A Musing

This is a blog I started a little after Christmas – it’s a bit late I know but, like the mega-shepherd’s pie I made last week and wasn’t finished up until this Tuesday, I didn’t want it going to waste. These are musings rather than recipes. I’ll get back onto them soon.

So, back to mid-January 2011, when the weather was cold and miserable, the Christmas tree and decorations had been packed away and the turkey trimmings had finally been wrapped and dumped (derdle-le, derdle-le, derdle-le, derdle-le, derrrrr (dream music in case you’re wondering)).

“ I’m watching ‘Chopped’ on Food Network – three chefs are whipping up something sensual using rabbit, tapioca, carrots and fruit leather. The first round included Asian pears, croissants and rattle snake. The looks on the chefs' faces when they opened their baskets was a mixture of disbelief, and sheer disbelief. It’s like that when I open my fridge door. Today I have cheese, carrots, stewed apples and plums and cooked chick peas.

This evening we feasted well: sweet and sour chick peas and carrots with buttery basmati rice, and stewed apple and plum filled pancakes for afters. A couple of crackers with cheese will be on the cards a bit later – we’ll not eat again until morning. It will be thus for a little while as I want to clear out the fridge and freezer. Cabbage and carrots feature extensively in the veg box. And potatoes – we’ll be reelin’ in potatoes; having a few potatoes, yeah.

‘Chopped’ is great isn’t it? It’s at its best when the chefs answer back or get a bit lippy in front of the judges, then they’re suitably slapped down and sent to bed without any cocoa. Ten thousand dollars wouldn’t be enough to get me on there but, like everyone else, I do have a price and would prostitute and humiliate myself for a few dollars more.

I cooked a whole duck for the first time at Christmas. Turned out OK served with an orange and port sauce but not something I’d rush to do again. I liked the stuffed shoulder of lamb better. I got the butcher to bone it and then made my usual breadcrumb stuffing and rolled and tied it up. Obviously I don’t have proper butcher string to hand so had to use the gardening string instead but it did the trick. Now, I’m not a big leg woman – I much prefer shoulder of both pork and lamb. Shoulder has more fat on it which renders into the stuffing making it more flavourful whilst keeping the whole joint moist. Chuck a few potatoes in the roasting tin for the last hour or so and there you have it: cholesterol on a stick. It would make sense to have a couple of statins with custard for afters.

A new Indian restaurant has opened locally opposite Nobby’s work – River Spice. We popped in there on Tuesday on its second day of trading. Not surprisingly, there weren’t many people in there but that meant that we did have time to have a chat with the owner and some of the waiters who were very attentive and friendly – service as it should be. This is the owner’s third restaurant and he seems to know what he wants. Our waiter came from Bethnal Green, and he seemed to know what he wanted an’ all. He was practising the charm: ‘that’s nice perfume, what’s it called?’ he said, and because I couldn’t believe what I’d heard, he had to say it again. I laughed heartily – nice try sunshine but no extra tip for you. Having said that, the service and the food was impressive and we’ll be going back. The cauliflower bhaji was cooked al dente and the tarka dhal clean and garlicky, and they had several duck dishes which I haven’t noticed on many Indian menus before. I ordered tamarind duck – it was duck in tamarind sauce unsurprisingly so nothing special but it was new to me and I did enjoy it. Nobby had a vegetable dish with Nan bread which was nice and light and everything tasted very fresh. They’ll be doing lunch time specials and opening up for outside dining in the summer which will be nice as it’s right on the river. Ducks beware.

Not cooked anything new recently but did make some Christmas flapjacks which were rather nice. I used muesli with added oats, butter and sugar and layered it with a jar of mincemeat. Very rich and filling – Christmas energy bars if you will. I made some biscuits as well which were OK but I need to work on them and think about which spices to use to perk them up a bit. I did samwidge a few together with a mixture of chocolate and rum toffee sauce which made them a bit special. And Bron made an apple pie for Boxing Day which was mega, but that’s no surprise as she is The Pie Queen.”

