Pheasant Pithiviers

Christmas dinner this year was what we no laughingly refer to as 'The Pasty' - my interpretation of Raymond Blanc's Pheasant Pithiviers.  I pretty much followed the recipe to the letter, and rather than reproduce it, I have linked to the video from his 'Kitchen Secrets' programme that explains how to make it, about 10.30 in. It took 3 days, but was very nice and looked splendid.  Essentially, it is confit pheasant legs mixed with pan-roasted pheasant breasts, chestnuts, onion, garlic, cranberries and mushrooms, then sandwiched between 2 sheets of all-butter puff pastry.  This is deep-glazed with salted egg yolk, baked, and served with a delicious Pheasant, Port and Madeira gravy made from the carcase.  Made a change from turkey!

Peanut Butter 'Fudge'

If you are looking for a last-minute Christmas gift to make, then this is a doddle.  It isn't realy fudge, but ends up as a fudgy treat.  You need to melt 8oz of unsalted butter and a cup (American measure, sorry) of smooth peanut butter in a pot or microwave.  Let the mix cook for a minute or two.  Stir in a teaspoon of vanilla essence and a pound of icing sugar.  It will go crumbly and stiff and difficult to beat.  This is normal!  Line a 20cm square tin with baking parchment and press the warm mixture evenly into the base.  Cover it with another sheet of parchment and this makes it easier to press down and 'squidge' - technical term there.  Allow to set and chill in the fridge for a good couple of hours or overnight.  Cut into small pieces - it is rich and sweet.  You can drizzle with melted chocolate too if liked.  Best eaten with a syringe of insulin by your side and a defibrillator.

Beetroot and Carrot Latkes

It is the Jewish festival of lights, Hannuka (or Hanukka, it seems both spellings are used)soon, and Latkes, or potato cakes, are a staple for most people observing the festival.  I am not Jewish, but I approve of nicking other cultures' food if it is good!  The principle of a latke is to combine grated starchy potato and grated onion with plenty of seasoning, and then fry spoonfuls of the mix, flattened, in oil until brown and crisp.  Delicious.  I saw a version made with grated carrot and beetroot, and made some last night, along with the pototo variety.  Really nice - just make sure they are well seasoned, they need quite a bit of salt and pepper.  I also added some beaten egg to bind them (about half an egg to 1 large carrot and beetroot) as they don't have the starch that the potato variety has.  Also, I used much less oil than traditional recipes, and finished them off on a baking sheet in the oven for 10 minutes.  This ensures they are cooked through, and they go a lovely colour.  Served with flakes of smoked mackerel, some watercress, and creme fraiche mixed with grated horseradish, this made a really nice, almost Scandinavian, supper.

Cranberry Tiffin

Another baking marathon this weekend, in aid of my friend's charity Sea2Sea (check it out, he's cycling from the West to East Coast of the States to raise money for US and UK veterans).  This is an easy one to do and tuck away.  If you can open packs and heat a pan of water, you can make this.  In a bowl over gently simmering water (don't let the bowl touch the bottom), melt 200g of milk chocolate, 100g dark chocolate, 100g butter, 100g of golden syrup until smooth and amalgamated.  Don't rush this stage, keep the heat low, and leave it be, with just a little gentle stirring towards the end.  You don't want it to go grainy - oh no!  Then, add 200g of rich tea biscuits or shortbread biscuits, broken up (either by hand or by bashing in a plastic bag with a rolling pin) and 170g of dried cranberrries.  You can also add around 60g of your choice of nut, such as pistachios, pecans or almonds.  Mix gently until everything is coated and then spread into a 20cm sq baking tin, lined with cling film.  Allow to set, then dredge with cocoa powder and cut into squares - this should yield 16 medium or 12 large pieces - or cut them into small bite-sized pieces and pack into cellophane bags for a yummy home-made Christmas pressie.

Mushroom Ragout

Nice simple veggie supper, this, served with bubble and squeak (a British take on the soft polenta that many recipes call for) and a poached egg.  Simply saute a finely chopped onion in a tablespoon of oil and 25g of butter until nice and soft,  Add 2 or 3 cloves of chopped garlic and soften for another minute.  Turn up the heat and add around 300g (for 2 people) of sliced mushrooms - I use Portobello and chestnut mushrooms - and some salt and pepper.  Add around a teaspoon of fresh thyme leaves and cook the mushrooms until they are lightly browned.  Now add 3 tablespoons of Marsala or Madeira (or sherry), a tablespoon of creme fraiche and a squeeze of lemon, and simmer for a further minute or so.  Stir fresh parsley and chives in right at the end and spoon over your choice of starch - bubble and squeak here, but creamy mash, pasta, polenta and rice would all work well.  Also nice on toast.  I love this soooooo much I could eat it every day.

