain flour
1 t. bicarbonate of soda
1/2 t. salt
300 grams softened butter
2 c. soft light brown sugar, packed
3 large eggs
1 t. vanilla extract
1 t. grated lemon zest
1 1/3 c. chopped pecans
1 1/3 c. quartered candied cherries (I prefer to use the ones with natural coloring)
1 1/3 c. chopped pitted dates

Preheat the oven to 375 F.
Sift the flour together with the baking soda and the salt.
Cream the butter with the brown sugar until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs to the butter mixture one at a time and beat in thoroughly.
Add the vanilla and lemon zest, then add the sifted dry ingredients.
Work in the chopped fruit and nuts.
Drop by teaspoonsful onto buttered baking sheets.
Bake at 375 F for 12 - 15 min until lightly browned and done.

Makes about 10 - 11 dozen cookies.
The dough will keep in the refrigerator for several days.

Christmas Baking

2009-11-22T12:32:00.000-08:00

No chocolate today, but a recipe for Christmas cookies.

Some years ago, after a trip home when I had brought back with me a notebook of Christmas recipes that I had copied out by hand as a teenager, I started the tradition of giving home-baked Christmas cookies as gifts to my in-laws, friends and co-workers.

I tried this recipe for Zimtsterne for the first time last year. Zimtsterne means cinnamon stars, and these are supposed to be traditional Christmas cookies from Switzerland. As you will see in the photo, they didn't turn out quite as they were supposed to, but they were nevertheless delicious, and have been added to my repertoire of Christmas baking favourites. Enjoy.

Zimtsterne
recipe from Betty Crocker's Cooky Book, ca. 1970.

3 T. butter
1 1/2 c. caster sugar
2 large eggs
1 large egg, separated
1 t. lemon juice
2 1/3 c. plain flour
2 1/2 t. baking powder
1 1/4 t.cinnamon
1/4 t. salt
1/4 t. nutmeg
1/2 c. walnuts, finely chopped

Pre-heat the oven to 375 F.

Mix the butter, sugar, 2 eggs, 1 egg yolk and the lemon juice and beat until fluffy.

Sift together the flour and the dry ingredients.

Blend the flour mixture into the sugar mixture. Stir in the walnuts.

Roll out one third of the dough at a time to a thickness of 1/16" on a lightly floured board. Cut out cookies with a star cutter.

Beat the remaining egg white until frothy. Brush the tops of the cookies with the beaten egg white.

Bake on well-greased baking sheets for about 8 minutes.

Makes about 6 dozen cookies.

I found that the dough was very sticky, even after being chilled in the refrigerator, and in any case I didn't have a star-shaped cookie cutter. So I decided to make them as drop cookies. I dropped small teaspoonsful of the dough onto the greased cookie sheets and omitted the egg-white glaze.

Be careful when removing the cookies from the baking sheets, they have a tendency to tear or stick to the baking trays on the bottom.

The result was a crisp cookie, essentially a walnut macaroon, with a subtle cinnamon flavor.

Chocolate and Cupcakes

2009-11-20T03:30:00.000-08:00

Today a couple of links from the Olympic city of 2012 to the Olympic city of 1976 - Montreal.

There is a chocolate trade fair on in Montreal at the moment - Salon Passion Chocolat, at the Bonsecours Market in Old Montreal.

See the links here and here.

There is also a cupcake contest/charity fund-raising event on Sunday, Cupcake Camp Montreal. The chosen charity this year is Jeunesse J'ecoute/Kids Help Phone, a telephone helpline for children.

Mini Book Review - Adventures with Chocolate by Paul A. Young

2009-11-13T04:32:00.000-08:00

The other day I came across chocolatier Paul A. Young's recent cookbook Adventures with Chocolate while browsing in Waterstone's. They had set up a table with a sign saying grEAT Britain, featuring a selection of British cookbooks.

This book is a must-have for any chocoholic's cookbook collection. As the cover says, the book contains 80 recipes. The book is divided into several sections, not based on courses or sweet versus savoury, but based on different ingredient/flavour combinations.

