Ham & Apple Pie : Arthur Potts Dawson, you're a genius!

I can remember saying to a Twitter friend of mine, earlier in the week, that a good time to come round for dinner would (hopefully) be on Thursday, when we were having Arthur Potts Dawson's Ham & Apple Pie.

Well, owing to a miscalculation on the "time in which to cook it" front, it happened on Friday (so it's a good job you didn't show up, @JackKnightCooks!) - but how right was I, that it was going to be a goodie?  Ooooh yes.  A goodie and then some.

I chose to make this pie this week because it uses Bramley apples - and it is currently Bramley apple week.  However, just a quick look at the recipe will tell you that this stands the chance of being a very successful combination for use at any time.

The pie filling is a combination of ham, cheese and apple, all held together and seasoned by a béchamel sauce made with cream and a pinch of nutmeg.  Encased in a puff pastry shell, just the idea of it was making my mouth water.

The pie itself is a complete doddle to make.  The thing that I had forgotten - and what stopped me making it on the Thursday when I miscalculated my timings - was that you don't serve the pie hot.  It has to cool down and be served at either room temperature or cold.  In fact, I have since had a slice of it that I heated up in the microwave, just to see how it would be hot - and it was fine.  The reason you need to allow it time to "rest" (and thus cool down a bit) is because of the cheese and the béchamel sauce.  When the pie is fresh from the oven, these two ingredients are very fluid and - once it is cut - stand the chance of flooding out of the pie, taking the apple and ham with them.

It even looks great, unbaked!

I suspect, though, that if you allow the pie time to calm down - and if you've put a hole in the top to allow steam to escape, you can tell when it has calmed down as the filling subsides away from the pastry casing - it would be perfect to cut and eat with some light vegetables.

So basically, this is one very flexible pie.  It can be eaten hot with vegetables, or warm with potato wedges and baked beans, or cold with a salad or on a picnic.

The very best thing about it, though, is that it is completely gorgeous and moreish!

We rejected the parsnip mash & peas in favour of potato wedges!

I bought some puff pastry to make it with and because my pastry sheets were rectangular and not round, my pie wound up being rectangular instead of the "tourtiere" shape shown in the original recipe (which I found on www.lovefood.com).  It also wound up being completely enormous - and I only included one apple!  Goodness only knows how small Arthur Potts Dawson's apples must have been, as mine was the regular size for a Bramley.

I was also a little bit concerned about the pastry on the bottom of the pie cooking properly and not going all soggy, so I brushed a little egg yolk across it before I started to build the pie.  Goodness knows if that helped, but the bottom pastry cooked perfectly - so I can only think it must have done.  It is easy for pastry to be soggy when the first layer of filling is something squishy like the béchamel sauce.

Regarding the bechamel, I was glad that the recipe brought together a sauce that was quite thick and substantial, as I didn't want a river of pie filling as soon as the pie was cut.  I have had that happen in the past with meat pies that have contained apple and cheese - and it's not a good look!

So, the upshot of all this was a gloriously golden baked massive pie that was impressive to present at the table and tasted every bit as good as it looked.  You can't ask for more than that!

I have detailed below how I made the pie, but do please feel free to go to the original recipe and make it from that.  The only things that differ are the quantities of ingredients.  The method is exactly the same.

HAM & APPLE PIE   (serves 6)

Ingredients :

25g butter
25g flour
150ml milk
50ml double cream
a pinch of sea salt
a pinch of black pepper
a pinch of nutmeg
425g puff pastry sheets (frozen, but defrosted)
1 egg yolk, for brushing
180g mature Cheddar cheese, grated
1 large Bramley apple (or 2 medium), cored, peeled & sliced thinly
500g gammon ham (I used Gammon rounds, chopped into small pieces).

Method :

1.  First make the béchamel by melting the butter in a small saucepan.  Stir in the flour and cook for a minute or so, then slowly, bit by bit, whisk in the milk and then the cream until you have a lump free sauce.  Bring to the boil, stirring all the time and season with the salt, pepper and nutmeg.  The sauce should thicken.  Once that has happened, set it aside to cool.


