Lemons, beetroot and cheese

13 Feb

Some of my favourite flavours, and such is the stuff of the perfect Valentine’s feast.

I call it a feast, but actually it’s a series of feasts really.

Yesterday (Saturday) we indulged in some exquisite stilton from Mellis the cheesemonger (a special trip into the west end of Glasgow specifically to buy Valentines cheese!). We had it with freshly baked rolls, sliced relatively thinly like a wee loaf.

For lunch today I made a warm beetroot and goats cheese tart.  And later we’ll be having more beetroot, lightly pickled in a sweet vinegar, with salmon and fresh linguine.

Afterwards we’ll have vanilla panna cotta, which looks delicious, but the coffee gelee on top seems to be liquid coffee, and not a gelee at all.  And for real afters there’ll be a cheeseboard.  Yum.

Lemons.  Where do the lemons come into all of this?

I made a batch of Lemon Kisses – in an assortment of heart, flower and helicopter shapes.  The helicopters will of course be the most popular.  And, I prefer biscuits on their own, not squidged together with cream or icing, or whatever. But the recipe calls for squidging them together with Lemon Curd, so I’ve just made a batch of Lemon Curd, one of my favourtie things to make, and absolute favourite flavours.  I love that sharp lemoniness.  I must experiment with lime and orange curds in the coming months.  Blood oranges are in season right now (and I have three in the fruit bowl ) – I suspect they would make a pretty spectacular curd. Edited to add that no, the blood oranges made the most disgusting curd – far too sweet, and an off-putting fleshy colour. I will not be trying this again, if only because I love lemon curd, and why waste time trying to tweak something else to make it almost as good as the thing that you love? And blood oranges make great upside down cake. 

Large jar of lemon curd – store in fridge

Lemon curd

Makes one relatively small jar

60g unsalted butter
130g caster sugar
Zest and juice of 1½ large unwaxed lemons
2 large eggs, beaten

  1. Chop the butter into a heavy-based saucepan.
  2. Add the sugar, lemon juice and zest
  3. Warm over a low heat, stirring occasionally, until the butter melts and the sugar dissolves
  4. Pour the beaten eggs into the pan, stirring rapidly as you pour
  5. Keep stirring over a low heat until the mixture thickens.  This will take 5-10 minutes.
  6. Once it is thickened, pour into a sterilised jar.  DO NOT allow it to boil as it will curdle.
  7. Once cool, seal the jar and keep in the fridge.
  8. Use within 4 weeks.

Delicious on hot buttered toast, stirred into yoghurt, sandwiching biscuits or sponge cakes.

Beetroot and goats cheese jalousie

  • 1 1/2 medium beetroot, cooked
  • a few slices of goats cheese
  • 2 Tbs yoghurt / creme fraiche
  • 3 tsp grated horseradish
  • 1pkt all butter puff pastry

Grease a baking tray. 

  1. Cut a third of the pastry and roll out into an oblong.  Cook in a GM 7 oven for 10 minutes.
  2. Grate the beetroot and mix with the yoghurt or creme fraiche and horseradish. Season
  3. Cut into the pastry base, squishing down the pastry in the middle, creating a ‘wall’ round the edge and an oblong hole in the middle.
  4. Place the beetroot mixture into the hole in the pastry
  5. Put slices of goats cheese on top
  6. Roll the remainder of the pastry into a larger oblong.  Cut slashes into this pastry, to create diagonals on the pastry lid
  7. Brush the edges of the pastry base with beaten egg
  8. Carefully place the pastry lid over the top of the tart (do this by carefully rolling the whole lid round the rolling pin and then unrolling it back on top of the tart base)
  9. Brush the pastry lid with egg wash
  10. Bake in the hot oven for about 20 minutes, or until the pastry is risen and cooked
  11. Eat while warm, served with a watercress salad

The lemon kisses recipe will follow.  Eventually

In the meantime, if you’re looking for more recipes, just click on the recipe link, and you’ll find all manner of interesting things to cook and eat.

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World Book Night

2 Feb

On World Book Night, 1 million books will be given away free of charge.  And I have been chosen to give away 48 of them.  The book I’m giving away is Stuart – A Life Backwards by Alexander Masters.

I first read Stuart in the summer of 2006.  I don’t know precisely when I read every book I’ve read, but I can place this one exactly – I had read it shortly before I joined the Edinburgh International Book Festival in August 2006.  In that first year working for the Book Fest I managed to get to 4 or 5 events, and the most memorable was one with Alexanders Masters talking about Stuart.  Even having read the book beforehand, I was quite blown away with the force of the emotion of that first chapter.  And hearing Alexander Masters talk about Stuart, about the man, about writing about him, about his relationship with him, and about his all too real sense of loss and grief was utterly heart-breaking.

