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September 28, 2014 FrontPage

Tamarillo’s – a sheer delight!

I’ve been madly in love with tamarillo’s since I first tasted them, about 14 years ago, in a fruit box at Ubon. That was it – from that moment on I was hooked… Ubon served them raw, with the skin cut virtually to the end, so that you slipped them off and into your mouth. Delicious!

As you might suspect, they’re a member of the tomato family, complete with seeds hidden in their silky depths. The skin is typically considered inedible because it’s so bitter, and they have an incredibly sweet, but predominantly sour taste – probably quite unpalatable for most people, but there’s something else in there that’s a little more undefined… It’s the marmite of fruit…

They can be difficult to track down, but over the years Harrods has usually supplied me with my fix, flown in either from South America, or New Zealand. If you’ve never heard of them, or tried them, you’re in good company – in a conversation with two Michelin starred chefs recently, neither had ever tasted a tamarillo…

These days I get my fix from my lovely chums over at Oakleaf European, which necessitates me buying a whole tray at a time, but hurrah for that! Though I’ve never cooked them, I came across a reference to them in Umami, a fantastic book which leads you through the various facets of that ‘fifth taste’. It was an utter revelation to discover that tamarillos actually contain more glutamate (one element of umami) than tomatoes, and practically all fruit and vegetables – in fact up to five times the amount of tomatoes. It also has several times the levels of glutamate of beef – suddenly I entirely understood exactly why I adored them so much – that undefined flavour in the background is one of the biggest hits of umami available…

These are the figures for some foods we often associate with umami:

Food Type

Tamarillo

Tomato

Green pea

Carrot

Beef

Venison

Egg yolk

Katsuobushi (dried bonito)

Niboshi (dried sardine)

Kombu (seaweed)

Nori (seaweed)

Shiitake

Anchovies

Cheese

Fish sauce

Glutamate (mg/100g)

470-1200
150-250

110

40-80

25-35

30-40
40-50

1200-3400

1380

630-1440

300-1680

620-1380

So, how do you develop the depth of the umami in something like tamarillos? Although I’ve only ever eaten mine raw, it did occur to me that they would make a fantastic tart tatin – especially as they hold less liquid than tomatoes, so wouldn’t go soggy.

I also spotted a recipe in the new Dabbous cookbook, where Ollie confits them and pairs with burrata, a perfect dish to my mind.

The flavour of roasted tamarillos is just ridiculously good – the umami reaches new heights, and leaves you sucking your cheeks for hours after tasting them. They’re even more addictive now than before, and I cannot imagine eating them raw very often again. Please do give them a go – I’d almost say they’re the most delicious thing I’ve cooked – thank goodness I have half a tray left – I’m off now to make some tamarillo jam…

Check out Umami and Dabbous here:

September 28, 2014 Burrata

Burrata, Tamarillo and Fennel Pollen…

I have a whole post on the delights of tamarillo’s, so I shan’t bore you again, except to say that they must be in your top 100 foods to try before you die… Trust me – they’re stunning… This particular dish makes the most of the tamarillo’s ridiculously high umami levels, and pairs it with silky smooth, creamy burrata.

For those who’ve not tried it, burrata is a combination of mozzarella and cream, and must be eaten as fresh as possible – make sure you buy when you intend to eat it. The chef who created this dish is Ollie Dabbous, of the eponymous Dabbous restaurant, and is from his long-awaited cookbook. If you can’t get a table at the restaurant, at least you can try his food at home…

With a dish this simple, it’s crucial that you buy the best possible ingredients.

Ingredients:
2 large tamarillos
25ml extra virgin olive oil
25g caster sugar

Method:

Score the base of each tamarillo with a cross
Blanch for 5 seconds in a pan of rapidly boiling water, then drain and plunge into a bowl of iced water
Peel, then cut lengthways into quarters
Pour the olive oil into a baking tray and sprinkle over half the sugar
Place the tamarillos in the tray cut-side down and scatter over the remaining sugar
Place in an oven on its lowest setting for about 30 minutes, basting regularly with the pan juices
Turn the tamarillos on to the other cut side and repeat the process
Finally, place on the exterior side and repeat the process once more
Remove from the oven and leave to cool

To assemble:
240ml extra virgin olive oil
32 basil leaves
2 burrata, sliced into 4 pieces each
fennel pollen