Back to present day now: made a couple of cheese, onion and potato pies last Friday to celebrate a very special and happy occasion involving a son, a new daughter-in-law and a local registry office. Congratulations Rhys and Sarah and here’s to a long a happy life together. I’ve not made cheese, onion and potato (COP) for ages and had quite forgotten how intoxicatingly moreish it is – layers of very thinly sliced floury potatoes, thinly sliced onions and strong cheddar cheese moistened with a little milk, covered and put in a low oven for about three hours. It’s an old Lancashire dish that wives used to take along to the local baker’s oven to cook after the bread had been taken out and the oven was cooling down. It is so moreish though, I made another one on Sunday just for me and Nobby and another one when I was over Mum and Dad’s yesterday. I’m pretty certain I’ll be doing a few more in the near future too. Sod the diet.

Stuffed Peppers

I’ve been trying for years to replicate the stuffed peppers we used to get on the Greek Islands back in the 70s. In those days we’d go into a taverna, straight through to the kitchen and have a gander at what was on offer. The tray of stuffed veggies – peppers or tomatoes – always caught our eye and we’d know they’d be OK for Nobby because they didn’t put meat in them in those days. They looked and smelt abso-bleeding-lutely wonderful. Tziki and bread to start, stuffed peppers and chips and a bottle of retzina to wash it down (water wasn’t safe you see) and back to the villa for a kip – what better way to spend a hot Greek afternoon.

Then the islands became a bit more commercial and dishes were made for the foreign palate and that included more meat. Stuffed tomatoes and peppers became a bit of a lottery - a lot of tavernas used at least a small amount of meat and it became quite difficult to find anywhere that stuck to the veggie recipe resulting in a rather unhappy and hungry Nobby.

And in the before-time, Greek food used to be served either warm or at room temperature. There was no point sending your food back complaining it wasn’t hot – why would you want hot food? They'd take it away and you’d wait another hour and the same food would come back at the same temperature and you would have gained nothing but heartburn. Things have changed since then and you can get hot chips these days: hot chips and meat – where’s the fun in that?

But after all these years I think I've finally cracked it. I've tried these a few times now - never the same way of course - but last night's were a triumph: I read my original recipe wrong and made the mistake of doubling up on the passatta. I thought the rice would turn into a sloppy mess, but it didn't, and they were lovely.

I recommend you give 'em a go - just give 'em a go.

Serves 2 plus lunch next day

4 medium peppers – whatever colour you like but red’s the best
Pinch of sugar
8 tbsp basmati rice
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 small onion, finely chopped
Handful of mint, chopped
300ml Passatta
75ml Olive oil
Salt and pepper

Cook the rice in salted water until almost done. Wash, dry and cut the tops off the peppers. Take out the core and place standing upright in a dish – they need to fit quite snugly. Sprinkle the inside of the peppers with a pinch of sugar.

Mix the cooked rice with the onion, garlic, 200ml of the passatta, mint, salt and pepper and about 50ml of olive oil. Stuff the peppers with this mixture.

Replace the lids on the peppers, pour the remaining passatta mixed with an equal quantity of water and another 25ml of olive oil over the peppers and into the base of the dish. Place in oven, Gas 4-5, middle shelf, for about 1¾ hrs – the tops should have blackened a little and the peppers should be really soft – then turn off the oven and let them sit and mellow for at least an hour, preferably a lot longer. These are best served slightly warm or at room temperature. Never hot – see above.

Serving suggestion: being Greek in nature, these will obviously go well with cold chips and tziki, and/or a slice of feta. A bit of salad wouldn’t go amiss, but it’s not obligatory.

The photo shows the peppers before they’ve been in the oven, the slack in the dish being taken up with potato wedges.

It's a heart hash, nothing but a heart hash....

Lambs' Hearts with Sage and Thyme

I bought some lambs' hearts with a view to nailing them, beating, to the front door for Halloween but could only get frozen ones, and I know for a fact that you can't get previously frozen internal organs working again so I had to eat them. There's still a long way to go when it comes to cryogenics and I'm afraid I'm a busy woman - I just don't have the time.

So I threw this one together whilst trying to remember a similar recipe Marge gave me many years back, but after several seconds of trying to think I couldn’t be arsed so I just put in what I thought. It’s a quick, hearty – forgive the pun – winter’s dish, cheap and cheerful and pretty filling, and it’s a good way to use up leftover Sunday dinner veg, including roasties – a “heart hash” if you will. And you’ll only need a small… A SMALL … cherries jubilee or apple crumble and custard afterwards to fill in the gaps.

Nobby was out when I cooked this.

