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