Crackers (and bread)

I have a problem with crackers: most are far too thick. Who wants a face-full of oaty doorstep or wheaty brick? I also don't want an explosion of saliva sapping shards as I bite into yet another golden briquette. So what do I want? I want a sublime 'cheese delivery system', for this is what crackers are. I want thin, fine but damn tasty. So I made my own and discovered a neat trick along the way.

Dove Farm Rye Flour and Dove Farm Malthouse Flour. (That's brioche proving in the background).
You'll notice how the iPhone cunningly focuses on the stuff in the background and not the actual subject, bringing the attractive roll of kitchen towel into perfect relief. It's probably all part of Apple's Think Different policy.

Stupid Thin Rye Crackers.

In a food processor, add 60g softened butter to 250g rye flour and a big pinch of salt. Breadcrumb this. Then add enough very cold water to bring the mix together to a lump of dough.

Roll this flat and wrap in cling film. Chill in the fridge (or somewhere else that's chilled) for about an hour.

Roll out into a long oblong and then run this through a PASTA MACHINE. Yes, that's the trick to these. The dough is surprisingly well behaved. I took mine to the penultimate stop on the rollers (if you make pasta, that will make sense). This results in a wonderfully thin and even length of dough. Cut this ultra thin dough into strips... or not. I also made some wonderful, extra large crackers. You can also, just scrunch the dough like paper and make... um... crunchy scrunchies. A well organised blogger would surely have photographed these more interesting shapes. Yeah.

These were the last few of the run, so are a bit ragged.

The earlier ones looked better (honest).

Also: the crackers don't move when photographed. That was me.

Very thin!

These should be baked at the top of the over for about 8-12 minutes depending on how soft/baked you want them.

Sunflower Seed Malted Crackers

In a bowl, mix 250g of Malted, multi-grain flour with 90ml of oil and at least 70ml of water, salt to taste. You want a fairly sloppy, loose dough. Place in cling film and chill overnight until stiff enough to roll out.

Roll between layers of baking parchment to about 3mm thick. Cut out into desired shapes and sprinkle with sunflower seeds (or... poppy seeds... walnut pieces... toenail clippings - they'll never know) and bake for 15 mins @180°C until just golden brown. They will crisp up when cool.

Focaccia

I use Paul Hollywood's recipe. BUT, I only use one sachet of yeast per half kilo of flour, not his two. I like this recipe because he adds a lot of water. Be wary of drier doughs, you just won't get the lovely airy structure that probably drove you to make your own focaccia in the first place. Just give the dough plenty of time on the second rise. There is NOTHING finer to eat than slices of char-grilled focaccia. I don't dress mine with herbs, just oil and salt.

Just out of the oven and not yet 'seasoned' with lashings of olive oil and Maldon.

Our first fully veggie. Plants galore.

The very fabulous Roisin and Nick booked a party of eight (including the good people from @damagedgoodsrec and soon-to-be-superstar-writer @VickieDonoghue) but this time 'vegetarian' meant exactly that; so no fish. They also wanted an extra cheese course after dessert. I was happy to oblige. I love cheese, especially when it's a selection of Britain's finest from Neal's Yard. The UK now makes more types of artisan cheese than France. It is often fantastically expensive though; sometimes in excess of £45 a kilo.

I think veggies often get a bad deal in restaurants; so often an afterthought. The 'option' is invariably something unmentionable baked with cheese with the consistency of a dog-slobbered-slipper. I didn't want to do that. My starters are frequently vegetarian so no problem there. I wanted something unusual but not outlandish for the main course. I decided on a fennel and white onion tarte tatin. This was (another) Roux recipe (see below). I served the tart with something bitter: honey roast chicory and something very savoury: Jerusalem artichoke purée (not from Jerusalem and not an artichoke - great name).

The cheese was served with English quince jam, grapes, apples and a selection of my crackers and bread. See the post 'Crackers' for details and recipes.

Fennel and White Onion Tarte Tatin (serves 8)

Slice four onions thickly. Cut four fennel into four. Place in a roasting tray and drizzle with olive oil and balsamic. Roast for around 25 mins @ 180°C until just tender and beginning to brown.