2.  Pre-heat the oven to 190degC/375degF/Gas 5.

3.  Take your pastry pieces and unroll the first onto your baking sheet.  With a sharp knife, lightly mark (without cutting through the pastry) a line some 3cm inside of the edge to mark the boundary over which the filling must not stray.


4.  Taking your egg yolk and a brush, lightly brush this boundary with egg to provide a sealant once the top layer of pastry is in place.


5.  Begin building the pie's filling by placing a blob of béchamel in the middle of the pastry piece and spread it out until the base is covered by a light coating.


6.  The next layer is a little cheese, followed by some ham and then the apple - which I recommend you place neatly in little rows, as it can easily get out of control and start sliding everywhere or poking up out of the pastry!


7.  Press down the three layers lightly, then season with a little freshly ground black pepper.


8.  Add small blobs of béchamel as the beginning of the next batch of layers and smooth them out as best you are able.  Follow this with the cheese, ham and apple, then press, then pepper - until you run out of ingredients or the pile is getting rather too big!


9.  Take the remaining piece of pastry - which should be lightly rolled out until it is slightly larger than the base piece - and lay it over the top of the filling pile.


10.  Gently press around the edges to form a seal between top and bottom pastry which will prevent the filling from escaping.  Take care not to pierce the pastry.


11.  I then crimped the edges like you would a cornish pasty, just to ensure the filling stayed where it was and to make an attractive edging.


12.  Cut a hole (or two) in the top of the pastry to allow steam to escape when cooking, and give the whole thing a good egg wash with the remains of the egg yolk.


13.  A light sprinkle of black pepper over the lot, then place into the oven for 40 minutes (remembering to turn the pie if your oven is prone to cooking one side more than the other, after 20 minutes).  Once the 40 minutes is up, reduce the oven temperature to 150degC/300degF/Gas 2 and bake for 10 minutes more.


14.  Allow to rest for 15 minutes before serving hot, or allow to cool.


Printable version.
  

Creamy Ham & Mushroom Pasta Bake

Anybody fancy any comfort food?

I've had this recipe in my "sounds nice" folder, just waiting for a moment when a) I fancied cooking it, and b) I thought everyone else might like it.  It would seem as though today was that day.

I start by assembling the ingredients.  I get them all out to begin with, to avoid having to walk around the kitchen, wearing myself out.  Because my particular disability causes me problems with standing for any length of time, I have what is called a "perching stool" which I drag around the kitchen.  This enables me to "perch" rather than sit and so makes standing back up to go and fetch something a lot easier.  So I carry the tray of ingredients  to my preparation space, where I chop everything that needs chopping.  Anything left over goes back into the fridge.

From there, I move to the cooker and start the cooking.  Fortunately, our cooker is very close to the sink, so I can move between the two without having to do much more than adjust the angle of the stool.

So here I am, The Incredible Bulk, on my stool, cooking  *sigh*

As a consequence, any recipe that involves "chop this : cook that : fry this : boil that : mix this in a bowl : fry this in another pan.. and so on" is not my best friend.  Hence I try to find recipes that I can do all the chopping in one go, that use the least amount of pots and pans - or at least, have a gap between the pots & pans - possibly while something oven bakes.  I can then do the washing up in the gap, which helps with clearing up afterwards.

Some recipes, however, I feel as though I've run a marathon by the time they're on the plate.  Cooking a dessert for eating immediately after the main course is like that.  By the time I've cooked the main course, I've had it where a dessert is concerned.  So any dessert I make has to be able to be produced in advance.

So this creamy ham & mushroom pasta bake was one of the easier ones.  It was a simple matter of dicing up the gammon, spring onions and mushrooms.  Then, while the bacon was cooking, grate the cheese for the sauce.  After that, it was all based in front of the cooker - with the requisite gap for washing up, while the bake did it's thing in the oven.  It didn't stop me from looking like a beetroot by the time it was baked, though!  Well, it was hot in that kitchen!

