One for Halloween & Bonfire Night - Cream of Tomato Soup with Bacon & Cheese Muffins

Now this is just perfect food for watching fireworks, or for cold and hungry Trick or Treaters (assuming they aren't stuffed to the gills with sugar, that is!).

I didn't set out to make a Halloween or Bonfire Night
meal, I just liked the recipe for the Creamy Tomato Soup and had a sudden brainwave that my Bacon & Cheese Muffins would go really well with it.  I wasn't wrong either.

I found the recipe for the soup in the BBC Good Food Magazine and liked the sound of it immediately.  I can't seem to find the same recipe online - so you've got it reproduced below, albeit with the numbers scaled down a bit, just in case you want to try it too.

The recipe really couldn't be easier - it all happens in the one pot, with a little bit of blender action from a hand blender.  The soup also keeps happily in the fridge, as I was eating leftovers for the next couple of days, it made that much!

I was particularly attracted to the concept of there being celery, carrots and potatoes in the soup along with the tomato.  Any excuse to get a bit of vegetable matter into my menfolk and I'm there.

Son & heir really liked the soup - and enjoyed dunking his muffins in.  Hubby wasn't so keen, in that all he could taste was tinned tomatoes (which was odd, as there was rather more than just tinned tomatoes in there!) and found it too acidic for his palate.  I really, really liked it - and would make it again for just such an occasion as Halloween.

The soup comes up - after blitzing - as very nicely thickened and wholesome, but without degenerating into babyfood.  I liked the tomato flavour and didn't find it acidic at all.

I suppose all you can do is try it - and let me know if you think it comes up acidic, as we just can't agree, here!

If you are interested in the recipe for the muffins - scroll on down!

CREAMY TOMATO SOUP   (serves 5-6)

Ingredients :

1 tbsp rapeseed oil
1 onion, chopped finely
2 celery sticks, chopped finely
150g carrots, peeled and chopped finely
250g potatoes, diced finely
2 bay leaves
2 tbsp tomato puree (Tarantella is my favourite)
1 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
400g tin chopped tomatoes (Tarantella, again)
250g passata (and again, Tarantella is my favourite)
1-2 vegetable stock cubes (I used Essential Cuisine's vegetable stock powder)
500ml boiling water
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
100ml full fat milk
100ml single cream.

Method :

1.  In a deep, large saucepan, heat the oil and add the onion.  Cook gently until it has begun to turn golden brown, then add the celery, carrots, potatoes and bay leaves.

2.  Fry gently, stirring from time to time to prevent the potatoes sticking to the bottom of the pan, until the vegetables have softened slightly.

3.  Stir in the tomato puree, sugar, vinegar, chopped tomatoes and passata, then add the stock cubes or powder.  Add the boiling water and stir well.

4.  Bring to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes or until the carrot and potato are tender.

5.  Remove the bay leaves, then blitz with a hand blender until smooth.

6.  Season to taste (the amount of salt will depend entirely upon the salt contained in the stock cubes), you can afford to be generous with the black pepper.  You may need to add a pinch or two of sugar, depending on which brand of tomatoes you used.

(If freezing, this is the stage at which you would cool the soup for the freezer).

7.  Stir in the milk and cream, check for seasoning and don't let the soup boil from here on in.  Bring up to a simmer and serve.

Printable version

Now, the perfect accompaniment to the above soup, are my Bacon & Cheese Muffins.  The best part about these two combined, is that you don't need to see what you are doing, in order to eat them.  Hence, being out in the dark with a mug of soup and a muffin in your hand, is no problem.  You can keep your eyes on the fireworks without worrying about nibbling around a bone, or whether you've got the best bits on your spoon.  Just dip and slurp - what could be easier?

These Bacon & Cheese Muffins have to be the single most requested recipe in my entire repertoire.  I think of anyone was asking me for my signature recipe, it'd have to be these chaps.

I have made them so often in the past, that the recipe can be utterly trusted to deliver a gorgeously light and fluffy muffin, redolent of cheddar cheese and smoky bacon.  Whether you're eating these for breakfast, lunch or with soup for dinner - they hit the spot.

I have big problems keeping these muffins in the house long enough to take photographs of them, to be honest!  No sooner are they out of the oven than there's a queue of hungry menfolk licking their lips and clutching their woefully empty plates, with hopeful looks on their faces.  It's not just the menfolk either!  While the muffins are cooling, I have to barricade them behind tea caddies, fruit squash bottles and cereal boxes, plus make it very difficult for the Secret Paw (also known an Jonty, the Saluki dog) to get his paws up onto the worktop - or they'd be gone.  All he can do is patrol the area with his nose in the air!

The kitchen suddenly becomes a very busy place, when these muffins are out of the oven!

