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Recent Vegetarian Recipes

Get your bake on…

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A Few Thermomix Recipes

Baking

Bread, Cake, Doughnut, Pudding… by Justin Gellatly

Screen Shot 2014-10-23 at 20.30.09Justin’s doughnuts may be renowned, but this book is about so much more than those tasty treats. The book is broken down into the following categories, with a few examples:

  • Breakfast (pikelets; granola clusters; William’s spud fry; the Full Monty soufflé; breakfast bun scrolls…)
  • Baking with bread (pumpkin seed bread; classic brioche; lardy cake; corn bread; sour dough; rye and malt sourdough…)
  • Savoury baking (truffle, cheese and potato pie; anchovy twists and cheese straws; sweet onion and fine herb tart…)
  • Cakes and teatime treats (Early Grey and honey loaf, croquembouche; bomber command buns; Devonshire splits…)
  • Biscuits (chocolate and oat snaps; the perfect dunking biscuit; the mega milky malt; coconut and cardamom biscuits…)
  • Doughnuts (the dough recipe; caramel custard and salted honeycomb sprinkle; Seville orange with ginger snap sprinkle…)
  • Warm to hot puddings (peach and Amaretto cobbler; prune armagnac and almond pudding; sticky banana pudding…)
  • Cold puddings (chocolate terrine; chocolate caramel brandy creams; chocolate pots; custard tart, chocolate brownie…)
  • Ice-cream (vanilla; blackberry and crème fraiche; orange and cardamom; brown sugars and hazelnut…)
  • The store cupboard (bread and butter pickles; pickled beetroot; tomato and chilli chutney; pumpkin seed oil…)

…

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Restaurant

Hutong, The Shard

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I love Northern Chinese cuisine, so have wanted to go to Hutong for some time now. Having finally managed to obtain a table last week, I’ve been twice in a week.  Why?  Well – on the first occasion we were so impressed by the plumptious kung pao prawns that I just had to have some more!…

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Recipe

Baked Mercenaria Mercenaria… Aka baked Clams, or Quahogs

I have a fabulous supplier, close to me, of all manner of delicious goodies.  Oakleaf European actually make twice weekly visits to Rungis, in Paris, and return with fabulous things for restaurants all over the UK, and even fly somethings abroad for one or two special restaurants.  Depending on the season their warehouse smells of truffles, the sweetest figs, planters of aromatic mint, basil, and bunches of chervil.

They can also supply me with all my Aromes and Sevarome pastes – and essential part of my patisserie larder, and Minus 8 vinegar, Japanese ginger vinegar…. The list is seemingly endless.

Returning to my house in the New Forest when I’ve had a delivery from Oakleaf is like being a child taken into your own sweetshop – my fridges groan with trays of carrots, apples, figs, heirloom tomatoes and the like. But there’s the rub, I need to order in 18’s rather than 6’s – so it’s always worth knowing that you have a spare fridge sitting waiting to receive all this bounty, and to supply the main kitchen when required.  Luckily I have a full house so often, that I know I can get through mountains of food in quite short order.

One of the items on my order this week were North Atlantic clams – Mercenaria mercenaria. They’re definitely bigger than venus clams, so not as suited to Linguine Vongole, which is what I would normally make for the 13 year old.  Instead I turned to our North American brethren – they call this type of clam a quahog, and often use it in chowder.  That seemed a little insensitive, given the quality of the clams, so instead I found a recipe which allowed for them to be minced and stuffed, then toasted with Parmesan – that sounded like an umami delight, so I’ve adapted a recipe by the Devon Seafood Grill, which exists rather bizarrely at the Hershey’s resort.  Yes. You read that correctly, Hershey’s has its own resort – who knew?

Ingredients:
10 large clams, rinsed (I used Mercenaria mercenaria, and had a whopping 17)
100ml of white wine
4 tablespoons shallots, minced
1 garlic clove, minced
115g unsalted butter
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
3 tablespoons fresh chopped chervil (or parsley)
50g panko bread crumbs
1 tablespoon cooking liquid from clams
60g parmesan cheese, grated
Salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste

Method:

  • Fill a large pot with 2 inches of water and bring to a boil. Add the clams and reduce heat to a simmer. Allow the clams to open, 6-10 minutes. Remove and allow clams to cool enough to handle. Discard any unopened clams.
  • Remove the clam meat and mince finely. Break the shells in half and save 10-12 of the nicest shells.
  • Preheat oven to 180ºC / 350ºF.
  • In a medium saute pan, melt the butter on medium heat, add the onions, and soften, 3-4 minutes. Add the garlic and cook another minute. Add the rest of the ingredients and stir until all is moistened. Add more cooking liquid if too dry and more panko if too wet.
  • Lay the clam shells on a baking tray and fill each clam with the mixture. Sprinkle with the parmesan cheese and bake for 20-25 minutes or until cheese is browned.

