#57 Asparagus Omelette

Another asparagus recipe; there’s two more, but I don’t think I’ll get them done before I go to France at the end of next week. (I’m going on a field trip to St. Auban, just north of Nice.) I bought the ingredients from the excellent fruit and veg stall that’s outside All Saint’s Park on Oxford Road, on the campus of Manchester Metropolitan University. I think a lot of people walk straight past it, thinking it’s some cheapo stall, but it’s certainly not. It sells seasonal produce – including English asparagus – at a very good price. I knew Joff was coming round and I wanted to make something quick and easy, so I thought an asparagus omelette would certainly fit the bill (and it did).

For 3. Start by trimming and cooking a bunch of asparagus as I did for the Asparagus and eggs. Drain them and cut them into thirds. Save some of the best tips for garnish. Keep the rest warm in the oven sprinkled with Gruyere cheese – a tablespoon per person. Make the omelettes using 6 eggs exactly how I did previously when I cooked mushroom omelettes. Add a third of the asparagus and to the centre and serve with a nice salad.

Make a vinaigrette from olive oil and cider vinegar in a ratio of 3:1, a teaspoon of Dijon mustard, salt, pepper, sugar and a small clove of finely chopped garlic.

#57 Asparagus Omelette 6.5/10. A very nice omelette, but oddly I preferred the asparagus and eggs I made earlier in the month. Not sure why, because the ingredients are essentially the same.

#56 Stuffed Monkey

Well I do have some catching up to do! I’ve been cooking loads – not all Grigson dishes, but a few. Trouble is, life keeps getting in the way, and I can’t find time to write everything up. Also, I’m knackered. And lazy.

A good excuse to do a recipe is cake day at work – every Wednesday – so I thought I’d look through the book to find something to make where I’d got all the ingredients in the store cupboard, and came across (#56) Stuffed Monkey; a favourite of Jane Grigson’s. She lifted it herself from a book of Jewish Cookery, but has no idea what makes it particularly Jewish, or indeed what it has to do with monkeys. If anyone knows please tell me. Although Jewish, it does have an English feel to it – it’s basically an almond and candied peel filling sandwiched between two rounds of very sweet pastry that’s almost shortbread in texture and flavour. When baking, it’s difficult to tell whether it’s ready or not, so add an extra 5 to 8 minutes to the cooking time I’ve given if you think you would prefer your Stuffed Monkey more biscuity. Don’t worry, no monkeys were harmed in the making of this sweetmeat.

Here’s how to stuff your very own monkey:

Make a sweet-spiced pastry by mixing together 6 ounces of flour and a teaspoon of ground cinnamon. Rub in 4 ounces of chilled butter that has been cubes until fine breadcrumbs are formed. I always to this with a mixer set on a slow speed these days as it stops the butter softening and turning it to a paste too early. If you don’t have a mixer, use your fingertips. Mix in 4 ounces of soft brown sugar and an egg yolk, and bring the mixture together with your hands to form a dough. If it is too dry to come together add a teaspoon or two of milk. Allow this to rest in the fridge for half an hour, or the freezer for half that time.

Whilst you wait for this, make the filling by beating together 1 ½ ounces of melted butter, 2 ounces each of chopped peel and ground almonds, 1 ounce of caster sugar and an egg yolk.

Roll out half the pastry so it fits in the bottom of an 8 inch cake tin, spread the filling over the top, then roll out the other half and place on top. Brush with egg white and bake for 30 minutes at 190 degrees C. Cool in tin.

TOP TIP: Sweet pastry is a tricky bugger to roll and lift without it braking apart, so roll it on cling film that’s been floured. You can pick it all up at once without tearing.

#56 Stuffed Monkey - 5.5/10. It was an unusual sweet biscuity with a wonderful chewy citrus and marzipan flavored centre. I found it a little dry, however I think I may have overcooked it a little (I added an extra few minutes to the cooking time). That said, it got polished off pretty quickly and many people went for seconds, so what do I know!?

#55 Asparagus and Eggs

It is said that the English Springtime officially commenced with the start of the asparagus season. It is a shame that everything we do so far removed from the seasons these days with our constant demand for year-round food. What is the point of eating a chlorosed watery tomato in November, I ask you!? Yet we all do it. Asparagus, however, although I’m sure that it could be provided all year round, isn’t; the season is ingrained there somewhere. Those that eat it would know not to buy at any other time. That said, I saw some in Asda the other day from Peru!