Roast Chicken Boulangere

This is my favourite way to prepare chicken for Sunday lunch - chunks of potatoes and onions on the bottom of the roasting tin, with some chicken stock, and a rack over them with a good free-range chicken above.  As the chook roasts, the juices drop onto the veg below and the stock keeps the meat succulent.  Served with Chard Gratin and a puree of carrot and swede it makes for a heavenly meal of good things to eat.  Especially when followed by apple, pear and pecan crumble with custard.  Yum!  I like to mix some thyme, lemon zest, garlic and seasoning with some olive oil and slip it between the skin and the breast meat, and then shove the halved lemon inside.  Drop the 'spent' shells (such a lovely expression) into the potatoes and onions, as they impart a lovely gentle lemoniness as they cook.

Broccoli and Salmon Pasta Bake

Nursing two broken toes has meant a rather less ambitious couple of weeks in the kitchen, hence the quietness on here recently (although I did manage to make 8 Christmas puddings last weekend......).  So it is nice to be able to be a little more ambitious in the last day or two as they get better.  This adaptation of a BBC Good Food recipe went down well.  It is, essentially, raw fillets of boneless, skinless salmon laid on a baking dish, topped with penne and broccoli in a cheese sauce, then baked for 20 minutes until brown and bubbling and the fish cooked through.  The sauce also has sun-dried tomatoes, basil and capers added (and anchovies, if liked - I don't).  The original recipe uses mascarpone and, lovely though that is, it is too rich for a week-day supper.  So I just used  ordinary milk and made a bechamel with it instead.  You'll find the original recipe on the Good Food website - a nice way to use ubiquitous salmon, and filling and comforting as the nights get colder.  You could vary this endlessly - use leeks, spinach, Swiss chard or mushrooms instead of broccoli, and chicken or ham instead of salmon (though I'd probably lightly cook the chicken first).

The Best Chocolate Sauce

An extravagant claim, I know.  But if you like a chocolate sauce to be as dark, brooding and bitter as Heathcliffe, then this recipe from David Lebovitz is for you.  It is also low in fat - hurrah! (erm....we'll just gloss over the sugar, eh?).  This makes a large quantity, and it will keep for a week or so in the fridge to anoint chocolate pear pudding (as we did tonight), ice cream, pancakes, banana splits - or just spooned from the bowl......!  The recipe calls for corn syrup but I used the much more British ingredient, glorious golden syrup.  "Out of the strong came forth sweetness" and all that.  Anyway, do yourself a favour, make this, and dive in.

Potato, Leek and Swede Gratin

This dish came about as I stared at a leek and the remains of a swede sitting accusingly in the bottom of the fridge, but it was surprisingly good, and easy too.  Which is important this week, as I have broken two toes and can't stand around the kitchen easily.  So, I needed something that even my husband could do, and he's useless.  Sorry, dear heart, but it is true.  Anyway, if you can peel veg, and chop them (sort of) then you can make this.  For two: a large leek, well washed and sliced, a large potato (King Edward's or Maris Piper), peeled and thinly sliced and about a quarter of a swede, ditto.  Heat a quarter of a pint of milk, the same quantity of veg stock (Marigold is fine), a bay leaf, and 25g of butter in a pan.  Season well with salt, pepper and grated nutmeg, and add all the veg to the pan.  Cover, and simmer on a low heat for 5 minutes until the veg has softened.  Pour into a buttered shallow baking dish, removing the bay leaf, and sprinkle with about 50g of cheddar, parmesan, whatever you have in the house (I used a mix of the two).  Bake at 180C for 25 minutes until the liquid is absorbed, and the top is crusty brown and bubbling.  We baked some tomatoes alongside and ate with a watercress salad and a crusty loaf.  It would also be a nice accompaniment to roast chicken or turkey, I imagine.