Divide the olive oil between 8 serving bowls
Place 4 basil leaves on the right-hand side of each bowl and top with a slice of burrata
Sprinkle a pinch of fennel pollen over each one
Place a wedge of confit tamarillo alongside

Notes:

Yes, that cooking temperature is a little vague. I tried it first on 35ºC, and frankly I’d have been there all night. I moved up to 60ºC, then 120ºC, in each instance I had to up the timing. Given that this is something you can make ahead, just give yourself loads of time, keep them as low as you can, until you reach the desired colour. By taking mine up to 120ºC I made them a little more candied than confit, and the second time I just took it really slowly
Do sprinkle a tiny bit of salt onto the tamarillo, it just sets it off
Do use the best olive oil you can for the plating process – I used one we bought cases of in Italy – you can read about it here
I’m not sure I’ll do the whole peeling thing in future, but will just whip of the skin with a knife, as I’ve always done
Ollie says raw tamarillos are inedible, actually that’s not true – try them – but the skin should be removed before you do
It’s worth making a batch – like confit tomatoes, or sun-blush tomatoes, you could keep these in the fridge until you wanted to use them (perhaps not in quarters, but maybe eighths?

You can purchase Ollie’s book here:

September 13, 2014 Baking

Pain Perdu, Pineapple and Coconut

We haven’t been to Marcus Wareing’s eponymous restaurant since it was re-branded. It’s a little art-deco jewel-box of a restaurant, but the atmosphere seemed just as hushed at lunchtime as before… Still. The food was good, and I was particularly enamoured with this dish – a little chef’s joke… The pineapple tastes of coconut, which initially confuses the senses, especially as you try to work out how… I pressed the waitress, it’s clearly compressed, because of the texture, but what with? And then of course it struck me – Malibu – the scent led me by my nose to my teenage years. Malibu. When was the last time you tasted Malibu? Well, rest assured, in this dish it’s absolutely delicious, as long as you like coconut and pineapple.

The plate comprised Malibu compressed pineapple, a coconut ice-cream, coconut curd, toasted brioche cubes, and coconut meringue. I wasn’t terribly fond of the coconut curd, so I thought I would experiment with a coconut-milk creme patisserie (in the Thermomix)… For the coconut meringues I used the Meringue Girls recipe, which I’ve made often before. It’s a very clever little dessert – you can prepare all the elements well in advance (perhaps with the exception of toasting the brioche), and then assemble when you’re ready. You see. I make sweeping statements like that. Yes, it’s a clever dessert, and easy, if you own a chamber vacuum sealer and a Thermomix. I’m still posting it, because someone out there will…

As the recipes are quite long, you can find them listed in the Plating section. The pineapple was cubed (as accurately as your patience will allow), and popped into a vacuum pack bag – I included 40ml of Malibu, and compressed under full pressure. I left it in the fridge for 48 hours to absorb the flavour. The compression will also change the texture of the pineapple, making it denser, and less fibrous (it effectively changes the cell structure of the fruit – it’s also an amazing technique to use on watermelon, for example).

To Plate:

Malibu compressed pineapple
Coconut meringues
Coconut-milk creme patisserie
Coconut cream ice-cream
Brioche cubes, dipped in egg and fried in a little butter

Notes:

The coconut version of the creme patisserie worked incredibly well – I used 300g of coconut milk, and upped the flour to 45g, but that was because I included 20g of Malibu, and also wanted to be able to pipe the cream into quite firm ‘peaks’… The coconut flavour was subtle, but discernible, and the texture was exactly like the normal version. I didn’t refrigerate it, but did whisk through some more malibu before piping onto the plates.

September 13, 2014 Baking

The Meringue Girls Meringue Kisses…

I love the Meringue Girls on many, many levels – they’re cute, and they’re cute! They’ve taken something basic and created a niche market – good for them… In addition, their cookbook has brilliant little video clips which can be accessed via the cookbook by scanning a special code on your iPhone. They’re fun, informative, simple, and definitely give you a sense of their personalities: that’s often difficult to achieve in a cookbook.