It's very definitely a comfort food option, in that the creamy cheese sauce goes so well with the gammon, mushrooms and pasta.  The spinach adds the impression that it's a little bit good for you, while the sweetcorn adds a little bit of crunch and interest.  Everyone enjoyed it - and everyone would have it again.  I served it with some dough balls, as I found them in the freezer - which I'm trying to empty a bit, prior to defrosting.  It'd be even nicer with a side salad, though.

CREAMY GAMMON & MUSHROOM PASTA BAKE (Serves 4)

Ingredients :

300g wholemeal fusilli pasta
30g butter
140g thickly cut gammon, diced  
4-5 chestnut mushrooms, halved
bunch spring onions, finely sliced
handful of baby spinach leaves, washed & drained
3 tbsp sweetcorn niblets
2 tbsp plain flour
500ml milk - have some more handy, just in case you need it
100g mature cheddar, grated
20g parmesan, plus extra for sprinkling
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper.

Method :  

1.  Prepare a large pan of salted boiling water and cook the pasta according to pack instructions, then drain and set aside.

2.  Heat oven to 200C/fan 180C/gas 6, then melt a little butter in a deep frying pan and add the gammon.  Cook until beginning to brown, then decant into a large flat ovenproof dish.

3.  Add another small knob of butter and fry the mushrooms & spring onions for a couple of minutes, then scoop out and add to the gammon.

4.  Add the spinach and the sweetcorn to the oven dish and mix them through, to achieve a happy jumble.

5.  Melt the remaining butter in the frying pan, then add the flour.  Stir and cook for a minute, then gradually stir in the milk until you have a lump-free sauce. Increase the heat and bubble the sauce, stirring for a few minutes to thicken. Turn off the heat, stir in most of the cheese, then season to taste.

6.  Tip the pasta onto the happy mixture in the ovenproof dish, then pour over the sauce and mix well in the dish. Scatter over the remaining cheese then bake for 10-20 minutes until golden.

Serve.

"Health in a bowl" : I bow to thee, Anthony Worrall-Thompson

I think the "Health in a Bowl" is about the only meal to have stayed where it was planned, this week!

If I was to tell you that I was more than a little nervous about delivering this dish to Hubby and Son & Heir, it would be understating the case by a factor of thousands.

For starters, Hubby isn't a great fan of broth-type soups.  Neither is he a fan of dishes which contain a large amount of vegetable matter - unless it's a vegetable curry.  Son & heir, well he's a verging-on-teenager, so putting anything before him other than a pizza, fried breakfast or meatballs, is verging on culinary suicide.

However, I am a fan of vegetable matter and I am a fan of broth-type soups.  I am also a fan of trying to improve our diet.  So, in the face of these monumental odds, I sallied on forth with Anthony Worrall-Thompson's "Health in a Bowl".

If you look at the ingredients list, you'll understand my nerves.  It begins well, with some thick cut ham and chicken stock.  However, the challenge begins there - pearl barley, Puy lentils, onion, carrot, parsnip. swede, thyme, bay leaf, parsley, new potatoes, savoy cabbage, leek and red kidney beans.  Yep.  In the one bowl.

You can't begin to imagine (or maybe you can! lol) how odd it felt to be just loading up the saucepan with ingredients at 15-minute intervals.  Nothing was fried beforehand, nothing had to be oven-baked beforehand.  Just boil up some stock and start adding stuff.  Weird.

I tasted the stock after I'd added the ham (or gammon, in this case) and was pleasantly surprised.

In went the pearl barley and the lentils.  Apart from the lentils turning the stock an interesting colour (*cough* - try "dirty dishwater"), everything was fine.