The other travesty is that I have not cooked any this year, and there are a few asparagus-based recipes in English Food. (#55) Asparagus and eggs made use of the left over eggs from the almond tart I’d made previously, plus Greg and I were slightly hungover and scrambled eggs, as far as I’m concerned, are one of the best cures for such a malaise.

For two: Remove the woody bits from about 6 ounces of asparagus. To do this with minimal waste, just hold the asparagus spear in your hands and allow it to snap near the base end, this is the natural breaking point between woody stalk and tender spear. Boil them in just an inch or so of well-salted water for 2 to 4 minutes, depending on thickness. Do not overcook! Test them with a knife if you’re not sure. Salt is a must with any green vegetable as, apart from improving the flavour, it makes the colour much more vivid (also, don’t cover the pan for the same reason). Drain them and keep them warm. Toast some brown bread and butter it well. Keep that warm too. Make some scrambled eggs, using 4 of the lovelies, a tablespoon of butter and plenty of salt and pepper. Stop cooking the eggs before they are ready as the carry on cooking in the pan. I prefer them soft, creamy and pourable, but I know that makes some people want to vom, but please don’t overdo them. Place two-thirds of the asparagus on the toast, spoon over the eggs, and using your best artistic flare, stylishly place the rest of the spears on top. Scoff.

#55 Asparagus and eggs – 7/10. Simple yet effective. It displays the richness of the eggs, and the sweet but slightly astringent taste of the asparagus. Plus it takes only a few minutes to make. Very good.

#54 Yorkshire Almond Tart

They say that you are what you eat, and being from Pudsey in Leeds, I suppose that makes me a Yorkshire tart, or something. One of my favourite puds is Yorkshire curd tart, but I’d not heard of a Yorkshire almond tart (if you’ve not heard of a curd tart, go and hunt one down), I had Greg, Joff and my mate from way, way, way back, Lee over for a curry, I had most of the ingredients in, so I thought I’d give it a crack. Have a go; it’s a piece of piss!

Roll out some puff pastry (I bought mine, but there is a recipe for it in English Food; I haven’t plucked up the courage, nor had the spare 5 days or whatever to put aside in order to make it) and line a deep plate, or a pie plate. Whisk up 2 egg yolks, 2 ounces of sugar and the rind and juice of half a lemon in a basin or bowl until creamy. This is not as arduous as it sounds, it happens quickly, I assume because of the citric acid in the lemons stabilising the egg proteins. Add an ounce each of ground almonds and melted butter, and whisk the mixture over simmering water for 8 to 10 minutes, I reckon, until it becomes thicker. Pour the mixture onto the pastry and spread the mixture leaving a good gap at the edges and bake at 190 degrees C for 20 to 30 minutes until golden brown on top. Whilst your waiting for that whisk two egg whites and a pinch of salt until stiff, when the pie is done, spread the egg whites over the top and sprinkle over a tablespoon of sugar and return it to the oven for 10 minutes. Eat warm. Foolishly, I forgot to buy cream.

#54 Yorkshire almond tart – 7.5/10. Very sweet, sticky and yummy! This comes as no surprise being a Yorkshire dish. The filling and eggs collapsed rather, and I’m not sure if it meant to – perhaps next time I’ll add the tablespoon of sugar to the eggs to make a meringue that shouldn’t sink. That said, the pastry was crisp, the almond insides were soft in the centre, but caramelised on top, the eggs were light-ish, and the sugar had formed a very pleasing crust. The only other way it could’ve been improved would be to have a dollop of vanilla ice cream with it.

Can't Cook...Won't Cook...

There are several ingredients in English Food that I have assumed that I won’t be able to cook, at least not in England. But watching television last night, it seems I can.

The Supersizers Go… Is a series showing off the eating habits of the English through the ages and last night they went Victorian. The presenters are a bit self-indulgent but it’s good mindless TV. Giles Coren and Sue Perkins tucked into giant game pies, calf’s ears, jellies, plum duffs, bad curries, croquettes, offal, offal and offal. It seems that English really food comes into its own here – many of Jane Grigson’s recipes are very similar to the dishes cooked then; in fact it was her daughter, Sophie that did the cooking. The main ingredients were butter and brandy, it seems, but it was all very restrained and frugal. Unless your very rich, or it was Christmas.

FYI: The Christmas as we know it now was invented in the Victorian era, courtesy of Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and Charles Dickens

One of things that really surprised me was the amount of game that our presenters were allowed to eat. One of the dishes contained snipe – I assumed that there are too rare to shoot these days, but obviously not. Searching on the web, I find that all the game birds that Jane Grigson lists in the game section of the tome are still legal game, including ptarmigan and wigeon. The other big surprise was that one meal’s centrepiece was a boiled calf’s head with the brain served in a garlic butter sauce. I thought that due to the BSE crisis, bovine brains couldn’t be eaten any more. It seems that I am wrong. It also seems that they taste vile. It also seems that I will be able to do the calf brain recipes. Damn.