I’m particularly fond of their meringue kisses, because they’re easy to make, they look fabulous, and you can flavour them in all manner of ways. They’re the perfect little gift, and make a great item for a charity bake sale. My most popular flavour are the passion fruit, though the cocoa, raspberry and coconut are popular too. (The coconut variety taste like a Bounty bar, without the additional calories.) I use Aromes, which are professional patisserie flavours, and these do make a difference. If you’re going to make a large quantity of a particular flavour, an investment in them is well worth while – they also have the advantage of not adding too much liquid into your recipe.

The Meringue Girls technique is a little different to French Meringue (whisked with cold sugar), or Italian (whisked with a hot sugar syrup, and therefore cooked), or even Swiss (which is whisked over a bain marie to cook, then taken off the heat and whisked until cool). In this method the sugar is heated in the oven while you’re preparing the whites… It does actually work well, so don’t feel it’s necessary to opt for a different technique.

I’m giving you their basic recipe – do look at their book for different flavour ideas… Although the method section may seem quite long, do watch the videos included below the instructions – I promise you the Meringue Girls will make it all perfectly obvious in those videos

Ingredients:
150g free-range egg whites (5 medium eggs)
300g caster sugar
For flavourings, see Notes

Method:

Start by lining a large baking sheet with baking paper (this is the tray onto which you will pipe the meringues. In reality this volume of ingredients will certainly fill two normal sized baking sheets, and at least one double oven sheet).
Pre-heat the oven to 200ºC. Line a roasting tray with baking paper, pour in the caster sugar and put it in the oven for about 5 minutes until the edges are just beginning to melt. Heating the sugar will help it dissolve in the egg which more quickly to create a glossy stable mixture.
Meanwhile, weigh your egg whites in the free-standing mixer bowl, or a non-plastic bowl. Make sure your bowl and whisk are free from grease. Whisk slowly at first, allowing small stabilising bubbles to form, then increase the speed until the egg whites form stiff peaks, and the bowl can be tipped upside down without the egg falling out.
Keep an eye on the mixture and stop whisking just before it turns into a cotton woolly appearance, at which point the mixture will be over-whisked and will have lost some of the elasticity in the egg white protein
At this point, the sugar should be ready to take out of the oven. Turn down your oven to 100ºC. Leave the door ajar to speed up the cooling.
With the whites stiff and while whisking again at full speed, add one big tablespoon of the hot sugar ager another to the meringue mixture, ensure that it comes back yup to stiff peaks after each spoonful of sugars. Don’t worry about any small clumps of sugar, but avoid any larger chunks of caramelised sugars from the edges of the roasting tray.
Once you have added all of the sugar, continue to whisk on full speed for about 5-7 minutes. Feel a bit of the mitre between your fingers, and if you can still feel the gritty star, keep whisking at full speed until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture is smooth, and the bowl is a little cooler to the touch. The mixture will continue to thicken up during this stage. You know when it’s read to use as it will form a nice smooth, shiny peak on the tip of your upturned finger.
To pipe the meringue kisses, turn a piping bag inside out, and place it over a jug or bottle, so that it stays in place. Using natural good colouring and a clean paintbrush, paint 5 thick strips from the tip of your piping bag to halfway down the bag.
Then carefully spoon your stiff meringue mixture into the piping back, and turn the bag back the right way around. You need to pack the meringue mixture in tightly, ensuring there are no air bubbles.
With sharp scissors, cut the tip of the piping bag to the size of a 20p coin.
To get the piping bag flowing, use some of the mixture to pipe small dollops onto the four corners of your baking sheets, and use like glue to stick your baking paper to the sheet.
Hold the piping bag with both hands, placing your dominant hand at the top of the piping bag and your other hand halfway down the bag. Use the top hand to apply pressure and the lower hand to control the flow of the kisses. Squeeze the bag (like and udder!) to form the kisses. They should have a 5cm diameter and a big peak at the top. You can use different nozzles for different effects. For example a star nozzle will give you beautiful little star-like kisses.
Once you have assembled your meringues into the desired shapes on your lined baking sheet (leaving a couple of centimetres between each shape), bake for approximately 30-40 minutes. Take them out of the oven as soon as they lift off the baking paper with their bases intact.
Leave them to cool on the baking sheet.

