Tag Archives: No Oven Required

December 15, 2011 · 20:29

World’s Easiest Chocolate Truffles

Easy Chocolate Truffles

Easy and Delicious

I have to start this post with a warning. These truffles will not last. Not because they are made from anything particularly perishable, but because people will not believe that you made them, because they are so good. This is what my party guests said to me the other day. Of course, I liked this so much; I thought I would reproduce their words.

Warnings aside, these little chocolates are at the least difficult end of the chocolatier’s scale. If you watch any TV programmes where they make desserts, the chefs will always tell you that chocolate work is demanding, exact and delicate. The only thing that is true of these very basic truffles is that you have to be exact about the amounts that you use, otherwise you will end up with the basis for a nice chocolate sauce, but it will not be thick enough for the ganache that is required. There is no heating things up to precise temperatures, as you have to when tempering chocolate; no delicate curls or swirling effects; no allowing things to set so you can complete the next stage; really none of the complex stuff that you see the likes of Eric Lanlard or Adriano Zumba would have you believe is part of every pâtissier’s daily life.

So, these little treats would not be elegant enough to grace the shelves of a Belgian chocolatier, or a Parisian Pâtissier, or even your local Thornton’s, now I mention it. But if you make them for guests, or as a present, they will go down a treat. Because they do represent something into which you have invested love, and time, anyone you make these for will be more spoilt than the guests at the ambassador’s party!

Recipe: Chocolate Truffles

Ingredients

225 g of the best chocolate that you can get hold of. I think (although this is, as yet, untested) that this is the secret to these truffles. It doesn’t matter if it is plain, milk or white, just good quality.

175 ml of double cream. It is important that you measure this as accurately as you can. If your measuring jug is not accurate enough, either double the amount you make, so you need 350 ml of cream, or weigh it. Although not precise, you can use 1g to = 1 ml, just dont add all the cream at once.

Cocoa powder / icing sugar/chopped nuts for dusting.

Method

In a pan, slowly bring the cream up to boiling point (where small bubbles form around the edge of the pan) but do not allow it to boil.

Cream at boiling point

Note -bubbles, not boiling

Meanwhile chop the chocolate up into small pieces.

Finely Chopped Chocolate

The finer you can chop it, the smoother the truffles will be

Pour the warm cream into the chocolate. The cream should melt the chocolate, but it should still be pretty thick. Stir the chocolate to make sure there are no lumps. This is your ganache.

Chocolate Ganache

Ganache – cooling

You may need slightly less cream in milk and white chocolate, to form a thick ganache, so pour it in slowly. You can always add a little more cream, but you cannot take it away if you have added too much, so caution here is advisable.

Leave the ganache to cool and thicken. This will take at least 1 ½ hours, but if you wish, you can speed this up slightly by placing the bowl to sit in a sink of cold water. It is very important that you do not allow any water to get into your ganache, as this will affect the thickness and the way it sets. Do not refrigerate to speed up the cooling. This will make your ganache too hard to work with. Plus putting hot things into a fridge is not very efficient, as the fridge then has to work much harder to maintain a constant temperature.

Ganache at the right thickness

This is about the right consistency for shaping

Once you have a thick ganache, spoon out small amounts, and roll gently into balls. Try to keep your hands cold, so that you don’t melt the chocolate too much. You can do this by running them in cold water, between each ball. Alternatively, you can shape them into quenelles, by using two teaspoons to mould them. If you have a little melon baller, you could also shape them with that too.

Once you have your shaped truffles, prepare a saucer with some cocoa powder, icing sugar, or finely chopped nuts. Or have saucers with some of each if you want variety. Gently roll the truffles on the saucer until they have a fine coating of your choice.

These are the finished truffles, which you can either plate up and put out for guests, or put in a pretty box to give out as presents. I promise you, people will be really impressed.

Variations

Just like Mareike’s Mayan Chocolate Mousse, varieties are very easy to make.

Use different flavours of chocolate, although avoid any with large nuts or lumps

Spice or flavour the cream, using spices, flavoured syrups for coffee, extracts (e.g. vanilla or flower extracts – I would not use “essence” which is usually artificial) ginger, vanilla, or a little alcohol of your choice

Once the ganache is made add a little chopped dried fruit or nuts for variety

Roll in flavoured sugars to coat

5 Comments

Filed under Feast

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

December 6, 2011 · 12:01

Pumpkin, Bacon and Swiss Chard Soup

Bacon Pumkin & Swiss Chard Soup

A soup for this season – warm and velvety

It is that time of year when my cooking is populated with soups. They are great for using up slightly too tough or slightly too old vegetables. And in the Netherlands, it is practically compulsory to have soup and a sandwich for lunch, whatever the weather outside. I am likely to be making quite a few more before the winter is out.