On Channel 4 later that evening was Gordon Ramsay’s effort, The F-Word. I’m never sure whether I like the programme, yet I seem to watch it every week. This week he was fishing for elvers – baby eels – in Somerset. There is one recipe that uses elves in English Food, and I thought, as I have studied eels and elvers in the past that because elves numbers had dropped by 98 percent it would no longer be legal to fish for them, that they would be protected or something. Well, you have to have a special licence, but you can fish for them. If you want to buy them, they’ll set you back up to £525 a kilo. It took him 4 hours to collect enough for three measly portions. I know that the reason for the drop in numbers is not known, but surely fishing the remaining few is not going to help. I know I won’t be a part of it.

So it seems that there isn’t anything I can’t cook, but some things I won’t.

High Tea, #52, 53

I got me mates Kirsty, Keith and Thom over for a quintessentially English high tea for Bank Holiday Monday, and made some nice cakes. I did ( #52) Sponge Cake I (of two) and (#53) Ginger Cake, as well as some biscuits – I still had some dough left in the freezer from when I made (#29) Elegant Sugar Thins way back in February. We had an ace laugh., but fell pretty sick. I’ve still got some of the ginger cake, and probably will do for a few more days! Kirsty and Keith got me some ace pressies - the best being the Chinese tea set with green gunpowder tea. There's some recipes that have gunpowder tea in it too - I had no idea what it was (and still don't - is it the same as normal green tea?) but will find out in due course.

Sponge Cake I was pretty easy and Greg and I enjoyed making it – I’m trying to get him baking, but there is some resistance. Simply whisk together 3 ounces of caster sugar and eggs until they are all whipped up and pale in colour; this takes a while even using an electric mixer. While you’re waiting sieve 3 ounces of plain flour along with a pinch of salt, and fold it into the eggy mixture carefully using a metal spoon. (Apparently the friction of the wooden spoon pops the bubbles). Divide the mixture between two 7 inch sandwich tins that have been greased and sugared and bake for – 12 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius. Keep an eye on it if you’ve got a fan oven like me though, it does keep the oven dry (I shall use the water in the bottom of the oven trick next time). Turn them onto a wire rack, sprinkle with sugar, and allow to cool. Fill with whipped cream and raspberry jam.

The ginger cake was easy too. It’s one of those dense treacly ones that sink in the centre and weigh a ton – at least in comparison to the sponge cake. Start by creaming 4 ounces of butter, then add 4 ounces of Demerara sugar and beat that in too. Next, mix in 2 eggs and 10 ounces of black treacle (it sounds like a lot of treacle, and it is!). Sieve together 8 ounces of flour and a generous teaspoon of ground ginger and mix into the butter and treacle. Then, weigh out 2 ounces each of sultanas and chopped preserved stem ginger and mix them in too. Finally warm ½ a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda and 2 tbs of milk in the microwave and stir them in. Pour the mixture into a 7or 8 inch cake tin that has been lined with greaseproof paper and bake for an hour and a quarter or more depending on the size of the tin at 160 degrees Celsius. Grigson reckons it gets better if you leave it. We shall see…

FYI: ginger is both a stimulant and a muscle relaxant due to it's antispasmodic properties. It also does you wonders if you've got the shits. Plus, it is an essential seasoning for whale meat, according to Larousse Gastromonique!

#52 Sponge Cake I – 6/10. A nice sponge cake, but I’m used to a Victoria sponge with butter in it, and I’m not used to this super-spongy, like actual sponge, texture. This may be down to my new oven of course drying the bugger out. However any cake is nice by me, especially when it’s filled with cream and jam. We shall have to see what sponge cake II is like!!

#53 Ginger Cake – 7/10. I preferred this cake, although it was more of a treacle cake, than a ginger one. It reminds me of a stickier version of Yorkshire parkin, which is usually dry and crumbly. It’s definitely a wintertime heavy stodge cake, rather than a summery light teatime cake. The addition of the ginger pieces and sultanas made it very moreish. I reckon I would be nice warmed up and served with vanilla or ginger ice cream.

