Biscuit overload

Spent a very productive Saturday afternoon in the kitchen this weekend, trying out some of my mum’s biscuit recipes – the ones she used to make when we were kids for Christmas and Easter, lightly spicy and warming.  She’s a great baker and they really stuck in my mind, so i thought, given that I’m now branching into baking, I’d give ‘em a bash.

The first one I’m going to share (will do them one at a time… good things and all that…) is a great recipe for Grantham biscuits – crunchy, ginger biscuits.  Other recipes will include Larkhay biscuits, Cornish fairings and Easter biscuits (with a Christmas twist).

Mum’s original recipe (from a Woman’s Weekly apparently…) used just powdered ginger, but I’ve pepped it up a little bit with some stem – so you get a lovely chewy piece occasionally.  Be warned, these are very moorish!  I’m trying to avoid scoffing the lot before Wednesday when some of the drama gang come round for a meeting…

Recipe

(makes about 16 biscuits – and in keeping with the traditional roots of the recipe, quantities are in imperial!)

2oz Butter

4oz Caster Sugar

4oz self-raising flour

1 tsp ground ginger

20g (ok most of the quantities… i can’t think in imperial…) stem or crystalised ginger, chopped up very small

up to 2 tbsp water

Method

Cream the butter and caster sugar together – this is easiest using a mixer, but works equally well rubbing the butter into the sugar in the same you would flour for a pastry.  You’re aiming for a light fluffy ‘dough’.  Sift the flour and powdered ginger, and add the stem ginger, then the water, and work into a usable dough, but don’t knead too much.

Divide the mix into 16 equal portions (half, half, half, etc…) and shape each bit into a ball, then flatten slightly on to a tray lined with baking parchment.  The spread quite a lot – almost trebling in size – so make sure you leave plenty of room round each, and don’t put them too close to the edge of the tray, or it’ll drop off onto your oven…

Bake on about 150 degrees C (GM2) for about 20 mins until lightly golden.  When done, take them out, but do not try and take them off the tray straight away.  They will be very delicate and soft until they’ve cooled and hardened.  Leave them for about 10 minutes until you can pick the tray up with your hands (though be sensible!! – if your daft enough to pick it up early, not my fault!) and transfer them to a wire cooling rack.

You don’t really need to serve these with anything – they should be slightly soft and gingery, not too hard.

Cooking for the thesps

Had a long but fantastic week last week – playing Bob Cratchit in a very successful am dram production of Christmas Carol with St Paul’s Players in Bristol.  I also offered to do the food for the cast and crew for between the two Saturday shows and was blown away by the response –  homemade sausage rolls, pastillas, rabbit pie, veggie and meat tartlets and cheese and onion plats – and the lot was demolished in the space of half an hour, along with four quiches donated to the effort by another member!

One thing i was really chuffed with was the gluten-free shortcrust tartlets i made.  Gluten-free flour is, according to everyone i’ve spoken to, a major pain to work with – and for the first hour i concurred.  I used my standard recipe, adding just a touch of olive oil to mix, and chilled the pastry overnight.  Getting it out of the fridge the following day i started to work it normally, but it just crumbled… might be my fridge was too cold, but it was turning to chalk – much like the flour itself looked though to be honest!

Anyway, perseverance and working it in small chunks, and letting it up to room temperature really came together.  The recipes (requested by a member of the group) are…

Pastry (makes about 20 tartlets) – very slightly adapted from Richard Bertinet’s shortcrust recipe
250ml gluten-free flour
125ml butter
5g salt
35ml water
1 medium egg
5-10ml olive oil

Combine the dry ingredients and then rub in the butter.  Add the water, egg and olive oil and mix well, working it until combined, but not too much.  Once combined, chill in the fridge for at least an hour.

To roll, divide the dough into at least quarters, and leave out of the fridge until at room temperature.  Roll each section slowly and patiently, adding only enough flour to keep it from sticking – too much and your dough will be too heavy.  Roll it to about 4mm thick and use a 8cm pastry cutter to cut into circles.

Veggie filling
1 onion
20g butter
1 parsnip
1 carrot
30ml cider vinegar
water to cover
all spice
50g sugar
Fry the onion until translucent, then add the root veg until it gets a little colour.  Add the vinegar and all spice, then enough water to cover it and cook until the veg is tender, then uncover, add the sugar and reduce it until the water is absorbed or evaporated.

Meat filling
6 good quality gluten-free sausages, de-skinned
2-3 rashers of streaky bacon, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1 onion, finely chopped
2 apples, finely chopped – golden delicious works well
splash of balsamic vinegar
splash of cider vinegar
teaspoon each of thyme and sage
seasoning to taste – and it will take a fair bit

Fry the onion and garlic until tender, then add the apples and cider vinegar – also a splash of water to stop it sticking.  Once the apples have soften, mash slightly and leave to cool.

Combine the other ingredients well and add the apples when cool.  Get your hands in the mixing bowl and squidge together thoroughly, making sure the sausages are completely broken down.