This year, I lost my young pumpkin plants to something, most likely slug-shaped. However, the chard has been going strong for a while now. As I would ordinarily be feasting on my own pumpkins, I have decided that it is not really cheating to add this to the ‘Farmed’ category.

I like my soups quite chunky, and my greens slightly underdone – having been subjected to many an overboiled brassica in my youth. You may prefer to pre cook or even use frozen greens in this soup, and chop or blend them a bit finer. This soup keeps very well in the fridge, and should also freeze well, although I have not tried it.

This soup is easily adaptable for vegetarians, just omit the bacon, and fry the onion in olive oil. I would suggest that you add slightly more smoked paprika at the end instead of the bacon.

Recipe: Pumkin, Bacon & Swiss Chard Soup

Ingredients

450 g pumpkin

A pinch dried chilli flakes

2-3 cloves garlic

2 tsp lemon thyme leaves, plus stalks

1 medium onion, finely chopped

500 ml stock (veg or chicken)

200 g Swiss chard (spinach would also work well, or maybe a savoy cabbage – it needs to be an iron-rich green vegetable)

200 g bacon, diced

80 ml white wine (optional)

Nutmeg and smoked paprika to taste

Method

Heat the oven to 180°C. Cut the pumpkin in half or quarters, depending on the size and type of your pumpkin. Essentially, it has to fit in a roasting tin. You should leave the skin on. Sprinkle with a little oil (any type except your best olive oil) and season with salt, pepper, and the dried chilli. Rub the thyme sprigs over the pumpkin, and tuck the stalks into the dish as well. It may seem like a pain, but it will save you having to remove the stalks from the soup later. Put the garlic cloves inside or between the pumpkin. No need to remove the papery cover, this will come off much easier when the garlic has been roasted.

Roast the pumpkin in the oven, until the flesh is dry, and it comes away from the skin easily. The time this takes will depend on which type of pumpkin that you use.

Roasting the pumpkin concentrates the flavour a bit. If you don’t have an oven, like many people who I know, you can still use the pumpkin without roasting. just add the thyme to the pot when you sweat the onion, and the pumpkin and the chilli flakes when you add the (now chopped, not roasted) garlic. You will also need to let the pumpkin simmer for longer, until it is tender. Obviously, peel the pumpkin before you add it. No one likes a soup full of skin.

While the pumpkin is cooking, prepare the other vegetables and the bacon. I like the stalks of the chard, but they take much longer to cook than the leaves, so I cut the stalks out, and kept them separate to the leaves. You may decide not to use them, or use spinach. Up to you. Whatever you use needs to be chopped up. How fine you want it is also up to you. I sliced the stalks thinly and the leaves a bit thicker.

Fry the bacon in a deep saucepan. I don’t bother using oil, as the bacon will render its own fat pretty quickly – just keep it moving so that it doesn’t burn.With a slotted spoon, drain the bacon onto kitchen paper, but be sure to retain the fat.

Sweat the onion in some of the bacon fat (you may not need it all). If you are making this a veggie soup, sweat the onion in a little oil. Either way, don’t let it colour.

Add the garlic from the roasting pan, which should slip easily from their skins now. No need to chop them. Add the wine at this point, if you are using it. A glug is fine. Let it cook off and absorb into the onions.

Add the smoked paprika. I usually use about a teaspoon, but this will depend on your taste, and whether or not you are using bacon. Let it cook off briefly while you remove the skin from the pumpkin. This should come off easily with a spoon. Break it into rough lumps, and add to the pan with the onion. Allow it to cook briefly, and take on a paprika coating.

Add the stock, and bring to the boil. Cover and simmer for 5 minutes.

I blended the soup at this stage, but if you prefer a less chunky soup, then you could also blend it after you have added the chard. After the soup was well blended, and smooth, I brought it back to a simmer, and grated in some nutmeg, until it tasted like there was enough in there.

Then I added the stalks of the chard, covered and let it simmer for about 5 minutes before I added the leaves, and allowed them to wilt. If you use spinach, or just the leaves of chard, then this bit will be shorter. If you are using savoy cabbage, I suggest parboiling it a little first before you add it to the soup.

Add the bacon back to the soup, and adjust seasoning to taste.

I served this with a swirl of double cream. You can leave this out if you like, because it is a smooth and unctuous soup without it.