Notes:

It’s easier to use a liquid egg white, such as Two Chicks, rather than separating and measuring eggs
The Meringue Girls use a ratio of 1:2, egg whites to sugar. I have seen other ratios, but for meringue kisses, this ratio works fine
Room temperature whites achieve more volume than cold whites, so once you’ve measured them, allow them to come to room temperature – usually around 30 minutes
Your equipment must be clean of grease – if necessary wipe a cut lemon around the inside of the mixing bowl
Flavourings can be added by including an ingredient directly into the mixture (for coconut, you stir 25g desiccated coconut into one batch, and sprinkle 25g over the batch – but I also included a few drops of coconut Arome; for chocolate you take 3 Tbsp of cocoa, including half into the mixture, and scattering the remainder over the meringues before cooking (though I did include a little chocolate flavouring in them too).
I don’t take my meringues out of the oven straight away, as I found they had a tendency to crack, from being cooled down too quickly. I turn off the oven, and stick a wooden spoon into the top of the oven door, propping it ajar…
Any extra meringues will keep for two weeks in an air-tight container, though I doubt they’ll last that long, particularly if you have children!

You can watch the Meringue Girls in the following clips:

With Paul Hollywood

How to make the mixture

Colouring and piping the mixture

Giant meringues

The Rainbow Cake

Tips and techniques

You can get the Meringue Girls book here – and it’s well worth having a look – there’s much more in there than just the kisses…

I’ve used coconut kisses as an element in a pineapple and coconut dessert:

Coconut meringues, coconut creme pattisserie,
brioche pain perdu, compressed pineapple, lime sorbet

They are also an intrinsic part of my petit-four collection, along with pâte de fruit, marshmallows, peanut butter fudge, macarons, and truffles.

Huge close up of coconut kisses…

A little bit of a joke, deliberately coloured and squat,
to look a little like little hats for some sugar work I was making

Production line for the school Christmas Fayre, along with
pâte de fruit – there are passion fruit, raspberry, cocoa, and blackberry there

Cocoa and chocolate flavoured meringues

January 2, 2014 FrontPage

CakePops are Dead! Long live the MallowPop!

We’ve all made cake pops – good grief – what a bore!

For starters, who really wants a mouthful of dry cake, mixed with sickly sweet buttercream? Then there’s the fact that they take soooo long to make, fall off if you make them too big, or include too much buttercream… No, no. The cakepop is dead.

So, what’s the alternative? Clearly you’re reading my MallowPop post, so the answer must be a MallowPop – yay!

For starters:

the basic varieties are much easier to make
they actually last for much longer than cake pops, which means you can make them much further in advance – a real boon for those of us baking for cake sales, parties etc
anything you can do to a cakepop, you can do to a mallowpop
mallowpops can be made gluten-free – a huge boon if you’re creating for the masses
they also allow you a huge amount of scope in terms of decoration, flavouring etc.
you can make your own marshmallows if you really want to up the flavourings and complexity

I would almost go on to say that they offer the same customisation scope as macaron – and potentially far more flavour impact variations than cake…

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves – let’s start with the basic idea. Anyone can take a packet of marshmallows, and cover them in chocolate – even using candy melts if you have to… At this level it’s a great thing for kids to get involved with too, and nowhere nearly as traumatic as cake pops.

So lets begin….

Of course I may have lied a little, when I said I’d press on with the basic MallowPop. But if you know me, you’d know that I have a mini-aversion to rubbish ingredients… If you’re going to make a decent MallowPop, I think it’s worth spending a little more time and money on decent ingredients. I promise I will however post shortly using candy-melts, or something of that ilk.

Let’s start with a few basic couveture chocolate rules:

chocolate (generally) hates water – if you’re going to use a bain-marie to melt your chocolate, make sure you never drop any water into the melted chocolate – it will seize the mixture
all pre-tempered chocolate (which is generally what you’d be buying, already has tempered crystals in it. We’re not going to talk extensively about that now, just bear that in mind
if you melt tempered chocolate to it’s given range (which is usually printed on the packet!), you will not take the chocolate out of temper (that is, remove the crystals)
even if you do take the chocolate out of temper, just add a bit more of the tempered chocolate back into it, and that will reseed the chocolate
calm down, none of this is as complicated as it sounds
very generally speaking, if you keep the temperature of the chocolate between 26ºC and about 38ºC, you will not have any problems
if you’re going to melt your chocolate in a microwave (which I do), make sure you only do it in 15 second busts, and check the temperature towards the end
always microwave your chocolate in a plastic, not glass bowl, and use a plastic spoon when mixing
an infrared / laser thermometer is an absolute god-send for checking the temperature of chocolate, as you don’t have to put it into the chocolate
always use fresh marshmallows – even marshmallows which have been out for 12 hours in an airtight box are too old – the chocolate will peel away, and the mallowpop is too dry
by far the best thing to set chocolate onto is food-grade acetate, which is inexpensive to buy
if you’re lucky enough to have Neff warming drawer ( I adore mine), you can keep several bowls of chocolate in temper while you’re working by keep them at the 1.5 setting – check the temperature again before you begin, and if over 38ºC, you can reseed them with a handful of fresh chocolate
I’ve found I can actually keep chocolate in temper overnight in the warming drawer, though it’s probably best to take it down the the 1 setting

MallowPop Method

As a basic method, take a freshly opened pack of marshmallows (or make your own, more on that later), and taking a 15cm cake pop stick, dip the stick into the melted chocolate, and plunge into your marshmallow
I found it easier to put all the marshmallows vertically onto a chopping board, and then plunge the stick in on that
Wait for a few minutes until the chocolate has set-up a little, and then swirl the marshmallow into a bowl of tempered chocolate.
Put the MallowPop either onto acetate to set, or using an old piece of polystyrene, allow the chocolate to set there… If the chocolate is still in temper, it should set within a couple of minutes

Chocolate Suppliers:

Vantage House
The Chocolate Trading Company

November 4, 2013 FrontPage

Butter Poached Lobster (sous vide), with Girolles and Hazelnuts

Girolles and hazelnuts are just the most glorious combination – both sweet, nutty and earthy, they complement each other well. The lobster was actually just a vehicle for the girolles, and it could just as easily have been baked squash I made last week, or any number of roasted vegetables.

Girolles are a beautiful colour – they look (and are said to smell) like apricots. They generally grow in a group together, and are best picked a few days after rain, to allow a decent amount of growth.

If you don’t have a pet forager, you can get girolles right now from the lovely people at Natoora, or from them via Ocado. They require the minimum amount of cleaning, and personally I find them easiest to clean with a filleting knife. The blade is particularly flexible, and allows you to ‘flick’ the dirt out of the gills, and to lightly ‘scrape’ the top of the mushroom. I’ve tried almost every other method, from a light rinse and spin, brushing with natural bristle, and brushing with silicone bristles – both of which merely drove the dirt further into the gills.

The lobster was sealed in a vacuum bag with butter, a splash of vermouth, about 10 pink peppercorns and sprigs of lemon thyme. I also put a teaspoon of sumac into the bottom of the pouch. They were cooked in a water bath at 60ºC for 15 minutes, but frankly they weren’t terribly big. You might need to adjust your timings accordingly.

Once I’d browned the girolles until golden in some rapeseed oil and butter, I flashed the lobster through the butter just to pick up some more of the girolle scent. Both were served with a few crushed toasted hazelnuts, and a dressing made from the reduced reserved lobster liquor, and a little white balsamic vinegar.

March 16, 2013 Baking

Frangipane Tarts

Pistachio frangipane, with figs

There’s something about the scent of frangipane which has haunted me for decades. We have relatives on the French side of the Swiss-France border, and on our very first visit, we had a plum and frangipane tart. The memory has stuck with me for twenty years – served at room temperature – the tart was luscious, creamy, delicately scented – just adorable.

Spotting some nectarines which needed using up, I thought it would make a delicious variation. A quick trawl through some of my favourite chefs revealed a recipe on the BBC site by Angela Hartnett…

That first tart was consumed by the multitudes in my household within twenty-four hours.

Luckily, the quantity of frangipane in the recipe allowed me to make two tarts – so the second tart was a plum and frangipane one… The plums hold up better than the nectarines, though surprisingly they do make the mixture more moist (I would have assumed the nectarines would offer up more water). The scent load is also greater with the plums.

Having everything to hand, the second tart only took about 10 minutes to prepare, so well worth keeping some frangipane in your fridge (bring it back to room temperature, and give it a quick re-fluffing with a fork – et voila – instant tart…).

