An autumnal caramelised apple tart

I'm away from the Big Smoke, and about to start a new job and thinking instead about the pleasure of cooking and in particular something to use up all the fallen apples from our garden.  These apples are so beautiful to eat straight from the tree, but I don't think they'll last, so propose instead to make a tart tatin - this one from from Gordon Ramsay's A Chef for All Seasons, and looked so absolutely delicious in the picture.

When I try it my version will invariably look a little more amateur, but I'll put some photos on of my attempt.

Gordon Ramsay's caramelised apple tart

3 large Cox’s apples
300g puff pastry (I use shop stuff)
40g cold unsalted butter, thinly sliced
80g caster sugar, mixed with ¼ teaspoon of Chinese five-spice powder.

About 4 hours before cooking, quarter the apples, cut out the core and peel thinly. Leave the apple uncovered so they dry out a little.  This is so that the apples dry out slightly - it doesn't matter if they brown, their colour will be quite hidden by the caramel.

Roll out the pastry and cut out a circle 23-24cm in diameter (to fit a tin a couple of cm smaller). Prick lightly with the tip of a sharp knife and chill for a couple of hours.

When ready to cook, layer the thinly sliced hard butter in the bottom of the pan and sprinkle over the priced sugar. Press the apple quarters into the butter, cored side uppermost, arranging them in a circle with one in the centre.

Place the pan over a medium heat. After a few minutes roll the pan so the butter and sugar dissolve and mix together. Tip the pan occasionally to check the caramel is forming. Cook for 10 mins then remove from the heat.

Lay the pastry over the pan and tuck the edges down inside, pressing in with a fork. Place the pan in the oven and bake for 15 mins until the pastry is golden brown and crisp. Remove and cool before turning over onto a large platter. This serves 2-3.

Nadine Abensur's braised salsify

Salsify is a strange vegetable, a bit like celeriac.  I've seen it on sale among the bonnet peppers and baby aubergine of the halal groucer, but have never known how to cook it.  Salsify is itself the name of the genus, the most widely cultivated version of the plant is Tragopogon porrifolius.  It has a lovely purple flower, for which it was originally grown in the UK in the 16th century, but latterly cultivated for its root as well.

Salsify, image courtesy of Wikipedia

The root is reputed to taste of oysters (and an alternative name of the plant is oyster plant, apparently).  It sounds very interesting, and Nadine Abensur has a recipe for braise salsify with lemon and garlic in her book "Secrets from A Vegetarian Kitchen".  I'll let you know how it works ...


Nadine Abensur's Braised Salsify

3 lemons

450g salsify

200ml water

50ml olive oil

2 garlic cloves, finely sliced

1 tsp finely chopped freshly chopped fresh parsley

Have 2 lemons and cut the remaining lemon into quarters.  Scrape the peel from the salsify, rub each with a lemon laf and immerse in cold water, with a little lemon juice to stop it from blackening.  Cut into managemable lengths, and place in a saucepan with the water, olive oil, garlic and lemon quarters.  Bring to the boil and then simmer gentle for 40-45 minutes until the water has evabporated and the salsifty is soft, and frying to a pale golden brown on some of its sides.  Dust with finely chopped parstly to serve.


Salsify image along with more information, from BBC Good food website

Gary Rhodes' potato and leek gratin

I am afraid posts have been a little light on photographs recently.  What the the fun of holidays and the endless delights of eating out I've not been doing much cooking.  However, I'm back in the UK now, so I've found a recipe to try.  This is another from Gary Rhodes' "Rhodes Around Britain" and it sounds just the thing as the rain pours down in London and the nights start to draw in ...


Gary Rhodes' Potato and Leek Gratin

450g leeks

2 onions, sliced

25g unsalted butter

600ml double cream

450g potatoes, peeled and thinly sliced

1 small garlic clove, crushed

salt and freshly ground pepper

freshly grated nutmeg

50g mature cheddar cheese

Cut the leeks diagonally into 5mm slices and blanch in boiling water for 30 seconds.  Drain, rinse under cold water, rinse again and pat dry.  Be very careful cutting the leeks, when I worked in a cafe it was always the leeks that people would end up injuring themselves on ...