Leave a comment

Filed under Farmed

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

December 4, 2011 · 16:56

Smoky Winter Root Soup

Smoky Winter Root Soup

A Winter’s Tale

I have been making this soup for years – since I was a student. I have made it so often that I stopped even thinking about needing a recipe for it, and now it is just easy and instinctive. I still make it a lot, because it is the Big Guy’s favourite now too.

I thought that originally it was a New Covent Garden Food Company recipe, but I have double checked both the books of theirs that I have, and it is not there. If this was your soup recipe initially, I am sorry that I am unable to credit you properly, but it is a much-loved and much-cooked dish.

As with all my soups, the amounts vary a lot, although I do tend to stick to only the ingredients listed for this particular one. I wrote the following out for a friend, after we had it on our weekend in the countryside. These amounts here should serve 4 people, or you can keep it in the fridge. It is even better warmed up the next day. It is a hearty and filling meal.

Recipe: Smoky Winter Root Soup

Ingredients

200g bacon, cubed. I can buy little lardons over here very easily. If you are using actual bacon, it is better to get streaky/ back bacon for this. Smoked bacon also works really well

1 onion, finely chopped

3 medium carrots, diced

500g potatoes, diced

1 green chilli, deseeded & finely chopped

1 can/jar sweetcorn

Splash of milk/ soy milk

Method

First prepare the vegetables. You want the onion pieces quite small and the chilli pieces as fine as you can get them. The carrot and the onion pieces should be about 2cm square.

Fry the bacon in a large saucepan over a low heat, so that the fat renders but does not burn. When the bacon is cooked, and slightly crisp, remove from the pan with a slotted spoon, so that you keep the fat. Drain on kitchen paper, and set aside. The amount of fat from bacon will depend on the type and quality of bacon used. You want to fry off the vegetables in the fat, so pour off any excess, but keep enough to coat the vegetables.

Add all of the chopped vegetables, except the chilli to the pan, and fry until the onion has turned translucent. You will need to stir the pan occasionally. Meanwhile boil a kettle with about a litre of water. Once the onion has softened, but the vegetables have not coloured, add the chilli, and cook for a minute or so.

Add the boiling water to just cover the vegetables, bring back to the boil, then turn the heat down to a simmer and cook until the potatoes are tender. The amount of time this will take depends on the variety of potato used, and how big your dice are. For me, it usually takes about 10 minutes, because I chop the veg fairly small. Test with a knife, until you are happy. I don’t really mind if the carrots retain some crunch, so I only ever test the potato.

Once the vegetables are cooked, drain the tin of sweetcorn, and add the kernels to the soup, along with the cooked bacon. Season with pepper. You will not need to add salt, as the soup will get plenty of salt from the bacon, and the cheese. Allow to heat through for a few minutes. Add a little milk, and warm through.

You can make it with varying amounts of the ingredients, just make sure that the amount of carrots balances well with the white vegetables, so that it still has some colour.

Serve with crusty bread, and sprinkled with some grated, sharp cheese, such  as Mature Cheddar or Piquant Boerenkaas

The soup keeps well in the fridge for up to 5 days. It will freeze, but if you want to freeze it, then don’t add the milk before you do so, rather, warm the soup through, then add the milk before serving.

I will add a photo of this soon, as we have it frequently, I just have not got one at the time of writing this post!

1 Comment

Filed under Feast

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , ,

December 2, 2011 · 18:56

Mareike’s Mayan Egg-Free Mousse

Some people should not eat raw eggs. I am sure if you are one of those people, then you know who you are, but for the record,those people are usually young children, the elderly, pregnant women, and those with certain allergies and medical conditions.

Bet it doesn’t stop you craving a nice chocolate mousse from time to time though does it?

My friend falls into one of the above categories. She had mentioned that she would love some chocolate mousse, but didn’t want to risk the eggs. We discussed using cream instead. As it was her birthday recently, I decided that I would make her some, and also write up the recipe for her, along with some variations she could try.

This is what I wrote for her. It will serve about 5 people.

Recipe: Egg-Free Chocolate Mousse

Ingredients

160 g Green & Black’s Mayan Gold chocolate

400 ml whipping cream

Grated zest of 1 orange

Candied orange peel to garnish

Method

In a saucepan, heat about 100 ml of the cream to just under boiling point. When bubbles appear at the sides of the pan, the cream is warm enough. Try not to boil the cream.

Chop the chocolate into small pieces (or you could use chocolate chips). Pour the warmed cream over the chocolate, and stir until it melts and there are no lumps in it.