Nigel Slater's Roasted Peppers with Pasta and Basil

We have been getting some wonderful long 'ramiro' peppers from Riverford this Autumn.  They are sweeter than traditional 'bell' peppers, and when I saw this recipe on Nigel's recent 'Simple Cooking' series, I knew I had to make it.  It is a variation on Piedmontese Peppers, where the halved peppers are stuffed with cherry tomatoes and garlic.  You make basil oil by blitzing a lot of fresh basil with olive oil, spoon over the peppers and tomatoes, and bake for 20 minutes or so, until the peppers are soft and juicy.  Serve with orechiette pasta, dressed in the remaining basil oil and the juices from the baking tin.  A delightful dish.  It would work with regular peppers, I'm sure, but do try to get the ramiro ones

Pissaladiere - sort-of!

Helping with the nibbles for my friend's party was such fun this weekend.  She is a veggie, and a lover of onions (borderline obsessive - sorry, Anu, but it's true!), so I wanted to give her pissaladiere, but without the anchovies.  And without the traditional bread crust.  Oh, and without the black olives, as there was tapenade to eat too.  So not really pissaladiere, then but just an onion tart!  Anyway, the key is the onions - 3 big red ones and 2 Spanish onions, all sliced thinly, and gently, gently cooked for an hour in 2 tablespoons of olive oil and a knob of butter, with 2 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, a dessertspoon of brown sugar, a good dessertspoon of fresh thyme leaves and salt and pepper.  It is important to cover the pan and take your time.  Let the onions collapse and slowly caramelise for the right texture and intensity of flavour.  Allow to cool, and then spread over a sheet of good butter puff pastry, leaving a small border.  Bake for 25 minutes or so until the edges have risen, the onions have darkened even more and all is crispy.  Will serve four people, or can be cut into smaller squares as a canape.

Spinach Spanikopitas

I helped with the nibbles for a friend's party this weekend, and made spinach spanikopitas, which are such fun.  Good to eat too!  I guess this is one of those recipes where you add whatever flavourings you want - some put Parmesan in, but I don't think that is very Greek.  Having said that, I use ricotta, which mixes better with the spinach than the more authentic feta would.  Anyway, thaw 250g of frozen spinach (I do this on several changes of kitchen paper, like a sort of spinach nappy, as it soaks up all the liquid as it thaws).  Mix with a tub of ricotta, lots of mint (I used about 3 tablespoons, chopped), and an egg.  Season really well with salt, pepper and grated nutmeg.  Taste it to get the seasoning right.  Now, cut sheets of good filo (preferably something like the french feuille de brique) into long strips, brush with butter and fold in half down the middle.  Plop a dessertspoon of the spinach mix at the top and fold over and over itself into a triangle, securing the end with a little butter to hold the final fold down.  Repeat.  I got about 24 out of this quantity of filling.  Lay on a baking sheet (or 2), and brush all over with more butter.  Bake at about 180C for 20 minutes until golden and glossy and crisp.

Apple and Calvados Crostata

Crostata or galette - whatever you want to call them, they are my favourite way of making a fruit pie or tart.  No fiddly lining of flan or pie tins, no baking blind, and an uneven finish is positively encouraged to ensure a fashionably 'rustic' look.  I've made others on here before - peach and blueberry, fig and raspberry - this one makes use of some fabulous Bramley cooking apples from Riverford.  I cooked 4 of them to a fluffy puree with sugar to taste, and chopped another one in for a bit of texture.  To this, I added a big handful of raisins that had been soaked in a good splosh (technical term, there) of Calvados, to emphasise the appliness.  When cool, this mixture was piled into the centre of a rough round of sweet shortcrust (200g flour, 100g butter, a tablespoon of sugar and an egg yolk).  A sprinkling of ground almonds on the bottom soaks up any extra liquid from the apples.  Fold the edges of the pastry up to form a rough border, brush with the left-over egg white and sprinkle with demerara sugar and more ground almonds.  Bake on a sheet of parchment at around 180C for about 40 minutes until golden and cooked through.  Lovely served warm with a little custard or cream, to which a further splosh of Calvados has been added.

Beetroot, Carrot and Orange Soup

I have blogged the Beetroot and Carrot soup already, and declared my love for it, but it was taken to new heights by the addition of the zest and juice of an orange.  Gosh, it was so wonderful, I could have eaten the entire pot!  Anyway, if you like these flavours, they all go together really well - it is simple to make: sweat a chopped onion, some chopped carrots and peeled fresh beetroot (a ration of 2:1 carrot/beetroot) in a tablespoon or so of olive oil until softening.  Grate in the zest of a large orange, followed by its juice.  Just cover with veg stock (Marilgold is fine) and simmer gently until the veg is tender.  Puree with a hand-blender and serve.  You can add cream if you like, but we didn't, enjoying the pure, fresh tastes of the veggies and orange. 