I'll admit to having a serious wobble about the success of this venture after I added the onion, carrots, parsnip, swede, thyme, bay leaf, parsley and a whole heap of black pepper though.  The smell of the raw onions heating up on the stock was a bit stomach-churning.  However, I'd chosen to use a red onion as I felt their innate sweetness would be helpful as opposed to the relative coarseness of a standard brown onion and the smell soon turned from "oooer, gak!" to "interesting!".  I tasted the stock again just before the 15 minutes were up and boy, but it was good.

From there, the addition of the other vegetables just added to the flavour of the stock, which became sweeter and gained depth as it cooked along.

I served the stew (as that is really what it is) with a loaf of pumpkin seed & carrot bread, which was absolutely gorgeous and complemented the mix of the stew beautifully.

As for reactions, well, Hubby said it was "alright, but he wouldn't race to have it again" and "after the first few spoonfuls I was looking at it thinking OMG, I've got all that to go yet".  He found the flavours dull and boring.  Surprisingly, he was relatively okay about the broth part.

Son & heir said he definitely wouldn't have it again, but I noted that he ate his entire bowlful without once asking whether he could stop.  This is a very definite measure of whether he can tolerate whatever he's got in front of him.  For sure, the yummy bread helped, but as he ate all that first and was left with his bowl of stew, I am left thinking that he didn't dislike it as much as he wanted me to know.

As for me, I adored it.  If it wasn't so blinking filling, I'd have been back at the stovetop heating up the remainder!  I loved that you could taste every single ingredient as an individual entity, as well as they're fitting so well with each other.  I loved that the only fat that we ate was what was still attached to the ham (and I trimmed it to within an inch of its life), the spread that went onto the bread and whatever was used in the bread when it was baked.  I loved that something so healthy was eaten by everyone - it kind of makes up for the fish & chips!

I can imagine that, made with a smoked ham hock, this recipe would be unbeatable - provided you really enjoy your vegetables!

"HEALTH IN A BOWL" (or Ham & Vegetable Stew)  Serves 4
based on a recipe from Anthony Worrall-Thompson.

Ingredients :

450g thick cut ham or gammon, chopped
1.2 litres chicken stock
2 tbsp pearl barley
2 tbsp Puy lentils
1 medium onion, diced
2 carrots (or a handful of baby carrots), peeled and diced
1 parsnip, peeled and diced
a quarter of a swede, peeled and diced
1 sprig or half a tsp thyme
1 bay leaf
1 sprig parsley, chopped
1 tsp ground black pepper
200g new potatoes, quartered
a quarter of a small Savoy cabbage, shredded
200g tin red kidney beans, rinsed & drained.

Method :

1.  Make sure the ham or gammon is trimmed of all fat, then place in a big saucepan and cover with the stock.  Bring to the boil and skim off any scum that has risen to the surface.

2.  Add the pearl barley and lentils and bring back up to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer for 15 minutes.

3.  Add the onion, carrots, parsnip, swede, thyme, bay leaf, parsley and pepper.  Stir to combine, then bring back to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer gently for a further 15 minutes.

4.  Add the potatoes and leek and bring back to the boil.  Simmer until the potatoes are just tender, which should happen inside of 15 minutes.

5.  Add the shredded cabbage and the red kidney beans and bring back to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for a further 3 minutes or until the cabbage is tender.

6.  Decant into warmed bowls and serve with a tasty bread, for dipping.

 

Quick! Here's the meal plan for this week.

I should really be watching "The Apprentice", but no - I'm here typing away just so that I won't be too late with the meal plan for this week.  Feel sorry for me, because not only am I missing "The Apprentice", but I also just bashed myself on the forehead with our griddle pan, whilst trying to sniff the centre of it because it smelled of char-grilled peppers.  *blush*  Oh, I can't help it - and yes, I should have known it was that heavy as I've spent all afternoon cooking with it.  But there you are.  *chuckle*

So, without further ado, here's the meal plan for this week :

Quick stroganoff & pasta

Tandoori chicken & Jun Tanaka's char-grilled vegetable couscous

Minced beef, mashed potatoes, peas and carrots

Ken Hom's Broccoli Chicken with rice

Anthony Worrall-Thompson's "Health in a Bowl" with char-grilled Ciabatta

Phil Vickery's Pepperpot Beef & Orange stew with rice & peas

Cornish pasties, oven chips and baked beans.