By the way, it might be worth your while to not let on how easy these are to make - or you'll be being petitioned for more baking before you know it, too!

You'll find the recipe for the Bacon & Cheese Muffins here.




 

Salmon Fish Cakes with 805 Foods' Hot Monika Sauce

There's a bit of a long story attached to these 'ere fishcakes.

You see, I love fishcakes.  Son and heir quite likes fishcakes.  Hubby hates fishcakes, unless they're 10% potato, 90% fish.  As a result, any fishcake experiments I may have made in the past, were entirely too much potato for him.  He also prefers his fishcakes to be egged, breadcrumbed and fried, whereas I used to make some tuna fishcakes which were oven baked.

It's true that my fishcakes were more like potato cakes with fish - and it is also true that they were the size of foot stools.  Hubby takes a more refined approach to his fishcakes and makes "dipping" sized cakes.

All of which is why hubby is now the official fishcake maker for the house.

So, when 805 Foods got in touch with me and offered to send me some of their Hot Monika Sauce, after some lengthy consideration, hubby was volunteered to make some Salmon Fishcakes, to eat alongside the (then) relative unknown that was "Hot Monika Sauce".

Somehow or another, I'd completely missed the fact that the Monika Sauce was a hot one.  The "Bell & Scotch Bonnet Hot Sauce" had registered as just that - well, it couldn't be anything else, with Scotch Bonnets in it - but the amazing aroma of the Hot Monika Sauce took me by surprise when we prised the lid off.

Now I'll come clean and say that I - much to my regret - have only had the tiniest of tastes of this sauce.  I've been afflicted by a tendency towards dreadful heartburn just lately - and eating hot sauce definitely wasn't on the cards for me.  So you'll have to take hubby's word for it, that the Hot Monika Sauce is just a-mazing.  Since he's been eating his way through the pot, he's dubbed it - variously - "calamity sauce", "murder sauce" and "catastrophe sauce", from which you might gather that it lives up to its name as "hot sauce".  That aside, however, the flavours are just immense and beautiful, all at the same time.


There is some indefinable quality to this sauce that I've not come across in any other hot sauce - certainly not one of this type, with chunks of fresh vegetables in it.  It is very different to the "hot sauces" that you see coming out of the States, for instance.  One thing that is worth mentioning, is that this is a sauce of African origin - so you can expect to find yummy ingredients like okra and plantain featuring highly.

We used the sauce as an accompaniment to the Salmon Fishcakes - and it did the job perfectly.  Son & heir was a tiny bit over-faced by the heat of it, but persevered, taking smaller and smaller amounts until he found a bearable level.  Hubby just simply got lashed into his!

As for the Salmon Fishcakes, well, it was another opportunity to break out the beautiful Essential Cuisine Fish Stock that really should be re-labelled "Seafood Stock", as it tastes far more of shellfish than plain old fish.  Hubby used the stock to poach the fish and lost none of the salmon flavour, being enhanced as it was by the stock, not washed away by poaching water.


If you are considering making these fish cakes, bear in mind that there are a huge number of other ingredients that could be added to the fishcake mixture.  Thai basil, mint, spring onions and parsley spring immediately to mind (though not all together perhaps).  Hubby kept this particular recipe relatively simple as he wanted the flavour of the salmon to be right in the foreground.
 

Little fishy beauty, all ready to be fried

Incidentally, a good tip for the egg & breadcrumb process is to use one hand for the flour and egg, the other for the breadcrumbs.  This helps to keep one hand dry and the mess to a manageable level.

As you may have gathered, I'm not entirely fussy over my fishcakes - but these really were classy little morsels of delectably delicious salmony loveliness.  Yes, I think he's earned the badge of Fishcake Maker - along with his risotto, bread, chilli con carne and ice cream badges!


SALMON FISH CAKES    (makes up to 12 small)

Ingredients :

300g salmon (I used frozen - defrosted - as there wasn't any fresh available)
300g good mashing potatoes (I used Maris Piper)
small bunch of dill
500ml fish stock
zest of 1 unwaxed lemon
1 egg, beaten
3 heaped tablespoons of plain flour
day-old crusty bread, converted into breadcrumbs
a small pinch of paprika
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
sunflower oil.

Method :

For the Breadcrumbs :

Tear the bread into chunks and then whizz into breadcrumbs in a food processor.  Evenly spread the crumbs onto a shallow baking tray and place into a low oven at 90 to 100degC. The crumbs should be dry and crisp after about five minutes, but watch them like a hawk to prevent over-browning.

For the Fishcakes :

1.  Cube the potato and boil in salted water until tender.  Mash the potato thoroughly and then set aside.

2.  Meanwhile, place the defrosted salmon in a pan and cover with fish stock.  Bring the pan to a gentle simmer and poach the fish for five minutes.  Drain and discard the fish stock - or retain for soup - and flake the salmon before adding to the potato.

