Apple Crumble
We made an apple and blackberry crumble recently and it came out really well (typically, we didn’t blog it at the time as the pictures weren’t very good). With a surfeit of apples this week, it seemed sensible to make another. We didn’t have any blackberries this time but I cooked the apples in the same way (sauteed in butter, sugar and cinnamon) and piled them into some small dishes. Topped with a crumble mix, they went in to the oven for about an hour but didn’t seem to crunch up. We grilled the tops so they became slightly crunchier but we still didn’t manage to achieve the perfect crunch of the previous crumbles.
A little later on I realised why. I’d forgotten to add sugar to the flour and butter. So that’s two dishes that went a little wrong today. Hopefully tomorrow will be more successful.
Smoked Mackerel Fish Cakes
Kerri was planning to make rosti this evening, however in attempting to parboil the potatoes first, she encountered the same sort of problems as we’d encountered in our previous rosti disaster. So she made mackerel fish cakes instead, which were rather good. Served with a mixed salad with a mustard and lemon dressing. The dressing went well on the fish cakes too (not sure if Kerri noticed me doing that or not…)
Crunchy Pork Chops
This has become one of our favourite midweek meals; it’s quick, it tastes good and requires very little thought or planning. Tonight we served it with mashed potatoes and steamed greens, very much like last time. We used a different kind of chop (loin) this time which resulted in juicier meat.
Roast Lamb Neck Fillets with Redcurrant Sauce
On the way home from visiting Kerri’s mum this afternoon, we wandered into the supermarket looking for some lamb to roast, but we couldn’t find any likely candidates. There were no leg cuts, and the shoulders would have taken too long to cook. But then we saw lamb neck fillets. We haven’t had them for a while, so thought it would be a good opportunity to get re-acquainted with them.
Kerri thought a redcurrant sauce would go well with them, so that’s what we did. Being in the mood for a proper roast dinner though, we put in some roast potatoes and parsnips. For the lamb, we browned the fillets in a frying pan and then roasted them in the oven; they only needed twenty minutes or so.
Because the lamb didn’t need long to cook, we roasted the potatoes separately from the meat for the first time in ages. The potatoes turned out really fluffy and crispy, which is the way we like them. Just done in olive oil, the lightness of the oil gets them to crisp up very well. When they are in the same dish as the meat, I think they tend to get a bit soggy from the meat juices – this does make them tasty, but it reduces the sought-after crispiness.
For the redcurrant sauce, we deglazed the pan with some red wine, before adding a little beef stock (didn’t have lamb stock; it doesn’t seem very easy to get hold of unless you make it yourself) and some redcurrant jelly. When this had combined and reduced a bit, we added some butter to give it a nice sheen and some cornflour to thicken it. I wish we’d had the forethought to make a proper roux, but this turned out quite well anyway.
Served with some baby greens and roasted parsnips, it was a really good and relatively quick (quick compared to usual at least) Sunday dinner.
Salmon and Leek Quiche
It was my niece’s second birthday party yesterday afternoon. We knew there would be lots of tasty party food on offer so, in order to avoid overdosing on chocolate Fingers and fairy cakes, we thought we would eat a reasonable sized lunch before we went.
We used ready-made pastry again as we still haven’t summoned the courage to make our own but the rest of the recipe was our own creation.
Simply sweat a couple of leeks until they are soft and poach a piece of salmon in some water with a bay leaf and some peppercorns (this will take about 10 minutes, depending on the size of your fish). Combine a pot of creme fraiche with two eggs and season.
Layer the leeks and salmon on top of the pastry case (that’s been baked blind) and top with the egg mixture and some grated cheese. Season again and then bake for about half an hour.
Quick and tasty; perfect for a Saturday lunch with salad and a baked potato.
Wild Boar Sausages
Kerri was out tonight, and when wondering what to have to eat this evening, I couldn’t really decide on anything. I wandered into Waitrose, wandered down various aisles without being inspired, then ended up loitering next to the fish and meat counters. Nothing fishy caught my eye, but then I saw the wild boar sausages. So I bought a couple of those and headed home.
I simply put the sausages under the grill and went to work on vegetables. I had planned to make mashed potato, but the potato that I thought we had at home had mysteriously disappeared. In years to come this will be referred to as The Great Potato Robbery of 2008, because I was really looking forward to that mash. We did have a fairly large parsnip, which is no substitute for mashed potato, but I made do. I also had some baby greens, shredded and steamed.
The sausages themselves were rather good; very meaty, a little coarse and slightly crumbly. And very tasty. They contained red wine, which had turned them a lovely dark colour. Delicious. When I had finished them I found myself cursing myself for having been sensible; I should have bought way more than two!