So, who is coming over for what dinner?  LOL

There's quite a lot of chef accreditation going on up there, isn't there?  Unusually so - but then I have been trawling the Good Food Channel's "Healthy Recipes" section, which is where the most of these have come from.

I'm afraid it's no good trying to book for the Quick stroganoff & pasta, because we had that yesterday and I have to say that it was truly disgusting.  However, in my own defence, I cooked it especially for Son & heir, as he's had to suffer some quite vegetable-heavy dishes just lately, and it was a little culinary thank you for doing his best with them.  It hit the spot with him in that he cleared his plate and declared it delicious - so job done.  (Even if it did make me feel very peculiar, later on in the evening!).

Jun Tanaka's version - mine was a lot chunkier!

We've just had the Tandoori chicken with Char-grilled vegetable couscous and, wonder of wonders, I won again on the couscous front.  Oh, well, apart from with Son & heir, who has decreed he doesn't like the char-grilled flavour on anything (well, except a Burger King burger, of course.  ~rolls eyes~).  As for the Tandoori chicken being even remotely Tandoori - it wasn't.  Yes, I know we don't have a Tandoor oven here, but the chicken was supposed to have been able to be cooked on a griddle pan (are you sensing a bit of a fixation here?) which I had thought might lend it the charred flavour that goes with Tandoori foods.  As it was, thankfully, I only tried the little mini-fillets on the griddle pan.  As they welded themselves to it, I put the breast fillets into the oven!  25 minutes at 200deg and they were really quite tasty, if entirely NOT Tandoori.

We didn't manage to catch a photograph of the dish (forgot!), but I have a little couscous left over which I'll try and take a decent photograph of, just so that I can pass the recipe on - as it was really extremely nice and worth doing again.

We're having a de-constructed Cottage Pie tomorrow.  Well, I'm at work so it's unlikely I'll want to make a Cottage Pie, but you never know!  I've actually been having dreams (like, every night!) about Shepherd's Pie, so perhaps I should, just to see what will happen.  Son & heir will be okay with this one, as he loves minced beef in all its guises.  Hopefully it will also mean I can use up the Maris Pipers I got for the Cheesy Champ Mash plus the Chantenay carrots I got for Son & heir's Sunday chicken dish.

Ken Hom's version - looks good!

Friday will be one of Ken Hom's lovely easy dishes.  This one, Broccoli Chicken, will help to make use of the Oyster Sauce I bought recently.  It's also not quite a stir-fry and is served with rice, so I'm hoping that Son & heir will be okay with it.  I'm sure hubby will, as he really likes all the oriental style dishes.

Somebody had better remind me, though, that on Friday evening I'm supposed to be putting some Lentils on to soak, ready for making Anthony Worrall-Thompson's Health in a Bowl on Saturday.

Health in a bowl - well, we'll see!

I am super-intrigued by this one.  It has got everything bar the kitchen sink in it - everything that's good for you, anyway!  Plus, it is based on some thick cut gammon ham - which is something we haven't had for ages.  I'm sure it would work perfectly with a smoked ham hock, too - but I'll be darned if I can source one of those around here at the moment!  Of course, owing to the fact that I haven't used the griddle pan for a few days, I've scheduled us to have griddled Ciabatta with a smudge of garlic and a drizzle of olive oil, along with it.  I'm feeling healthier just talking about it - goodness knows how I'll feel the day after making and eating it.  (Fingers crossed).

Sunday's dish is another interesting one.  Yes, I know I said I wasn't going to do any more heavy old stews because it was spring time, but this recipe says it isn't heavy - and as it's based on a Caribbean recipe, I guess it's got a 50:50 chance of being healthy.  Anyway, it's another (very good) excuse to use some lovely Brisket of beef.  The rice and peas I've put as accompanying it, I have yet to decide whether to do traditional rice and peas, or just make rice with some green peas in it.  Authenticity -v- colour.  Hmmmn, the jury's still out on that one.