Cook the onions in butter for 2-3 minutes until softened.  Add the garlic and season with salt, pepper and nutmeg.  Bring to the boil and the stir in the leeks and onions.  Pour the mixture into the preheated shallow ovenproof gratin dish to the depth of 4cm, covering with the cream.

Place the dish into a roasting tray filled with very hot water and baked in a pre-heated oven at 180 degrees until the potatoes were cooked through and golden brown on top.  When the potatoes are easily pierced with a vegetable knife, they are ready.

Remove the dish from the hot water.  Top with the grated Chedder and glaze under hot grill until golden brown.  Yum.  

France, food and crème brulle

O and I have just been to Paris and Brittany - oh the joy - so much food to write about, among them one of my favourites  crème brulle - which O had at the fantastic Pure Cafe in Paris.

This version, with fresh jasmine is from A Chef for All Seasons by Gordon Ramsay.

Jasmine crème brulle

375ml double cream
200ml creamy milk
50g fresh jasmine flowers
6 organic free-range eggs
70g caster sugar
some demerara sugar to caramalise

Heat the cream and milk in a saucepan and allow the liquid to rise up the sides of the pan before removing from the heat. Stir in the jasmine flowers and leave until cold.

Strain into a clear pan , pressing the flowers in the sieve with the back of a ladle to extract the fragrance.

Reheat the cream. Meanwhile, beat the egg yolks in a large bowl set on a damp cloth to keep it steady. When the cream starts to creep up the sides, pour a small amount onto the yolks and whisk to blend. Keep whisking in a hot liquid carefully so it doesn’t curdle.

Strain the mixture back into the pan and stir in the caster sugar. Heat on the lowest possible setting, stirring frequently until the custard coats the back of the spoon. Pour into six ramikins.

Bake the custards for 45-60 mins until the sides come away from the edge of the container when tipped slightly. The centre should remain slightly wobbly. Remove from the heat and cool until chill until set.

Sprinkle the demerara sugar in an even layer on the top and caramalise.

A new cooking resolution

C and I have recently become unexpectedly drawn into the hopelessly compelling Great British Bake Off on BBC2.  As far as television goes, it really is fantastic.  Anyway, watching the technical detail which the contestants apply to their scones, bread and cakes has made me ashamed of my own cavalier approach to cooking in general.

Cooking and baking is such fun, and something C and I have been lucky enough to have done since we were both very young.  However ... I usually just glance at a recipe and throw ingredients together and rely on some sort of intuitive wizardry to make everything work.  It usually works (occasionally brilliantly) but sometimes it does not.  Once I added a whole jar of truffle sauce instead of a spoonful to O's wild mushroom pasta; I recently turned jam into a strange thick toffee that is still sitting in a state of total solidity in a jar in the kitchen; most recently when cooking for O and T I used half as much cream as I should have done in an experimental recipe which resulted in a Jarlsberg and hazelnut pasta bake that was just about edible, but only in a 'we've been lost at sea for a week' kind of way.

So, three months into keeping this blog, I have a resolution.  The original intentions of the blog were to mark the seasons and write down good recipes instead of forgetting them, but I shall add to this the promise to start paying attention to detail and try and learn abit more of the craft of cooking and baking, and then maybe then those who taste my experiments may have more pleasant surprises instead of just surprises. 

More figs - Gordon Ramsay’s roasted figs with cinnamon shortbreads

On the subject of figs - so beautiful and in season now - here is another recipe from A Chef for All Seasons.

Gordon Ramsay’s roasted figs with cinnamon shortbreads

Figs

8 fresh figs
70g icing sugar
40g unsalted butter
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

Shortbreads

125g unsalted butter, softened
90g caster sugar
1 large free-range egg, beaten
250g plain flour
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
a pinch of fine sea salt

Figs from the market

Make the shortbread dough but beating the butter and sugar with a blender until light and fluffy, gradually add the beaten egg.  Sift the flour with the cinnamon and salt. Slowly beat in the flour until the mixture comes together in a soft dough.