Whip the rest of the cream to stiff peaks. fold in the melted chocolate and stir through the orange zest. At this point, you can divide into individual glasses, or just add to one serving bowl. Chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours (or more if you need to make this in advance).

Before serving, garnish with the candied peel, or a couple of fresh twists of orange zest.

Variations

You can use different flavoured chocolate. I just used Mayan Gold here because I like it. Don’t use chocolate bars with nuts or other large lumps – these are better added later. I also know people who melt Mars Bars or Milky Ways (using the microwave and a splash of milk) instead of chocolate.

If you use the really high cocoa chocolate, your mousse may be bitter. You can balance this a little with some sugar (caster or icing) added into the cream for whipping.

You can spice the cream instead of using flavoured chocolate. Add the spices to the cream that you are going to heat up. Bring the cream to almost boiling point, set aside and allow to steep for 20 minutes, then bring it back up to boiling point again. Don’t forget to remove any whole spices before you pour the cream on the chocolate. Use whatever spices you like. Cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom all go well, but play around a little.

You can use coffee (or some teas might also work, depending on the type of chocolate) instead of the warmed cream to melt the chocolate.

You can add alcohol or flavoured syrups (like you can get to flavour coffee). Add these to the whipping cream and not the chocolate, though. Otherwise you risk setting the chocolate, so you won’t be able to mix it into the cream.

Fold through orange zest, nuts, candied peel, or fruit at the end, before you chill it, if you like.

This chocolate mousse is very good with chestnut jam. I am sorry that it didn’t last long enough for some photos!

5 Comments

Filed under Feast

Tagged as , , , , , ,

October 29, 2011 · 15:59

Minestrone Soup

Minestrone Soup

Minestrone with Pumpkin Gnocchi

Despite the changeable weather, it is most definitely autumn. There are no more leaves on the trees, and the clocks will go back this weekend. To me, this means using up beans. We have been eating our borlotti beans for a little while, and I had a few other veg that I had in the ground or in the fridge.

Soup is always a great way to use up veg, and minestrone soup has beans as  the key ingredient for this hearty vegetable soup. As long as you have good base flavours from onion, carrot and celery, there are a million other veggies that you can add.

I used an onion and a half (the half was leftover from something else, and it needed using up), 3 carrots, 2 sticks of celery and a leek, which I chopped finely and sweated off with a few sprigs of thyme, a bay leaf and a sprig of rosemary. I added a  couple of cloves of chopped garlic, and cooked them off a little before adding the stock.

I am a bit of stock obsessive, and always have portions of roughly 500 ml of various stocks in the freezer. At the moment, I have pheasant, and beef. I usually always have vegetable and chicken stock too, but not today. So, I used 500 ml of beef stock and added water to cover the veg.

As this came up to the boil, I shelled the beans – this time a mixture of borlotti and the last of the french beans, whose pods are getting leathery, but the beans inside are large enough to eat on their own. I chucked them in with a few chopped pomodori tomatoes (you can also use tinned). I left the soup to simmer until all the beans were cooked through. You can also use dried (and soaked), or tinned beans if you haven’t any from the garden.

About half way through cooking,  I had a taste, and added a little tomato puree, and seasoning.

I also had half a fennel to use up, which I chopped finely. I love fennel, but wanted to retain some crunch and the fennel flavour as separate from the overall soup, so I didn’t add it until about 5  minutes before the soup was cooked.

I would have added a bit of shredded cabbage, kale or cavolo nero at this point, but we managed to lose the sweetheart cabbage we had bought at the market, so we had to do without that tonight.

Another traditional ingredient in minestrone is pasta. I had some fresh tagliatelle, because the Big Guy often buys it on impulse. I also wanted to try something a little different, so I divided the soup at this point, and chucked in some chopped tagliatelle into one pot, cooked it for a couple of minutes and ate the first night. It is also possible to use smaller pasta shapes, like acini, or ditalini. However, I was using what I had. I think smaller pasta is better in soups, so if I only had dried, I would have cooked it and chopped it before adding at the last minute.You can use rice if that is what you have too – either cook it in the soup or chuck in some cooked rice about 5 mins before serving.

I was recently inspired by a recipe from Niamh Shields, of Eat Like  A Girl, fame to try Pumpkin Gnocchi. I have been following her blog for a few years now, and this really seems to be her year, with new columns, a book, and a truck-load of awards. I have to say I am really pleased for her, I have tried a lot of her recipes and they always turn out well, and she is a real enthusiast on the subject of all things food.