Find out more about Stuart here

I now have the opportunity to share Stuart with the rest of the world.  Well, not quite the whole world, but I’m hoping to distribute my 48 copies widely. So far it’ll be travelling to Australia, Ireland and Cornwall through me.  I’m sure I can do better than that, and also get it to South Africa, and maybe America.  And hey, surely I can do Germany/Switzerland too.  And maybe India.

Anyway – World Book Night is worth supporting. Some great publishers are promoting reading by giving away 1 million books.  I’m proud to be helping them.

click here to find out more about World Book Night

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Throw it in the oven chicken dinner

1 Feb

I know this isn’t a terribly catchy title, but trust me it’s the easiest dinner to throw together.

Cut some potatoes into wedges. Put them in a layer in an oven proof dish.  The dish needs to be big enough that all the tatties sit in a layer with some space around them.Otherwise it won’t cook properly.

Cut an onion into wedges and throw them in and around the potatoes.  Add some slivers of garlic. Add red peppers if you have them.  Or you might want some other root vegetables.

Sprinkle with herbs of your choice – thyme would be nice.  A bay leaf snuck in between some veg would work.  I used a sprinkle of dried italian herbs tonight.

Cut a lemon into wedges, squeeze the juice over the veg, and then chuck the lemons into the dish.  Or zest them if you want, that would be nice.

Drizzle with olive oil.  I used harissa olive oil tonight – it’s just ordinary olive oil that’s had dried harrissa spice soaking in the bottle for a while.  Spicy and tasty.

Smoosh it up a bit if you feel like it.  Not if you don’t.

Place a chicken quarter, or thighs, or breasts, or whatever pieces you want over the top.  I then drizzled with some runnyhoney and more lemon juice.

Is this sounding complicated? I promise you it’s not.

Throw the whole lot in a hot oven (about 200C) for about 45 mins.  Or until it’s ready.

I served it with savoy cabbage.  I love those fresh tasty greens.

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Books 2011 – the results

27 Jan

OK

Here are the books I’ve read this year:

January

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

One Day by David Nicholls

The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards

February

Nourishment by Gerard Woodward

The Great Lover by Jill Dawson

The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald – our book club book for March

March

Naomi by Junichiro Tanizaki

History of a Pleasure Seeker by Richard Mason

Room by Emma Donoghue

April

Ascent by Jed Mercurio

May

Kamchatka by Marcelo Figueras

One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson

The Bullet Trick by Louise Welsh

Purge by Sofi Oksanen

June

Toast by Nigel Slater

Snowdrops by AD Miller

July

Sin by Josephine Hart

The Pornographer of Vienna by Lewis Crofts (novel based on the life of Egon Schiele)

August

Weight by Jeanette Winterson

September

When God Was a Rabbit by Sarah Winman

The House of Rajani by Alon Hilu

October

Started Early, Took My Dog, by Kate Atkinson

What Was Lost by Catherine O’Flynn

November

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

December

The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney

Me and You by Niccolo Ammaniti

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal by Jeanette Winterson (not finished by end of year)

So.. the grand total is 26 books, and a half.  Not bad going for this year I think.

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Millionaire’s Shortbread

24 Jan

This is surely one of Scotland’s greatest culinary triumphs? Hey, I think of it as Scottish, but perhaps it’s not?  Does anyone know? Also, I note that it is called Caramel Shortbread or Caramel Slice these days.  Do millionaire’s have such a bad press nowadays? Or is it some trades description ruling gone mad?

Anyway, the exquisite combination of smooth creamy chocolate, squishy sweet caramel and crisp shortbread is a true winner.  Traditionally it is served in decent sized slices, but I prefer to cut them into canapé style bite-size squares.  That way you can have one as a wee treat and it’s not toooooo calorific. OK, it is. It probably contains the total recommended calorie intake for a rugby team for a week, but surely that’s what treats are all about?

I wasn’t in my usual kitchen this last week, staying at my Mum and Dad’s, so I didn’t have access to my usual recipe books, or to an easy internet connection to look up recipes online.  I found a shortbread recipe, which I adapted, in a charity cookbook.  And I guessed with the caramel, and it seemed to work well.

