Stuff yer bake

I’m not going on about my actual belly, although it’s probably has as high a fat content as the pork belly we had for dinner last night (not sure if mine would make such good crackling though). I saw Rick Stein doing a chinese style pork belly dish recently and thought I had to try it again. I’d tried it before, but I don’t think the pork was that good quality, so the crackling wasn’t up to standard.

I went to Berkswell farm shop again and got some Gloucester Old Spot belly. I rubbed the flesh, but not the skin as Rick did, with salt, pepper and Chinese five spice. He also added crushed Szechuan pepper corns but I couldn’t get any. I then put the pork on a tray over boiling water (so the flesh stays moist and the skin goes crisp, it also doesn’t tend to spit so much fat) and put it into a really hot oven and this was the result.

I think the skin could have been done a bit less, but I have a feeling our oven, although it’s fan assisted, is a bit rubbish and is hotter in some areas, so turning the pork round every now and again would have meant it was more evenly done.

I served the pork with some fragrant rice, that I flavoured with, bay leaves, cardamom pods, star anise and a cinnamon stick to compliment the Chinese five spice flavour of the pork, and steamed pak choi all drizzled with some soy sauce. Delicious!

Technorati Tags: Belly pork, crispy, roast, Chinese five spice, pepper, salt, Berkswell, Szechuan pepper corns, rice, bay leaves, cardamom pods, star anise, cinnamon stick, pak choi, soy sauce

After a few weeks of swearing and kicking things related injuries, the cake is sort of coming together now. There still is a lot to be done and the next bit we are doing is piping a very fine design on the side of the cake, which may lead to more attempts at suicide with a pallet knife.

The pictures are of my centre run out and collars, which go on the four corners of the cake. I managed to do the bunnies without much bother but I had to do a couple of attempts at the collars, as I couldn’t quite get the consistency right for the piping the outline and the icing to flood in. I have done all the layers of the cake as described in my earlier post, but while doing that, have scraped all the icing off the board that took me ages to ice. I’m sure I’ll be able to do something with it!!

I have a few weeks left and then hopefully the cake will be finished, as long as I haven’t lost the will to live!

Technorati Tags: cake decorating, centre run out, collars, bunnies, cake

I know it’s been a while since my last post but unfortunately I turned twenty five last week and I’ve been recovering from the depression ever since (no I’m not being over dramatic!!)

In a time honoured tradition every time it’s someone’s birthday at work we bring in something sweet (any old excuse for food, and it never lasts long). So I decided to make the above cake, a delicious chocolate and ginger cake. I kinda screwed up the pastry as I’d never made chocolate pastry, so it’s more difficult to see the consistency and I added a little too much liquid, but I think it turned out not too bad. My boyfriend was a little disappointed that I took it into work and he couldn’t eat it all.

The recipe (by Lulu Grimes, p28 of “30 irresistible cakes - baking for modern foodies”) goes as follows:

• white chocolate 200g
• liquid glucose 3tbsp
• dark chocolate 200g
• double cream 284ml
• crystallised ginger 4 lumps, finely chopped plus 2 tbsp of syrup

Pastry

• plain flour 150g
• cocoa powder 20g
• unsalted butter 75g chilled and cubed
• golden caster sugar 3tbsp
• egg yolks 3
• vanilla extract a few drops

Whizz flour, cocoa and butter to breadcrumb like mixture in a blender. Add sugar, whizz again, then add egg yolks and vanilla and process to make a paste. Shape pastry into a disk and chill.
Heat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade/fan 160/gas 4. Roll the pastry out and line a deep 20cm diameter tart tin. Bake blind for 15 mins or until the pastry is very dry, then cool. Melt half the white chocolate and paint over the base of the tart, then cool.

Melt the glucose and dark chocolate together in a saucepan over a low heat. Transfer to a bowl and cool slightly. Lightly whip the cream and fold into the chocolate, then fold in the ginger and syrup and spoon into the tart, then chill.

