1 month ago
Off to Hampton Court Palace at the weekend for their Tudor cookery demonstration, so I thought I’d reproduce a recipe here, and in proper Tudor English too ! Going to have a go at this some time over Christmas…
1 month ago
Roasted Pumpkin Seeds Recipe
On what other day of the year do you roast your own pumpkin seeds but on about October 29? This year, I’ve decided to coat my pumpkin seeds with savory spices, but believe me, pumpkin seeds are divine when roasted with just a little bit of olive oil and a LOT of salt.
Getting the seeds out of the pumpkin wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be. If you paw through them while you rinse them, the remaining pieces of pulp come right off.
Rinsing the Seeds
After just a few minutes of rinsing
There are lots of different choices to make when roasting pumpkin seeds. Do you boil them first or shoot them straight into the oven? Do you roast them at high heat, like 400˚F? Or do you slow roast them at 275˚F or 300˚F? Do you coat them with goodies or just let them stand on their own with a little salt? So far this season, I’ve done them two different ways and both were great in their own way, so I’m beginning to think you really can’t screw up pumpkin seeds (unless you burn them). The first way was with my friend Karen. She threw them in a 400˚F oven with a LOT of salt and some olive oil. It took about 15 minutes. They were great right out of the oven. Well, not right out of the oven. Ouch. Those were the ones garnishing my Pumpkin Sage Soup awhile back. And then today, I went for the slow roast with lots of stuff caked on. These also were great. They stood the test of time a bit better than the earlier ones did in both the flavor and texture categories, but they did not outdo the first ones while still warm. Decisions, decisions.
DarrenBarr, a member of StreamingGourmet, has a pumpkin seed recipe video that I really like. The spices he uses are a little different than the ones I chose, but the concept is similar. And it’s really funny to watch him using a hair dryer to get his seeds nice and dry. You can check out his other recipes and videos at his site, Making It With Darren.
Darren bakes his pumpkin seeds for almost an hour in a 300˚F oven, but I found that I needed to take mine out after just over 30 minutes. My pumpkin seeds weren’t totally dry when they went into the oven either, which made me think that they would take at least 45 minutes to get crispy. But 30 was enough, so make sure that you check on your roasting seeds frequently to prevent burning them.
Spicy Roasted Pumpkin Seeds
Spicy Roasted Pumpkin Seeds
Yields 1 cup
Ingredients
1 cup raw pumpkin seeds, well rinsed and patted dry
2 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp garlic pepper
1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/2 tsp Spanish paprika
1 tsp sea salt + more to taste
Method
1. Preheat the oven to 300˚F. Spray a large cookie sheet with nonstick cooking spray.
2. Once the seeds are rinsed and patted dry, mix the butter, Worcestershire sauce and the rest of the seasonings together in a large zip lock bag. Dump in the seeds, seal the bag and shake it about until the seeds are evenly coated.
3. Spread the seeds evenly on the cookie sheet in a single layer. Bake for 30-45 minutes, checking on them and flipping them over every 10 minutes.
4. Allow to cool slightly and either eat warm from the oven or toss them on a salad or make them in the recipe that will be posted tomorrow. You’ll see!
(thanks to http://mixxnews.com/roasted-pumpkin-seeds-recipe.htm)
2 months ago
This is from the excellent ‘50 Great Curries of India’ by Camellia Panjabi - the best Indian cook book I own. Butter Chicken is a rich and flavoursome curry and is typical of the recipes in the book in that it is uncomplicated but produces fantastic results.
50 Great Curries of India - ISBN 978-1856268196
3 months ago
Borlotti Bean Mole with Roast Winter Squash
Saw this on the great food blog 101cookbooks.
It’s from Dennis Cotter’s Wild Garlic, Gooseberries and Me and is a very comforting vegetarian dish, especially as the nights are now creeping in….
~1 1/2 cups (7 ounces) fresh borlotti beans
~1 1/2 cups (7 ounces) winter squash
olive oil
4 - 5 big leaves of kale (3 1/2 ounces)
2 tablespoons butter
1 medium onion, chopped
2 - 4 red jalapeno chiles, halved, seeded, and chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1 pound of fresh plum tomatoes, chopped or 14-ounce can
2 teaspoons paprika
1 ounce of almonds, dark roasted and finely ground
2 ounces dark 70% dark chocolate, broken into pieces
salt
Preheat oven to 180C / 350F / Gas mark 4. Bring a large saucepan of water to a boil, add the borlotti beans and cook for about 10-15 minute until they are just cooked or even slightly undercooked. Drain and cool under cold running water, and set aside.