Steak and Salsa Verde
We have been wondering what to do with the left over salsa verde from our recent halibut. We decided that it would go well with almost anything, but were particularly keen to try it with either steak or lamb chops. Steak won in the end though, so here it is.
My steak-cooking skills seem to have desserted me though. It used to be so easy, but I’m finding it difficult to get it right now. I think it’s because we’ve started using a griddle pan rather than a normal frying pan and the times need to be slightly longer because there is less heat being transferred directly to the steak from contact with the pan. So what happened this time and also the previous time is that I had it in for what I thought was the correct amount of time, then took it out, let it rest and cut it. Underdone. (I’ve gone off very rare steak recently for some reason). So then put it back in, but put it back for too long.
So this was a bit overdone, but was still tasty and quite juicy thankfully. I should practice the “prod” method rather than relying on timings, as the timings will vary depending on various factors – frying pan vs griddle pan, temperature, thickness of steak, incompetence of chef, etc.
Served with some garlic bread (which we toasted under the grill before spreading with some delicious garlic butter that Kerri had prepared and then toasting again) and a mixed salad.
Curried Lentils with Spinach
When I arrived home, Kerri was cooking this for me. She was being helpful and eating up some left over quiche which we had made a few weeks ago and frozen. It was the first time we’ve had different dinners at home for a very long time indeed.
The dish is relatively simple, from Anjum Anand’s Indian Food Made Easy. Strangely enough, her new series is starting on television right now as I’m typing this!
Lentils, water, chilli and turmeric are brought to the boil and simmered for 10 minutes. Then tomatoes are added and cooked for 20 minutes before the spinach is added for a further 10 minutes. Then comes the exciting bit – fry cumin seeds, garlic, ground coriander and garam masala in some butter before stirring into the lentils and spinach.
The lentils themselves were mild and subtly flavoured, with the tastes of the fried spices coming through nicely, especially when you bite into a piece of garlic. Served with some rice of course. Certainly something to make again, and quite healthy if you don’t use too much butter to fry the spices 🙂
Sandra’s Christmas Puddings
I’ve never made a Christmas pudding before, as a child I didn’t really like it and have only come to appreciate it in the last few years. I was keen to make my own this year so started looking around for recipes when my mum mentioned that her very good friend Sandra made very good puddings. Sandra kindly sent me the recipe which she tells me is from an old Schwartz book and she’s been making it for years. Tried and tested is always my preferred approach when dealing with something new so I was keen to get going.
I’ve mentioned numerous times before that baking isn’t really my forte but I’m trying to get better at it. One of the reasons is that I’m not very good is that I tend to have rather a haphazard approach to cooking and all the weighing and measuring and other careful skills required for baking doesn’t suit that style very well. I was determined to get this right though so why I started taking short-cuts before I’d even started I don’t know.
Sandra’s recipe calls for the fruit to be soaked in Guinness for up to a week in advance of the pudding making. I didn’t have Guinness so decided to use brandy instead. I also didn’t have a week as I wanted to make these yesterday. I ended up making them this afternoon so the fruit was actually soaked for three days. I did notice a definite plumpage to the fruit though so hopefully this isn’t too big a problem.
As I’d soaked the fruit in brandy I completely overlooked the part of the recipe that requires me to actually add brandy (I did mention I was rubbish at this didn’t I?!). I only realised my mistake once the mixture was in the greased bowls so I just stirred some in to each one. I suspect this has probably disturbed the greasing so I hope we actually manage to release the puddings from their bowls when the time comes.
The recipe requires raisins, currants and sultanas. Not wanting to be left with a surplus of sultanas, I decided to omit those and just used currants and raisins. I think this was silly though as the sultanas are the biggest and juiciest of the fruits and would have given a good contrast to the smaller currants and raisins. Too late now though 🙁
The recipe specifies three 1.5 litre pudding basins which I didn’t have so I made half the recipe to fill the two bowls I did have – Stephen did the maths on this part though so hopefully he got it right 🙂 I did end up with too much though so had to improvise with an additional, small Pyrex bowl. Of all the issues, I think this is the least of my worries though.
Finally, I couldn’t get the heat low enough to steam the puddings and ended up with boiling water. My mum suggested taking some of the water out but it still didn’t work so I ended up steaming the large pudding on the hob with the one heat diffuser that I have and putting the other two in the oven in a tray of water. Not sure the oven method will work out but if they go wrong then there’s always the one done using the traditional method.