To decorate melt the rest of the white chocolate and using a piping bag swirl over the top of the tart. Devour

I went to London for my birthday for the day which was fun. We went to the Natural History Museum and then Harrods, where we ate in the food court. We basically had two sandwiches which, nice as they were, cost about £14 each, but then it was Harrods. We then went out to Browns in Coventry on Saturday night, so after all that revelry I’ve decided to get back on the wagon and have been eating celery since the start of the week (not really). I want CHOCOLATE!!!!!

Technorati Tags: chocolate, pastry, ginger, London, Harrods, Coventry, Browns

Last weekend I decided I fancied pizza, but being on the old diet again I thought it would be better to make one myself. We got the recipe from Silver spoon, a wonderful large volume of Italian recipes which topped the pizza with chopped tomatoes, anchovies and mozzarella. The only problem we had was that we put the dough to rise in with the boiler, thinking it would be lovely and warm, but it was actually quite cold so the dough didn’t rise as much as it should have. The finished pizza was very thin and very crispy, so I think next time I think I’ll roll out, put on the topping and let it rise again for a while before putting in the oven, or not roll it out too thin.

Technorati Tags: pizza, tomatoes, mozzarella, anchovies, dough, crispy

Last weekend I decided to make a delicious winter spiced plum crumble and cinnamon ice cream. I love plums and crumble has to be one of my all time favourite puddings. I also make a lot of ice cream when the mood takes me so I decided, while I was making the cinnamon ice cream anyway, I would make a large batch of the basic ice cream mixture and try out different flavours.

I made a white chocolate and Kahlua ice cream and took a few of the plums and some of the syrup I made to go with them in the crumble and made some ice cream with that too. The flavour of the spiced plum ice cream was delicious but the texture wasn’t so great. I will have to work on that one.

The recipe goes as follows:

Ingredients

• 1kg plums
• 120g plain flour
• 85g butter (fridge cold)
• 4 tbsps golden caster sugar
• 4 tablespoons ground almonds
• handful of flaked almonds

Winter spice syrup

• zest of orange and lemon
• juice of orange and half lemon
• 3 pieces of stem ginger (you can get this in a jar with syrup)
• 2 tbsps of the stem ginger syrup
• 250ml water
• 1 tbsp runny honey
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 2 star anise
• 8 cloves

Method

Put all the ingredients for the syrup in a pan and reduce by half. Taste for sweetness, remember that it will depend how sweet your plums are and also how sweet a tooth you have. Halve and stone the plums and arrange in the bottom of a deep baking dish. To make the crumble topping whiz together the flour and butter in a food processor until it resembles fine breadcrumbs (if you don’t have a food processor rub the mixture between your thumbs and fingers lightly to achieve the same result). Then add the ground almonds and sugar and stir to combine. Sprinkle about a tbsp of caster sugar on top of the plums and then the syrup. Top with the crumble topping and cook in a 180 degree oven until golden on top and the fruit is bubbling underneath. This should take about 45 minutes.

Basic ice cream mixture

Ingredients

• 400ml double cream
• 300ml whole milk
• 5 free range egg yolks
• 80g caster sugar

Flavourings

• Vanilla pod
• Cinnamon
• 100g White chocolate (Green and Blacks or other good quality chocolate)
• Kahlua, a sweet coffee liqueur

Kahlua makes very nice cocktails. Use a glass of the milk you bought for the ice cream and put a shot of Kahlua and a shot of vodka in with some ice cubes and you’ve got yourself a White Russian. Mmmmmm!

Method

Put the cream and milk on a medium heat. Whisk the egg yolks and sugar together until smooth. Once the milk and cream have come up to near simmering point pour slowly onto the egg and sugar mixture while whisking the eggs and sugar to avoid scrambling the eggs. Return the mixture to the pan, and still whisking, put back on a medium heat. Bring up slowly to near simmering point until the mixture has thickened (you should be able to draw a line on the back of a spoon and it will hold for a good few seconds). Take off the heat and cool. Some chefs say to sieve the ice cream mixture before churning to get rid of any lumps, but I never do. The mixture needs to be fridge cold before putting into an ice cream maker (if you don’t have one of these you need to put the mixture into a plastic container and take out of the fridge every so often to whisk through with a fork to break up the ice crystals).