Anyway, back to the gnocchi. As I have pumpkins, and pasta is added to minestrone, I thought that I would combine the two, so I made up a batch of the gnocchi, using Niamh’s recipe. I brought the soup back up to a simmer, and then cooked the gnocchi in the soup. I served it with a good helping of chopped parsley.

I haven’t  given a formal recipe for this, as with most soups, the amount I make largely depends on the ingredients that I have to hand.  As this is an Italian recipe, I am sure that there are many different versions, and this will not be what any Italian mothers would have added, but that is the beauty of such a  versatile soup, where pretty much anything goes.

Leave a comment

Filed under Farmed

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

June 26, 2011 · 01:37

Fantastic Finger Food Part 2

So, following on from yesterday, a couple more party dishes for you.

A good time was had by all, I think. It is always lovely to share food with friends, especially at a party.

I also made an onion tart, and a few other bits and pieces, but I didn’t take photos of them. The tart, especially, is something that  I do regularly, so I will get the chance to blog about them again.

Chinese Tea Eggs

Chinese Tea Eggs

The prettiest finger food

These marbled little beauties are widely available at street vendors in China. I had read that they were supposed to be a sign of prosperity and good fortune, and where often given away at New Year because of this. However, I can’t seem to find that again, so I suspect that it is a bit of a myth, considering how widely used they seem to be. Over here, we seem to be told that so many Chinese things are a sign of prosperity and given out at New Year that they can’t all be exclusively for one festival, no matter how important it is.

I thought that the look of them was really fitting for a party, so I decided to make them for ours.

The spice mix varies from region to region, but this is how I made mine.

Bring a number of eggs to the boil. I did 12, because that I what I had in, and I hadn’t yet tested them on friends over here, so I didn’t want to get carried way. Let them boil for 10 minutes, then take them off the heat and leave to cool in the water. I find doing them this way prevents that grey ring that you sometimes see around the yolk from forming.

Once the eggs are cool enough to handle, gently tap them so that they are cracked all the way around, but so that none of the shell actually comes off. This will create the marbling effect of the final eggs.

In another saucepan put 2 tbsp soy sauce, a black tea bag (or a tbsp of loose leaf), a cinnamon stick, a tbsp chinese five spice powder, and 2-3 strips of citrus peel. Use what you have in, I had a mandarin, so I used that. Put in the cooked, cracked eggs, and enough water to cover them.

Bring this to the boil, and simmer for an hour. Remove from the heat, and allow the eggs to sit in the liquid for as long as you can, overnight if you are organised, but at least a couple of hours.

They look so pretty when they are peeled and arranged nicely on the plate that people find them hard to resist.

White Bean and Rosemary Dip

White Bean and Rosemary Dip

Makes a change from humus

If you are a vegetarian or a vegan at any party, you will more than likely be pretty bored of humus. It seems to be everywhere. I like it, myself, but if I were to be served it at every single social gathering, and had few alternatives, I would get pretty bored too. In the same way that it took me many years to be able to look a Cornish pasty in the face, after living there for two years and being served cocktail pasties for every single working lunch ‘do’ that I had to attend – and there were very, very many of them!

This dip is a great, and surprising alternative to them. Use dried beans instead of tinned, and it will be even better.It is almost like the humble white bean, rosemary and lemon were made to go together.

Ingredients

200 g dried cannellini beans, or a tin of them

2 sprigs rosemary, removed from stalks and finely chopped

Zest and some juice of 1 lemon

Glug of good extra virgin olive oil

Method

If you are using dried beans, soak them. For cannellini, I find a couple of hours is fine, and that it is not great to soak them for too long, because the skins come off, and they turn to mush when you cook them. About  two hours should be plenty.

Cook them in a large saucepan and in plenty of fresh water. Do not salt the water, it makes the skins tough. Bring the beans up to the boil, then reduce them to a vigorous simmer. the time they take to cook will depend on how old they are, but check after 4o mins. The best way to see if the beans are cooked is to eat one. If it is hard at all, then it is not done. When you can bite through them easily, and the bean is soft, they are ready.

If you are using tinned beans then you can skip this step. I know that tins are easy, and I have definitely used them myself, especially if I have not remembered to soak the beans in time for making the dip, but I do ask that you please try to used dried at least once – it makes such a difference to the texture of the finished dip. Cooked dried beans also freeze easily, so you can just cook one big lot and freeze them in batches if that is easier.

Drain the beans and blend them to a smooth paste using a food processor or a stick blender. Or you can pass them through a food mill or sieve, if you don’t have those. You can also mash them with a fork if you really have nothing else.