The next time I made a bakewell tart, and then another for my chum Sarah… And then we moved on to pistachio and fig tarts, with a further tart for another chum, Nicole…

Once you have the basic frangipane recipe in your back-pocket, the possibilities are endless :0)

Ingredients:

For the pastry:

375g/13¼oz plain flour, plus extra for dusting

15g/½oz sugar
225g/8oz unsalted butter, cut into cubes, plus extra for greasing
1 free-range egg
4 tbsp ice-cold water

For the frangipane:

200g/7¼oz unsalted butter
200g/7¼oz caster sugar
2 free-range eggs
200g/7¼oz ground almonds

For the tart filling:

5-6 ripe plums, each cut into eighths, stones removed

To serve:

icing sugar, for dusting
whipped cream or crème fraîche

Method:

For the pastry, sieve the flour and sugar into a large mixing bowl. Tip the cubed butter into the bowl. Rub the butter and the flour between your thumb and fingertips until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.
In a jug or small bowl, beat the egg together with four tablespoons of ice-cold water. Pour into the flour mixture.
Slowly bring the ingredients together with your hands to form a dough, being careful not to overwork it.
Knead the dough lightly on a clean, floured work surface, then wrap it in cling film and refrigerate until firm, at least 30 minutes.
For the frangipane, beat the butter and sugar together in a bowl until light and fluffy. Crack the eggs into the bowl one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the ground almonds and mix well until combined. Set aside.
Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Dust the work surface with flour and roll the chilled dough out thinly. Use it to line one large 25cm/10in tart ring or 6-8 individual tartlet rings 8cm/3¼in in diameter. Trim away any excess.
Spoon the frangipane into the tart case so that it comes about halfway up the sides. Smooth over the surface with a spatula and cover the frangipane evenly with the plums.
Bake for 30-40 minutes (15-25 minutes for the tartlets), or until the pastry is crisp and golden-brown and the fruit is tender.
Remove the tart(s) from the oven. Dust with icing sugar and serve warm with whipped cream or crème fraîche.

Notes:

I used a pre-rolled pastry sheet made by Marie – it’s the best I’ve used, comes in a circle, and is rolled super-fine! Because it’s so fine, I always brush it with beaten egg and allow to dry in the fridge, before putting any filling in
Don’t push your figs too far into the batter, it will rise up around them. For maximum visual effect, just lightly lodge them in

Lay the fruit in a pattern of your choosing – you can see from the plum chart that I chose a different layout that time

Fig and pistachio frangipane

Nectarine and frangipane

Plum and frangipane

Bakewell Tart: spread jam spread a layer of frangipane, and top with almonds halfway through cooking #simples

March 2, 2013 Baking

Banana Bread [Thermomix]

I’m a mother of four – you have to be able to knock-up banana bread to use up all those mushy bananas. I don’t know what happens – some weeks they go through many bunches, others none… Still, banana bread is a favourite of the 11yo, so it’s never a wasted effort.

I’ve found that making cake batter in the Thermomix is speedy, but can result in too much gluten development, resulting in a leaden batter. Here I’ve put everything else in together and blitzed, before adding the flour by hand at the last moment. The Thermomix does give you a finer puree of bananas, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing from my point of view!

This recipe is based on the one on the BBC website…

Ingredients

285g/10oz plain flour
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
½ tsp salt
110g/4oz butter, plus extra for greasing
225g/8oz caster sugar
2 free-range eggs
4 ripe bananas, mashed
85ml/3fl oz buttermilk (or normal milk mixed with 1½ tsp lemon juice or vinegar)
1 tsp vanilla extract

Thermomix Preparation Method:

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.
In the thermomix bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy – I do this using the butterfly… Bring it slowly up to Speed 4 / 5 minutes – this stops the sugar mixture from splashing all over the TM bowl.
Remove the butterfly, and add the eggs, mashed bananas, buttermilk, and vanilla extract to the butter and sugar mixture. Mix on Speed 4 / 2 minutes.
Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt into the TM bowl, and fold the wet ingredients into the dry by hand. When mostly combined, pulse briefly for around ten seconds until more thoroughly mixed – try not to overwork the batter. Once you have removed 90% of the batter, you can briefly pulse again for just a few seconds – this will spin the remaining batter out of the blade an onto the side of the TM bowl.
Grease a 20cm x 12.5cm/8in x 5in loaf tin and pour the cake mixture into the tin.
Transfer to the oven and bake for about an hour, or until well-risen and golden-brown.
Remove from the oven and cool in the tin for a few minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely before serving.

