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.

Ah… breakfast…

Sadly didn’t think about taking a photo of this before I ate it, but will share the recipe anyway and stick a photo up next time i do it! So for now, here’s some nice mushrooms which are a key flavour in this dish…

Did this kind of by accident, but it’s a great breakfast recipe – bacon, mushrooms, hint of garlic and pancakes!

Recipe (makes two pancakes – depends how greedy you are how many that serves…)

100g plain white flour

1 medium egg

about 150ml milk (i tend to add it by eye to get the batter consistency right…)

pinch of salt, pepper and optional all spice

 

3-4 rashers of decent streaky bacon (you want plenty of flavour, none of your watery stuff…), chopped into lardons

40g butter

5-6 chestnut mushrooms chopped

2 cloves garlic, crushed

Pinch of parsley

Good sprinkling of black pepper

splash of white wine

dusting of plain flour

splash of milk

 

Method

Dead easy.  Combine the batter ingredients and whisk until smooth.  Leave to one side for a couple of mins while you prep the filling.

Fry the bacon for a couple of minutes until starting to crisp, then add the butter, mushrooms and garlic, and fry until the mushrooms brown. Add the wine and cook off, then add the black pepper, parsley, then little bit of of flour, cooking it into the pan – you want it to combine with the fat, as if making a béchamel, so keep it moving, then add the milk, combine and then turn off the heat – you want some sauce, no lumps and no burnt bits.

In the midst of the above, i’d have a pre-heated frying pan, or tava (the indian flat pan, ideal for pancakes, used for dosas and chapattis), and start doing the pancakes – just a dash of oil, then enough of the pancakes mix to cover the whole surface of the pan.  Cook on one-side until the visible surface is set, then flip it over and cook for another couple of mins – check it’s done by flipping it again.

Serve each one with some of the filling, then rolled. Great start to a Saturday, all in about 15 minutes!

Mini Pastilla's

This recipe was put together for a birthday party I catered for - it was a cold buffet and we wanted something that minimised mess and cutlery, but wasn't the traditional curly sandwich-type fare.  So I came up with this - the mini pastilla.  I got the idea from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage Cookbook- he makes a larger one using rabbit, with scrambled egg and coriander under the lid.  The principle of this is much the same - it's a small filo parcel with slow-cooked spicy meat inside, dusted with icing sugar - very very edible, and great hot or cold.

Ingredients
(makes about 8-10 parcels - depending how big you do them!)
400g lamb - any cut will do, except breast - chopped into bite-sized pieces
2 tbsp olive oil
1 large (pref banana) shallot, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, chopped and crushed
sprig of thyme

1 Bay leaf

1 cinnamon stick

1 glass red wine
50g Dried apricot
Honey
2 tsp Ras el Hanout spice blend (you can get this from Asian supermarkets, or otherwise this is a typical blend)
1 tsp Allspice

1/2 a grated nutmeg

Pinch of chili powder (optional)
1 pint good veg stock

1 pack of filo pastry
A few fresh coriander leaves

Butter for brushing onto pastry

Icing sugar for dusting

Brown the meat in the olive oil in a heavy-bottomed pan, sealing on all sides, then remove from the pan.  Add the onions and garlic, then the bay leaf, cinnamon stick and thyme, frying until the onions are lightly covered.  

Return the meat to the pan and add the red wine, frying until the alcohol is cooked off, then add the apricots, honey, and other spices and a few fresh coriander leaves.  Stir to combine, remove the bay leaf, thyme sprig and cinnamon stick, add the honey, then cover the lot with the stock and cook on a low heat for a couple of hours, until the meat is falling apart and the juices are thick (add water or more stock if it's too dry and the meat isn't cooked).  Once cooked, transfer to a shallow dish an allow to cool.

To make the parcels, take one filo sheet and divide it into 4 (each sheet will make 2 parcels - you can just half the sheets to make larger ones).  Brush butter on to one side of one sheet and lay another at 90 degrees to it (making a rough cross).  Place a tablespoon of the meat mixture into the middle and fold the pastry layers over the top, sealing with more butter.  Continue until you run out pastry or meat - you don't have to be particularly neat, it's sposed to look rustic...

Once you've made them all, bake them on a tray until the pastry's golden - should be about 20 mins.  If you're serving them straight away, dust them immediately with the icing sugar.  If you're serving them cold, wait until they're cool, then dust them.

Then eat them.