Each pastry circle should take about a tablespoon of either filling. There’s no need to bake the cases blind first, as they’re small enough to cook quickly anyway.  Bake for twenty minutes, then brush the top with whisked egg, and bake for another 10 or until golden.

Welcome

Hi everyone, this is the blog’s unofficial launch day (official one to come when a few more people know about it i think!) – or rather, a cheeky way to bring it to all my Facebook friend’s attention, just in case they hid my posts for being an opinionated git during the election :-).

Not quite sure what I'm going to cook tonight – I've got some large King Prawns out of the freezer and some granary bread baton left over so i might do some sort of Mediterranean thing i think. Will tell you later…
Anyway, one thing i think it might be helpful to share was a word about rice. Quite a few people struggle to get rice consistently right, and it can be a faff – you have to check it over and over again, and there’s still the inevitable ‘oh crap’ moment when you realise it’s gone slightly over… Well there is a way to get it right consistently – works particularly well on Basmati.

Wash the rice and shake all the water out of it.  Then heat a small amount of oil in the pan you’re going to cook it in (just enough oil to lightly coat the rice, not loads) – you can add any spices at this stage too if you’re doing pilau or other flavoured rice.  Once the oil is hot, add the rice and stir it for a minute or two to coat it all.  Then add the water…

The water should be boiled prior to adding, and then comes the trick.  Add the same amount of water by volume as the amount of rice – you can do this by eye or by measuring if you want too.  Keep the pot on a medium-high heat until the water starts boiling, then put the lid on and take the pot off the heat.  The rice will keep cooking and will absorb all the water in the pan – but won’t overcook. 

Once done, you can either serve straight away, or leave it to cool.  If you cool it, spread it out on large plate or dish so it cools as fast as possible, then refrigerate it (only once cold).  Don’t serve lukewarm rice or leave rice out once it’s cooled – it’s one of easiest foods to get food poisoning from…
Anyway, lecture over, hope that’s helpful to some of you!

A first recipe to keep you going

Right then, here goes nuthin...

Pan fried cod fillet

This one is a homage to Rick Stein, courtesy of his Seafood book, but with a few tweeks - mostly to the sauce and seasoning, which is much richer and sweeter than in the original. A similar dish to this got slated in the semis of Masterchef last year as a fusion too far, but I think it's a great combo - it's about the contrasting flavours, textures, richness and creaminess, really decadent, but simple to do.

(Serves 2)

Two decent sized fillets of cod - about 200g each - pin boned, but skin still on.

1 tbsp of sunflower oil

Flour for dusting

Sprinkling of five spice

4 floury potatoes for mashing

2-3 spring onions

2 tbsp soy sauce

Bunch of fresh coriander

2 tbsp of brown sugar or palm sugar (or about the same of honey)

600ml fish or veg stock

3-4 cherry tomatoes sliced into quarters

Butter and/or milk for the mashed potatoes

Salt and pepper to season

Combine the soy sauce and stock and bring to boil, then add the sugar. Reduce by about two thirds, until it's a thin syrup, then keep hot.

Fry the spring onion lightly in a little butter until just tender - don't brown them as it will taste bitter - then leave to one side.

Peel and boil the potatoes until ready to break apart, drain , then mash well, adding the butter and/or milk (I use butter in this recipe as you don't want the mash to be thin). Then combine the potatoes with the spring onion.

Preheat a heavy frying pan on a medium heat and Season the fish, then turn flesh side down and dust with the flour and tiny pinch of five spice. Place gently in the pan skin-side down and cook until done - you can turn them over if you want to, but be careful when you turn them back or serve them that they don't break up on you...

Add the coriander and tomatoes to the sauce and stir.

Serve with a nice bed of mash in the middle, place the fish on top of the bed and pour the sauce liberally over the lot. then eat.

First ever blog

Hi everybody (or probably nobody...)

this is my first foray in to the realm of blogging, and what better thing to blog about than something we all have to have everyday - food! So the plan is to do a regular (if not daily) blog talking about what i've cooked that day, or meals i've had out and about.

So... here goes... today i found out that i've got through to the heats for a cooking show - the dish i'm preparing is a bit of strange hybrid born out of having things in the cupboard/fridge, a quick trip the supermarket, and a couple of poussin... and potato gnocchi.

I've been making pasta for a year or so - i don't do it all the time but it's nice and relaxing on a sunday afternoon, and tastes great. But i'd never had a go at making gnocchi before - for uninitiated (which included me until a few weeks ago) it's made with potato and flour rather than eggs, flour and olive oil, and there's a definite knack to it - my first attempt came out grey (interestingly it often seems to have a little turmeric on to give it the same colour as egg pasta... check next time you're in the supermarket) and a bit stodgy, so attempt number two is tonight, and i have to have it cracked in three weeks. So the next few weeks may well be an update on progress towards perfick gnocchi (or moaning cos nothing seems to work...).

I don't think i can post the recipe i'm cooking for the show at this point - will need to check - but will do as soon as i can - it's simple and with one exception, you can get everything from your local supermarket. In the meantime, this is what it looks like.