Millionaire’s Shortbread

6oz butter

3oz caster sugar (I used vanilla sugar, out of the jar)

6oz plain flour

1oz custard powder

For the caramel

1 large tin of condensed milk

about 2oz butter

about 2 oz caster sugar (vanilla sugar again will give it a lovely subtle vanilla-y flavour)

a wee bit of milk if necessary

A very large block of Dairy Milk chocolate

So, I started the night before, making the caramel.

  1. Put the condensed milk, butter and sugar in a heavy based pan and warm gently.
  2. Stir constantly for a good ten minutes, or possibly more until it is a delicious golden toffee colour. You could test it at this stage, by dropping a wee bit on a cold saucer and seeing if it’s a squishy consistency when it cools. Once it seemed ready, I walked away and spent the rest of the evening watching Brideshead Revisited on DVD.
  3. Now for the shortbread – Beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.  This will be oh so much easier if you start with soft butter, so if you have a cold kitchen you might want to leave it in a warm place for an hour or two, or soften it in the microwave if you have such a thing.  Being at home, I left mine beside the Rayburn overnight, and it was perfect.
  4. Now add the flour and custard powder.  You should probably add a wee teeny pinch of salt too, although I’m not sure it’s entirely necessary and in these days of trying to reduce our salt intake it probably is no longer recommended.
  5. Mix all together to form a dough.  Don’t be over vigorous about this, as I think it makes a better crisp bisuit if it’s not over-worked.
  6. Press into a buttered tin, and prick it all over with a fork.  Cook in a moderate oven (it was a Rayburn, I don’t have any more precise details than ‘moderate’) until it’s golden and ready. Yes, I said “until it’s ready”, probably at least 30 mins, possibly longer.
  7. While it was in the oven you could turn your attention back to the caramel.
  8. Here’s the cunning bit – as the caramel is now cool, you will be able to tell if it has the right consistency.  If it is too solid, just warm it gently (really gently) in the pan and add some milk to loosen it.  Stir it well once it’s warm. If it’s too runny then you’ll need to boil it up for longer (but this wasn’t an issue with me).
  9. At the same time you could be melting the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of water.
  10. When the shortbread is ready bring it out of the oven, and leave it in the tin. Spread the warm caramel over the shortbread.
  11. Leave it for a few wee minutes to cool slightly and then pour the melted chocolate over the caramel. Give the tin a wee shoogle to settle all the chocolate evenly and smoothly.
  12. Leave in a cool place, and carefully cut into bite-size chunks.

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Winter salad

5 Jan

After Christmas, I’d been craving vegetables, and particularly fresh salad-type vegetables.

I was also determined not to do more shopping so did a search in the fridge and the cupboards to see what could be rustled up.  I had a couple of little gem lettuces, but no other real salad veg. But I also had some vac packed beetroot and some pears.  I could see something tasty coming together…

Winter salad

This serves two, and is plenty as a starter, or a light snack with some crusty bread or oatcakes, or part of a legendary Wolffe Lunch.

Enough lettuce for 2 people – I used a whole little gem, but you could just as easily use part of a bag of mixed leaves. Watercress or spinach would be nice

1 beetroot, cut into small cubes – use fresh if you have one, if not those vac packed beetroot are fine. I HATE pickled beetroot though – why smother that deep earthy flavour with all that sharp vinegariness?

1 pear, peeled, cored and cut into equally small cubes

Some crumbled blue cheese – I used stilton, predictably, it being Christmas and there being leftovers in the fridge.  I’ve got some Bleu D’Auvergne which will be tried next

A small handful of walnuts, toasted to bring out the real walnuttiness of the flavour, and extra crunch

Put all of the above in a decent-sized bowl, big enough that you’ll be able to mix them all up once you’ve dressed it.

Now make the dressing.  You can, of course use your own favourite dressing, but these are the flavours that are doing it for me right now:

A good glug of olive oil

A sploosh of vinegar – I’ve been using a combination of a wee bit of balsamic, with a healthy slug of homemade elderflower vinegar (made with elderflowers and white wine vinegar).

A big teaspoon of dijon mustard

An equally big teaspoon or more of runny Scottishflower honey

Put all the dressing ingredients in a small bowl with a twist of freshly ground black pepper and give it a good beating with a teaspoon, or perhaps more conventionally a fork.

Pour the dressing over the salad and lightly mix everything together.

I’m tempted to swap the cheese out for some smoked trout which was pressed into The Captain’s hands on the street in Gatehouse on Boxing Day. Another story.