#51, Part II

The Grigson recommended getting another meal out of the shin of beef stew by simmering the stew away until nice and thick and stirring through some chopped parsley, so that's what I did! Well I have to re-think my previous mark of 8/10, because this was absolutely gorgeous. It was a thick super beefy sauce with a good hit of red wine behind it, and the beef was so unbelievably tender I didn't even have to chew. I think that this is one of the best meals you could make yourself. All it requires is time. I'm not sure if it's nicer than the game pie I made recently which I gave full marks...oh bugger it:

#51 (part II) Shin of beef stew - 10/10 Completely brilliant. Go out and make it right now!

#51 Shin of Beef Stew

I have heard people talk of the shin cut of beef, and knew it is supposed to be very tasty but very tough - the legs being a well used part of a cow and all. This means long, slow cooking, and after the tough-as-old-boots braised brisket I'd done a while ago, I thought I'd get this recipe wrong too...but how wrong I was! I tell you what I did first...

I trimmed the fat and the very sinewy parts of the meat before cutting them into big chunks and tossing them in three tablespoons of seasoned flour, then I browned them in dripping in a stockpot. You can have your gas turned up to the max here -don't be shy! When browned, I added enough beef stock to cover the pieces of meat and added one sliced onion and two good sized sliced carrots. For extra flavour, I also added a bouquet garnei of parsley, thyme and bay leaves, a glass of red wine and 3 cloves of garlic (left whole). All this was simmered for two hours and allowed to cool so that the fat could be skimmed off. That was it! Serve with some more veg - I did potatoes and turnips.

#51 Shin of beef stew: 8/10. Simple, cheap and very tasty. I know the red wine is extravagant, but this would still be lovely without. The meat was wonderfully tender and the not at all gristly (I only got one chewy bit!). Because I don't eat meat that often, it's such a treat to get some good quality properly treated meat like this. That butcher in Levenshulme is a keeper!

There is plenty left over, and today I am about to eat the rest! The original recipe doesn't mention doing anything else to it, but Jane mentions that it is best eaten the day after, and also it can be reduced down to a think unctuous gravy. It is bubbling as I type! Reducing the stock to make it a sauce is definitely the right way to go. See this future post to see how it turned out....

Fifty Grigsons Young - Kipper Paste

I didn't realise that the kipper paste was my 50th Grigson recipe; if I had been on the ball, I would have done a feast. Never mind - when it's the hundredth I'll do something special.

I chose to do cook with kippers because not enough people eat things like kippers these days, and I hoped maybe people may be inspired to cook with them now I have. I remember thinking how foul they smelt as a kid when my mum used to eat them, but then when I tasted one, I couldn't believe how sweet and piquant they were with out being horribly fishy. Also, kippers are cheap - even good quality ones should only cost about a quid each. Jane only has one proper kipper recipe, and it is kipper paste, a real Seventies dinner-party staple. I'd never had it, but I like that kind on thing.

Here's what I did:

I covered the kippers with boiling hot water straight from the kettle and let them poach in the residual heat for 10 minutes. Next the skin and bones were taken off. This is not as laborious as it sounds; the fish is made up of longitudinal muscles, so you can peel strips of, as it were, and take the bones out as you go (you don't need to removed the very thin hair-like bones - you wouldn't ever notice they were there). These were allowed to cool slightly and weighed so than an equal weight of soft butter could be measured - it seems that one kipper equals around 100 grams. These were then carefully beaten in the food processor along with pepper, a little salt, some cayenne pepper and ground mace. Then the juice of half a lemon and a couple of table spoons of whipped cream were quickly mixed in (taste at this point - you might want more spices: they do make all the difference). The mixture was spooned into ramekins and a layer of clarified butter was poured over, and the whole thing was set in the fridge. Serve with toasted brown bread.

FYI: the kipper is the most recent of the cured fishes - fish were not split before hot-smoking, but left whole. All this was first done by a chap called Woodger in Northumberland. However, I happen to know that the best kippers can be bought in Whitby. However, because of stupid EU regulations, they cannot be posted to you, so you'll have to simply drive there!

#50 Kipper Paste: 8/10. This dish should totally have a come-back. It is sweet and light, yet rich and salty. Really nice proper food. Go uot and buy some kippers this instant

While the cat's away...

...the mice gorge themselves on meat!

I awoke very late on Saturday morning with a stinking hangover. I was supposed to be at work by ten o’clock, and it was almost twelve. Oh dear. I was secretly happy that I didn’t have to go in though. A small snooze later and I felt fine, and since I was at Greg’s flat in Manchester Centre (I was far too drunk to bus it home the night before) I thought I would get something nice and meaty from the Arndale Market and get Joff round.