Normal Preparation Method:

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.
Sift the flour, bicarbonate of soda and salt into a large mixing bowl.
In a separate bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs, mashed bananas, buttermilk and vanilla extract to the butter and sugar mixture and mix well. Fold in the flour mixture.
Grease a 20cm x 12.5cm/8in x 5in loaf tin and pour the cake mixture into the tin.
Transfer to the oven and bake for about an hour, or until well-risen and golden-brown.
Remove from the oven and cool in the tin for a few minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool completely before serving.

March 2, 2013 Chickpea

Moroccan chickpea soup…

My favourite Saturday lunch, always made by Hubby, is this incredibly simple but very aromatic soup. The lemon zest clears your jaded palate and sets you up for the weekend…

As chickpeas are an excellent source of fibre and protein, it’s the perfect dish for vegetarians and vegans, without compromising at all on flavour.

This particular recipe comes from the Good Food magazine, but there are a number of variations out there…

Ingredients
1 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion , chopped
2 celery sticks, chopped
2 tsp ground cumin
600ml hot vegetable stock
400g can chopped plum tomatoes with garlic
400g can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
100g frozen broad beans
zest and juice ½ lemon
large handful coriander or parsley and flatbread, to serve

Method

Heat the oil in a large saucepan, then fry the onion and celery gently for 10 mins until softened, stirring frequently. Tip in the cumin and fry for another min.
Turn up the heat, then add the stock, tomatoes and chickpeas, plus a good grind of black pepper. Simmer for 8 mins. Throw in broad beans and lemon juice, cook for a further 2 mins. Season to taste, then top with a sprinkling of lemon zest and chopped herbs. Serve with flatbread.

January 21, 2013 Baking

Chorizo and Fennel Seed Sausage Rolls

You may have realised, by now, that I’m catching up on all the recipes I intended to cook in December! A combination of gas leaks, children’s flu etc, has somewhat disrupted my schedule. One thing I really wanted to cook for my annual quiz night were Andy Bates’ chorizo and fennel seed sausage rolls…

Andy is an amazing advocate of street food, and travels the world exploring the tastiest. Whilst he is an extremely competent chef, often it’s just about great flavour combinations that are accessible to the home cook. I came across this recipe on one of the Food Networks Christmas roundups. They struck me as ideal party food, and much nicer than the usual sausage rolls. The chorizo mini-sausages have been sitting in my fridge for a few weeks now, so it seemed like an appropriate time to get on with them. Frankly they couldn’t be simpler, but this isn’t about complicated food, but simple, quick, scrumminess!

Ingredients:
200g mini cooking Chorizo
1 sheet pre-rolled puff pastry, cut in half lengthways
Egg yolk
1 tbsp fennel seeds (I used caraway)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Peel the mini chorizos and roll them in your hands to make a sausage shape.
Lay the mini chorizo lengthways along each piece of pastry. Roll and fold the pastry over the chorizo brushing the inside with egg yolk to help seal.
Using a fork seal the edges and trim any excess pastry, Cut the sausage rolls into individual rolls and place on a baking tray, lined with greaseproof paper. At this point you can transfer to a freezer-safe container, lined with greaseproof paper to cook from frozen later. Please note, cooking times will increase when cooking from frozen and you may need to lower your oven temperature slightly.
Brush with egg yolk and sprinkle with fennel seeds.
Bake for 15-20 minutes or until the pastry is puffed and golden brown.

Notes:

I really would chop your chorizo before you shape it. Firstly this will give you a better and more even sausage shape. Chopping the meat finely would also allow you to get a cleaner cut – I had to saw mine a little…
And this is one of those pastry recipes where it is important to cut the pastry cleanly, as this gives you more rise and layers in your pastry. But don’t swamp the pastry in egg wash, as this will inhibit those layers, so stay away from the edges, and cut cleanly.
If you’re looking at this, I’d highly recommend you check out the pic of Paul Ainsworth’s black pudding variant, which we had at his dinner with Alyn Williams. I think it looks ridiculously good, though by the time I got to it, I’d given up meat… Hubby said it was amazing though!