In a large frying pan heat 120g of caster sugar with around 100ml of water, adding more water if things get too sticky later. Over a low heat, bring the mix to a caramel. Remove from the heat.

Place the fennel slice in a pattern and in-fill with the soft onion. Over the veg sprinkle some thyme leaves, salt, pepper and a few teaspoons of freshly crushed coriander seeds (don't use powder). Over all this: a sparse grating of parmesan. I know - cheese and caramel, who'd have thunk it.

Cut a round of all butter puff pastry that's slightly larger than the pan. Place this over the veg, carefully pushing down the sides to seal in the goodness. A quick egg wash and then a few fork pricks to allow the steam to escape. Bake for about 30 mins @ 200°C so the pastry is golden and risen.

On a board or a large plate invert the tart. It's quite a pretty thing, so long as you like brown.

Did I take a picture? No. Bugger! Sigh.

Soft, fruity, spicy, squashy, salty and brittle. My Favourite New Dessert

I've developed a 'new' dessert. I’m sure it’ll be very similar to some other (probably French or Italian peasant) dish but for the moment I’m going to bask. I’m very proud of this dish. I know there's nothing actually new in cooking, outside of the molecular gig.

This is it: pan fried brioche with winter fruit poached in a spiced syrup. Served with vanilla crème fraiche and salted hazelnut brittle.

Not enough apricots in this picture. Damn it!

Make a brioche in a loaf tin (I use M. Roux’s recipe), Yes, you can buy a brioche loaf but that’s not how I roll. I mean, you can buy sex but I’d rather make love!

The actual loaf wasn't this fuzzy.

Make the brittle.

This isn’t complicated but it can be fiddly (and burny – watch those forearms). Heat 200g of castor sugar in a wide pan. Go for maximum surface area; a frying pan is fine as long as it’s VERY clean. Bacon has no place here (although, if it was a maple flavoured brittle… OK, that’s one in the development book). Over a very low heat, melt the sugar and allow it to caramelise. You’re looking for a deep gold colour. The trick with making caramel is to LEAVE IT ALONE. If you stir it too soon, it will seize, the dreaded crystallisation. When it has caramelised, quickly pour this out onto a sheet of Silpat (or some silicon baking sheets. It's much trickier with baking parchment) and place another over the top. Working smoothly and quickly, roll the toffee between the sheets. You might have to pop the sheets into a warm over more than once to properly finish the job. You want a very thin sheet of toffee. No more than 2mm thick or it’ll be a jaw-breaker. Scatter about 100g of roasted hazelnuts over this and press in with the roller. Crumble some Maldon over this. You just want a hint of salt. Don’t use table salt. The crunchy sea crystals are important here. Again, while the toffee is warm (maybe another trip to the oven) score the surface with a long knife into thin shards.

Once cool, you can snap the shards off. The longer the better the more dramatic. If some break (they will) you can weld them together with a brief visit to a hot flame. This will make at least 20 shards.

Careful. You could take someone's eye out!

Make the syrup.

Add 300ml of water to 300g of sugar and heat gently to dissolve. To the mix add the peel of one orange, three cloves, a few peppercorns, two supermarket lengths of cinnamon and a cardamom. Bring to the boil, then back off. This is enough syrup for 6-8 people.

Prepare the fruit.

You want one plum, one apricot and six cherries per person. Stone the cherries and halve. Segment the plums and apricots into six pieces.

Fab colours that are preserved by the syrup

Make the crème fraiche.

You need a big tablespoon per person. Whip this with some vanilla seeds until firm. No one will complain if you add a dab of mascarpone or double cream, but not too much. You want to preserve the sour, zing of the crème fraiche.

To assemble.

Cut thick slices of brioche and pan fry in butter until golden. About three mins. Keep the slices in a warm over to crisp up.

Bring the syrup to the boil then back off a little (the syrup heat, not you; you need to stay close to the hob). Add the apricots and simmer for about three minutes, maybe less, depending on the ripeness of the fruit. It should yield easily with a spoon. Then add the plums and cherries. Cook for no more than two minutes.