Little sunflower oil
1 lamb’s heart per person
Dried thyme and sage
Left over cooked potatoes cut into 2cm cubes and/or other cooked veg, eg, cabbage, brussel sprouts, carrots, green beans, peas – but not so sure about cauliflower or broccoli
Lots of seasoning


Heat the oil in a frying pan. Trim the hearts and slice lengthways into 6-8 pieces, season and add to the pan. Gently fry until the outside is coloured – about 5 mins. Add the herbs and give a stir. Then add the cooked veg and season generously again. Put a lid on the pan, turn the heat to low and cook until the veg is heated through. This shouldn’t take more than 20 minutes in total to prepare and cook.

It’s a one pot dish obviously so minimal washing up – a perfect Monday night tea.

Winter draws on

Just looking out the window from the office on this autumnal afternoon – workmen and scaffolding are gone and the house is standing up straight now so I can clearly see the sun shining, tree branches gently waving in the breeze, golden leaves dancing in the air and gathering softly in heaps on the ground (and side-thoughts turn to having to be careful because if no-one sweeps up you can’t see if there’re any dead hedgehogs under there, and you’ll have to be careful riding your bike in case you run over one and it makes you shudder and go “urrggh”) but, more pressingly, culinary thoughts turn warmly to soups and stews and puddings and custard and all those dishes sorely missed during the summer.

Made the first soup of the season the other day. Vegetable of course, with potatoes, onions, carrots and celery, a handful of pearl barley, veggie stock, hint of chilli, dried thyme and sage and a smidgeon of Marmite. It was OK, but a bit thinner than my usual thick, hearty, this’ll put hairs on your chest offerings. After a couple of lunches there was just short of a portion left over, and not quite a portion of thin soup is not the way to start off the autumn term. So I threw in some gnocchi I didn’t use for the gorgonzola and spinach gnocchi we had the other day. Did it work or did it work. Within two minutes the soup had turned from a do-I-don’t-I-bother to a really substantial potage worthy of any soup kitchen. A handful of Parmesan, a hunk of bread and that was me done for the afternoon.

Thoughts have now turned to other soups so we don’t get too bored: here’s one I made earlier.

Parsnip Soup

Don’t like parsnips – soft, sweet, earthy mush when they’re cooked. I remember having them every now and again for Sunday dinner when I was little. They’d be lying there on the plate camouflaged as roasties, and I’d think oooh that’s good, more roasties than usual, and I’d bite into one thinking I was getting spud whereas in fact I was nursing a mouthful of sweet and mushy pap. Wanted to spit them out but couldn’t ‘cos mum was looking. Urrggh.

Then I found this recipe somewhere along the line and thought I’d give it a go because, believe it or not, other people do like the taste and I needed to ring the changes in the cheap soup department at the pub: lo and behold, I was converted. I still don’t like parsnips as a vegetable, boiled, mashed or roasted, but as a soup – ship it in, shag!

This soup is nothing without the cream. In fact, it tastes disgusting without the cream and, as I’m not of school age, disgusting is not a word I use freely. So don’t taste it before you’ve blended it and added the cream. You can adjust the seasoning afterwards.

Makes: a lot

50g butter
500g parsnips, peeled and chopped
2 large onions, peeled and chopped
1 tsp curry powder
1 litre vegetable stock
Salt and pepper
Single cream to taste – about 200ml

In a large saucepan, melt the butter and gently sweat the parsnips and onions for about 10 mins. Add the curry powder, vegetable stock and seasoning. Bring to the boil, cover and turn heat down to simmer for about 30 mins until everything is soft. Liquidise the soup and pour back into the saucepan. Add the cream and a little more stock if the soup is too thick, and reheat gently – test for seasoning. Don’t let the soup come to a boil after adding the cream. If you want you can serve with some kind of cheffy greenery stuff artistically strewn over the top. Parsley I think – yeah, parsnips and parsley.

Freezes well without the cream.

Love Feta - straight from the heart

Feta Dip/Spread

So I know I went on about how there are only three sustainable dips in the world and that's all that's needed, but I lied, OK?