There is an introductory section on tempering chocolate, and a few savoury recipes like chocolate chili chicken. Not surprisingly, since it is a book on chocolate, the majority of recipes are for sweet dishes - puddings (i.e. desserts), chocolate ganache, and chocolate truffles. I think it would be an excellent book for anyone wanting to try making some chocolates at home, because there are many recipes for different flavors of ganache and truffles. One recipe that sticks in my mind because of the illustration is White chocolate truffles with wild strawberries and pink peppercorns. Another recipe I remember features the currently very trendy sea-salted caramel.

The list price for the book (hardcover) is £17.99. The book was printed and bound in China.

Vino Cotto

2009-11-07T14:11:00.000-08:00

Our weekly grocery shopping this afternoon included a trip to one of London's Turkish food shops.

Fiordizucca recently posted a recipe for traditional Italian Christmas sweets from Apulia, calzoncelli dolci ai ceci, which uses vino cotto di fichi, vino cotto made not from grapes, but from figs.

I don't recall ever having come across vino cotto di fichi, but I have bought vino cotto (called pekmez) in Turkish food stores before, I used it to make some traditional Siciian Christmas cookies, so I thought it would be worth checking out, just in case.

No vino cotto di fichi, as it turned out, but they do sell a variety of molasses-like sweeteners. In addition to vino cotto from grapes, they sell date syrup, carob syrup, and mulberry 'molasses' (dut pekmez). I decided to buy a jar of mulberry molasses, probably in the vain hope that it might taste just a little like the mulberry jam that we used to buy from this shop, but which they no longer seem to sell. D, my other half, was of the opinion that it would just taste like molasses.

When we got home I decided that rather than putting the jar of mulberry molasses away in the pantry, to sit there for months or sometimes years before I get around to actually doing something with it, which I have a habit of doing, I would open it and taste it right away. This led to the idea of doing a 'molasses' tasting, since we currently had opened jars of Grandma's molasses (American) and Turkish vino cotto (pekmez) in the fridge.

D turned out to be right, the mulberry 'molasses' does taste like Grandma's molasses, and not at all like mulberry jam. For those of you who don't know what Grandma's molasses is like, it is dark brown in color, not black like treacle and blackstrap molasses, and not as strong-tasting or as bitter as treacle, but a lot darker than golden syrup.

The Grandma's (sugarcane) molasses was thicker and more sticky than the other two, and also the strongest tasting. Both the vino cotto and the mulberry 'molasses' were a bit runnier, and did not seem very sticky. The mulberry 'molasses' tasted remarkably similar to the Grandma's molasses, just not quite as strong, whereas the vino cotto had a rather milder taste.

Cocoa Butter

2009-11-04T14:05:00.000-08:00

Yaaay! I think Christmas came early this year!

I was browsing in Planet Organic yesterday afternoon, and was about to decide that it was time to call it quits as I had seen most of the shop, and I should really be getting on my way home as I was rather tired, when what did I see on a shelf in front of me but several tubs of pure cocoa butter!!!

I have been searching for cocoa butter for years. I thought it would be fun to try experimenting with a small amount of it to make some lotions and potions - skin cream, face cream, that kind of stuff. But I had no idea where to find it. These days we have the internet, and a couple of years ago I saw 3kg tubs of Valrhona cocoa butter for sale on a UK-based website that sells chocolate to the general public, but a) I only wanted something like 100g of the stuff in the first instance, to see what it's like, and b) the cocoa butter was only for sale to the trade, so not being a chocolatier, I wouldn't have been able to buy it from them anyway. A few days ago, while reading about the Chocolate Week that I had just missed, I came across a website - Choc Chick - that sells chocolate making kits (in small quantities!). I had never heard of them before, but they seemed to sell small amounts of cocoa butter as well. This was an interesting development, and I duly bookmarked the webpage so that I could go back and have a better look at it later. But with the strikes the postal system is having at the moment, I wasn't about to order anything over the internet just at this time.

But all of a sudden, here were these tubs of cocoa butter unexpectedly in front of me. They only had them in one size, 500g, which was admittedly more than I really wanted for an initial trial. On top of that, this was not just any old cocoa butter, but organic, raw, cold-pressed cocoa butter, so it was also very, very expensive (£20). What to do. I could go home and think about it, perhaps compare the price with the cocoa butter for sale on the internet, and come back a few days or weeks later. But I decided to carpe diem. I decided I could justify the purchase if I called it an early Christmas present, so I am now the happy owner of 500g of cocoa butter.