Cut the squash flesh into good-sized chunks, about 2 cm or 3/4-inch squares, place them in a roasting pan and toss with olive oil. Roast them in the oven for about 20 minutes until caramelized on the outside but still firm. Reduce the oven temperature to 130C/ 250F / Gas mark 1/2. (hs note: alternately, you can brown the squash in a skillet.)
Without removing the central stem, cut the kale across the leaf into 2cm / 3/4-inch slices. Melt the butter into an oven-proof casserole dish (pot) and fry the onion and chilies gently over a low to medium heat for 20-30 minutes, until caramelized. Add the garlic and fry for three minutes more. Add the tomatoes and paprika, bring to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer gently for 15 minutes. Add the ground almonds, chocolate, squash, borlotti beans, kale, and a teaspoon of salt. Stir until the chocolate has melted. Cover the casserole and put it in the oven to cook gently for 2 hours.
Serves 4.
{From Wild Garlic, Gooseberries & Me, Dennis Cotter ISBN 0007251971}
3 months ago
Roast shoulder of lamb stuffed with saffron rice
This classic dish is a bit of a wow - it looks impressive and the flavours are beautifully evocative. Serves 4-6.
saffron rice
1 shoulder of lamb, about 1.6-1.8 kg, boned and trimmed of most skin and fat
3 tbsp olive oil
sea salt and black pepper
75ml water
4 tbsp orange-blossom water or finely grated zest and juice of 1 orange
to serve:
blanched and braised chard or braised spinach
200g homemade or Greek yogurt, thinned
with 2 tbsp milk, with crushed garlic clove
and a good pinch of salt
Cook the saffron rice (see recipe below) and set aside. Preheat the oven to 220 C/gas mark 7.
Place the shoulder, skin-side down, on a board and open out fully. Put half, or as much as will fit, of the saffron rice into the pockets of the boned lamb, roll up and tie with string. Place a large roasting tray on the hob, over a medium heat, add the olive oil and brown all sides of the lamb until sealed. Season the lamb with salt and pepper, place in the oven and roast for about 1 to 1.5 hours or until the meat is pink inside. Remove, transfer the lamb to a board and let it rest for 10 minutes, loosely covered with foil.
Meanwhile, make the gravy. Pour off any fat and return the roasting tray to the hob and heat over a medium heat. Add the water and orange-blossom water (or zest and juice) and bring to a gentle simmer, scraping the meat juices off the bottom of the pan. Taste for seasoning, transfer to a small saucepan or bowl and keep hot. When you are ready to eat, slice the lamb and serve with the orange-blossom gravy over the top, the rest of the saffron rice (warmed) on the side, some braised chard or spinach, and a little yogurt.
Saffron rice
Saffron rice is eaten at weddings and on special occasions throughout much of the Muslim world. It is an elegant rice, subtly scented with butter and spice. This dish can be made in 15 minutes if the rice has been soaked. Serves 4.
80g unsalted butter
cinnamon stick
5 whole green cardamom pods, cracked
3 whole black peppercorns
200g basmati rice, washed and soaked in salted water for 3 hours
2 tbsp roughly chopped pistachio nuts (optional)
2 tbsp barberries (optional)
sea salt
1 good pinch of saffron threads (about 100 threads) infused in 4 tbsp boiling water
to serve:
200g homemade or Greek yogurt, seasoned
with 1 crushed garlic clove, salt and pepper
caramelised crispy onions
Melt the butter in a saucepan over a medium to low heat. Add the cinnamon, cardamom pods and black peppercorns and gently fry the spices until their aromas start to be released (about 4 minutes). Drain the rice well, add it to the butter, and stir to coat for a minute. Turn up the heat to medium to high. If you are using pistachios and/or barberries, stir them in now. Pour enough water over the rice to cover it roughly by 1cm, and season with salt. Rest some greaseproof paper on the surface of the water, then place a lid on the pan, bring to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Lift the lid and paper off the pan and drizzle the saffron water evenly over the rice. Replace the paper and lid. Turn down the heat to medium to low and cook for 4-5 minutes.
Serve with the seasoned yogurt on the side and caramelised crispy onions on top.
{From The Moro Cookbook, Ebury Press, ISBN 978-0091880842}
3 months ago
Roast Chicken with a Morel Sauce
Not in a book, or at least not in a book I own, but a recipe from the F-Word which turns out superbly each and every time.
For something different, a similar sauce made with dried wild musrooms works really well with a good meaty salmon fillet and black lentils, my own recipe which I’ll post at some stage…but for now, enjoy one of Gordon Ramsay’s finest….