I went a bit bananas the other day and bought another 2kg bag of dried chick peas. I didn’t need them: I have at least half a bag in the cupboard but they were right at the back and I didn’t look properly when I was doing my list so didn't see them, and when I go to the Indian shop all aisles lead to pulses so I bought some. And a few months ago Nobby bought a 2kg bag of brown chick peas but they’re not the same and I’m not sure what to do with them. They still have skins on and when they’re soaked they don’t swell up as much as the ordinary ones, and they need more cooking (I tried to make hummus with them but ended up spending a tedious half an hour taking the skins off after they’d been cooked and I got fed up with ‘em so I need to do a bit of research on that one).

There’s something about the pulse aisle that pulls me in and I’m not completely sure for why. It could be that those little peas and beans look totally natural and unmucked about with in their cellophane bags and appeal to my penchant for wholesomeness, or that they’re nutritious and versatile and can be added to bulk out casseroles and soups and stuff (but not omelettes) or possibly that they’re cheap. Who knows? I don’t.

So I started thumbing through the books to see what I could do with six ton of chick peas that wasn’t hummus or balls. I could have gone the Levi Roots tamarind and butternut squash route but I don’t care for squash even when it’s masked with chillies, or the Madhur Jaffrey sour chick peas but they’re more of a side dish than a main, so I hit the interweb and got a bit distracted like you do on food sites and started pressing buttons for all sorts of unrelated categories: vegetables, pasta, rice, filo, chicken gizzards, etc. It’s all a bit of a gamble isn’t it, this web site malarkey: there’s an awful lot of dross but sometimes you hit gold. I stumbled across this cheeky little beggar on greek-recipes.com in the appetizers section. I like this web site – the recipes are simple and the ingredients are easily obtainable, and all the dishes I’ve tried so far taste surprisingly Greek. Well, as Greek as you’re gonna get with local ingredients.

Unfortunately, this does not contain chick peas.

1 x 200gm pack feta cheese cut into small cubes
Chopped basil or mint leaves – about 2 tbsp
Chopped chives – about 1 tbsp
1-2 cloves garlic, crushed
Olive oil

Process basil or mint and chives in food processor until fine. Add feta and garlic until well mixed. Add enough olive oil to make spreadable. Spread on bread, crostini, bruschetta, or little pizzas, dollop on pasta, or add to soups or vegetables.

...like the fascists they are

LENTIL & COCONUT SOUP

Easy, cheap and cheerful: everything you want in a partner - oh no, the other one - soup.

Can’t remember where this recipe came from – I’m thinking Sunday newspaper magazine, I’m thinking old Indian recipe book, I’m thinking quarterly pseudo-caring-sharing foodie publication from a fascist supermarket that appears to be on your side in that their store encourages home cooking with aisles and aisles of foodstuffs but in reality the amount of space given over to all basic ingredients – and when I say basic I mean those ingredients you have to do something with - works out at about, oh, I don’t know,15%, the remainder taken up with “convenient” fast food, packet mixes, meals in boxes (or meal kits for God’s sake!), cheap meat products, biscuits and sweets.

Take a look around next time you go supermarket shopping and see how much space is given over to crisps and snacks, packet food and soft drinks and how much to basics. We have one of those hypermarkets in Reading. It has over 30 aisles and one of those is given over to “home cooking”: it is where you go for your flour, yeast, dried fruit, eggs, sugar, baking powder, etc, but also, within this one aisle, they include packet mixes for pancakes, brownies, bread mixes, etc. They cannot fill just one aisle with what is laughingly called these days “cook’s ingredients”. What hope is there when, wherever you turn, all roads lead to an easier path which means less time, effort and mess for you in the kitchen, and more profit for them.

Let’s get real – supermarkets don’t want us cooking our own stuff. Not much mark up on a kilo bag of chick peas when they can supply their own brand falafel or hummus at ten times the profit. Who’s going to bother with soaking, cooking then processing those cheap humble peas when it’s all done for you, and look – no washing up! And who’ll need a kitchen in another 15 years: if we’re not careful that room will have gone the same way as the old parlour and dining rooms of yesteryear - redundant space that could be turned over to an indoor media entertainment complex complete with built in fridge and microwave so you need never get up off your arse to prepare a meal ever again.

Let’s stuff the supermarkets and make our own soup. It’s cheaper, healthier and won’t take long, and the satisfaction of making something where you are completely in control of the raw ingredients and final outcome will be greater than winning the lottery. Well, no it won’t, but it goes a long way.

All ingredients should be available at your local Asian grocer’s.