On arriving, I found that there’s only a cheap butchers there now selling massive trays of meat for £2 a pop. Not good. The fishmonger there is excellent, and so I had a look round. I bought a couple of nice Manx kippers (I don’t like buying fresh fish on a weekend as it’s usually been there since Monday). Wasn’t sure what to do about the meat, and I’d promised meat to Joff.

I arrived home and though I’d have a look in the butcher’s shop in Levenshulme expecting it to be similar to the one in the market, but how wrong I was! I briefly talked to the chap inside, and he said that they get most of their stuff in whole and butcher it properly on site. They were getting ready to shut up shop, but the beef laid out looked very rich and red, not like the strange translucent pink meat you see in the supermarkets. I bought some shin of beef whilst I was there.

Now I had the main ingredients for a two-course feast: (#50) Kipper paste and (#51) shin of beef stew.

Tooth Update

Went to Withington Hospital for my assessment today; I have to have all four wisdom teeth out! I only thought I'd need two. Bugger. Luckily I don't have to worry about it until September because of the giant waiting lists. I'm having a general anaesthetic too, so I won't know anything until it's all over.

Greg goes away on his holidays today. He's off on a cruise. I've been excited about it for him all day, but now I fear I will miss him lots. I will have to comfort eat for next 10 days...

Panic Over!

It seems I'm not having my teeth out now, a mistake on the letter; 'Oral Surgery' should have read 'Outpatient's appointment'! I'm just off for X-rays.

Well May is a sorry effort for doing Grigsons, and I'm busy at work at the weekends at the minute, I don't know if I'll get any done. Ho-hum, back to collecting data from my experiments...

With great wisdoms comes great agony (and #49)

First off all I should apologise for my total blog tardiness of late; I have been very busy at University recently and so I've been working and cooking tried and tested recipes from (sharp intake of breath) OTHER cookbooks. I feel like I've been unfaithful to our Jane...

Today found out that I will be having my wisdom teeth out on the 15th May, which is the day Greg goes on his cruise and is also my Mum's birthday, so I don't know if I'll have anyone to go with me! Not being able to eat however, will somewhat hamper my cooking, so expect a reduction in blog action! I am calling for help from you, the beloved blog reader - I need recipes for food that requires no chewing. I will obviously be making good use of my ice cream maker next week.

Any road, I did do some cooking - or, in fact, baking - again at the weekend. I am all enthusiastic about bringing back the old tradition of high tea. There was a spot on the BBC's Breakfast programme with Prue Leith talking about how people don't know what Eccles Cakes or parkin and other British fayre are, never mind not baking them themselves! I am on a one-man mission to bring it back. I shall open up a lovely tea shop...

I did (#49) Orange cake and invited Joff round again. I had an orange in and wanted to try the pound cake again from last week; the recipe is exactly the same, except the grated zest of an orange and the juice of half is added to the mixture. This time I baked it for only 30 minutes and it came out perfect. I suppose no one - not even Jane Grigson - is perfect. The best bit of the cake-making was the butter cream. 4 ounces of sugar and the juice of the other half of the orange were boiled until the sugar had reached the soft-ball stage. I didn't have a sugar thermometer, but managed to do it by dropping small amounts into cold water and feeling it between my fingers. Easy. Thank goodness for my ever useful Larousse Gastronomique. This was whisked into 2 whipped egg yolks until thick and fluffy. When warm, 4 ounces of very soft butter was whipped in until even more thick and fluffy. Yum. Hopefully Greg and Joff think I have improved on the previous ones - hopefully they'll mark it highly!

#49 Orange cake - 8/10. A fine cake indeed! I'm not going to mark it higher, because, although very good, more extravagant cakes, like the parsnip cake or divine treats like sticky toffee pudding beat cake hands down! I think I've nailed the pound cake now!

#47 Pound Cake and #48 Buttercream II

As well as the lovely orangeade, I thought I'd make a cake. As much as I love cooking and cake, I don't often make them. So I thought I'd go for the basic plain sponge cake - a pound cake being the easiest because so you put all the ingredients in a mixer in one go. What could possibly go wrong with that!? The parsnip cake was very good, but seemed very easy; I reckon the only way to tell if one is a good baker is to make a basic cake very well. My favorite filling for sponge cake is butter cream, and I've always used my Mum's recipe, which is simply icing sugar and butter (in fact, being a child of rationing in the UK, she uses margarine). There are two butter cream recipes in English Food, but the first requires a sugar thermometer and since I don't have one of those (but if anyone fancies buying me one...), I went for (#48) Butter cream II.