3.  Finely chop the dill and then add this, along with the grated lemon zest.  Mix thoroughly and season well, taking great care not to add too much salt.  Put the entire mixture into a covered bowl and then place in the fridge to completely cool.

4.  Take two shallow bowls.  Beat the egg into one bowl and then heap three tablespoons of flour into the other.  Season the flour well with milled sea salt, freshly ground black pepper and a pinch of paprika.  Line the bowls up along your worktop, with the tray of breadcrumbs at one end - flour, egg then breadcrumbs.

5.  Take the fishcake mixture from the fridge and then shape into patties.  The size and thickness of these is entirely up to you.  For a 'dipping' fishcake I like to keep them quite small, something like 2-3cm in diameter.  The quantities given above should make between 15 and 20 small dipping fishcakes.

6.  Now take a patty and toss it gently in the bowl of seasoned flour.  Take care that the entire fishcake has a covering of flour before tapping gently to remove any excess.

7.  Now put the fishcake into the beaten egg, once again ensuring a good coating before dropping onto the tray of breadcrumbs prepared earlier.  Turn the fishcake in the crumbs, ensuring that both sides and all of the edges are well covered before placing onto a flat baking sheet covered with a sheet of greaseproof paper.  Repeat this process until all of the fishcakes are coated.  The cakes can now be put back into the fridge until ready for cooking or carefully packaged for freezing.

8.  To cook the fishcakes, gently shallow fry in sunflower oil, turning frequently until golden on both sides.  Fry the cakes in batches of four or five to avoid crowding the frying pan, keeping the cooked ones warm in the oven until ready to serve.

A bowl of your preferred dipping sauce and a lightly dressed green salad make perfect companions.

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Yet another page views record broken!

So, you know how - just yesterday - I was thanking everyone for giving Jenny Eatwell's Rhubarb & Ginger a new page views record?

ERMAGHERD!

You've done it again!

 

This time, we achieved 922 page views in the one day.

 

I am just, proverbially, gobsmacked.

 

Thank you.

 

*insert big smile here*  

 

 

We just hit a new page views record!

I'd like to send out a huge "thank you" to 

 

all you friends of Rhubarb & Ginger,

 

for enabling us to reach a new page views record, of

 

808 page views in the one day!

 

You're all amazing - and thank you for supporting my efforts here.

 

 

Oh, and don't forget - Rhubarb & Ginger has a Facebook page at

Jenny Eatwell's Rhubarb & Ginger 

where everyone is welcome.

 

Slow Cooker Beef & Walnut Cobbler

I know!  Beef and walnuts - it made me stop and think, too.

I made this Cobbler a few weeks ago, now - when we'd really just come into the cooler days and I had gratefully turned my thoughts to warming stews and casseroles.  Now normally, I'd have a few recipes "up my sleeve" that I'd found whilst browsing around the food sites on the internet.  Surprisingly, that week, I hadn't any.

I immediately turned to my bookshelves - which is why one has recipe books, surely, for when the internet has failed - and sought out those that were likely to contain suitable comfort food.  My eye immediately lit upon Clarissa Dickson-Wright's "Potty", which is a favourite browse for those cold, grey days.

There I found her recipe for "Beef Cobbler" - which upon first glance didn't inspire me with a lot of curiosity.  After all, when you reach my age, you've made several Beef Cobblers in the past.  However, as my eye ran down the ingredients list (mentally checking off those things that I had to hand already),it ground to a halt at "handful of walnuts".  A handful of walnuts?  Were they for decoration, or what?  Nope, it turns out they are to be included in the meat stew part.  Well.  How very interesting!

Pillowy cobbles, instead of crusty cobbles!

Stopping to think about it, I could imagine how walnuts and beef would go together really quite well.  After all, the beef has that iron-like flavour, while walnuts have a dry, sweet, earthy flavour.  A bit like partnering beef with chestnuts, which is an accepted practice.

I was surprised to note that Clarissa reckons the Beef Cobbler to be "rather uncommon" here in the U.K. these days.  Well, it's not a staple in my repertoire, but it will certainly appear once or twice in a winter.  If there is a trend for it becoming "uncommon", then I vote that we make a move to bring it back into being very common - because it's the epitome of comfort food!

I suppose it could be a reflection of either the price of beef these days, or the move towards low calorie, lightweight eating that's done it.  As regards being calorifically heavy, it is certainly heavier than a stir fry - but then you don't come away from eating a stir fry, feeling as though all's right with the world for another few hours.

In fact, because the Cobbler top (a scone-like substance) is made without using suet, but 55g of butter instead, I agree it isn't exactly non-fattening - but it could be a whole lot worse!  The meat stew part of the concoction is about as low fat as you want it to be, in that it all depends on how much fat you put in your frying pan and how much fat you leave on your meat!