Scoop the dough onto a sheet of cling film and gently shape into a roll about 5cm across. Wrap and chill until firm (can be kept for a week in the fridge or a month in the freezer – cut off discs with a serrated knife and bake from frozen).

When ready to use, cut rounds from the firm dough roll the thickness of a £1 coin. Place on a baking sheet and press down edge with a pastry cutter if wanted. Bake at 150 degrees for 20-25 mins until lightly coloured. Cool on wire rack and sprinkle with caster sugar.

For the fruit, cut the stalk tops off the figs then cut each in four almost to the base, to they form a petal shape. Heat the icing sugar and butter slowly in a frying pan, stirring until the sugar has dissolved then mix in balsalmic vinegar.

Stand the figs upright in the pan and spoon over the syrup. Cook on a low heat for about 7 mins, spooning over the syrup as the fruit softens. The figs should retain their shape. Remove from the heat and cool in the pan. Serve on biscuit or by side.

Figs in rum - and almost a fire in the kitchen

On the market last week I finally found black figs, lovely and ripe and very cheap, so set about making Nigella Lawson's figs in rum to serve with marscapone come Christmas.

I should warn you, however, of the dramas that unfolded when I tried.  After adding the bottle of white rum to the sugar syrup, I lifted the lid of the pan only for the whole thing to begin dancing with pale blue flames as the alcohol fumes caught fire.  Take care if you try the recipe, particularly if you cook on gas.  Fortunately, on this occasion, once I'd turned off the heat and put the lid back on, the flames died away almost immediately.  

Anyway, moving on from the health warning, the final figs have filled the jar looking bulbous and appealing, waiting for Christmas ...

Figs in rum, macerating for Christmas ...

Sweetcorn and sweetcorn soup

In season at the moment on the market are sweet corn and figs - four for a pound for each.  So finally I bought enough figs to make Nigella Lawson's figs in rum, and also couldn't resist buying the beautiful green and yellow husks of sweetcorn.  

I made sweetcorn and watercress soup with what was left in the fridge.  It turned out a rather psychedelic green-yellow but tasted nice enough with a swirl of olive oil.

However, next time I will be more organised and use a proper recipe. This one is from the fantastically comprehensive Leith's Vegetarian Bible by Polly Tyrer.

Sweetcorn Soup with Basil

2 cobs of fresh sweetcorn

30g butter

1 onion, finely chopped

1 teaspoon of ground cumin

1 garlic clove, chopped

1 red chilli, deseeded and chopped

860ml vegetable stock (I am lazy and use Boullion)

salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 tablespoon of fresh basil leaves, shredded

Remove the papery husks and silky strands from the sweetcorn.  Stand each upright on a chopping board and carefully slice away the kernels of corn (good luck with this, I found it very difficult to do evenly).

Melt the butter in a large saucepan.  Add the onion and fry over a low heat until soft and transparent.  Add the onion and fry over a low heat until soft and transparent.  Add the cumin, garlic and chilli and free for a further minute.  Add the stock and sweetcorn kernals.  Season with salt and pepper and simmer for 10-20 mins.

Stir in the cream and reheat without boiling.  Serve in warmed soup bowls sprinkled with basil

Gary Rhodes' Spanish Omelette

This is another recipe Gary Rhodes' Rhodes' Around Britain.  A good Spanish omelette is such a nice thing - I add the cheese to mine which I'm not sure is authentic, but I like it slightly melting.

Gary Rhodes' Spanish Omelette

2 large potatoes, thinly sliced

1 onion, sliced

salt and freshly ground white pepper

vegetable oil for deep-frying

4 organic free-range eggs, beaten

1 teaspoon, olive oil
50g cubed blue cheese such as Stilton or Gruyère (optional)

Mix the potatoes with the sliced onion and spinkle them lightly with salt.  Heat the oil and blanch the potatoes and onions in batches and deep fry.  Cool and drain off excesss oil.  
When cooked, drain off the excess oil, mix with potatoes, onions and eggs, season with salt and pepper.  
Heat a frying pan and tricking in olive oil.  Pour in the potatoe and egg mixture and add the cheese if using.  Move with the fork as the first side is cooking.  It should take a few minutes until golden brown.  Turn the omelette to a plate then slide it back into the pan to cook the other side.  Leave to rise, best eaten warm.  
Serve with red pepper and green salad. 