 

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Books 2011

4 Jan

Following the lead of a couple of friends, I’m going to set myself a slightly different reading challenge this year.  In previous years I’ve just set myself a target of a number of books (and a couple of years ago I set an overly ambitious target and ended up judging books by how quick they would be to read, not how satisfying they might be).

So, this year, I’ll draft a list of books I want to read plus an overall target.  The list will only be a small proportion of the books I want to read, and will only include books I already own.  That’s my rules.

And here’s the list – I’ll come back to it and embolden things as they are read.  I may even do the odd book review, although I suspect they will be very odd (and rarer still).

  1. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.  My first book group book of the year, and also my first book of the year.  Half read at the time of first writing this.
  2. One Day by David Nicholls. Bought at a charity shop the other day.  Oxfam in Hamilton if you want to know.
  3. Room by Emma Donohue – it was one of the favourite books of staff at the Book Fest in 2010.
  4. One Good Turn and When Will There Be Good News by Kate Atkinson.  I own both of these, and loved the first in the series: Case Histories.
  5. The Siege by Helen Dunmore, recommended by my friend and fellow bibliophile Louise K.
  6. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides.  I bought this ages ago, as it had been on my wish list for a while.  But I never read it, and it’s still sitting on my shelf, occasionally winking at me.
  7. An Elizabeth David book – not sure which one yet, but I feel I should read one of them.
  8. The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney.  I bought this as soon as it came out in paperback, before it won the Costa.  But again, never got round to reading it yet.
  9. Away by Amy Bloom – received from my sis-in-law for Christmas 2010 and looks good (and relatively short).
  10. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood.  I think I got this last year for Christmas as part of a Not So Secret Santa Surprise from a bookcrossing buddy.  I feel I should read it and pass it on, especially as I’ve never read anything by La Atwood.
  11. Ulysses by James Joyce – received with The Blind Assassin as part of the same Surprise.  I suspect that I may only start this in 2011, and take some years before I manage to read it through from cover to cover.

I suspect I’ll also read the new Niccolo Amanitti book and the latest Gerard Woodward (Nourishment).

I’ll strike through books as I read them.

24 January 2011

I have now read One Day. It was an engaging enough read, but I spent the whole of the book feeling as though I’d read it before, or seen the movie.  I know I haven’t, but it all seemed so familiar (or perhaps predictable).

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Sugar biscuits

1 Jan

These are a classic roll ’em and cut ’em out biscuit.  They are plain, in that they are vanilla flavoured, although the recipe suggests you could add some finely chopped nuts or coconut to the recipe.  I’ve never tried this, and not sure it would be worth it.  Sometimes you are just in the mood for an ordinary biscuit.

Sugar biscuits

175g / 7oz SR flour

pinch of salt

25g / 1oz cornflour

100g / 4oz butter

100g / 4oz caster sugar

1 egg (or it says you can use 2 egg yolks, which I guess would work if you were making meringues, or a mousse)

1/4 tsp vanilla essence

a little milk

More caster sugar, or glace icing for dredging once they are cooked

Grease 2 or 3 baking sheets. Oven 200ºC / 400ºF / Gas Mark 6.

  1. Sift the flour, salt and cornflour into a bowl.  I don’t think you need to do this any more.  This is an old book – I must have bought it in 1979 – and in those days the flour needed to be sifted.  The milling process has since improved and there is less need to sift flour for baking).
  2. Add the butter in wee chunks (straight from the fridge, it works best if cold) and rub in with your fingers until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.  Try to add air into the mixture at this stage, by lifting your hands up from the mixture to rub, and letting it drizzle back down through your fingers.
  3. Beat together the egg and the vanilla essence and add to the mixture.
  4. Mix together and slightly knead to form a fairly soft dough.  Add a little milk if necessary.
  5. Wrap in cling film or  foil and leave to cool in the fridge for 30 minutes.
  6. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and roll out to about 5mm / 1/4″ thick.  Use whatever cookie cutters you have to cut shapes (preferably about 5cm / 2″ diameter) and place on the baking sheets.
  7. Bake in the pre-heated moderately hot oven for 8 – 10 mins or until lightly golden brown.
  8. Remove to a wire rack and either dredge with caster sugar while still warm, or wait until they cool and ice with glace icing.

This should make 30 – 40 biscuits.

This recipe is from one of my oldest and most loved and used recipe books: Cakes and Cake Decorating by Rosemary Wadey.  I bought it when I was in my early teens, and spent many a happy weekend and evening trying out new recipes.  I ticked each recipe off as I tried it at one point, but sadly left no notes, or other comment, such as a date.