If you want to make vanilla ice cream, put a vanilla pod in with the cream and milk to infuse, take it out for whisking into the eggs and sugar but you can replace it while it cools. Then split the pod and scrape out the seeds with the back of a knife and add the ice cream mixture before churning.

For the cinnamon ice cream add a cinnamon stick to infuse as you would do with the vanilla pod and then take it out before churning and add a couple of teaspoons of ground cinnamon.

For the Kahlua and white chocolate ice cream omit about 20g of sugar in the basic mixture as white chocolate is quite sweet. Take 100g of white chocolate (Green and Blacks or other good quality chocolate) and melt over barely simmering water (don’t allow to touch the water). Add to the basic ice cream mixture. Take 100ml of Kahlua and reduce over high heat to about half. Add this to the ice cream mixture, cool in the fridge and churn in the ice cream maker.

Delicious!

Technorati Tags: plum, crumble, winter, cinnamon, ice, cream, white, chocolate, kahlua, spice

We are still trying to fight our way through the rest of the ham. There have been ham sandwiches, ham and pickles, split pea and ham soup (of which there is a boat load in the freezer) or just ham on its own. It was a very nice ham and looked glorious when it came out of the oven, but next time I would go for an unsmoked joint instead and it was definitely better served cold as heat accentuates the smoked and salty flavour. Never again will I buy such a big ham!

I made the celeriac remoulade which was ok but I wasn’t overly keen on it. Everyone else seemed to like it but I think a mayonnaise would have been better with it rather than crème fraiche so it wasn’t as sharp tasting. The best accompaniment to the ham I think is good old strong english mustard.

I’m slowly losing the will to live but I hate waste and the ham was very expensive. Once it’s finished I think I won’t care whether I don’t see a ham again for a long time! Sorry piggies!

Technorati Tags: unsmoked ham, crème fraiche, english mustard, celeriac, split pea soup, pickles, sandwiches

I finally got round to icing my Christmas cake last night. I know Christmas is over but I wasn’t here for Christmas and the thought of yet more cake while still digesting turkey and stuffing by the bucket-load didn’t seem appealing. Even I have to have a detox day here and there.

The quantity of icing seemed a hell of a lot and it is quite rich when you each the cake but it is nice and Christmas cakes are supposed to be indulgent. The stem ginger really stands out in the cake but it isn’t too overpowering and even though I didn’t have quite as many walnuts as the recipe suggests there were just enough to give a bit of texture. Now all that remains is to eat it… Yummy!

Technorati Tags: Christmas cake, walnuts, Christmas, turkey, stuffing

Doesn’t much feel like it though, the weather is crap at the moment!! mild, wet and very windy, not a bit of frost in site. Ignoring the weather ’tis the season to force feed yourself large quantities of rich food and strong alcohol, I love it!! Christmas is my favourite time of year and I love winter in general. I much prefer snuggling up to a warm fire than sweating profusely in the midsummer heat.

Today was our work pre-Christmas binge so I cooked a Delia smith Buche de Noel (or chocolate chestnut log to you and me) and a chicken liver pate (I don’t tend to bother with the brioche soldiers or as much butter as he suggests, it’s rich enough. Oat cakes or normal bread is fine). Again I managed to do something stupid. I poured the chicken liver mixture into the blender intending to take out the large sprigs of thyme before blending….I forgot. Actually it was really nice and everyone loved it. All of us felt like barrels on legs and made getting motivated to work in the afternoon and not collapsing in a soporific heap a chore.
The chestnut log turned out quite well as well. I wasn’t sure about the chestnut puree, it had a strange texture and slightly odd taste, but I’d never had it before so maybe it was just that it was new to me. I also couldn’t get a hold of any candied chestnuts but it didn’t seem to matter so much. I think a hazelnut puree would be lovely in it too but maybe not quite so Christmassy.