Add the rosemary and the lemon zest, and stir them in. Season to taste with salt and a little pepper (white, if you have it). then make the paste more of a dip consistency using the lemon and the olive oil. Keep adding small amounts of each and tasting in between, so that you get a good balance of acidity and the oil.

Serve with breadsticks, crudités, or good old tortill chips, or you can use this to spread in a sandwich too.

Leave a comment

Filed under Feast

Tagged as , , , , , ,

June 7, 2011 · 12:07

Top Tips

Broad Bean Plants

Better late than never

I got my broad beans in really late this year, through a mixture of snow and laziness. There was snow in both November and February, rendering the soil unworkable. However, since I love broad beans so much, I managed to shake myself, and get them planted, eventually.

Almost all gardeners will tell you to pinch out the tips of the beans once they get the first bean pods. This is to stop them getting taller, meaning that they concentrate their energy into beans. They also say it will help prevent blackfly infestations.

What a lot of them don’t tell you is that they also make a really delicious vegetable in their own right, with a subtle broad bean flavour.  You can have them steamed or quickly boiled. They don’t keep very well though, so they really are the gardener’s treat. This really is the best advert for growing your own, just so that you too can try this treat for yourself. They will even grow along the edge of your balcony in a deep window box – a pretty, edible, and practical windbreak.

Braod Bean Tips

Gardener's Delight, washed free of blackfly

I added mine to a risotto, following the same method as the one I gave in the masterclass the other day. I made the white risotto base, then added the tips, and some cooked, double-podded broad beans along with the last ladleful of stock. I used Crème fraîche instead of the butter at the end, along with some chopped dill. Then I served it all up with a nice green salad, which included some wild garlic leaves.

Risotto and salad

Tip Tops!

So lovely, light and fresh. Will you try to grow some just to see what you are missing out on?

Leave a comment

Filed under Farmed

Tagged as , , , , ,

June 1, 2011 · 11:43

Risotto “Masterclass”

Versatile flavours

So many flavours from one basic dish

I was talking about risotto the other day, when a few friends persuaded me that I should do a ‘risotto masterclass’. I suspect the fact that I have a larger than average kitchen (not difficult in a city where a ‘kitchen’ constitutes having a microwave on a shelf and a hob in many of the flats in the rental sector!) also had something to do with it, but I was flattered enough to go ahead.

We made three flavours of risotto – fennel, lemon and ricotta; pumpkin; and mushroom.

This is not to say that I made three risottos initially. My friends wanted to have a class so I wanted to show them how versatile risotto is with adding flavour, and how simple it is as a method. So, I started with a simple, white risotto, and we took it from there.

A good time was had by all, and I hope that they went away feeling more confident in making risotto, and experimenting with flavour.

Of course, there are more complex ways of building up flavour within the risotto, but adding ingredients at the end is a good way to get started!

I do most of my cooking by eye – especially as I wanted to make this one large enough to split into three, but the recipe that I give below should be enough to serve 2 people with leftovers. Leftover risotto is so versatile, that it really is worth making the extra.

Recipe: White Risotto

Ingredients

150 g risotto rice (risotto rice comes in a number of varieties, or is probably labelled just ‘risotto rice’ in your local supermarket. We used arborio for this one)

1 medium chopped onion,

1 tbsp olive oil

1 glass white wine (or you can use vermouth or another spirit relevant to your flavouring, such as Pernod, etc)

750 ml – 1 l stock (the stock you use can depend on what you are going to add. On this occasion I used vegetable stock)

Thyme

Knob of butter, or dash of cream or oil

50 g parmesan, freshly grated

Method

Sweat the onion in the olive oil until it is translucent, but not coloured. Add the rice, and stir until the rice is slightly translucent round the edges. Add the thyme at this stage too – the leaves but not the stalks.

Meanwhile, Bring the stock to the boil, and then leave it on a gentle simmer. I always make my own stock and freeze it in roughly  500 ml portions, so I use one of these, then add hot water as I run out. If you want a particularly ‘meaty’ flavour in the risotto, there is no reason why you cannot use all stock. It is important that you are adding warm stock to the rice, so I just leave it on the hob while I am cooking the risotto.

Turn up the heat a little and add the wine. Allow the alcohol to burn off and the rice to absorb the liquid. If you don’t want to have alcohol, this step can also be missed out altogether.

Add your stock, starting with just enough to cover the rice. Allow this to absorb completely before adding more, then add more a ladleful or so at a time. You will need to stir the risotto to stop it catching on the bottom of the pan. Much better chefs  than me (well, chefs, in fact) say that the more that you stir it, the creamier it will be, especially at the end stages. This will reduce the amount of butter or cream that you need to add at the end.