Now speaking of meat, I used 600g of beef silverside for the Cobbler.  Our butcher has silverside on special offer and as it is one of the cuts that carries the least fat (just a line of fat along one side, virtually no marbling through the meat) it seemed to be perfect for the job.  I simply trimmed off the line of fat and rendered some of it down in a very hot pan, before browning the beef.  Once I had enough fat in the pan to brown the beef, I removed the un-rendered pieces and put them aside for the dogs to eat.  That way, I made the most of the flavour that beef fat brings, without having to eat unnecessary quantities of it.

Rendering the beef fat - with a teensy bit of Rapeseed oil to help it along

It wasn't just the walnuts that fired up my curiosity with regard to this dish, but also the fact that the scone dough for the Cobbler top included sugar in its mixture.  It seemed superfluous to me and somewhat American in origin, but as Clarissa says, if you bear in mind that the Cobbler is used extensively in America in both sweet and savoury incarnations, it begins to make sense.  So I went along with it.

However, one departure from the original recipe was that I used my slow cooker for this dish.  I was curious to see how the Cobbler top would fare without the heat of an oven to brown the top of the "cobbles" - and it fared pretty well!  Using the slow cooker ensured that the meat was tender and butter-soft and, because I left adding the Cobbler top until a good three-quarters through the cooking time, the cobbles were soft, fluffy and deliciously light.  We didn't notice the lack of a brown crusty top to the cobbles, in fact it was pleasant to have soft, pillowy cobbles instead!

The slight sweetness of the cobbles was a momentary surprise, however once you'd paired it up with some of the delicious savoury gravy from the meat stew, everything fell into place.  The walnuts weren't one of the primary flavours, but very definitely lent an interestingly full, earthiness to the gravy.

I served our Beef & Walnut Cobbler with some steamed parsnips and celeriac, along with some steamed cabbage.  A true autumn classic!

SLOW COOKER BEEF & WALNUT COBBLER    (serves 3-4)

Ingredients :

600g silverside of beef (or brisket, or shin - any good stewing beef would do fine)
1 onion, sliced
4-5 small shallots, peeled and left whole
3 carrots, sliced
2 sticks of celery, chopped finely
200ml beef stock (I used a Knorr Rich Beef Stock Pot)
250ml brown ale
3 tbsp plain flour
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
a handful of walnuts, chopped.

For the cobbles :
250g self raising flour
half a tsp salt
55g butter
55g sugar
1 egg, plus 1 egg beaten
75ml milk.

Method :

1.  Trim the meat of all surplus fat and cut into chunks.  Heat a heavy casserole dish and either fry the pieces of fat until sufficient fat has rendered to fry the meat, or add a little vegetable oil or (even better) rapeseed oil.

2.  Allow the fat or oil to become really very hot indeed, before adding the meat (in batches if necessary) and searing the outside.  The aim is for the outside surface to become a little bit caramelised, which will enhance the beefy flavour of the stew part of the dish.  Decant into your slow cooker, once done, using a slotted spoon.  Put the lid on and turn the slow cooker on to low.

3.   Add the onion to the frying pan and fry on a medium heat - until softened and beginning to turn golden.

4.  Add the carrot and celery and continue to fry until the celery is softened and turning transparent.  Decant the lot into the slow cooker and replace the lid.

5.  Add the stock and ale to the frying pan and heat through.

6.  In a small bowl, add the flour and enough water to turn it into a light, fluid, paste.

7.  Remove the frying pan from the heat and add the flour/water mixture to it, whisking quickly to ensure no lumps form.  Once you are happy that the flour is mixed in, return the pan to the heat and continue to cook, whisking, until the gravy has thickened to your personal preference.  You may wish to add a little more flour/water, or alternatively not so much - depending on how you like your gravy.

8.  Add the chopped walnuts to the slow cooker and taste the gravy for seasoning.  Add a little salt and a lot of black pepper until you are happy with the seasoning.  Decant the gravy into the slow cooker, replace the lid and cook on low for a minimum of 4 hours.

9.  When the four hours are up, make the cobbles by adding all the ingredients except the beaten egg, to a bowl.  It is as well to add the liquid slowly, so that the dough doesn't become too wet.  Stir until a firm dough mixture has formed.

10.  Shape the dough into eight rounds (shaped rather like a beefburger, rather than a meatball) and drop each in on top of the stew mixture.  Paint the top of each cobble with beaten egg.  Replace the lid and cook for a further 2 hours.

Serve with steamed vegetables.

Printable version








 

Slow Cooker BBQ Pulled Pork - perfect for winter!

I've been eyeing up various recipes for pulled pork for a very long time.  The reasons I hadn't got around to making it until now, were firstly because we didn't have a barbecue to cook it on and secondly, when we did have a barbecue, it rained.  And rained.  And threw it down - repeatedly.