Now as for Monday, let's just pretend that Monday isn't going to happen, shall we?  Although, I will just quickly say that I'll be having a jacket potato instead of chips, but that still doesn't mitigate the damage done by a shop-bought Cornish Pasty.  *sigh*  All I can do is try.  Well, you've got to serve some Man-food sometimes, just so that he knows you're listening to him, isn't that how it goes?

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Ham Pot Roast

The Gammon is hiding under the creamed leeks
see the slices, peeping out all pinkly, there?

Sunday, to me, demands something a bit special in the meal department.  There's no real reason why - it's not as though we starve for the remaining six days, so need to stock up for leaner times ahead.  I suspect that it's just a hangover from my upbringing when we would always have a roast on a Sunday, with a special dessert.  When people came round to eat with us, wine was served - and at Christmas, we had the Mother and Father of all roasts, with fruit or tomato juice to drink beforehand, a starter, then the Roast Turkey with all the trimmings, together with three choices of dessert - all followed by sweetmeats such as Turkish Delight, glace fruits, chocolate eclairs and nuts, served with a sweet dessert wine or liqueurs.  I take my hat off to my Mum and my Aunt - and in earlier days, my Nanna - who slaved over hot stoves for days beforehand doing all the baking and then got up before we'd gone to bed to put the Turkey in the oven.

All this, has resulted in it not being Sunday unless there's a roast on the table.

So, this Sunday (and because they're on special offer at the supermarket), we pushed the boat out and got a gammon joint.  Not, regrettably, one of the "real" gammon joints (we're saving up for one for Christmas), but one of the rolled, munched up and stuck back together again, gammon joints.  It may not have been your pukka thing - but it sure tasted good!

Considering I'd had such success with pot roasting chickens, I thought I'd step it up a gear and pot roast the gammon.  I thought that at least, that way, it wouldn't shrink as terribly as they often do when just plain roasted and it would stand a chance of staying succulent and moist.

The recipe was one of my own, gleaned from various recipes I'd read during my research.  I wanted it to be a veggie-based broth it was cooked in, rather than a spice-based broth.  Even though I'm just hopping up and down to use my new Star Anise, I thought I'd stay on the veggie side and see how we got on.

So, as we were having creamed leeks, I used the leek tops and two onions cut into quarters, plus a hoary old carrot that was looking for a home.  All these, combined with the cider, made a glorious stock that was just beyond tasty when made into gravy.

I served the Gammon with the creamed leeks, which were easily made by sweating the sliced leek in butter and, when softened, a large tablespoon of creme fraiche and some Worcestershire Sauce is added.  Mix it all together, add some seasoning and there you have it - creamed leeks.  I'd planned to serve some Chantenais carrots and swede batons, but discovered some Brussels sprouts in the veggie drawer, so they got included too.  With roast potatoes and roast parsnips, together with the ubiquitous Yorkshire Puddings, it was the kind of dinner that Sundays were made for.

GAMMON HAM POT ROAST

Ingredients :

1.5kg gammon ham joint

2 onions, quartered

Any other veg., like leek tops, carrot, celery

300ml dry cider

4 tbsp clear honey

1 tsp ground coriander

3 heaped tsp English mustard powder

Method :

Lay the vegetables into the bottom of a large lidded oven-proof saucepan or casserole.

Nestle the joint into the vegetables and pour over the cider.

“Paint” spoonfuls of the honey/mustard mixture over the joint.

Bring to the boil on the stove top and then place, covered, into a pre-heated oven at 170deg C for 2 to 2½ hours.

When done, remove the meat and put it to rest, covered in foil in a warm place, for around 20 minutes.

Pour the juices from the pan into a smaller saucepan, add cornflour or gravy granules to thicken for gravy.

Delicious!