The whole idea behind the original pound cake is that the ingredients all weigh a pound EACH! This is of course overdoing things in the modern home, I think the original recipe must have been for housekeepers making cakes for households. Therefore, nowadays all the ingredients weight a pound altogether: 4 ounces each of softened butter (if you keep it in the fridge, put it in the microwave on a medium setting for 45 seconds), sieved self-raising flour and vanilla sugar (see previous entry), along with 2 medium eggs (which should be 4 ounces). Add a pinch of salt and a tablespoon of ground almonds, which apparently make the final cake more moist, plus a level teaspoon of baking powder. Put all the ingredients in a food mixer and beat until a smooth mixture forms. An early recipe from Hannah Glasse in 1747, says that beating the mixture by hand takes an hour! No thank you, lady. Add to a lined 23cm long loaf tin and - here is where I may disagree with Grigson - bake at 180 oC for one hour and 5 minutes. When I baked mine I checked after 45 and it was overdone! I think that 30 minutes may be enough, though my loaf tin, although 23cm long, does seem quite wide.

The butter cream is a custard-based one, which sounded very nice. It was quite easy too, now that I'm sufficiently experienced in the art if custard-making. My amounts differ to Jane's because I didn't have enough butter, or the right sized eggs, but it made enough for a middle and top layer to the cake:

In a food mixer, whisk 2 egg yolks and 2 1/2 ounces of sugar until it becomes fluffy and very pale. Meanwhile boil 90 mls (a generous 2 fluid ounces). When it comes to a boil, beat it into the egg mixture. Quickly return to the pan and stir on a low heat of a couple of minutes - it should thicken very rapidly. It was hard to judge as the was so much foam; however, as it cooled and the foamy bubbles began to pop, it became noticeably thicker. When the whole thing begins to get cooler, but it still warm, gradually whisk in 5 ounces of very soft butter cut into small cubes. I then added a few drops of vanilla extract. When it is properly cold, use as required!

I simply cut the cake lengthwise in half and added a thin layer of raspberry jam and a thick layer of the butter cream and sandwiched the two halves together, then I spread the rest of the gooey cream on the top.


#47 Pound cake - 6/10. Little disappointed in the cake. It was very tasty, but rather dry. However, this may be my own fault as I haven't got used to my new oven yet. The vanilla sugar that I'd made a cuople of weeks earlier, also gave the sponge a nice, sweet scent.

#48 Butter cream II - 8/10. A lovely creamy, but not overly sickly alternative to normal butter cream. I loved it, and shall be definitely doing it again!

#46 Rich Orangeade

I have had a single Seville orange sat in my fruit bowl for about a month, Saturday was nice and sunny so I thought I'd make (#46) Rich Orangeade so that I could get Greg and Joff round and we can drink nice cool drinks and perhaps have some cake. In fact, have a proper Sunday high tea. It did of course piss it down all Sunday, natch.

The Seville orange was a little manky; it had done what fruit tend to do - go bad from the bottom up, but half of it was usable! To make the orangeade there was a three step process: thinly pare the zest from a Seville orange (in my case half, plus the peel of half a lemon to make up for it) and 6 normal sweet oranges. Put the peel in a litre of cold water and bring to a bare simmer for 5 minutes - the water shouldn't boil properly because the bitter pithy flavour will be drawn out of the peel - then allow to cold. Meanwhile, do step two: boil 8 ounces of sugar with 3/4 pint of cold water for three minutes, then allow that to cool also. Step three: squeeze the juice from all the oranges, and when everything is cool, stir together. Finally add a little orange flower water (I added about 1/4 teaspoon and that was just right for me) and lemon juice - I used half a lemon. Allow to chill properly before being eaten.

Greg says:
The Orange-ade is simply Enid Blyton in a glass, if that doesn't sound too graphic. Lashings and lashings say I! Once you taste that lovely floral kick that the blossom and lemon adds to it you can see the flavour that cheap cordial manufacturers have been harking after all this time, and failing to grasp. It's lovely. Will be even better when the sun comes out. Come on . . . COME ON! 8/10


FYI: I noticed that the orangeade comes from a Victorian recipe and doesn't require fizzy water. So what make an 'ade', I wondered...according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the suffix '-ade' means: "The product of an action, and, by extension, that of any process or raw material; as in arcade, colonnade, masquerade, lemonade, marmalade, pomade." So it seems that turning any fruit into a drink makes it an 'ade'. Everyday's a school day!

#46 Rich Orangeade. 8.5/10. A delicious summertime drink - the perfumed taste and aroma of the peel, the Seville orange and the orange flower water transforms it from just sweet orange juice into something pretty special!