Then, however, I saw a blog posting from a lady (forgive me, but I've forgotten who it was and on which blog I saw it - should've made a note!) who had experimented with cooking pulled pork in the slow cooker, with amazing results.

Bing!  Genius.

Now I'd have thought that the slow cooker would have resulted in the pork becoming too soft and not having that roasted flavour that is essential to a good pulled pork recipe.  How wrong was I?

So this Pulled Pork recipe was a bit of a major production in time, if not in effort.  Nope, it definitely didn't involve a lot of effort.  I simply prepared the pork by trimming it a little bit, then rubbed it with a whole heap of spices and flavours (chipotle chilli, English mustard, smoked paprika, garlic, brown sugar) and left it to marinate overnight.

What started out as one piece, fell into four after 12 hrs!

The following day, first thing in the morning, open up the slow cooker, open up the plastic bag in which the pork was marinating - and bung the contents into the cooker.  Tip half a jar of Mic's Chilli El Loco BBQ sauce over the poor confused piece of piggy - turn the cooker to low - and forget about it for the rest of the day.

Some 12 hours later, put some chips on to cook (deep fry them if you must - but oven baked curly fries did the job for us) and prepare your sub rolls.

Lift the pork from the slow cooker and pull it apart with two forks - just like you've seen them do it on the t.v.  Now - this is the tricky bit.  Try, really really hard, not to eat too much before you can get it onto the sub rolls.  Yes, I know it's difficult - so, so difficult - but this was intended to be a meal for the whole family with leftovers - remember?

See that apple sauce peeking out?  Yum.

Because I'm a rampant traditionalist at heart, I gave my sub rolls a liberal coating of apple sauce - and not the American type of apple sauce that is nigh on liquid, the type that has chunks of apple in it and is closer to a tart jam.  The pulled pork then went on top, with a scoop of the liquid from the slow cooker on top (and boy, that "sauce" was amazing!).

My menfolk eschewed the apple sauce version and went for a liberal coating of the El Loco BBQ Sauce on their rolls, with pork on top and the slow cooker juices poured on.

Oh my gawd, but it was good.

Now okay, I'll accept that it didn't have the charred flavour that you would have got from the barbecue, but there were so many deep and meaningful flavours going on there anyway, that we really didn't miss it.  I'm sure that, had we have finished the pork on the barbecue, it would have taken on a completely sublime flavour - but just straight from the slow cooker was pretty darned awesome.

So for people who don't have a garden, or a barbecue, you too can have pulled pork!  Either cook it - well wrapped - for 12 hours in an extremely low oven, or break out the slow cooker.

Oh my - just the memory of this pork is making my mouth water.  The weekend is coming - hi thee down to your local butcher and get a pork shoulder.  You'll be glad you did!

SLOW COOKER BBQ PULLED PORK   (serves 3-5)

Ingredients :

1kg boneless pork shoulder, trimmed of extraneous fat
1 chipotle chilli
1 tbsp English mustard powder
1 tbsp sweet smoked paprika
2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp ground black pepper
half a tsp cayenne pepper
1 tbsp soft brown sugar
1 clove of garlic, grated
around 200ml of prepared BBQ sauce (as in Mic's Chilli El Loco BBQ Sauce).

Method :

1.  Into a large freezer bag (one large enough to take the pork as well), add all the dry ingredients and the garlic.  Mix well.

2.  Add the pork and seal the bag.  Then massage the meat through the bag, ensuring that the rub ingredients reach every single little bit of the meat.  Once well covered and well rubbed in, leave to marinate in the fridge for around 12 hours (overnight is best!).

You may well find it necessary to double bag the pork, to resist your fridge contents smelling of BBQ garlic!

3.  Take the pork out of the fridge and allow it to return to room temperature (around 30 minutes).

4.  Decant the pork straight from the bag into the slow cooker - along with any juices.

5.  Pour the barbecue sauce over the pork, ensuring it is well covered.

6.  Turn the slow cooker for low and leave for 12 hours.

7.  When done, remove from the cooker and cover with silver foil.  Allow to rest for 15 minutes or so, then pull apart with two forks to create the classic "pulled pork" look.

8.  Serve in baps or sub rolls, with apple sauce, additional BBQ sauce, some salad or anything you fancy additionally.  Don't forget to add a spoonful or two of the juices from the slow cooker on the top of the pork once it has been laid into the roll.

Delicious!

Printable version

 

 

Moist Orange & Lemon Marble Cake

I have been sitting here for a few minutes now, wondering what on earth to call this cake.  I settled on "Orange & Lemon Marble Cake" some time ago - but it was finding a word to describe the end result after you've drizzled it with the syrup that was the difficult bit.