Spoon fruit and syrup onto the brioche toasts, pipe or spoon the crème fraiche and add a shard of brittle at a jaunty, restaurant angle.

Hello 2013

I thought January was going to be a dud but we’ve had bookings every weekend. Some great parties. Some very late evenings. The braised lamb shank dish I do is proving popular, with guests and with me. It’s good to have an oven dish you can leave, happy in the knowledge that it will only improve if guests are late. It does need a good lamb stock. I make two litres and reduce the whole lot down for one boat of gravy. I served this with potato rostï, spinach, roast shallot and roast carrot and orange purée.

Fennel Fritters

These came out of the snow. Not literally… but because of the 3mm, er... blizzard, we experienced in early January, deliveries of essential foodstuff were kyboshed. I was after some samphire; something with texture to serve with fish. But I’m so glad I made these instead. A revelation. Maybe it’s because you don’t normally find that aniseedy tang inside anything deep fried but, whatever the reason, these are delicious.

Make a thin batter with 60g flour, an egg, dash of veg oil, 75ml of milk. Add to this some smashed fennel seeds. Let this stand for a bit. It helps the batter develop (apparently).

Thin slice some fennel. This is one occasion where a mandolin is all but essential. Dip the fennel in the batter and deep fry at 180°C for only a minute or two.

They look a bit weird here. Taste good though.

‘Give Me Butter! Always Butter!’

A quote from the great chef Fernand Point. I read about him here. Couldn't agree more! Butter, lemons, onions and vanilla: life would be wizened without.

Little Lamby-kins. A Revelation.

Cooked lamb for the first time... ever. Eh? Yeah, I don't like lamb but I realise that lots of people do (especially my wife).

My aversion stems from the cuts I was served as a child. With hindsight, it was probably breast or scrag end. (Scrag end? Who named that cut? Not someone from meat marketing, that's for certain.) I remember childhood lamb as being both stringy and oleaginous - a neat trick - and clumped with flabby yellow fat. I would cut all the fat off, laving tiny postage stamp pieces of meat. My father would invariably reach over to hoof up the trimmings, while complaining that I was too fussy.

Anyway... I braised ten lamb shanks, individually tin foiled, and served them with a reduction of red wine, port and the roasting juices. It was an interesting process making the gravy, having to put aside my own dislike of the flavour and try and be cheffy about it. In the end it comes down to balance and seasoning and depth of flavour so I believe and hope the final product was great. Certainly our guests sent back clean-picked bones.
The shanks were wrapped in foil on a bed of carrot, onion and rosemary with a whack of seasoned and herbed butter shoved in a pocket between the bone and the body of the flesh. Cooked for two and a half hours at 200°C then rested for 30 mins - under foil and a blanket!

The lamb was plated with wilted winter greens, parsnip purée (that I passed through a sieve four times and it still wasn't as smooth as I'd like) and meltingly soft and onion-y Boulanger potatoes. A pleasing winter combo.

The good news is it's just possible that with all the supping and tasting I may have started an inoculation process. By the end of the evening, I could even enjoy the meatiness of the roasting juices. Lamb has a sweetness like no other meat that I maybe beginning to appreciate.

This is a really useful recipe; a bistro classic and one I'll return to again I'm sure. No photos I'm afraid. With a party of ten there's no time for cameras.

The busy weekend... including a man who broke into Buckingham Palace... and a secret to life.

A school fayre, Emma's birthday party of ten, Rachel's party (catering) of 60 and Leslie's group of eight.
That was intense. I feel like I've been standing and cooking for four days. A confluence of requests lead to our most busy period.
Sarah rang me to see if we could stage a special birthday dinner for her friend, the rather glamorous and fabulous woman-about-town Emma Rigby (http://www.loveyourdoorstep.co.uk). I'm really glad we agreed. It was an excellent, boisterous evening. On the menu was onion soup, chicken braised in sherry and cream and cheesecake (proving very popular that one) with blackberries, which is actually my favourite fruit pairing so far, both for flavours and visuals. One of the guests told us of the drunken night he climbed into Buck House, only to be arrested at gunpoint. Wild stuff.