It’s the Christmas work do tomorrow night so I’m going to have to loosen the belt another notch or two and I’m homeward bound on Saturday for Christmas for more food and drink. The scales are going into hibernation until I have eventually got round to starting my new years resolution (I know what it is because it’s the same resolution every year). Turkey and stuffing here I come.

Technorati Tags: Christmas, weather, chocolate chestnut log, chicken liver pate, alcohol, turkey and stuffing

It’s becoming an expensive habit going to Berkswell farm shop (for some reason we always go when it’s my boyfriends week to pay for food, hahaha) but I think I would rather have a really good free range, rare breed joint of meat less often than something not nearly as good every Sunday. We bought a boned loin of Gloucester Old Spot pork and I intend to stuff it with a mixture of apricots soaked in orange juice and brandy, bread crumbs, walnuts, a little sausage meat, a chicken liver or two to enrich it and a cooking apple. I’m not sure how it will turn out but you’ve got to try these things. I will tell you how it turns out anyway and hopefully get my trusty photographer to take some yummy pics of it.

My boyfriend has been bugging me to make a Bakewell tart for ages. For all those people who don’t know what it is, it’s a pastry base with jam spread on top of the pastry then an almondy batter is poured over and cooked in the oven. The result is a moist nutty tart that I absolutely love. I got the recipe from Tamasin Day-Lewis’ book, Tamasin’s Kitchen Bible. I was intending to make it with raspberry jam, but I spotted some Morello cherry jam while I was at the farm shop and had to have it. Cherries and almonds go so well together.

This was my first attempt at making it and I hope you’ll agree that it turned out rather well (for all you know it tasted like crap). I haven’t really made much pastry before but like my Mother, who is also good at making pastry, I have cold hands, which is apparently the key to great pastry. I heard a really good tip for rolling out the pasty and safely transferring it into the tart tin. Once you’ve made the pastry put it in the fridge for half an hour wrapped in cling film. Then take it out put the ball of pastry onto a sheet of cling film and press it till it’s a bit flatter. Put another sheet of cling film on top of the pastry and roll it out to it’s required size. Peel the cling film off the top of the pastry and transfer the pastry, pastry side down with the other sheet of cling film uppermost into the tin, easing it in gently. Once the pastry is pressed well into the tin, remove the top sheet of clingfilm and then refrigerate the pastry again for half an hour before use.

When I get into the kitchen, being a couple of contestants short of a game show, I normally do something stupid, and today was no exception. Having taken the tart out of the oven, I thought it might be nice to have some icing sugar dusted over the top. I got the box out of the cupboard without looking at the front and proceeded to lovingly dust the top of my tart with cornflour (I’m convinced I was blonde in a former life). So it looked lovely for the pictures but wasn’t exactly a stunning addition to the taste. Despite the cornflour with a little actual icing sugar mixed in, it tasted lovely and it won’t last long (back to aerobics tomorrow then!).

Technorati Tags: Bakewell tart, Berkswell farm shop, pork, icing sugar, pastry, stuffing, jam, almonds, pictures

I paid a visit to the lovely Berkswell farm shop again this weekend. We decided to do a Jamie Oliver dish (from his most recent book Cook with Jamie) that we have done a couple of times now, which is slow-roast duck pasta. They didn’t have any fresh duck unfortunately, but we got a frozen one which was a little pricey at £10, but the skin actually crisped up a bit better without any wailing or sacrificing of virgins (I retract my obsenities hurled at chefs, all I needed to do was get a hold of a decent duck). 

I also made an Irish stew (I’ve got to uphold the stereotype somehow) at the weekend so I asked for some cheap cut of lamb, neck or something like that. The butcher said he had some North Ronaldsay lamb chops (the world renowned seaweed eating ones from the Orkney Islands, which are off the North coast of Scotland) but that it was more like mutton so could do with a bit of stewing. The flavour was lovely and he gave it to us for the price of neck so it was all good.  We also got some of their own dry cured bacon and old fashioned thick pork sausages, both of which went down very nicely for lunch (the diet starts tomorrow).

Technorati Tags: North Ronaldsay Lamb, Irish stew, sausages, dry cured bacon, duck, pasta, Jamie Oliver