I fell in love with the Grantham Gingers, a surprisingly hollow wee dome shaped biscuit, light and crisp, and delicately gingery.  And then there were the Danish Pastries – a triumph! And after my grandfather died, I made virtually every teabread in the book for his wake.   Perhaps it was then that I first discovered the  therapeutic power of getting into the kitchen and baking.

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2010 delights

31 Dec

It’s Hogmanay, and no doubt later on I’ll be making something delish to toast the old year out and the new year in.  But as yet I’m not decided what I’ll cook up.  Something featuring meat from our awesome butcher I imagine.

But for the moment, it seems right to include some of the triumphs of 2010, so they’re not lost forever.

First up, Plumbrillo. We have a couple of damson trees on the edge of our garden.  Well, slightly down our lane and next to the farmer’s field (which now has sheep in it again, which is a sign that there’ll be lambs again before we know it).

So, this year there was a bumper crop of damsons. And being only a part-time country girl, I needed to find things to do with damsons quickly, before I hot-footed it back to the city for the working week. Some inevitably went into a jar with brandy, some made apple and plum jam. Some made the liquor for plum jelly, but was abandoned in the fridge for too long before it was used to make jelly, so had to be chucked.

But the absolute favourite plummy condiment was Plumbrillo, a membrillo like concoction to have with cheese.  It’s easy to make, and I’m not sure I ever want to live without a jar of this stuff in my cupboard – it also makes perfect Christmas gifts, with or without a chunk of cheese.

The recipe is originally from BBC Good Food magazine, October 2008.  The magazine was a present from Aunt Joyce, in a bundle of cooking and gardening mags she had finished.  I must ask if she ever made the Plumbrillo.

Plumbrillo

Makes about 7 x 100ml pots.

2kg / 4lb 8oz black or red plums (or damsons)

1kg bag jam sugar (with added pectin)

  1. Stone and quarter the plums (if you can, I found it really tiresome to do this, so ended up leaving half of them with stones in). Put into a preserving pan and add 500ml cold water.  Bring to boil.
  2. Cover and simmer for about 45 minutes until completely cooked down, pulpy and dark, dark reddish plummy purple.
  3. Sieve the fruit and juice through a nylon sieve back into the pan – make sure you get every bit of the pulp out of the mix that you can, this is what makes the plumbrillo.
  4. Stir in the sugar, then stir over a low heat until dissolved.  Now turn up the heat and bubble for about 25 mins or until you have a thick, dark and fruity puree. Keep stirring so that the bottom doesn’t catch. It’s ready when the spoon leaves a trail along the bottom of the pan for a split second before the paste floods back into the gap.
  5. Pot the mix into small jars (use a funnel so you make minimal mess), seal, then leave to set.

Will keep for up to 6 months. My guess is that it might keep a year, otherwise what will I do without it during those summer picnicking months?

I’ll put up my Beetroot and Goats Cheese Tart later.  And perhaps even my Chicken Lasagne.  But for now, it’s back to the home furnishings – curtains and cushion covers to make before the year is out.

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Radio radio

30 Dec

There seems to have been a lot of foodie stuff going on on the radio in the last few days.

Let me explain. I don’t usually listen to Radio Scotland, but on the way down to Galloway on Boxing Day to see my parents, it was G’s channel of choice. Now, I’m a fan of baking, but I would never have thought to make a radio programme out of the search to make the perfect cake. It turns out that the perfect cake of choice was a Victoria sponge, which felt like a bit of a cop out to me – it is after all one of the simpler cakes to make, and most people’s first real cake they baked as a child (after the obligatory chocolate crispies).

It turns out that you have to have your ingredients at room temperature, you need to beat the butter and sugar together till really fluffy and you should cook it in an oven at the correct temperature (170ºC for the cook on the radio).  Who’d have known? These are things I’ve done all my life, but it was interesting to hear some of the science behind the recipe.  And to know that if I do it differently, it really won’t be as good.

The second radio programme I caught a bit of, was describing how to make the perfect cup of coffee, presumably to go with the perfect cake.  I may have to see if it’s available on listen again, which only goes to show quite how sad I am.

In other news, I’ve been finding new ways to use smoked salmon. You need to get creative when you’re given over 1kg of smoked salmon for Christmas and there are only two of you.  So far we’ve had smoked salmon and cream cheese in croissants for a snacky lunch; smoked salmon scrambled eggs; and my favourite, smoked salmon fishcakes.  Recipes will follow.

Off to the local Italian restaurant tonight.  I’m in the mood for their fish stew.

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