Emma's birthday. Louder than they look here!

I'd also agreed to do the catering for a party of 70 in Hertford the same day so Thursday night was largely spent making little polenta cakes, anchovy palmiers, szechuan chicken and slow roasting a whole pork belly. The palmiers are a bit love/hate. Some of my friends adore them and can scoff bowlfuls but others back off in horror, pastry pieces being spluttered from the mouth with indignation!

Anchovy palmiers. Not for everyone.
TIP: once you've rolled the pastry and filling, put in the freezer for 20 mins.
It makes them much easier to cut neatly. 

The night before, I been up making MANY choux buns, honeycomb, chocolate meringues and blueberry friands for my sons' school fayre. 

Saturday was Leslie's party of eight, eating polenta and mushrooms, salmon and my new sticky toffee pudding with toffee sauce and home made vanilla ice cream, just perfect for winter.

The secret behind a good onion soup is, ironically, a good beef stock. I have no idea what to do if vegetarians ask for it.

My best beef stock (so far). A round of applause please.

The secret to beef stock, and all stocks, is a pressure cooker. I urge you to invest in one. Also, clarifying stock is a doddle. Whisk in a couple of egg whites and their shells and slowly, slowly, slowly bring to the boil. It is immensely satisfying to push back the white crust after an hour or so to reveal the exquisite clear liquid, effortlessly de-murked. It seems to be one of those not-difficult-at-alls along with choux pastry, soufflés, mayonnaise and hollandaise sauce.

The other secret, to stock, to so many dishes, maybe to life itself (along with lemons, vanilla and good Italian butter) is slow roasted onions. Roasted to a singularity; like the primordial soup! Take the time to reduce a kilo of onions down to a sticky, chocolate-like mass in a heavily set pan and you will be rewarded with the ultimate umami base (Ooooh Mammy!) for so many dishes.

Was once a kilo of onions.

Easy Salmon Supper - Part 2

This title is a bit of a cheat. Yes, I did serve salmon en papillote (French for baked in a paper bag) last night but it's also a little experiment in interneting. Most of my posts get a modest number of reads; around 30-40 but the one titled 'Easy Salmon Supper' has been read over 750 times. Do people really love salmon? Actually yes, I've served this three times now, more than any other single dish. So... let's see how many admirers this attracts.

And you people in Sweden, Russia, Slovenia, Germany and Australia who are apparently reading this, make yourselves known via the comments. Some overseas input would titillate greatly, unless, of course, you're heading up some massive spam factory. In which case... sod off.

Great night last. Carol's gang of four who came blinking out of the night and Eme's 'fun-loving' party of five, which should have been six.

This is what we served:

My warm spiced nuts (not to Carol as one of her guests was allergic and you don't want to start the evening with anaphylaxis.)
Warm griddled bread with olive oil and balsamic. You know the drill. It's that combo that used to fox your parents. "Where's the butter?"
An amuse bouche of mushroom and white truffle velouté.
Starters of curd cheese and chive soufflé with red onion marmalade and rocket salad.
Mains of the salmon with tarragon creme fraiche, sweet and sour crushed squash, French beans and roast pepper. The crushed squash was enjoyed by all. It's an Italian job - agrodolce - and features pine nuts and raisins (with Fish! I know.) Recipe to come soon (it's based on one of the Oliver boy's). It's also a fabulously colourful plate.
Pre-dessert of iced tea ice. I'll publish a recipe for this too, as soon as I work out what the hell I put in it. The trouble (and the joy) of a supper club is that you can fiddle all week with an idea, making adjustments as your attention allows and your wont demands. My iced tea ice started life as Heston's green tea sorbet but then I added mint and bourbon in proportions I'll endeavour to report.
Dessert of baked vanilla cheesecake with raspberries. The berries are served in a simple coulis of reduced juice and sugar. This is fast becoming one of my favourite desserts. It's simple and delicious with a depth of flavour that seems to belie it's simple list of ingredients.
Coffee and chocolate macaroons. And/or more wine if you wanted, and most did.