I felt that simply "Orange & Lemon Marble Cake" seemed as though it could convey itself as being rather dry - which this cake just isn't.  Having consulted the online thesaurus, however, I'm very definitely not going to use the majority of its "moist" alternatives.  Words like "drippy" (well, it did, for a bit!), "oozy" (hmmn, nope), "muggy" (hardly!), "dank" (ewww!), "muculent" (even ewwww-er!), "saturated", "dripping" and "sodden" (oooh, missus!).  The description of a "Drizzle Cake" isn't even right here, as for all that you drizzle syrup over it, there is no real evidence of it having been drizzled at the end of the process.  Well, not until you bite into it.

So "Moist Orange & Lemon Marble Cake" it is going to have to stay.

The marbling was there - but without food colour, it's difficult to see

My parents were coming over for a cup of tea and a chat, which provided the motivation to make the cake.  Not that I need a lot of motivation to make cake, you understand - but for the sake of all our waistlines, it's probably better that I leave cake baking until I've got someone else to help eat it up!

Film star cake shot - posing in a sunbeam

I had pondered for a while as to what to make.  I didn't want a cake that would need lots of decoration and icing etc., as that just adds to the calorific value and time spent in the kitchen.  I have to bear the length of time something takes to make in mind, because I only have so long that I can spend up on my legs, even if I am perched on the stool during most of it.  So it's no good baking a cake that requires lengthy decoration, only to find that I have no energy left in my legs with which to do it.

Marble cakes always go down well and I considered making a chocolate and orange marble cake.  So many of my cakes seem to involve chocolate somewhere along the line, that I was reluctant to go down that route.  The orange bit interested me, though.  I considered doing an Orange Drizzle Cake - in the same way as a Lemon version.  I wasn't sure that it would pack the same zap! as the lemon version though.

Then it occurred to me to do an Orange & Lemon Marble Cake.  It was very experimental at this stage and I pondered whether to colour the cake mixes so as to make the marbling more effective.  Having decided against it - on the grounds that if I can get away without using food colouring, so much the better - I can say that I would very definitely colour at least one - probably the orange - cake mix and have reflected that in the recipe below.  For all that you could taste the difference in flavours as they swirled through the cake, you couldn't see the difference other than the change in the colour of the fruit zest.

I'm not sure what clever cake fairy whispered in my ear about drizzling the citrus syrup over the cake, but I'm jolly glad she did.  It made the end result so deliciously moist, sticky and moreish.

The cake got the thumbs up from my parents, with murmurs of appreciation for its fine texture and lovely flavours - and best of all, they helped to eat a good percentage of it.  There was just enough left for son & heir to have a second go at it, which made him happy too.

Serving up a home made cake seems to me to mean so much more to your guests, than just breaking out a bought offering.  It's all cake - but home made is cake made with love more often than not.  "Love" is like "umami" - it's very difficult to quantify and describe, but it makes all the difference when it's in the recipe.

MOIST ORANGE & LEMON MARBLE CAKE   (serves 8-10)

Ingredients :

225g softened butter
225g caster sugar
4 eggs
225g self-raising flour
1 tbsp juice & 1 tbsp zest of a lemon
1 tbsp juice & 1 tbsp zest of an orange
Orange food colour

For the syrup :
1 tbsp shredless orange marmalade
1 tbsp caster sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp water.

Method :

1.  Pre-heat your oven to 180degC/340degF/gas 4.

2.  Line the bottom of a 20cm cake tin with baking parchment.

3.  Place the butter, caster sugar, eggs and flour into a food processor and whizz until smooth.

4.  Divide the mixture between two bowls and add the lemon zest & juice to one bowl and the orange zest, juice & two drops of food colour, to the other bowl.  Stir to combine, using a different spoon for each bowl.

5.  Dollop alternately into the cake tin, making sure to divide the flavours as much as possible.

6.  Using the handle of the spoon, run it lightly through the mixture - which will create the swirly pattern.  Don't overdo this bit, or you'll mix it in too much.

7.  Level the surface and tap the tin on the work surface to expel any large air bubbles.

8.  Put into the oven and bake in the centre of the oven for 45-55 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

9.  Turn out onto a cooling rack.

10.  In a small saucepan, place all the syrup ingredients and heat gently, stirring, until the marmalade has dissolved.

11.  Taking a fine skewer, pierce the cake repeatedly all over the top surface.

12.  Paint on the syrup liberally, ensuring that it runs into the skewer holes and not down the sides of the cake, until the syrup is all gone.

13.  Cool completely.

Serve

Printable version

Pasta Carbonara - far too lovely to be healthy!

Blame for this one, quite firmly, lies with son & heir.