- 2 tablespoons Oil
- 2 Cloves Garlic lightly crushed in their skins
- 4 chicken breasts with skins
- Sea Salt & freshly ground black pepper
- Few sprigs of Thyme
- Few knobs of Butter
- 100 g fresh morels
- Lemon Juice
For the morel sauce
- 12 dried morels
- Olive Oil for cooking
- 3 large shallots peeled and finely sliced
- 1 sprig Thyme
- 1 Clove Garlic peeled and crushed
- 175 ml Dry White Wine
- 175 ml chicken stock
- 250 ml Double cream
Grilled asparagus
- 300 g Asparagus spears
- Olive Oil
- Sea Salt & freshly ground black pepper
Charlotte potatoes with garlic, pancetta and thyme
- 8 large Charlotte Potatoes about 500g in total
- Sea Salt & freshly ground black pepper
- Olive Oil for cooking
- 1 head Garlic cut in half horizontally
- A few sprigs of Thyme
- 100 g pancetta cut into cubes
- Soak the dried morels for the sauce in hot water for 20 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 180°C/gas 4. Infuse the oil with the garlic in an ovenproof pan over moderate heat for 2 minutes. Pat the chicken breasts dry with kitchen paper then season with sea salt and black pepper. Fry the chicken, skin-side down, in the oil with the thyme, for 5 minutes or until the skin is golden and crisp.
- Turn the chicken over, add the butter to the pan, and sear the other side while spooning the melted butter and oil over for 1-2 minutes. Turn the chicken once again, so that the skin is facing upwards, then roast for 15-20 minutes or until cooked through.
For the morel sauce
- Make the sauce in the meantime. Drain and cool the morels, reserving the liquid. Heat a little olive oil in a pan and sauté the shallots, thyme and garlic for 5-6 minutes until golden. Add the morels, a little more oil and seasoning. Cook for 5-6 minutes, then carefully pour in most of the morel soaking liquid (leaving the sediment behind).
- Add the wine and bubble until most almost totally reduced. Add the chicken stock and boil for 8-10 minutes until reduced by half. Add the cream and simmer until thickened to the consistency of single cream. Pass through a sieve, pressing the mushrooms and shallots to extract as much flavour as possible. Season and return the sauce to the pan.
- Sauté the fresh morels in butter with some seasoning. Finish with a squeeze of lemon juice and keep warm.
- Rest the chicken while you reheat the sauce. Slice each chicken breast in two horizontally and season each half. Arrange on warm plates, pour the sauce around and scatter with the cooked fresh morels. Serve with the asparagus and sautéed potatoes.
Grilled asparagus
- For the asparagus break off the tough and woody stems at the base of the spears. Heat a griddle pan until almost smoking. Brush the asparagus with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Transfer the asparagus to the griddle pan with a pair of tongs and griddle until tender, turning them now and again to cook evenly.
Charlotte potatoes with garlic, pancetta and thyme
- Peel the potatoes and cut into even 1cm cubes. Parboil in salted water for 3-4 minutes. Drain well and pat dry with kitchen paper. Heat a little oil in a frying pan. Sauté the potatoes with the garlic and thyme until the potatoes are almost cooked. Add the pancetta and continue to cook, until the pancetta is golden brown and crisp on the edges. Remove the thyme and garlic and check for seasoning.
3 months ago
Bécasse fine champagne “Belle Epoque”
Woodcock with cognac “Belle Epoque” style
For 4 persons
4 fine woodcock, plucked and trussed but not drawn by your poulterer. (Don’t forget to ask him to give you the necks and heads)
2 cl (1 dessert spoon) cognac
1/2 dl (3 dessert spoons) fresh cream (45% fat)
150 g (5 oz) butter
40 g (2 oz) foie-gras without truffles
3 dessert spoons chicken stock
Salt
Pepper from the peppermill
PREPARING (10 min)
1. Ensure that all the small feathers have been removed from the bodies and heads of the woodcock. Separate the necks from the heads and set them aside separately. Remove the skin and throat from the neck and the eyes from the head.
2. Melt 50 g (2 oz) of butter in a fairly wide saucepan. Put in the woodcock and brown them all over on a very high heat. This operation should take little more than a minute. They should remain virtually raw.
3. Put the woodcock on a dish and discard the first cooking butter (too bitter). Remove the strings.
FINISHING (25 min)
4. Melt 100 g (3 1/2 oz) of butter in the same saucepan and put back the woodcock with the heads and the necks. Season. Brown again very quickly, not more than one minute. Remove from the heat.
5. Pour the cognac over the woodcock and set alight. Shake the saucepan very gently until the flames go out and all the alcohol has evaporated.