Sticky Pecan and Raisin Buns

Gosh, these are good!  Puff pastry rolled around brown sugar, cinnamon and raisins, sliced, then baked on a bed of butter, more brown sugar, and chopped pecans.   Another contribution to the charity cake sale today, and everyone enjoyed them heated very briefly in the microwave, when they emerged squidgy, fragrant and buttery (the buns, that is, not my colleagues, though they ended up that way after eating them).  I broke the low(er) fat regime by sharing one with a colleague.  Unfortunately, I also shared a chocolate danish, a slice of the Lemon and Apple Tart, a piece of Apple and Blueberry Cake and half a Raspberry and White Chocolate Brownie through the course of the day.  My maths isn't very good, but even I know that adds up to ......errr.....rather a lot of cake :-)

Anyway, make these buns, and they will make you smile all day.  based on a recipe by Ina Garten, they can be found on any number of blogs, but here is a link to the Food Network recipe from her show.  Follow the advice in the comments boxes - cut back the amount of butter and sugar a wee bit, and I reduced the cinnamon too - 3 teaspoons would be overwhelming.  Also, DO NOT let them sit for too long before turning out, as the molten butter and sugar quickly sets rock hard, and you will be chipping them out with a pick-axe.

Apple and Lemon Tart

I am doing another charity cake sale at work, and I thought I'd celebrate the British apple this time, so I had to make my Apple and Lemon tart.  I don't know why I haven't put it on here before - it is so delicious and simple and doesn't require the pastry to be blind-baked.  You line a 10" loose-bottomed flan case (metal) with some good sweet shortcrust - bought is fine, but I just knocked some up in the processor with 200g plain flour 100g butter and a tablespoon of icing sugar, bound with an egg yolk and water.  Now, peel and grate two large Cox's apples (British please!) and add to the juice and zest of two lemons, 2 eggs, 4 tablespoons caster sugar and 120ml of double cream.  Mix well, pour into the pie crust and bake at 170C for 40 minutes.  It is like a Tarte au Citron but with the freshness and texture of apple .  It is very nice indeed!  One tip: it looks a bit like a quiche, so a heavy drenching with icing sugar just before serving helps.

Ina Garten's Italian Wedding Soup

I have been watching Ina Garten's 'Back to Basics' on the UK Food Network (obsessively, my husband would assert) and saw her make this the other day.  It is a famous recipe in the blogosphere, and consists of little chicken meatballs in a good chicken broth with diced carrots, onions, spinach and parsley.   Tiny pasta is added, in my case risoni, and it is topped with grated Parmesan.  I made the meatballs by mixing a couple of skinned pork sausages (Ina recommends chicken sausages, but it is tricky to find good quality ones), with some minced cooked chicken, some breadcrumbs, garlic, grated Parmesan, an egg and lots of chopped parsley.  The little balls are baked in the oven, which keeps the fat down.  Meanwhile, cook the carrot and onion in the stock until tender - use good homemade stock, and we got through 2 pints of it for our dinner! - and then add the pasta about 10 minutes before serving.  In the final minute, add a handful of chopped spinach, the meatballs and lots of parsley and serve piping hot with Parmesan on top.  Delicious!

Balsamic-glazed Pork Steaks

Can I say right out that I am not a fan of Balsamic Vinegar?  Unless it is very good quality (and, therefore, very expensive) stuff from Modena, I tend to find it sharp and overwhelming.  This is a good way to use it, however - in small quantities, and tempered with the sweetness of honey.  It is dead simple - saute a couple of boneless pork steaks (organic, free-range, outdoor reared, and British, please) in a knob of butter and dash of olive oil.  Make sure the meat is well seasoned with salt and pepper, and don't fiddle with it.  Let it get a good crust on each side, around 5 minutes for the first side and 4 for the other.  Unless your pork is very thick, this will be plenty of time to cook through, yet still be moist and juicy.  After about 9 minutes is up, pour in 120ml of white wine, 2 tablespoons of Balsamic vinegar and a tablespoon of runny honey.  Stir and baste the meat with the sauce and let it reduce down to a syrupy glaze.  Serve straight away with the glaze poured over.  It went very nicely with simple boiled rice, some braised fennel and steamed broccoli.  Mash would be good too.