In praise of ... Martinis

I have a fondness for Martini cocktails.  I love the beautiful elegance of the glass cone of the glasses, the retro pleasure of the olive or twist of lemon sitting in the dangerously strong clear liquid.  If you want to known how to make them, one of the best books is apparently "A Fine Art of Mixing Drinks" by David A Embury from 1958 - the decade of cocktails if ever there was one.

However, it is a simple drink and it must be done well or not at all.  We've had delicious blackberry martinis with lavender at 1 Aldwych, strong clear ones with olives at the Mandarin Oriental.  However, the very best to date has to be at Dukes Bar.

On Saturday evening, after a supper of salad and Le Rustique with rye bread and slightly burnt red peppers, O and I walked down to St James to the tiny Bar in Dukes, where we had the most beautiful Martinis, with twists of fresh Italian lemon, filling the gin with the scent of lemon oil.  They are made up in front of you by the white jacketted barman, on a wooden cocktail trolley dating from 1910.  Apparently they won't serve three for the risk of sending inebriated patrons into the street.  But there was to be no three-martini lunch for me - one was quite enough.

However, the very best of all apparently, will have to wait until October.  On New Year's Even last year, when the snow had still enwrapped London, O, T and H had gone down to the bar to see in the New Year.  It was the season of Alba Madonna (white truffles), and they had been Martinis infused with fresh white truffle.  How amazing is that?  But the season only starts in October, so we shall return then.

Temporarily lost in the Evil Empire 

supermarket on the way to 1 Aldwych ...

And at the end of the rainbow ... 

a Lavender and Blackberry Martini

Nadine Abensur's baked celeriac in saffron and lemon sauce with Gruyère

I was thinking about Gruyère, and when to make Gary Rhodes Gruyère flan, when I found another (quite different) recipe also with Gruyère by Nadine Abensur, which I tried last night.


Celeriac  Apium graveolens rapaceum is an unattractive gnarled looking vegetable that looks something of a cross between a bloated fennel, celery and a turnip, but it's delicious - slightly aniseedy and crunchy and well worth cooking if you see it in the supermarkets.

Celeriac, with more information from the Assured Produce website 

Baked Celeriac in a Saffron and Lemon Sauce with Gruyere 


This is my version.  Nadine Abensur suggests double cream, but I found this curdled, and made it a little too rich.  Instead, I would suggest a saffron béchamel sauce.  She also suggest chives, but I forgot to buy any.

For the celeriac

1 large head of celeriac

500ml water

juice of ½ lemon

50ml olive oil

2 garlic cloves

25g butter

For the bechamel sauce

250ml single cream
10 whole peppercorns
3-4 saffron strands
half an onion (whole)

20g butter
10g flour (although to be frank, I always improvise)

For the topping

100g Gruyere cheese, finely grated
a handful of chives, finely chopped (optional)

Peel the celeriac and remove all the woody, gnarled parts.

Cut into thin (3mm) slices and place in a saucepan with the water, lemon, oil and garlic.  Cover with a lid, bring to boil and simmer for 7-8 mins until tender but still firm to the touch.  Set aside.  My experience was that the thinner the better (and thinner than in the picture, below) almost like potato dauphanoise.

Meanwhile, put the cream, pepper corns, onion and saffron in a pan.  Place over a very low heat and bring up to simmering point.  Remove from the heat and take out the peppercorns, onion and saffron.  In another pan melt the butter gently.

Add flour until there is enough to make a thick paste, then very slowly add the milk, trying to do so in a way that thickens the paste gradually into a liquid.  Sometimes this ends up with lumps - don't worry - you can strain the end product through a sieve and no one will know.  Continue to heat very gently until it thickens enough to coat the back of a spoon.  If you want a slightly more technical version, I would recommend Delia Smith's (she uses milk not cream however).  Set aside.

