Stuff yer bake

I have always wanted to perfect poached eggs but never quite got them right, until now. I came across a blog post from Smitten Kitchen on the subject and plucked up my courage to give it a go and hey presto! perfect poached eggs. My new found skill has been featuring a lot now and I really wanted to try making the classic eggs Benedict. The only hard parts about it are making the hollandaise, although you could buy it, and of course poaching the eggs, so most of it really. Here’s my take on it, I hope you give it a try. 

Ingredients:

serves 2

1 English muffin (not the sort you have with coffee, they are very different)

2 fresh large eggs and 1 small egg yolk

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 heaped tsp mustard

75g fridge cold unsalted butter cut into cubes (this is supposed to be clarified butter but I couldn’t be bothered)

seasoning (don’t add salt if you are using salted butter)

2 slices good quality ham 

First make the hollandaise sauce by putting the egg yolk, mustard, lemon juice and seasoning into a bowl over a pan of simmering water. Whisk until it begins to froth and then start adding the butter a cube at a time, whisking it in as it melts. Continue to do this until the butter is used up and the sauce has a thick soft whipped cream consistency. Check the seasoning and then set to one side.

Cut the muffin in half and lightly toast then top each half with the ham and keep warm in a low oven.

To make the poached eggs put a large pan of water with splash of vinegar on the hob and bring to simmering point. Break each egg into a dish first (I cook each one separately to avoid disaster), swirl the water and drop the egg into the middle of the water vortex. Let it set a little for a few seconds and very gently tease it off the bottom so that it doesn’t stick. Cook for about three or four minutes, remove the egg with a slotted spoon and set the spoon onto some kitchen paper to drain. Then gently slide the egg onto the warm ham and muffin and top with a dollop of hollandaise. Repeat the process for the other egg. Delicious

Having seen a lot of failed attempts at Chocolate fondant puddings on Celebrity Masterchef this week, I thought I would like to give one a try. I have had shop bought ones before and relished their divine rich taste. To me they are the ultimate of decadent puddings, and the worst things for you always taste the best.

The recipe I followed from the BBC Food page seemed simple enough but I fell at the final hurdle of timings and ended up with a runny, albeit delcious, mess served with orange and vanilla ice cream. I remained undeterred, though, had another go the following night and left them in for a few minutes longer, which was much more successful but still not quite done enough. They still tasted absolutely divine, but I will keep trying until I get the perfect consistency. It’s a hard job, but somebody’s gotta do it!

I am struggling to get my act together to write blog posts recently. Maybe it’s just because of the amount of energy that goes into making the cakes and I need a couple of weeks to recharge my batteries after making one. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. So to make amends I will tell you about this dessert I made last weekend.

Last Saturday I saw James Martin making an iced coffee and honeycomb parfait on Saturday Kitchen. I had never made parfait before, but it looked nice so I thought I would give it a go. As usual my inability to stick to anything written down or done for me, i.e a recipe, lead me to make a totally different, but delicious, chocolate and amaretti parfait.

Ingredients

150g dark chocolate

3 free range eggs - separated

150g caster sugar

500ml double cream

50ml Amaretto (optional)

100g Amaretti biscuits

Line a loaf tin with cling film. Lightly Crumble 50g of the amaretti biscuits into the base of the tin. Put the egg yolks and half the sugar in a bowl over some simmering water. Whisk the mixture for about ten minutes until thickened. Remove the bowl and set aside. Melt the chocolate in another bowl over the simmering water with the Amaretto and then add to the egg mixture, stirring to combine. Whisk the egg whites until soft peaks and then add the rest of the sugar to make a raw meringue mixture. Stir this into the chocolate mixture. Finally softly whip the cream and fold this into the chocolate mixture with the other 50g of the amaretti biscuits crumbled lightly. Pour this into the pre-prepared tin and tap to settle out properly. Put in the freezer for about four hours until set. To get the parfait out of the tin, either use a chefs blowtorch around the outside of the tin or sit the tin in warm water for a minute, then simply turn out. Cut into slices and serve.

I was wondering what to do with the rest of the fabulous crab I got in Devon so I browsed through the selection of cookery books I brought with me and found a crab ravioli recipe from Rick Stein’s Seafood book. I have never been terribly successful at at making ravioli as they are so fiddly and always seem to fall apart on me and I haven’t made fresh pasta in a while so it took me time to get to grips with the pasta machine again. I really need to invest in one of those ravioli tray things as they are supposed to be quite useful.

Apart from the fact that it took me the best part of two hours to make and some of them burst they turned out very nicely. The sauce in particular was simple yet very flavoursome and well worth the wait.

Fresh Pasta

225g Plain flour (type 00)

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 teaspoon olive oil

2 medium eggs

2 medium egg yolks

Put all the ingredients into a food processor and blend. Once it has come together, tip out onto a work surface and knead for about 10 minutes until the dough is soft and elastic. Wrap in cling film and place in the fridge for about 20 minutes.

Ravioli

175g fresh white crab meat

1 tblsp melted butter

a small sprinkle of cayenne pepper

Parsley and lemon butter

100g butter

2 tblsp chopped flat leaf parsley

1/2 tsp grated lemon zest

2 tsps lemon juice

2 garlic cloves very finely chopped

Mix all the ingredients for the ravioli together. Divide the pasta into three or four pieces and roll out in your machine or with a rolling in until quite thin. Keep dusting the pasta with flour to stop it sticking to the rollers. On one half of a sheet of pasta dot a teaspoon of mixture at 3inch intervals. Wet around each mound of crab with a little water, then fold over the other half of the pasta and starting from the inside out press down around the little mounds pushing out all the air so you have no bubbles in the ravioli. This is the complicated bit and would be so much more simple with a ravioli tray if you have one. Make sure that you flour each one well so that they don’t stick together as they will tear easily. Once your have used up all the mixture get some salted boiling water ready and add the ravioli. Cook for about three minutes, then drain.

While they are cooking make the butter dressing. Simply melt the butter with all the other ingredients, seasoning to taste and once the ravioli is drained and plated up, spoon over the top and serve. Then sit down for a well deserved rest.