6. Cut up the woodcock on a board, put the breasts and the legs back into the saucepan with the necks and heads. Leave the carcasses on the board.
7. Put the saucepan back over medium heat and finish cooking the breasts and legs gently. They should remain slightly pink. (2 Or 3 minutes are enough.)
8. Take breasts, legs, necks and heads out of the saucepan and keep them warm on a platter.
9. Scrape the carcases clean of flesh and entrails using a spoon and fork. Discard the carcases.
10. Remove the stomachs and intestines from the scraps and discard. Chop up everything else very finely with a big knife.
11. Put this mince into the saucepan used for cooking the woodcock, together with the foie gras and the cream. Add a little pepper and salt and mix with a whisk.
12. Strain the mixture through a fine conical sieve into another, less wide saucepan. Scrape the inside surfaces of the sieve well with the back of a stainless steel spoon to extract as much sauce as possible. (There is not a great deal of it.)
13. Add the chicken stock to the sauce, put the saucepan over medium heat and cook very briefly and gently. This sauce should just heat up and brown slightly. Its consistency should nevertheless be a little thicker than other sauces. Correct salt and pepper. If the sauce is too thick for your taste you can dilute it with a very little water.
14. Re-heat the woodcock for a few moments in the oven heated to 200 c (400 f, gas 6). Add the juice that will have leached from the flesh to the sauce. Put the breasts on to hot plates (not boiling hot, or the sauce may curdle) and pour sauce all over them. Add an accompaniment of little croutons, sauteed in butter and salted. Put the remainder of the meat, except the heads, into the sauce for the second helping.
15. Grill the brain side of the heads over a candle. Then, on the board, cut 5 to 6 mm (about 1/5 in) from the top of the heads, uncovering the brain. Put a little salt and pepper on the board and dip the heads into it, brain downwards. Put the heads on to hot plates and serve separately. The diners should be able to suck the brains while holding the heads by the beak.
serve the woodcock with pine keels sauteed in butter and salted, with hot cranberries in syrup and with wild mushrooms or leaf asparagus.
As the sauce is fairly rich you can perfectly well serve one woodcock between two persons - but sadly they have only one head!
And to drink with the woodcock
- Corton in a great year (“Pougets” - Louis Jadot)
- red Hermitage in a very good year and ready for drinking (E Guigal)
{from Creative Belgian Cooking by Pierre Wynants}
Creative Belgian Cooking by Pierre Wynants
This book was bought in Brussels some years ago, while I was living their briefly and wanted to try my hand at the great Belgian food we were getting in the ‘belly of Europe’…
I didn’t realise it was a signed copy until I got it home, so can’t claim to have met the man himself, but it is full of some really excellent recipes. One though, which I will post after this entry, had us in stitches at the time, and we refer back to it often. The book just flipped open to a picture of a woodcock’s head and beak which had been ‘grilled over a candle’ and placed lovingly on the plate.
It doesn’t look so odd now (although I still don’t think I’d order it let alone cook it) but our younger and less gastro-wise selves back then thought it hilarious…
(editions de La Truffe Noire, ISBN 2-9600034-1-1)
3 months ago
Chicken with Tomato Gravy (Murgh Tikka Makhani)
RIP Keith Floyd
Seems fitting I was cooking this the night before he died. His enthusiasm and passionate approach to cooking inspired a generation. This was taken from his terrific Floyd’s India book, and is a great way to start this blog.
In this dish chicken is cooked in a rich tomato gravy scented with fenugreek leaves.
Ingredients
vegetable oil
4 or 5 cloves of garlic, peeled and finely chopped
800 g/1¾ lb chicken morsels
2 or 3 tablespoons fenugreek leaves salt and pepper
150 ml/5 fl oz double cream
2 tablespoons ghee
3 tablespoons honey
for the tomato gravy
1 kg/21/4 lb whole tomatoes
3 or 4 small red onions, peeled
4 or 5 cloves of garlic, peeled
5 cm/2 inch piece of root ginger, peeled and chopped
5 or 6 fresh green chillies
5 green cardamom pods
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground mace 3 or 4 cloves
Method
1 Put all the ingredients for the tomato gravy in a pan with a little water, bring to the boil and cook for a few minutes. Cool slightly, then puree in a food processor or blender to make a smooth red gravy.
2 Heat some oil and fry the chopped garlic until brown. Add the chicken pieces and stir-fry until they are golden.
3 Pour in the tomato gravy and simmer gently until the chicken is almost cooked. Stir in the fenugreek leaves and season with salt and pepper.
4 Just before serving, stir in the cream, the ghee and the honey.