#44 English Game Pie, #45 Cumberland Sauce

I invited Clive from work to help me finish off the last of the game I got from Bury Market last night in the form of (#44) English Game Pie. Looking through the 'Stuffing, Sauces and Preserves' chapter of English Food for something to go with game, I found (#44) Cumberland sauce. I've never had it before, and had no idea what it was. Everything was straight-forward, though the pie had lots of preparation. Anyways, here's what I did...

The day before I simmered a brace of pheasants and a pigeon (essentially everything I had!) in a very light chicken stock along with a good seasoning and a bouquet garnei of parsley, bay leaves and thyme springs. Jane recommends between 2 and 4 birds. It took an hour and a half for the meat to become tender enough for me to pull the meat from the bone with relative ease. I cut the meat into chunks and kept them in a sealed tub topped up with the stock so it didn't dry out over night and reserved the remaining stock.

Next day I arranged the meat in one large dish, and a smaller, as I made an extra one for my PhD supervisor too. Then hard-boiled and quartered three eggs and tucked them between the pieces of meat along with small rolls of grilled bacon (though not in yours Jason, don't worry!), and chopped parsley. Next, I fried a large onion and about 8 ounces of mushrooms in 2 ounces of butter until they were golden. A tablespoon of flour was mixed in to the mushrooms and onions and stirred around so that the butter got absorbed, and then stock was added a ladelful at a time until a thick sauce had developed - about the thickness of double cream. Make sure the sauce is seasoned very well. It was simmered for about 5 minutes, and I added extra stock whenever the sauce thickened too much. The sauce was poured over the meat and then a puff pastry covered the pies. The large pie was cooked at 200 degrees for 20 minutes and then the oven was turned down to 170 for a final ten.

The Cumberland sauce was very easy. Make sure you make it in advance as it should be served cold. Whisk together a jar of redcurrant jelly and a teaspoon of Dijon mustard in a pan over a low heat. Meanwhile blanch the thinly pared peel of a lemon and an orange that have been cut into matchsticks for 5 minutes, then drain. Once the jelly has melted, add the peel, the juice of the two fruits, 5 tablespoons of port, plenty of black pepper and salt and ground ginger to taste (I used a scant teaspoon). Pour into sauce boat. Easy peasy.

FYI: Cumberland sauce is, in fact, German - the recipe was brought over with the House of Hanover in the late Eighteenth Century, and is named after George IV who was the Duke of Cumberland.

#43 English Game Pie - 10/10. This is my first full point dish I think! It was absoluely delicious. Although I'd never had it, there was something very familiar and comforting about it. It was also, for me, the epitome of English Food. The meat was beautifully tender, and he sauce had turned into a delicious gravy and the salty bacon added an extra dimension. The full flavour of the pheasant and pigeon coped very well with the rich Cumberland sauce...

#44 Cumberland Sauce - 8/10. A perfect complement to the game. Although it was very rich and sweet, the savory additions such as the pepper and mustard allowed you to add loads. All in all a fantastic meal!

#43 Parsnip Cake

According to the Grigson, she tried putting parsnips rather than carrots in a carrot cake, and according to her, parsnip cake totally shits on carrot cake. We'll see...carrot cake is my favorite of all cakes, so I'll be a harsh critic.

The cake itself was easy - a carrot cake recipe with the carrots replaced weight-for-weight with the parsnips. Proper American frosting made from cream cheese, icing sugar and butter is the filling. Hopefully the oven's worked ok because I've made it for cake day this afternoon; where a member of the Evolution group at the University take it in turns to make a cake. It's the first one we've done in a while, so don't let me down Grigson!

Mix together 12 ounces of peeled and grated parsnip with four ounces of chopped hazelnuts in a bowl. Next make a cake mixture using an electric beater from 13 ounces of caster sugar, 8 ounces of flour, 2 teaspoons each of baking powder and ground cinnamon, a teaspoon of salt and 8 fluid ounces of oil (use a mixture of walnut or hazelnut and sunflower). Beat in 4 eggs individually and stir in the parsnips and nuts plus a teaspoon of vanilla extract. Divide between two buttered and floured 9 inch cake tins and bake for 40 minutes at 180⁰C. Allow to cool on a rack. Make a filling by beating together 8 ounces of full fat soft cheese, 4-6 ounces of softened unsalted butter, 4 tablespoons of icing sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla essence.

FYI: The parsnip was our main carbohydrate staple before the potato was brought over from the Americas. Also, it was thought that it was an aphrodisiac - careful if you try to pick a wild parsnip though, as it's almost exactly the same as hemlock!