Apols for the picture quality. I simply don't have enough light (especially since one of my dimmers failed and I've lost a whole line of downlighters) but I want neither tripods nor 2Ks cluttering up my kitchen.

Goats Cheese Soufflé with Red Onion Marmalade and Rocket

Iced Tea Ice

Vanilla Cheesecake with raspberries

 The onion marmalade is great with cheese and cold meats (and probably hot meats, but let's not go mad). Here's the recipe. Takes yonks so plan to do other things in the kitchen.

Thinly slice four medium red onions (no, I have no idea what medium means either. We need a chart, people.) I used a mandolin. But I imagine a banjo would work just as well. Cook these in about 100ml of olive oil/butter for about an hour over a medium heat. I use a diffuser as I have a gas hob. Stir often. You're trying to get a deep colour but without straying across into bitter black. To this mass, add 220g of soft brown sugar. Cook more. You want deep colour and soft, almost melting texture. Add  300ml of white wine vinegar. Cook this off; takes another 20 mins easy. It's at this stage that your concentration can waver (Halo 4 calls!) and you end up not with a tender, unctuous, deep caramel coloured condiment... but a briquette. Salt and pepper to taste.

Home made honeycomb

Home made honeycomb is a doddle. Just don't do it with bare arms, or sandals. You will need a sugar (jam) thermometer or a food grade temperature probe.

In a big, TALL, pot, on a large heat, add 400g sugar, 5 tablespoons of water and 75g clear honey

You also want 20g of bicarbonate of soda to hand. Make sure there are no lumps in it.

Heat the sugary mix gently until it all dissolves and then whack up the heat. When it's just approaching 150°C take it off the heat, drop in the bicarb and whisk like frenzy for a few seconds to integrate. The mix will expand and rise alarmingly. This is why I stipulated a tall pot. If you have oven gloves to wear while you do this part, I'd recommend doing so. I have sugar scars, man.

Carefully pour the foam (because it burns like napalm) onto something that doesn't stick: an oiled board, non-stick baking sheet like Silpat or baking parchment. Let it cool and trap all those air bubbles. This doesn't take long. It will look something like this.

You can also pour it into molds (apparently). This might be fun.Either use it immediately or wrap in baking paper and store in an airtight jar. It is important to do this soon afterwards. Honeycomb takes in water from the air (deliquesces) and will turn into toffee within a few hours.

You will probably notice many sweet, delicious but very pointy crumbs, on the surface, on the floor, upstairs in the bedroom, bizarrely. Pick these up or you'll be prowling tacky for weeks to come.

It's said that the ancient Britons stuck several very large honeycomb into the ground just outside Salisbury for reasons unknown, but someone kept sucking them in the night so they restored to big old stones instead.*

In Hawaii, surfboarding began when a family dog snatached a large honecomb and ran into the ocean with it. A small but brave boy waded out and rode the piece home. By the time he'd caught a wave and hanged ten (or whatever) the honeycomb had softened and collapsed and this is how Americans first made saltwater taffy, so popular now in country fairs.**

Now you can eat in in chunks or use it to make honeycomb ice cream.

*This isn't true.

** Nor is this.

Savoury French lightning for a man with no shoes

I'm beginning to get the hang of this, I hope. The last few parties haven't felt micrometers from madness. I've been calm and collected (when else are you collected? It's always C&C isn't it, never just collected?). Possibly a little shouty just before people arrive but these things are said in the heat of the kitchen and shouldn't be taken too seriously (family).

Karen and Ben came for the second time, part of an ebullient party of six (including @karenpine and @jesschivers). Couldn't help noticing that one man arrived barefoot but I forgot to ask why.

Baked some mini savoury eclairs (French for 'lightning') just for fun. This was the logical extension of my recent gougere dalliance. I made some choux pastry with some roasted onion and thyme milk (milk in a bowl in the fridge with things added for a couple of days) and a pinch of smoked paprika.