Heat the oven to 160 degrees.  Place the celeriac slices in a lightly buttered dish, add the sauce and most of the chives (if using).  Sprinkle with the grated cheese and place in the oven.

Cook for 20-30 mins until the cheese is golden brown.  Garnish with the remaining chives or just grated pepper.

Rosemary, Aphrodite and chocolate

Rosemary used to grow in a huge bush in our garden which M eventually cut down in a moment of enthusiasm.  We grew up with fronds stuck into roast lamb on Sunday, and I always used to love the fresh green smell it has when you crush it between your fingers. 

Rosemary bush, courtesy of Guywets Wiki commons

Rosemary, Rosmarinus officinalis is another member of the Lamiaceae family, along with Savory among others.  According to Wiki, the Latin name rosmarinus, is made up of "dew" (ros) and "sea" (marinus), or "dew of the sea" — apparently because it is frequently found growing near the sea.  It was said to be draped around Aphrodite (Goddess of Love and Beauty) when she was born from the sea.

Rosemary has a very old reputation for improving memory and has been used as a symbol for remembrance (during weddings, war commemorations and funerals) and 'rosemary, that's for rememberance' was among the herbs Ophelia carried in her bouquet in Hamlet.  In the Middle Ages rosemary was associated with wedding ceremonies - the bride would wear a rosemary headpiece and the groom and wedding guests would all wear a sprig of rosemary, and from this association with weddings rosemary evolved into a love charm. Newly wed couples would plant a branch of rosemary on their wedding day. If the branch grew it was a good omen for the union and family.

According to the wall chart, rosemary flavours soups and stews, as well as meat.  I, however, have found a truly strange and possibly delicious recipe to use rosemary with chocolate.

The Peat Inn Rosemary and Chocolate Pots

This is a truly crazy sounding recipe that I have to try from Sophie Grigson’s cookery booked ‘Herbs’ – another that has been sitting on the shelf but is actually full of interesting information and recipes (now I've finally sat down to read it).  This is my version, serves 6-8

250g granulated organic sugar

250ml dry white wine

juice of ½ lemon

600ml double cream

1 sprig of rosemary

165g plain chocolate

Mix the sugar, white wine and lemon juice in a heavy-based pan.  Stir over a medium heat until the sugar has completely dissolved.  Stir in the double cream.  Let the mixture bubble quietly, stirring frequently, until thickened a little.  Allow 20 mins.

Add the rosemary sprig and the chocolate and stir until the chocolate has dissolved.  Bring back to boil and simmer very gently for about 15-20 mins until the mixture is dark and thick.  Strain into a jug and cool until tepid, stirring frequently to avoid the mixture separating.  Pour into 8-10 small glasses and chill until set.


Decorate each pot with a sprig of crystalised rosemary or rosemary flowers, which I am going to endeavour to make.

Baking Alsace Bretzels ... biting off more than I can chew?

After visiting Alsace earlier in the summer with work, as an ostensible excuse to escape work, I returned with a tea towel and some possibly out-of-date biscuits as gifts for my grateful family.

The perfect gift: a tea towel.

Over the Bank Holiday weekend I noticed that the tea towel again and it's recipe for bretzels (aka pretzels), so I thought I’d write the recipe down and make the bretzels to make up for returning with such a moderate gift.  The recipe is, however, a little sparse on details (befitting perhaps for a decorative tea towel), and so I've been doing some research online to expand on the instructions.

Pretzels ... je t'aime

There is, it seems, a lot to be said about Pretzels.  The Pretzels wiki page alone has 51 footnotes (three times as many as the entry for the nation of Grenada).

Pretzels originate from Europe in medieval times, the exact origin is uncertain, but I like the theory that they may have developed after the 743 ban on the pre-Christian baking patterns such as sun wheels.  However, by the 12th century it was ubiquitous enough to have become the emblem for bakers and their guilds in southern Germany. 

..  