Although my initial interest in cocoa butter was to try using it as a moisturiser/skin cream, since I have ended up with organic cold-pressed cocoa butter, and there is quite a lot of it, I think in order to do it justice (and justify the expense) I will have to try cooking with it or making some chocolates. It's a hard life!

Christmas

2009-11-01T08:19:00.000-08:00

Now that it's November, it's not too soon to start thinking about Christmas and making a Christmas cake (fruit cake). It's been a few years since I baked one, so I would like to make one this year,but I'm having a hard time deciding whether to make a fruit cake, or a panettone, which I've never tried making before. I also keep meaning to try making a Gateau des Rois, and I've only made a Buche de Noel once, years ago when I lived at home. But I think the fruit cake will win this year.

Speaking of Christmas, a couple of weeks ago I managed to upload some photos of last year's Christmas baking to my Flickr account. The link is on the right hand column. If I have time I will upload some more photos of Christmas goodies from previous years.

Chocolate Week

2009-11-01T07:28:00.000-08:00

Aargh! I've just discovered that I missed Chocolate Week. Apparently it was a couple of weeks ago, October 12 - 18, 2009. I'm not sure that I would actually have managed to attend any events, but now I'll have to wait until next October. Still, I suppose that it wasn't very well publicised if I could have been completely oblivious to the fact that it was on.

2009-10-23T04:39:00.000-07:00

Just at the moment it's a glorious sunny afternoon out there.
From my window I just saw a little fox curled up in the sun at the base of one of the apple trees in the garden next door. Very cute, like a pet dog or cat.
Not so cute this summer when they seemed to be determined to dig up any vegetable plants that I managed to transplant into the garden. That was quite unusual though, as mostly we just see them curled up quietly in the sun and they hadn't previously caused any significant damage.
Must get out and go for a walk while the sun is out, the days are getting much shorter now and this weekend the clocks go back.

Saffron

2009-10-06T08:47:00.000-07:00

Yay! We had two saffron crocuses today when I looked in the garden.
A number of years ago I decided it might be fun to grow some saffron. Since the town of Saffron Walden in Essex got its name because they used to grow saffron in those parts, we thought it ought to be possible to grow saffron in the UK.

After a few years of searching, whenever we found displays of bulbs in the garden centres (the internet wasn't yet what it is now), we found some packets of Unwins' saffron crocus bulbs in a display of spring bulbs one August bank holiday.So we planted our twelve bulbs, and waited. And waited and waited and waited. Every year the leaves would come up, but no flowers. Instead of flowering, the bulbs were dividing into smaller and smaller bulbs, so that from twelve, we now had over a hundred very small bulbs, but no saffron.

Then one autumn, after the leaves had come up as usual, we found one solitary crocus flower. We nearly missed it, as we were under the impression that the flowers were supposed to come up before the leaves, so once the leaves had come up, we had resigned ourselves to another year without any saffron. The following summer we had the heatwave of 2006, and in early October - at last - we got about 50 crocus flowers - at 3 strands of saffron per flower, enough saffron for two or three dishes, after more than ten years.

The following summers weren't so scorching, however, so our saffron production again went back to zero. Last summer we found some nice large crocus bulbs at a bulb stall in a local farmer's market. We planted them according to the seller's recommendations, and each bulb produced two or three flowers.

This year we have been anxiously watching the crocus leaves come up, and wondering whether or not they would flower, since these newer crocus bulbs had also subdivided into several smaller bulbs each.

Cookbooks

2009-09-10T14:17:00.000-07:00

As I was in central London today, I dropped in to Waterstones on Gower Street on the way home. This branch of Waterstones has one of the largest cookery book sections I've seen and it's always enjoyable to browse through their collection. The highlight of this session was The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook, and discovering that the Hummingbird Bakery is, in fact, here in London. The book has plenty of traditional American recipes like blueberry pie, blueberry muffins, chocolate chip cookies, carrot cake, and also some more modern recipes like white chocolate and pecan cookies, green tea cupcakes and lavender cupcakes. Mmm. This book is going on my wish list. Am temporarily having a moratorium on cookbook buying though, as we don't really have space for many more - I counted up the cookbooks we have and it was already over 100.
The International Cookery section had a number of Grub Street re-issues of old favorites - Arto der Haroutounian's North African Cookery,
Mary Taylor Simeti's Sicilian Food, Anissa Helou's Lebanese Cuisine, Margaret Shaida's The Legendary Cuisine of Persia, Julie Sahni's Classic Indian Cookery, and The Book of Latin American Cooking by Elisabeth Lambert Ortiz.
Next stop was the Oxfam bookshop on Gower Street - they have a pretty large selection of vintage cookbooks. Came across a recipe for Tarte au Sucre in a little book called The Little Canadian Cookbook. It's been so long since I've seen a tarte au sucre in a shop that I can't remember whether they were one crust pies like pecan pie, or like the pie in this recipe, or double-crust pies.