Taste the rice as you go. Before it is ready, it has a chalky quality to the grains. It is ready when this chalkiness is lost, but the grains are still a little al dente (especially important if you don’t want claggy leftovers). At this point, stop adding more stock.

Take it off the heat, ad beat in the butter or cream (which must be cold). Add the parmesan and seasoning. You will need quite a lot of pepper.

This is the basic recipe. Then you can flavour it by adding herbs, veg, meat. Whatever you like really.

The flavours I added for the three risottos were as follows:

Fennel, Ricotta and Lemon

I sliced a fennel bulb thinly, lengthways. Then I braised this gently in olive oil, with 2 garlic cloves, also sliced thinly. I added all the vegetables and the oil to the rice, mixed in a little ricotta, and the grated zest of the lemon. I then added the lemon juice, a little at a time to balance out the other flavours. I added the chopped fronds of the fennel as a garnish.

Pumpkin

I made a large dice of about 1/4 of an orange fleshed pumpkin, and roasted this, with some unpeeled garlic cloves, and some crumbled dried chillies in some olive oil with sprigs of thyme. This took about 3/4 hour at 180 degrees. I stirred these in at the end of cooking the risotto, and served with taleggio. If you wanted you could halve the above pumpkin, and boil half. Adding it with some of the last stock, which will make the risotto orange, and help build up the flavour. Roast and add the rest as above.

Mushroom

I fried a selection of sliced mushrooms in butter and garlic, with a generous amount of thyme leaves. I stirred them in at the end of cooking the risotto, and stirred through some fresh chopped tarragon. To build up the flavour even more, you could use a mushroom stock, or add the soaking liquor from dried porcinis to the stock as you cook it.

The recipes are simple, as I said, but adding your favourite flavours like this is an easy way to make a risotto recipe your own.

5 Comments

Filed under Feast

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

May 29, 2011 · 18:34

Handmade Ice Cream

Hi, my name is Mel, and I am a gadget-ophobe.

Well, I guess that is not strictly true, I just don’t see the point of most of them. I suppose this comes partly from the make-do-and-mend attitude I have retained since my uni days, when all I had was a block of knives, a mixing bowl, a wooden spoon and a balloon whisk. Anything else I had to improvise with a wine bottle (useful as a blender and a rolling pin!), or whatever else was to hand.

Obviously, I have got many more of the basics now, which allows me to do much more, but I still have not been suckered by many of the more ‘faddish’ gadgets, such as a breadmaker, or ice cream machine. I enjoy making bread, and take great pleasure from trying to get a tight round, or a nice airy foccacia.

I have never really attempted ice cream before now though, because I was under the impression it was difficult. It was also not easy to find a recipe that did not involve the instructions to “place all of the ingredients into an ice-cream machine”.

Stages of hand made ice cream

Stage 1: an hour in the freezer, before whisking

Anyway, a bit of hunting around, and a lucky episode of Masterchef Australia left me a bit more encouraged try to make my own, especially since they recommend a custard base, and I do like a good custard. Because I wanted something to serve with rhubarb, I chose to flavour this one with ginger.

Here is how I did it:

Ingredients

5 Egg Yolks

100 g Sugar

400 ml Double cream

400 ml Milk

50 g Stem Ginger

1 Tbsp Syrup from the ginger jar

Making Custard

Finely chop the ginger, and add that to the milk and the cream in a pan. heat to just below boiling point.Set aside to steep for 20 minutes. Pass the liquid through a sieve to remove the pieces of ginger, but set them aside though, because you will use some later. Bring the liquid back up to boiling point.

In general, for flavoured custards, you add the flavouring to the milk – you also do this with the vanilla pod if you are making custard to go with your apple pie. So, if you want to make mint ice cream, and the essence to the milk, add cocoa or melted chocolate for chocolate ice cream and so on.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks and the sugar together until they thicken quite a bit. Now for the tricky bit (or so they tell you). Very slowly at first, add the warm milk to the egg mixture. I do this by adding a little, and making sure it is whisked in before I add more. Once you have combined a fair amount, you can add the rest of the liquid much faster.

Once the egg and cream  is combined, returned to the heat and heat gently. Do not allow it to boil, or it will curdle. The custard will thicken, and when it leaves a line on the back of your wooden spoon then it is thick enough. Remove from the heat.