The first prezel!  An illustration from the 12th century Hortus deliciarum from Alsace 

showing a banquet with Queen Esther and King Ahasuerus

The pretzel is, however, a rather complicated beast of a baked good, and (depending on which blogs you read) require glazing with caustic soda (lye) while wearing industrial rubber gloves.  My goodness.

Why the caustic soda?  The original recipe came about (apparently) when a baker dropped a batch of pretzels into a tray of soda which was being used to clean his baking tools.  Being a time of less stringently enforced health and safety legislation, rather than jettisoning the batch he cooked them anyway.  They turned out better than ever, and the recipe for lye pretzels was born.  

I am not convinced that cooking with lye will not end in disaster if I try it, so I propose to use the alkaline but less caustic alternative suggested on the tea towel: bicarbonate of soda.   

The Fresh Loaf blog has a more detailed investigation into reaching the perfect pretzel recipe if you are interested in variants.  I've also drawn on the recipe on The Kitchen Project to expand on the instructions a little. 

Alsace bretzels

For the bretzels

300g strong, plain flour

15g fresh yeast

 a pinch of fine salt

70g bicarbonate of soda (note – to place in the pan of water to make it alkaline)

For the glaze

1 teaspoon of cumin

2 egg whites

25g water

A heaped teaspoon of Maldon salt

Mix the water, yeast and salt in a large mixing bowl. Add flour and mix until dough is smooth. Add more flour if sticky. (If possible let the dough sit overnight in a bowl in a cool place.)


Divide the dough into 6 or 12 equal sized pieces. Roll each piece into a rope, very thin, a little bigger than a pencil.  If you want to make them look like traditional pretzels, shape into an upside down U shape on your table. Bring the ends together and twist them.  Flatten the ends and bring to the top of the pretzel and press in the dough to secure making it look like a pretzel.  Place on a grease proof paper on a baking tray.  Let the pretzels raise in a warm room covered in a slightly damp cloth for 45 minutes or until almost doubled in size.

It is here that the alkaline solution comes in.  Plunge the pretzels into the water-soda solution and then place on a greased baking tray. Brush with the mixture of egg white, cumin and water and sprinkle with the Maldon salt.

Bake in hot oven at 225 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes or until well browned.  Serve fresh with butter.

Gary Rhodes' Gruyère cheese flan

This is a recipe from the spiky-haired celebrity chef Gary Rhodes' cookery book "Rhodes Around Britain" that I brought M many years ago.

I recently picked it up again and have been looking through for some good recipes.   This one look particularly appealing as it features the delicious Swiss cheese Gruyère.  It is so good that I have, on more than one occasion, bought a slab at great personal expense intending to cook with it, only to eat it on the way home.  This lack of self restraint is evident in the photograph, where my bite marks are slightly visible on the slice on the right.  Anyway, the recipe:

Gary Rhodes' Gruyère Cheese Flan

2 large onions, sliced

40g unsalted butter

1 ½ tablespoons oil

2 organic free-range eggs

1 organic free-range egg yolk

150g double creame

100g Gruyère cheese

Cayenne pepper (optional)

175g puff or short crust pastry

salt and fresh ground pepper

Cook the sliced onions in a tablespoon of butter and ½ tablespoon of oil until soft and transparent.  Leave to cool.

Beat the eggs and egg yolks together, add the cream and leave to one side.  Melt the remaining butter and oil together until blended and also leave to cool.

Mix the grated cheese with the eggs and cream and fold in the onions and the cool butter and oil mixture.  Season with salt, pepper and cayenne if using. 

Roll out the pastry and use to line the flan tin.  Line the pastry with greaseproof paper and fill with baking beans.  Bake blind for 15-20 mins at 180 degrees.

Reduce the oven temperature to 150-160 degrees.  Pour filling mixture into the pastry base and cook in the oven for 45 mins until the flan is just set.  The tart should colour during cooking, but if it starts to over-colour, lightly cover with tin foil.  Leave for 20-30 mins before serving.

Once I have tried this recipe I will probably amend it slightly and add some photos, but I just thought I'd jot it down so as not to forget to try it.