Optional: Squeeze fresh lemon juice just before eating.

Notes:
  • Your clams will come to you “dry”, that is not in water, as they actually drown if left in plain water.  Consequently it will be difficult for you to assess how dirty they are.  I pop mine into a gallon of room temperature water (that’s around four litres), with roughly 100g of sea salt (and sometimes a handful of polenta, to see if they will purge themselves).  Depending on the level of activity, I will whip them out after half an hour, and give them a good scrub.  If you pick the shell up, you’ll probably feel a certain sliminess on the shell, this is a definite indication they need to be cleaned.  You’ve only to clean one and compare it to the others to see what I mean, and I’ve included that in the photos.
  • This recipe calls for you to bring the liquid to the boil, then add the clams – I think you’re in real danger of smashing their shells if you do that, so I brought mine to the boil with the clams inside the pan.  However, I do have a power setting on my hob, which I timed, and took less than one minute to come to temperature.  You’ll need to make your own judgement based on your equipment.
  • I steamed mine in half plain water, and half sauvignon blanc – well come on – I am a European – it seems like a complete anathema to cook shellfish without some wine in the pan, especially if it’s going into a sauce afterwards.
  • Once the lid goes on the pan, the temperature will rise rapidly again, to keep it at a simmer you will need to adjust it downwards slightly.
  • It would be a crime to throw away all that cooking liquor, so sieve it through a fine cloche, and reduce it down!
  • I think it would be worth drying and oiling the shells before filling them, just to ensure that they don’t stick too much.

When checking shellfish like clams, there are only a few basic rules:

    • Rinse the clams, checking for any with broken shells – throw away any who’s shells are damaged
    • If the shells are not firmly closed, and do not close when you rap them hard – throw them away
    • Do not store them in fresh water
    • When you’ve cooked them, throw away any which have not opened during cooking!
    • So, very simple, must close when raw, must be open when cooked…

This is a dirty clam – you can see the dirt ingrained into the rings

These are the same clams when they’ve been scrubbed

Pop the clams gently into the pot – you don’t want to smash their shells

Only cook the clams until they’ve opened fully, making sure you leave enough room to allow them to “breathe” – move them gently with two spoons if you need to

Leave the clams to cool slightly

Once the mixture is ready, popped it into the shells and pop it into the oven

You can serve the clams on a bed of salt

Recipe

Malaysian Prawn and Pineapple Curry

Hubby makes a LOT of curries – curries and tagines. He’s often constrained by my need to eat fish or shellfish, but luckily there are any number of dishes from Asia and the Indian subcontinent which suit my requirements perfectly.  His favourite cookbooks are those by Atul Kochhar, Rick Stein and more recently my chum Dhruv Baker, and he also attended one of Atul’s courses, and prepared a meal for the lunch service. Hubby gained a number of useful insights into preparing curry, chief of which appears to be proper cooking of onions.  This recipe is actually a Malaysian curry, known as Udang Masak, and is based on one taught to Atul by Maria Mustafa…

 
Ingredients:

3 tablespoons vegetable or groundnut oil
Flesh from 1/2 small pineapple, peeled and diced
2 tablespoons palm sugar
500g raw prawns, peeled but with tails left on, cleaned and deveined
3 small tomatoes, cut into quarters
300ml coconut milk
Salt

Serves 4-6

For the paste:
2 thick lemongrass stalks, thinly sliced
3 shallots, chopped
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
3 red chillies, chopped
1 green chilli, chopped
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
4-6 candlenuts or macadamia nuts
A few spring onions, chopped into 2.5cm lengths to garnish

Method:

  • Pound or blend together all the paste ingredients with 2-3 tablespoons of water to make a fine paste. Heat the oil in a wok and fry the paste over a medium heat for 5-8min or until well cooked (there should be no smell of raw garlic and the oil should have started to separate out).
  • Add the pineapple and sauté for 2-3min, then add the sugar, some salt and 400ml water [see Notes]. Bring to the boil, then simmer for 3-5min or until the pineapple softens.
  • Add the prawns and continue to simmer for 4-5min or until the prawns turn pink and opaque. Add the tomatoes and cook for a further 2-3min, then pour in the coconut milk. Bring back to the boil, stirring well. Simmer gently for a further 3-5min, then serve, garnished with a few batons of spring onion.
Notes:
  • The curry is quite fragrant, and very sweet.  If you’re going to make it, I would suggest serving alongside a contrasting dish, perhaps Dhruv Baker’s green bean salad, with red onion and black mustard seeds.  It’s a delicious curry, and well-suited to those who don’t like very spicy curries.
  • Hubby didn’t add all of the water – he added around 150 ml he thinks, and that was still a little too much liquid.  Either Atul drains the curry a little before serving it, or something has been lost in the recipe process.  Below is the photo of Atul’s dish.  (I should point out Hubby’s is in a serving bowl, rather than an individual portion – hence the difference in quantity :0)

Book Review

Food Styling: The Art of Preparing Food for the Camera… by Delores Custer

This is a huge tome, probably more than any blogger or the like is looking for, though full of very interesting tips… Delores is a professional food stylist, so this covers everything from working with film crews, to rearranging an open packet of biscuits. Having said that, there’s something on every page to make you think…

If we thought about the question of, should bacon be wavy or straight in a sandwich, we would probably conclude it looked better wavy… But would we really think about it before we made the sandwich and took the shot? Delores does, and shows you why it looks better…

Want the tomato and lettuce in the picture of the burger to look really fresh? Squirt a few drops of water onto them just before shooting…

A torn muffin is texturally much more interesting than a cut one – and she shows you both…

On a more commercial level, Delores reveals that a bowl of cereal, complete with a perfect splash and dripping spoon, is actually made up of a bowl of vegetable shortening with flakes pressed into it, a fake acrylic splash, and gentleman’s hair grooming lotion – crikey, only the cereal is real, and as that’s what they’re selling, everything else can legitimately be faked…

The book covers the entire process from bidding for a job, setting it up, your team-mates, what to expect from others, billing, and the perfect tool kit for a stylist. If you’re looking for a ‘how to plate your food’ book, then I’m not sure this is the best one for beginners. If you’re looking to take your food styling to another level, and want to see why one option works where another does not, this is an excellent book.

You can buy Food Styling here >

Baking

Orange and Cranberry Scones

The 9 year old’s on-going quest for the perfect bake has turned to scones.  So far we’ve made conventional scones, cheese, raisin, and this variation from a recipe by Ina Garten (aka The Barefoot Contessa).  Ina’s version includes cream and is made in the kitchen aid – I’ve included it because the ingredients and technique varied a great deal from the English versions I saw.

Some recipes included buttermilk, but that’s often because the acidity in the buttermilk acts on the raising agents, causing a better rise in the scone.  This is one of the few scone recipes I found however that included double cream – and it does make for a rich scone.  The higher fat content also ensures a more consistent scone.

For the scone:

560g plain flour, plus 35g extra
50g caster sugar, plus extra for sprinkling
2 tbsp baking powder
2 tsp salt
5g grated orange zest
340g cold unsalted butter, diced
4 large eggs, lightly beaten
240ml cold double cream
165g dried cranberries
1 egg beaten with 2 tbsp water or milk, for egg wash
For the Icing:
75g icing sugar
20ml freshly squeezed orange juice
Method:
  • Preheat the oven to 200C/Gas 6. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, mix 560g of the flour, 50g caster sugar, the baking powder, salt and orange zest. Add the cold butter and mix at the lowest speed until the butter is the size of peas.
  • Combine the eggs and double cream and, with the mixer on low speed, slowly pour into the flour and butter mixture. Mix until just blended. The dough will look lumpy! Combine the dried cranberries and 35g of flour, add to the dough, and mix on low speed until blended.
  • Dump the dough onto a well-floured surface and knead it into a ball. Flour your hands and a rolling pin and roll the dough 1.5cm thick. You should see small bits of butter in the dough. Keep moving the dough on the floured board so it doesn’t stick.
  • Flour a 7.5cm round plain or fluted cutter and cut circles of dough. Place the scones on a baking pan lined with parchment paper. Collect the scraps neatly, roll them out, and cut more circles. At this point you can transfer to a freezer-safe container 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 the tops of the scones with egg wash, sprinkle with the remaining caster sugar, and bake for 20 to 25 mins, until the tops are browned and the insides are fully baked. The scones will be firm to the touch.
  • Allow the scones to cool for 15 mins and then whisk together the icing sugar and orange juice, and drizzle over the top.
Notes:
  • I didn’t cover my scones in the glaze, it seemed a little too sweet for my more puritanical tastes – since I’ve given up sugar, anything covered in glaze seems a little extreme…
  • I did however top my scones in a little grated lime zest, which added perfume and a little more acidity to the scone
  • Yes, the picture shows it served “Devon” style, rather than “Cornish” – that is with the cream first, and then topped with the jam…  Personally I have absolutely no preference!
  • For purists, the fluted cutter is used for scones that include fruit, and the smooth cutter for plain scones.