#43 Parsnip Cake - 8/10. Phew! Neither The Grigson or the oven let me down. A lovely moist cake, though I'm not sure if Jane's Claim of it being better than carrot cake. There is however a recipe for her carrot cake - so there's only one way to find out!!

Greg says...

"Mostly I made the parsnip cake actually. I pressed all the buttons and everything. It went round and round and out came a cake! Well done me. I gave Pugling a bit of the filling and he made this noise: bleep! I wasn't allowed a slice until next day but it was worth the wait. Helen tried it too. We made this noise: mmm, ooohhh, mm, ng! Really really good. You would never guess it has parsnips in though. 9/10."

Kitchen - Phase 2!!

It really has been a dry month of cooking! The fact the kitchen wasn't done has been the main factor. However, all is well as it is now fitted! Hooray! Got to do the floors and walls, but the main thing is I have an oven that works (hopefully!) and gas hobs. I can finally say 'Goodbye' to that awful old kitchen.

I'm testing the oven by making a cake. It is cake day at work today so I have made (#43) Parsnip Cake. Hopefully it won't be a giant biscuit - it takes a while to know one's oven, dontcha nar!

#42 Soft Fruit Ice Cream

Since Greg had tonsillitis, I simply had to make some ice cream! Greg chose (#42) Soft Fruit Ice Cream (or Soffru, as Vic and Bob would say). It's a great recipe and very different to the ginger ice cream I made last month; it doesn't require any custards, so although there are several stages, it's quite easy because you can take your time without the worry of your custard turning into scrambled eggs. If you've never made ice cream, this is probably the best place to start I reckon.



The main problem was finding soft fruits in April in Britain! It's easy to buy strawberries, but they are so insipid unless they're in season. I had a look in the greengrocers and saw some lovely ripe peaches and snapped them up. I knew I had raspberries frozen at home as a back up, and they are prefect with peaches - a la peach Melba.



To make the ice cream start by liquidising a pound of soft fruit along with the juice and zest of an orange in a blender, add about 4 ounces of icing sugar to sweeten it (you must use icing sugar as it dissolves instantly). This was folded into half a pint of double cream and a quarter of single single cream that had been whipped and sweetened, again with icing sugar. The mixture was poured into the ice cream maker. Meanwhile, I whipped two egg whites, and when the ice cream was softly frozen, I folded it into the whites, along with three tablespoons of Cointreau. Then I scoffed a load of it the next day. Oink!



#42 Soft Fruit Ice Cream - 8/10. This is a lovely fresh ice cream, very different to a custard-based one. It could have been improved by the addition of a more appropriate liqueur, such as creme de framboise, seeing as I used raspberries. However, I shall be practicing this one loads whenever I see some nice fruit in the summer!

#41 Mushroom Omelette

Well, well, well, it has been a while since I've updated the old blog. I've been busy and skint in equal measure so far this month. It's gruel for me for now on, I think. Inamongst the business, I have managed to get a couple of dishes done at the weekend. Greg hs been quite ill with tonsillitis, so I was only allowed to make soft food, so I did (#41) Mushroom Omelette. I don't know why I hadn't done it before. It's interesting that the omelette is considered English, as it is is obviously French, but we always see them in the English section of any Indian restaurants menu. The recipe that Jane Grigson gives here is very much an English omelette. Whenever I make one, it is always more French, i.e. pull the cook egg into the middle and don't let it colour. I use eggs, a dot of milk, salt and pepper, plus butter to fry it in of course.

This recipe is enough for 6, so decrease – or increase – the amounts as you see fit. Cook a chopped medium onion in 2 ounces of butter until it softens, then add 12 ounces of good mushrooms that have been sliced – e.g. the dark-gilled Portobello – the juices will come out after a few minutes, so turn uo the heat so that just a small amount of the cooking juices are left. Make the omelette itself beat together 9 eggs very well, season and add a tablespoon of chopped herbs – parsley and chives are recommended by Jane – and pour a third of the mixture into an 8 inch omelette pan that had been heated with a knob of butter. Cook until the underside had set and turned slightly golden. Spoon a third of the mushrooms down the centre of the omelette and fold it over. Keep the omelettes warm as you cook them, or serve individually. Don’t worry if the eggs are a little runny – they will continue to cook, and should be a little moist..

#41 Mushroom Omelette - 7/10. The dish was very nice indeed - not as light as a French-style omelette, but the centre was perfectly cooked - still creamy as it should be. The dense mushroom mixture complemented it perfectly. I will do my omelettes in the English style from now on and see if I can improve on it.