You see, every week we ask him whether he has any requests for the menu plan.  Ordinarily, he immediately responds with "pizza", closely followed by "steak and chips".  However, on this one instance, he suggested Pasta Carbonara - which was so unusual, that we just had to reward his suggestion by following through and making the dish.

Well, you couldn't not!  I mean to say, we'd asked for the suggestion hadn't we?  It would have been rude to have turned it down flat (much as we do for the "steak and chips" suggestion - but we'll skip lightly over that fact).

Now it had been over a year since I'd made a Carbonara - and this was because of hubby's egg sensitivity.  The last one I'd made, he just couldn't cope with both the raw egg taste and the knowledge that what he was eating was basically, raw egg.  Albeit raw egg mixed with cream, bacon and parmesan - and thrown over hot pasta which was supposed to cook the egg.  I was always dubious about that - and hubby's reaction confirmed my suspicion that the "hot pasta" didn't do a terribly good job.  Plus the fact that the cold cream/egg mixture always took the heat out of the pasta and everything wound up a little bit cool.

So, having agreed to a Carbonara, I started to worry about hubby's reaction to it - and how I might get around the raw egg problem.

Now I'm no genius, as it took a good three or four days of worrying, before I hit on the solution.  A bain marie.

Using a bain marie would not only solve the raw egg problem, but also solve the cold pasta problem!  Aha!

What you do - and you're probably way ahead of me now - is get the shallot and bacon cooked off in a frying pan, then when a separate pan of salted water boils, dunk in the pasta.  Get a small pan going, with a little bit of water inside, simmering away.  Place a large bowl over the top - making sure the water doesn't touch the bowl.  Into the bowl, add the cream, eggs, parmesan and black pepper - and whisk gently but consistently while the gentle heat cooks the eggs without turning them into scrambled and the whole beautiful emulsion gets slowly warmed through.  The end result is a simply gorgeous, slightly foamy, warm mixture that coats the hot pasta perfectly - and it remains that way, i.e. hot!

The worth of this new (well, it's new to me) process for making Carbonara was summed up by hubby, who declared he had never - get that, "never" - had a better tasting, more unctuous, positively sinful Carbonara.  Now that, is truly high praise.

We aren't all that keen on spaghetti and, since the arrival of Mafalda Corta pasta in our local supermarket, haven't looked back.  I've used this shape of pasta in lots of other dishes recently and it was most acceptable in this Carbonara.  Because of the ruffles that each flat noodle length has along its edge, the pasta is able to pick up the coating sauce without leaving any behind - which makes for a very satisfying mouthful.

The dish was made all the better by our fabulous butcher's bacon.  The rashers are huge - and not only that, but are thick too.  Just perfectly robust for a good bacon hit in amongst the richness of the cheese, cream and egg.

If only it wasn't so bad for you, it'd become a staple on the menu plan.  However, with the use of copious amounts of butter, cheese and cream, it can only be a "once in a blue moon" dish.  Oh, but what a dish!

I'm sure a blue moon is imminent - so stock the fridge up with bacon, cream, eggs and parmesan.  You know you want to!

PASTA CARBONARA (serves 3)

Ingredients :

375g pasta (I used Mafalda Corta)
knob of butter
2 shallots, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
9 rashers of back bacon, trimmed of fat and chopped fairly small
2 whole eggs, plus 1 yolk
220ml single cream
40g parmesan cheese, finely grated
freshly ground black pepper.

Method :

1.  Heat a frying pan over a medium heat and add the bacon pieces.  Cook until the fat has rendered out, then add the butter and shallots before the bacon can brown.

2.  Cook on a gentle to medium heat until the shallots are softened and transparent, but don't let them brown.

3.  Set aside to keep warm, but not cook any further.

4.  In a large saucepan of salted boiling water, add the pasta and cook for 9-11 minutes or until tender, with a slight bite.  Once done, drain and return to the pan.

5.  While the pasta cooks, heat a small amount of water in a small saucepan until simmering.

6.  Into a large, preferably pyrex, bowl add the eggs, cream, parmesan (leaving a small amount to sprinkle over the finished dish) and a good amount of freshly ground black pepper.

7.  Place the bowl over the simmering water in the small saucepan, making sure the water doesn't touch the underside of the bowl.  Whisk and stir, whisk and stir, until the mixture is demonstrating signs that the cheese has melted into the warmth of the liquid ingredients and the whole emulsion is becoming slightly foamy.

8.  Once the pasta is done, decant into a large serving bowl and add the sauce.  Toss the pasta in the sauce, ensuring every piece of pasta is covered - and finish with a sprinkle of the remaining parmesan cheese.

Serve.

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Frittering away - Gordon Ramsay's Sweetcorn Fritters

I don’t know about you, but I find I am becoming increasingly susceptible to suggestion.  No don’t go raising your eyebrows like that – not THAT kind of suggestion – I’m thinking more along the lines of suggestions regarding food.