I filled these with some cheese mousse, made from gruyere, parmy and whipping cream, dispensed from a syphon. It was a real trial getting the mousse out of the syphon. I think my mistake was using a hard cheese which when cold just sulked in the bottom of the syphon, refusing to come out and party, but when too warm just flopped out like... well, floppy cheese which is never good. Maybe goats cheese next time (and let's not have the debate about the apostrophe in goats cheese. I'm using the adjectival form here BTW).

The eclairs were topped with a rather delicious but ridiculously time consuming roast shallot puree.

Anyway, the end result looked like a sweet eclair (I'm such a wag, me) and was both fun to serve and to eat.

Wish I'd taken a photo now.

Easy salmon supper

See. That is easy. For some reason, people often say they can't cook fish. Anyone can do this. Fresh salmon with dill, lemon and toms. Oil the fish first, including the skin so it doesn't stick. Season with salt and pepper. It's important to keep that gap between the pieces BTW, as this allows the air to circulate for even cooking. Wrap up the paper into a parcel, nothing fancy, just keep the edges sealed. Bake on a tray at 220°C for between 12 and 18 minutes depending on how well done you like your fish. We normally do 14 mins.

Tonight, we're serving this with crash potatoes, (waxy roasties with fennel seeds), honey baked chicory,  French beans and a beurre blanc sauce.

My no-bacon, cheese and bacon gougères

I was trying to find a way to keep these light and crisp but make them more interesting. I filled them with a light cheese mouse mousse(!) but they then go soggy very quickly. Instead I infused a pint of milk with a pack of fried, smoked streaky bacon and a chipotle chilli for a couple of days and made the choux paste with that. I also added a half teaspoon of smoked paprika and 30g of parmesan.

Quite inspired by this infused milk thing. Will be trying more combinations. Caramelised onion and thyme milk could be good. Might be fun to have a bowl of same-looking but very different-tasting gougères.

Might also try savoury eclairs. Light creamy cheese filling with... what on top? Smooth, glossy tapenade maybe? 

Sat 13 Oct. Tomato Tarts and Baked Chicory.

Party of 4 followed by a raucous party of 5 (mentioning no names, Maureen.) By far the most relaxed evening to date. It's all about prep. Tomato tarts followed by baked salmon; both easily baked in 15 minutes. The only risk was a classic beurre blanc that accompanied the fish (and went well with the pan fried French beans) but that cooperated all evening, happily sitting in a bowl above a pan of simmering water. It didn't even pretend to split. I found I was looking for things to do, rather than run around swearing under my breath.

The chicory was baked for an hour (180) following a stern rub down with butter, honey and orange juice. It's a complex flavour of contrasting sweet and bitter, cutting well with the soft fish and unctuous butter sauce.

The dessert was a vanilla cheesecake. Another recipe from Anthony Demetre. I love his sophisticated bistro style cooking. This was my first ever baked cheesecake (set with egg yolks and not gelatine) but it was wonderful (most of the credit goes to his recipe), smooth, light and very creamy. The only trick is to be brave enough to de-oven it when it still wobbles and allow the residual heat to set it. This was served with local raspberries picked with son-number-one on Friday.

Some heritage toms from Borough Market.

Chicory shimmering with butter, honey and OJ.

White Bean Bruschetta

I was asked for the recipe for my White Bean Bruschetta. I think this is based on a Phil Vickery recipe.

Toast thin, diagonally cut, slices of ciabatta, brushed with olive oil, in the oven (about 10 mins at 160°C, turning once).

Mix one tin of white beans (butter bean, cannellini etc) with a good tablespoon of freshly picked (eschew the supermarkets, there's always some in a neighbour's hedge!) and finely cut rosemary, a clove of fat garlic, olive oil, salt and white pepper. I use a hand blender so I can keep tasting. You want a coarse paste, much like hummus.

To this mix add: teaspoon of white wine vinegar, teaspoon (or more) of toasted sesame oil, pinch of cayenne and dry oregano.

Spoon (or pipe if you want fancy schmancy) onto the cool, dry toast. Drop or stripe each with a thin line of balsamic reduction. This last bit is important as it adds some essential acidity, sweetness and general stand-up-and-be-counted to the paste.

I wish I had photographs. I'm so rubbish at remembering to do so while I'm cooking.