Stages of Ice Cream Making

Stage 2: Not much further than stage 1

The Ice Cream Bit

The custard needs to cool completely before you try to freeze it (not least for energy efficiency of the freezer!). You can either set it aside to cool, or a better way is to put it in a bowl, which is sitting in some ice in another bowl (or the sink) and stir it to dissipate the heat faster.

Once the custard is cold, then you need to put it in the freezer. Most sources I read said that you should put it in a bowl for this stage. Unfortunately, I didn’t read that until after I had frozen it, so I put it in an ice cream tub (recycled, of course). As long as the custard does not fill more than 3/4 of the vessel, it will be fine.

In order to make ice cream, er, creamy, you need to try to keep the ice crystals from getting too big. To do this, put it in the freezer for an hour, then take it out and whisk it. Repeat this process until you have a smooth, thick ice cream.For this recipe, I found it took four times to create the smoothness required.

Because I like ginger, I stirred in some of the chopped ginger from the custard making at the last stage of the whisk and freeze cycle. You could also add anything that you like at this stage – nuts, mint chips, chocolate chips, fruit.

Stages of Ice Cram Making

Stage 4: Thick, and after adding the ginger

The ice cream should last a few weeks in the freezer (in theory!), just don’t forget to take it out of the freezer about 10-15 minutes before you want to serve it.

I served mine with the aforementioned poached rhubarb, and some meringue. Well, I needed to use up those egg whites somehow!

Poached rhubarb, stem ginger ice cream & meringue

The finished product

Leave a comment

Filed under Feast

Tagged as , , , , , ,

May 27, 2011 · 16:35

Asparagus Soup

As a child, I didn’t eat many vegetables. As an adult, I eat many more, and I love to eat seasonally. This is why you will probably often hear me saying that such-and-such a vegetable is my favourite. It would probably be more accurate to say that such-and-such a vegetable is my favourite right now.

At the moment we are into the asparagus season, and it is cheap and plentiful. And right now, asparagus is my favourite vegetable.I eat it with eggs, in salads, on its own with butter, in risottos – you name it.

In general, the bottom end of the stalk becomes tough and woody, so it is best to cut, or snap it off. I really hate throwing food away, especially something as tasty as asparagus. So,  I decided to try to use these woody stalky bits up.

Soup is the obvious answer. First, I tried to blend it in a food processor, but this just resulted in smaller woody bits in the soup. I also have a food mill, and one day I tried it through that, and it turned out that the low tech version was the best, since the woody bits are not passed through the mill. I really recommend these – I picked mine up for a tenner back in the UK, and I use it weekly.

This year I planted my own asparagus, and freshly cut asparagus should not have the woody stalky bits. I wonder if this soup will continue to feature in my spring repertoire? I hope so, it really is good!

The following recipe varies in amounts, depending on how many stalks you have been saving in the fridge. The stalks will keep for up to 10 days (depending on age when you bought them, and the width of the stalks), so you can save them up from a couple of bunches to get a good amount, if you like.

Recipe: Asparagus Soup

Ingredients

1 chopped onion

1 tbsp olive oil

Asparagus stalk ends

Chicken or vegetable stock

Thyme

Crème fraiche (cream or milk would also work)

Method

Sweat the onion and thyme in the olive oil, until the onion is fairly soft, but not coloured.

Add the asparagus to the pan, and cook until it has turned a vibrant green

Add the stock. You need to allow enough stock to cover the vegetables in the pot by a couple of cm.

Bring to the boil, then simmer until the stalks are tender to the point of a knife. The time for this can be anything from 5 minutes for the really thin stalks, up to 20 minutes for the later season asparagus.

Take off the heat and allow to cool for 5-10 minutes. Then, pass through the food mill into a clean pan.

Add a little crème fraiche. Again, the amount you add will depend on the amount of soup that you have. Season with salt and pepper.

This soup can be served hot or cold, especially if you are having a really warm spring/ summer, like the one that we are having now.

If you are serving it cold, add a little water to thin it, allow to cool completely, then refrigerate for an hour or two. Garnish it with croutons, cooked asparagus tips, small dice of cucumber (seeded and peeled), or some of all three. A little chervil can be chopped and stirred through, or used as a garnish as well. Check for seasoning before serving, as cold soup can often need more seasoning that its hot counterpart.

If you want to serve it hot, warm the soup gently, without boiling. The soup can be made ahead of time, and warmed through at a convenient time. Garnish with cooked asparagus tips, chervil, or a dollop or swirl of the crème fraiche. Serve with buttered brown, rye or sourdough bread. I prefer bread, as opposed to toast with the hot version of this soup.

Leave a comment

Filed under Feast

Tagged as , , , , , , ,