Hopefully these amendments aren’t too serious and I’ve got away with it. I guess we won’t find until 25 December though – perhaps I should buy a pudding just in case…
Sandra’s Christmas Pudding Recipe
Makes 3 x 1½ pint/855 ml puds
8oz/227g SR flour
4oz/113g fresh breadcrumbs
4oz/113g ground almonds
1¼ lb/567g soft dark brown sugar
6oz/170g shredded suet
1lb/454g currants
1lb/454g sultanas
1lb/454g raisins
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground nutmeg
1 tsp ground allspice
1 tsp salt
6 size 3 eggs
1 orange
1 lemon
6 tbs/90ml brandy
½ pint/285ml brown ale (I use Guinness)
I also put in (some or all, all depends if I have them at the time and if I want to put them in): –
Grated carrot (don’t know why but my mum always used to!)
Few chopped dates
4 oz chopped almonds (I always put these in)
Grated apple (always put this in too)
Couple tablespoons marmalade
Before starting to mix anything up, I always leave the fruit in soak in the Guinness (I find I use nearly a pint then I drink the rest!) for up to a week so it’s nice and plump and soft.
Place flour, breadcrumbs, ground and chopped almonds, sugar, suet, spices, chopped dates and salt into a large mixing bowl. Mix them together thoroughly and beat the eggs in a separate basin.
Grate rinds and squeeze the juice from the orange and lemon.
Add eggs, fruit rinds and juices, brandy and all rest of wet stuff and stir well (making a wish!) ensuring that ingredients are thoroughly combined.
Grease well three 1½ pint/855ml basins (or whatever sizes you are using). Fill with mixture to within 1 in/25mm of top. Cover each with a circle of greaseproof paper, folded and tucked to allow for expansion of the puds. Cover with square of muslin (or old cotton pillowcase/sheet) or foil. Tie a length of string several times around the basin to secure the covers. Knot opposite ends of the muslin over the top of the basin.
Place puds in a steamer or stand them in covered saucepans of boiling water (with upturned saucer or scrumpled foil or greaseproof paper at bottom to prevent bottom of pud drying out) to come halfway up sides of basins. Steam for 6 hours (longer or shorter for different sized basins) topping up with water if necessary.
Allow puddings to cool. Remove the muslin or foil covers and replace them with clean ones. Store in a dry, cool place. Not necessary to freeze them.
Steam puds for 3 hours before serving.
That’s it!
Roast Pork with Caramelised Apple and Chorizo Stuffing
Firstly, this was really good. I felt I should say that just in case the rest of the entry doesn’t convey it and I forget to add it. That said, what we had was roast pork with a caramelised apple and chorizo stuffing, cooked from this recipe, and also potato and parsnip rosti cooked from this recipe.
First we caramelised the apples (as the title implies) and then fried some chopped chorizo with onion, garlic and thyme and added the apples to them. This was the stuffing, which we stuffed into our loin of pork. The loin of pork that we had was rolled, so we unrolled it, stuffed it and then re-rolled it. We were worried that the stuffing would just fall out at this point, but enough of it managed to stay inside.
For the rosti, we picked a recipe (linked above) that didn’t require us to cook the potato first, as that had caused us problems last time we cooked rosti. We mixed the grated potato with grated onion, grated parsnip, melted butter and thyme and seasoned well, then fried on either side for a bit before being finished in the oven (finishing in the oven wasn’t part of the recipe, but we’d made them a bit thicker than specified and didn’t want the outsides to burn in the frying pan while we tried to get the middles cooked through).
We also cooked an acorn squash, which we simply chopped in half longitudinally, then scraped out the seeds and seasoned and added a knob of butter before roasting for an hour. Also steamed some green beans and some brussels sprouts (the first of the year for us) but they weren’t that interesting compared to everything else that was happening.
Actually I forgot to mention the balsamic reduction sauce. The recipe included this, but we were both a bit skeptical of this as neither of us is a big fan of such things, being so sweet, sticky and ubiquitous. However, when we realised that we were not going to have any gravy, we decided to follow the recipe and see what happened. It turned out rather well actually, in small doses.
And last but certainly not least while the pork was resting, I removed the crackling to put it back into the oven to crisp up some more. But it was already perfect and didn’t need to crisp up. It was crispy, and well seasoned and altogether brilliant and possibly the best crackling we’ve ever made. Previously we’ve done various things to make it crispier, like pouring boiling water over the skin before cooking, salting it the night before, etc, but this time we didn’t need any of that for some reason. Maybe it was a bigger joint than usual, so just cooked for longer. Pity there wasn’t more.
Yum.
F.