Elderberries in the hedgerows

The many happy days spend doing nothing other than cooking and looking for things growing in the hedgerow are - unfortunately - soon to draw to a close in favour of the pursuit of Mammon.

However, time at least to mention that the elderberries are hanging in rich dark beads from the elder bushes. Elder, Sambucus, grows wild in any rough or cleared ground around us as well as filling the hedgerows.

In late spring the bushes are covered with beautiful bunches of tiny aromatic white flowers.  These make delicious cordial and even work deep-fried in batter (seriously, I'll add a recipe in the spring).  Anyway, the blossom has now turned to fruit as the leaves begin to yellow.

These bunches of blackcurrant-tasting fruit are an old fashioned cure for colds (full of vitamin C) and W also told O and me a recipe for making a syrup he sometimes used.  I didn't write it down, but if I find any other good recipes, and am idle for long enough to try it, I will add it to the blog.  I am sure Richard Mabey will have one in Food for Free.

Beautiful elderberries, like little black pearls

Blackberry pancakes

This evening F and I used up the blackberries I found earlier in blackberry pancakes, adapted from a recipe by Nigella Lawson in "How to Be a Domestic Goddess".  I had intended to make a whole stack and drizzle them with pine honey, but we were full after one each.  

The batter is in the fridge, maybe for breakfast.  Outside the sky is still blue, and the trees the very dark green they hold in the twilight.  It is warm and still, a beautiful evening.

Blackberry pancakes

This recipe serves at least six as a pudding

For the pancakes

300ml milk

225g self raising flour

2 organic free range eggs

a tablespoon of sugar (or honey if you prefer)

30g butter, melted

For the filling

two handfuls of wild blackberries, washed

a couple of tablespoons of cassis or port

a teaspoon of honey

Put all the ingredients into a bowl and mix (with an electric blender, ideally).  Leave in the fridge for 20 mins or so to settle. 

Meanwhile, chop the blackberries in half.  I mixed them with the remaining syrup from the Pears au Vin last night, but a little cassis or port with honey would do the trick.  Set aside until ready.

Heat the pan with a nob of butter and spoon in the pancakes (Nigella says pour, I found the batter to be too thick for that).  When the first side is cooked (when it starts to bubble through to the top) spoon over a tablespoon of the blackberry mixture into the centre and deftly flip over.  I find it difficult to do this, but you get the hang of it after a few experimental disasters.

Serve with creme fraiche and maple syrup or pine honey. Yum.

More blackberries, more puddings

M & I were walking the new puppy down to the pond this afternoon and came across a secret bramble bush covered in exactly the kind of blackberries C and I had entirely failed to find on our windswept search a few days ago.

I've decided to try and make blackberry pancakes.  At the moment they are sitting in the fridge while the beautiful autumn sunlight fills the garden outside.  I should be gardening not typing on my computer while I still have all day to enjoy being outside ...

Blackberries, gathered in my jumper.  

This picture does not, fortunately, show the earwig that had just run out from the middle of them.

Poires au Vin Rouge - an autumnal pudding

Pears are in season, so we had them poached in red wine and port with the small bowl of gathered blackberries and fresh vanilla for supper last night.

The recipe originally came from “The French Kitchen A Cookbook” by Joanne Harris (of Chocolate fame) and Fran Wardle.  It is full of the most beautiful photographs, tailored to appeal to die-hard Francophiles such as myself.  This is my (very much amended) version of the one in this book, using the blackberries we picked yesterday.  The French Kitchen recipe uses cloves and mace, but I only had vanilla, which worked well but gave quite a different flavour.   With the blackberries and the port it had a lovely rich flavour, ‘just like autumn’ observed C.

Poires au Vin Rouge

four ripe but not soft pears

¾ of a bottle of rich red wine

100g soft granulated sugar (and more to taste, if required)

1 large glass of Port

half a vanilla pod

crème fraiche to serve

Pour the wine, Port, sugar and split vanilla pod into a pan and place on a low heat.  Meanwhile, carefully peel the pears, taking care to keep their shape and the stalks in place.   Place in the pan with the blackberries and continue to simmer for 30 mins or until the pears are softened but not losing their shape.  