For instance.  There we were, the other day, sat in the car outside the supermarket discussing whether to go for tiger prawns or chicken for our meal that evening.   Suddenly there’s a great waft of seaside fish & chips smell from some fast food joint or another.  There and then, we gave up all ideas of a healthy meal and were lusting after a piece of cod in golden crispy batter, chunky chips and lots of salt and vinegar.

In fact, common sense prevailed and we opted for tiger prawns and had a very acceptable home made curry – but that quiet yearning for crispy fish & chips is still there in the background.  Sooner or later it’s going to rear its ugly head in a moment of weakness.

I suppose a lot of it has to do with the fact that I’m continually working with food – be it looking for recipes, thinking about what flavours will go with what and considering what alternatives I can substitute in recipes I like but that have elements that I know wouldn’t suit our palates.  I can bring to mind what a flavour is like very easily once I’ve sampled it – so whenever a delicious aroma occurs, I am instantly analysing it for the component parts.

It’s the same with cooking shows on the t.v.  There are times when I can totally imagine how a finished dish would taste.  Now this is sometimes  very useful, as I can “tuck the recipe behind my ear” and bring it back out again when assembling the menu plan for the week.

Take this week, for example.  I had a little bank of five recipes that I’d accumulated for consideration.  Ultimately, I only went with two of them (a Chicken Buttermilk Stew and a Cumberland Pie), but we were also required to devise something yummy to go with a couple of interesting sauces that I’d managed to pick up en route.  Add that to a couple of dishes that had fallen over from last week – and bingo, the menu plan is done.

However, there are some occasions when something so apparently delicious and wonderful attracts my attention in a way that says “Eat me! Eat me now!” – and such was the case with Gordon Ramsay’s Sweetcorn Fritters – as demonstrated on his Ultimate Cookery Course show (Ch.4) a couple of weeks ago.

I paid attention to what he was using by way of ingredients, because I’m perpetually interested in what goes with what by way of flavours.  However, I didn’t exactly pay attention to the quantities.  So, when I eventually buckled and thought “I’m having those for lunch today”, I was a little bit stuck as there was no evidence of a recipe on the internet.

The recipe isn’t difficult – which might explain my being able to remember it.

You quite simply take a small amount of flour (around 100g) and add a small amount of baking powder (which I couldn’t be bothered to hunt for, so I used self-raising flour), an egg and a small amount of milk.  Whisk them together to form a fairly thick batter, then add a couple of sliced spring onions, a tin of drained sweetcorn, a chopped chilli and a small amount of freshly chopped coriander.  Add a little seasoning and fry gently in small spoon-sized dollops.

Fix yourself up with a pot of sweet chilli dipping sauce (or just tomato ketchup would do, in a pinch) and hey presto – lunch is served.

Now here’s your test.  Are you as susceptible to foodie suggestions as me?  Because those fritters are just To.Die.For.  So simple, so easy to make, relatively good for you too (especially if you use rapeseed oil to cook them in, as I did) – and they kept the hungry wolf away right up until dinner time.

I have a feeling that the fritter is going to become the new flan.  You may well be seeing many, many different versions appearing over the ensuing months!  After all, how’s about a griddled courgette, cherry tomato & feta cheese fritter?  Or a chorizo, potato & pea fritter?  Maybe even a curried chick pea and prawn fritter?

Uh oh!  That’s done it - where’s that frying pan?

(Previously published at Bournemouth Echo's Taste Section : "Jenny's Week" blog)

GORDON'S SWEETCORN FRITTERS   (makes approx 10)

Ingredients :

100g self raising flour
1 egg
2-3 tbsp milk
3 spring onions, trimmed and sliced diagonally
1 chilli (red or green) seeds removed and chopped finely
a small handful of coriander, chopped roughly
326g tin of sweetcorn, drained
sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp rapeseed oil.

Method :

1.  Into a bowl, place the flour, egg and milk.  Using a balloon whisk, mix them well until combined into a sticky, thick batter.

2.  Add the spring onions, chilli, coriander and sweetcorn, plus a little seasoning.  Stir until all the vegetables and herbs are covered with a light coating of the batter.

3.  Pour the rapeseed oil into a frying pan on a medium heat.  Once the oil is heated through, add tablespoonfuls of the fritter mixture - four usually makes a good number without cooling the frying pan and stopping the cooking process.

4.  Once the underside of the mixture has set slightly, spread the blob out a little and continue to cook until golden brown.

5.  Turn the fritter and press down with the back of the spatula, just for a moment or two.  Continue to fry until this second side is also golden brown.

6.  Place the fritters onto kitchen paper and keep in a warm place until they are all cooked, then serve with some sweet chilli dipping sauce - or whichever type of sauce you fancy!

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