Blackening Spice

Blackened Fish (or Chicken)

Since I have eschewed meat, I’ve been eating predominantly fish.  Hardly a hardship I hear you cry, especially when the fish I buy is usually some gorgeous (ethically sourced) bit of wild fish, such as sea trout, or halibut.  But still, fish several times a week can become a little bit uninspiring.  In Antigua I spotted a blackened flying fish burger, with a brioche bun, and a spiced remoulade – I think I must have eaten it three or four times in the remaining days before I had to fly home.


I scoured the net for blackening mixtures, and then played around with a few different recipes – they were pretty consistent in their ingredients, and after a little trial and error with the thirteen year old, we settled on the following mixture. This batch is enough to make about 8 fillets of fish, so don’t pop it all into the plate in one go, and you should have enough left to make a further meal.

Ingredients:
3 tsp sweet paprika
1 tsp chilli powder

1½ tsp cumin
1 tsp nutmeg
2 tsp thyme
2 tsp oregano
4 tsp onion powder
4 tsp garlic powder
1½ Tbs golden granulated sugar
3 tsp salt
4 tsp black pepper
Method:
Mix all of the ingredients together.  Coat the meat or fish in the blackening spice, and cook in a skillet, or heavy frying pan, until the fish or meat is cooked. #simples
Notes:
  • You can up the oregano and thyme if you prefer a grassier mixture – we found it overwhelmed the balance if any greater than this, but the joy of blackening spice is that you can adapt it to suit your personal tastes
  • Ditto the sugar, we’ve made it with the sugar, and without – it’s definitely nicer when it’s included as it adds a caramel edge to the blackening
  • Although this blend sounds as though it will be quite hot, it’s more of a fragrant tingling heat, than a blow-your-socks-off, palate-numbing combination.  The heat comes predominantly from the black pepper, so if you want to make it truly spicy, you might consider upping the chilli powder
  • Yes, part of the gig is that you actually have to blacken your food!  I usually pop it into a high heat first, blackening on both sides, before turning it down and allowing the fish to cook through.

Baking

Coconut Milk Creme Patisserie

231d6-p1010309I use the standard Creme Patisserie recipe on the blog a lot, but in a recent recipe (which contained a coconut curd), I thought I might make a coconut milk variation – after all the fat content of coconut milk is quite high, and the consistency can be similar to milk.  I altered the recipe slightly, but that was because I included 30ml of Malibu, and an increased quantity of flour – I wanted to be able to pipe the creme pat into quite stiff peaks on the plate, for a specific dessert.
Ingredients:

300g coconut milk 60g unrefined caster sugar
30g unsalted good quality butter
30 ml Malibu 45g plain flour
3 free range egg yolks
the seeds from 1 vanilla pod
pinch of salt

Method:

Put all the ingredients into the Thermomix bowl and cook for 7 minutes at 90C, speed 4.

Give it a quick whizz at the end to ensure it’s smooth, then pour into a bowl and cover with cling film until it’s cool.
 
Yes – that’s it!  Keep it in your fridge until you require it.

Oh. And if you’re stupid enough to stick in a block of quite cool butter, do put the lid on properly and start the machine quite slowly.

Alba Truffle

Oeufs en Cocotte, Alba Truffle, and King Oyster Mushrooms

Some supper dishes are so simple that they should be saved until you have some really special ingredients – oeufs en cocotte (baked eggs) are the perfect example.  A quick tour of the fridge reveals lovely Legbar eggs, the remains of an alba truffle from Christmas, and king oyster mushrooms.  Baked together like this it’s not a supper dish but a feast…


Ingredients:

Legbar eggs (at least one per person, depending on their size and your appetite)
Single cream or creme fraiche
1 finely diced shallot
2-3 king oyster mushrooms
Truffle butter, or unsalted butter
Alba or black truffle

Method:

  • Pre-heat the oven to 180ºC (350ºF)
  • Chop the mushroom stems into fine dice (duxelle), but reserve the top of the mushroom to slice finely
  • Cook the diced mushroom and shallot in the truffle butter until they are softened and set aside
  • Gently fry the sliced mushroom tops, making sure they retain their shape
  • Butter the inside of a small ramekin or similar dish
  • Put a quantity of the diced mushroom into the bottom of the ramekin
  • Place a sliced mushroom on top of the duxelle, and a few slices of truffle on top of that
  • Pour a little cream over the mushrooms
  • Season each layer!
  • Break one or two eggs into the ramekin, and place a few slices of the mushroom cap delicately over the egg
  • Top the mixture with single cream, or some creme fraiche thinned with a little milk
  • Top with a little more sliced mushroom and grated truffle
  • Put the ramekins into the bottom of a roasting tin, and fill up the outside of the tin with boiling water, which should reach up to half the height of the ramekin.  It’s much easier to do this on the actual oven shelf, to avoid spilling boiling water all over yourself
  • For Legbar eggs, cook for about 18 minutes
  • Finely slice some more truffle over the cooked egg and serve with either a little toast, or perhaps some asparagus if in season.
Mushroom duxelle, garlic and finely sliced mushroom top
On the bottom, the seasoned mushroom duxelle, topped with slices of mushroom and grated truffle
Add a layer of cream or creme fraiche

Make a little indent in the mixture, and tip in the egg

Top again with a little cream, and further layers of mushroom

Don’t forget to season the layers

Place the ramekins in a deep pan, and top up with boiling water, up to about half way

Serve with some good toasted sourdough, like Poilaine

Casserole

Chicken Casserole with Fennel, Lemon, Garlic and Mushrooms

I’ve no idea where this idea came from, as I’d originally intended to make a chicken chasseur.   When I opened the fridge though, I had an excellent head of fennel, amazing lemons, some beautiful pink garlic and some of my new favourite king oyster mushrooms. It reminded me of one of my absolute favourite summer lunches – finely sliced fennel, served with a garlic and lemon dressing, and seared chicken breasts which have been marinated in garlic and lemon juice.  I think it just seemed logical to give it a go…


Not everything is going to work each time you take a punt, but I’m sure there’s a similar Greek dish that I think contain olives…  As I’ve never been to Greece, it’s not something I’ve tasted, but it seemed to make sense in a Mediterranean kind of way…

Ingredients:

4 good organic chicken breasts
4 king oyster mushrooms
1/2 a large head of fennel
2 shallots
3 tablespoons of plain flour, seasoned with salt and pepper
1 lemon
2 cloves of garlic
800ml good chicken stock

Method:

  • Butterfly the chicken breasts and cut them in half lengthways 
  • Dust the breasts in well-seasoned flour
  • Heat a tablespoon of butter and olive oil in a pan, and fry the breast until crusty and golden – do not move them around in the pan, you want the crust to stay on the chicken.  Only fry up to three breasts at a time too, so that you don’t overcrowd the pan
  • Removed the chicken and set aside 
  • Roughly chop half a large head of fennel into rough dice
  • Cut of about 1/4 of the king oyster mushroom and set the tops aside, roughly dice the remaining 3/4 of the stalk
  • Chop an equivalent amount of shallots roughly, and then sauté the mushrooms, fennel, two garlic cloves finely sliced and shallots in the pan, scraping up the chicken juices.  Do add more butter or oil if the pan is too dry
  • When everything has softened, deglaze the pan with about a glass of marsala
  • Add 1/2 bottle of white wine to the pan 
  • Finely slice the mushroom tops – I didn’t fry them, I poached them in the pan and in the white wine – because king oyster mushrooms are so flesh and meaty, I wanted to keep them tender
  • Peel a lemon and cut into segments – I cut mine lengthways vertically, then into quarters, then cut the quarters into halves horizontally
  • Put the chicken and lemon segments back into the dish, and add 500ml of good chicken stock
  • Put the casserole dish into the oven for at least an hour, I left mine at 160ºC for two hours.  If you needed it faster, you could raise the temperature up to 180ºC
  • I served mine with green beans.
Notes:
  • If you don’t like lemon chicken, you’re going to loathe this, avoid at all costs
  • If you like lemon chicken, you’re going to LOVE this… It’s much more complex than lemon chicken, the chicken stock adds a certain savouriness that rounds out the sourness of the lemon segments
  • You could easily add marinated olives to this, the saltiness would add another flavour dimension (in fact I even have lemon stuffed olives in my pantry, perhaps I’ll add them next time!)
Chop the fennel and 3/4 of the mushroom stalk into rough dice.
Slice the top of the mushroom top into slices.
The chicken, before it goes into the oven
Chicken casserole with fennel, lemon, garlic and mushrooms