Place the pears and blackberries in a bowl and return the liquid to a high heat.  Take the vanilla pod and scrape out the seeds and place them in the liquid.  

Bring to a boil and reduce until starting to form a syrup then pour over the pears.

Serve warm or cool with crème fraiche, clotted cream or vanilla ice cream.

Nadine Abensur's rose water baklava

Cooking with orange flower water the other day made me think of trying to cook something with rose water.  Rosewater is the hydrosol portion of the distillate of rose petals (and a by-product of the production of rose oil) and gives a powerful aromatic flavour to (usually) sweet dishes.

Nadine Abensur has a recipe for rose water baklava, which I might try over the Bank Holiday weekend, and take back to fend off the autumn rain with cup of strong coffee.

Rosewater Baklava

For the baklava

14 sheets of shop bought filo pastry

350g unsalted butter, melted

700g unsalted pistachios, finely chopped

For the syrup

rind of one lime

450g caster sugar

500ml water

a squeeze of lime juice

2 tbsp rosewater

Make the syrup first and refrigerate.  Boil the sugar, water and lime juice together for 10 mins.  Add the rose water and cooked for a further few seconds.  Add the lime rind.  Set aside to cool then refrigerate.

Brush a large rectangular roasting tin with melted butter and lay half the sheets o filo on top of each other, brushing with melted butter between each sheet.  Spread the nuts on top, fold the overlapping pastry over and cover with the rest of the filo, tucking in the overlap around the edges and butter each sheet as before.

Using a sharp knife, cut the patry into parallel diagonal lines about 1 ½ inches apart.  Bake for 25 mins, then reduce the heat to 150 degrees, and bake for another 25 mins until crisp and golden.

Remove the baklava from the oven and pour the syrup all over so that it soaks through the pastry.  Set aside to cool before serving. 

Where the wild things are - the first blackberries

C and I went blackberry hunting this morning.  It has been a hot summer and not enough rain, so there were only a few little black fruit, not the large jet like bulbous fruit you sometimes find.  

Blackberries growing in the hedgerow

Enough for a blackberry and apple crumble with some of the wind fall apples from the garden though.  I'll try and find a recipe, and add it to the blog.

The final cache of blackberries

Bärenfang: an experiment in honey liqueur

Following recent investigations into cooking with honey, which led to the German honey liqueur, Bärenfang (so obscure that I have yet to find anyone German who knows of it), I decided to try and make my own.

Anyway, this was my version.  It is, it is fair to say, quite, nice.  And may become a cooking ingredient.  I made the mistake of using the cheapest vodka I could find, which smelt of surgical spirit.  Better to use something a little bit nicer.

Home made Bärenfang (lit, Bear trap)


1 medium bottle of vodka (not the cheapest)
a teaspoon of orange flower water
50g sugar
half a jar of orange blossom honey

Warm the vodka on a very low heat and add the honey, sugar and orange flower water.  Stir until the sugar and honey have dissolved.  Pour into bottles and keep in the freezer.  It is a pale yellow colour, not bad but fair to say a little strange.

Wild hazelnuts, beech nuts and cobnuts

It is the season of nuts at the moment.   A few weeks ago we found wild hazelnuts growing along the edge of the river in Wiltshire.

Wild hazelnuts

Hazelnut trees in the hedgerows

Another edible nut, beech nuts (from the beech tree we gathered leaves to make gin for earlier in the year) are also beginning to ripen and scatter their fruit all over the lawn.

Scattered beech nuts

The ones that have fallen are all a little unripe, but when they're ready the nuts have a sweet, morish taste and look so beautiful in the silky open shells (below).  The squirrels love them as well.

Fallen beech nuts (still a little unripe)

Finally, cobnuts are also in season, but not in our garden.  I found a box in the market, and brought them home in celebration  - fantastic.

I've also found a site online - Allen's Farm in Kent, that grows and sells them, and also has some recipes.

Fresh cobnuts