Sweet Potato and Pecan Bread

2009-09-04T02:33:00.000-07:00

Made Sweet Potato and Pecan Bread from Rachel Allen's Bake last night. First time that I've used raw sweet potato in baking, although I have used cooked pumpkin, raw zucchini, and of course carrots. The cake tastes wonderful, I think the pecans go really well with the sweet potato. I decided to use only 50g of pecans though. Only one problem. The texture of the cake is nice and even, and it tastes cooked, the pecans taste toasted, but it is very, very wet, even though I baked it for 1.5 hours and when I tested it the skewer came out clean. More like mashed sweet potatoes than cake. Not sure what to do about this, whether using say, 200 or 250 g of sweet potato instead of 300 g would make it less moist, or whether not filling the baking tin so full would help it to come out drier.

I had another go at making the Sweet Potato and Pecan Bread yesterday. I thought that maybe my 9x5-inch tin was a bit too small, so I thought I would bake it in a 9x9x2-inch tin this time. This was actually a bit too big for the amount of batter, so if I make it again I would use an 8-inch square pan. I have an electric fan oven, and I think I may have been overcompensating for that and maybe baking things at too low a temperature. So this time I baked it at 350 F for 30 min, then turned the temperature
down to 325 F for another 15 min. I let it cool in the pan. I am happy to report that this time the consistency was much drier, with a crumb like a proper cake.

Amalfitana Chocolate and Aubergine Pudding

2009-08-28T11:01:00.000-07:00

I like to try weird and wonderful food combinations sometimes. Not ones that I've actually invented myself, but recipes that I come across that use ingredients in somewhat unusual ways. Sometimes I have a look at the recipe, and think, you know, that might just work. Most of the time it does. Earlier this summer I made Rhubarb Ice Cream, from a Rachel Allen recipe, and Orange Marmalade Ice Cream, from a Sophie Grigson recipe from her book Sophie's Table. I've had another unusual Sophie Grigson recipe filed away for a while now - Amalfitana Chocolate and Aubergine Pudding. I love aubergines, especially fried, when they are really gooey and slimy, and I have quite a few favorite aubergine recipes - Eggplant Parmigiana, Eggplant Szechuan Style, Hyderabadi Aubergines (from Madhur Jaffrey's Eastern Vegetarian Cooking), and Caponata are at the top of the list. This Amalfitana Chocolate and Aubergine Pudding is rather unusual, to say the least. It combines fried aubergine slices with layers of vanilla custard and chocolate custard. But when I got a couple of large aubergines from a market stall in central London last week, I thought I would give it a try.

The recipe is
here, in an article from The Independent, and here, on the UKTV website.

I used a mild olive oil to fry the aubergines, as I prefer not to use unsaturated oils for frying whenever possible. I made the UKTV version, which uses 60g of sugar in the chocolate custard, rather than 45g. I assembled the pudding in a 9x13-inch dish, making 3 layers of aubergines, vanilla custard and chocolate custard.

2009-08-23T12:51:00.000-07:00

Today was a beautiful hot and sunny summer's day. We went for a walk around the lake at lunch time. There were two baby coots, nearly fully grown now, but still furry. We also saw a lot of bright blue damsel flies flying over the water. Along parts of the water's edge where the water was clear we could see lots of little fish, about the size of goldfish, swimming around. There was watermint by the water's edge, easily identifiable at the moment because of the purple flowers. I also noticed some nightshade, after having seen a picture in a herb book last night. We had a look at the apple tree we had noticed in the spring, but there were no apples on it at all, not even any on the ground.
Went up the hill and picked wild blackberries in the evening. I'm going to freeze some of them for making apple and blackberry pie and apple and blackberry crumble at a later date. I have three recipes that I keep meaning to try out, one from Delia, one from Rachel Allen and one from Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's River Cottage cookbook.