Serves about 4

6oz red split lentils
1½ pints water
3 tbsp coconut milk powder
2 tbsp water
1 medium onion, finely chopped
½ tsp chilli powder
¾ tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp ground turmeric
Salt and pepper
1 garlic clove, crushed – optional
Fresh coriander to serve


Wash the lentils until water runs clear and place in saucepan with the water. Bring to the boil and skim off any scummy bits that rise to the top. Take the pan off the heat to do this as, if you leave it simmering, you’ll be there for ever.

Mix the coconut powder with the 2 tbsp of cold water and mix until dissolved. Pour into the lentils and stir. Add the rest of the ingredients except for the coriander, bring back to simmering, cover and cook until lentils and onions are soft – about 20-25 mins. Season with salt and pepper, and serve with chopped fresh coriander.

There now. That didn't take long did it, and isn’t that better than a cuppa soup? Isn’t it?

DIPS

Dippidy-do-dah

Dips – dontcha just love ‘em. Quick, easy, usually healthy assembly jobs if you make them yourself – I try not to go the other route, and certainly wouldn’t pay good money for a jar of that lumpy, faux tomato red, arrowroot thickened gel you’re encouraged to dip those dry, salty, saliva diminishing tortilla chips into whilst watching the football. No sirree, not for me.

I am by nature a creature of habit and once I’ve found a way that works, tend not to deviate from that routine. I’ve found that three dips are all that are needed to tickle the taste buds of dinner guests, each dip quite easy to make and all gutsy in their outlook. The easiest, quickest and my most favourite dip is tziki, that well known Greek garlic timebomb which I’d describe as cooling without being sociable. See recipe below.

The next is hummus (and I’m never sure of how to pronounce it – is it hum-us, or hue-mus?), the earthy chic chickpea dish said to be favoured by young female vegetarian students. There are several bastardised versions sold in supermarkets these days: red pepper hummus; hummus with coriander and lemon; hummus with gravy – not worth the pitta bread if you ask me.

And the final dip: guacamole. Avocados were considered posh back in my day: I didn’t know of/see/taste an avocado until I was 19 years old and must say wasn’t too impressed with my first experience – nothing new there though. I consider them a bit 70s, but they’ve obviously become more popular as the years have passed and now they’re as common as beetroot.

I’ll come back to the recipes for hummus and guacamole but meanwhile, here’s a very simple tziki mix that you can be getting on with:

All the flavourings are to taste so just go with what you feel.

½ tub of Greek yoghurt or similar (you need the thick stuff here – watery yoghurt will not cut it in this instance)
About 4 inches of cucumber, peeled and grated
1-2 crushed cloves of garlic – to taste
Chopped fresh mint, or dill – to taste
Salt

Place the yoghurt in a bowl and add the crushed garlic, chopped mint or dill and salt. Give a stir. Taste to make sure you’ve got the flavourings right for you. Let it stand for a while so the flavours get to know each other, then just before serving, squeeze the grated cucumber to remove the excess liquid and mix into the yoghurt. If you add the cucumber much before, the salt will draw out more liquid from the cucumber and dilute the yoghurt. You don’t want that. You could also sprinkle some olive oil over the top and decorate with an olive if you’re feeling frivolous.

We, and when I say we I mean the family, did a Tziki Challenge on holiday in Zakynthos some years ago – every taverna we went to we ordered their tziki and rated it out of ten. Criteria were: general appearance including garnishes (ie, olive and olive oil), taste obviously; texture and quantity may have come into it: we even drew up a table to record the scores, but it was a long time ago.

Bobby’s in Vasilikos won: all roads led to Bobby’s in the tziki department. It scored a whopping 10/10 not least for its consistency. You knew what you were getting when you went to Bobby’s.

Dipping suggestions: warmed pitta bread; cucumber sticks; celery sticks at a push (but not carrot – nobody likes carrot sticks); chips – and I mean proper fried potato chips, not those horrible triangular tortilla chips or crisps. And meatballs – or chick pea balls – does the trick when you need some gutsy grub.

You could also spread tziki quite thickly over the base of a wrap, then fill with, eg, chicken or pork kebabs, a bit of salad and a couple of chips, then roll up ready for eating. We had this for lunch in a little ‘bab place in Kefalonia a couple of years ago and it kept us going all afternoon. Veggie alternatives were available.