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

A last summer supper

Autumn has begun to return to London.  

Last night I noticed for the first time that the evenings were beginning to draw in slightly, and the rain was plastering the first of the Plane tree leaves onto the pavement.  However, the sun had still been shining when I'd done my shopping so O and I had a very summery supper - courgette salad with avocado and truffle oil pasta with Portobello mushrooms, and lovely aromatic Gewürztraminer wine.  But there were also Discovery apples, briefly in season on sale in the market, and I couldn't resist buying a few, so we had these with cheese and olive bread from Pain Quotidien.  Their white flesh is stained beautifully pink in places, and they have a scent that reminds me so much of autumn, in a ripe, joyous sort of way. 

Anyway, these are the (very simple) recipes. 

Courgette and avocado salad with pea tops

This serves two.

one good, organic courgette

half a bag of pea tops

one ripe organic avocado 

rind and juice of half an (unwaxed) lemon

a couple of table spoons of good extra virgin olive oil

Maldon salt and pepper to taste

a few sprigs of fresh lemon thyme

Slice the courgette into 5mm thin slices length ways.  Place on a hot but un-oiled griddle pan.  Cook for about 5 mins and then turn once the first side has blackened strips appearing.  Cook the same on the other side and than take off heat.

Place a handful of the pea tops on each plate and then slice half the avocado onto each plate.  I cut each from almost the top and spread out like a fan, but do however you think looks nice. 

When the courgette slices have cooled enough to handle, slice each in half lengthways, and then arrange over the top of the avocado.  Grate the lemon over the top of each plate, squeeze a little juice over, sprinkle with the thyme leaves (the leaves from two sprigs is enough for each plate), and then a glug of olive oil.  Finish with Maldon salt and pepper to taste. 

Truffle pasta with Portobello mushrooms

 I used fresh white pasta for this - but dried would also be fine.  This also serves two.

1 bag of fresh pasta (tagliatelle is good)

1 jar of good quality truffle sauce

four Portobello mushrooms

a little butter (25g) to cook the mushrooms

a glug of white wine 

a glug of good extra virgin olive oil

Cook the pasta in boiling water for 3 - 4 mins until soft.  While cooking the pasta, heat the butter in a griddle pan and add the mushrooms whole.  Cook well on both sides until the mushrooms start to bronze, but not until they dry up.  I find they sometimes need pressing down a bit with a fork to cook properly.  Set aside. 

When the pasta is ready drain and then stir through the truffle sauce, a glug of white wine and also of olive oil and salt and pepper.  This is very much to taste, so just add a little, see how it tastes then if needs be add more of anything. 

We were too full for pudding, so spent the rest of the evening watching MacGuyver instead.

Nigel Slater's baked peppers with a herb dressing

Last night we roasted some cheap red peppers and served them warm in a herby olive oil dressing based on this recipe by Nigel Slater.  I only had half the herbs so had to improvise using coriander instead of oregano and a little balsamic vinegar, but it was still delicious.  A good recipe. 

Nigel Slater's Roasted Peppers with a herb dressing

4 large peppers

olive oil

The dressing

Good handful of basil leaves

a small handful of oregano leaves

a handful of mint leaves
a plump clove of garlic, peeled

150ml extra-virgin olive oil

Cut the peppers in half, remove the seeds and cores and lay cut-side up in a baking tin.  Splash over a little olive oil over and bake at 180 degrees until the skins have blackened. Remove from the oven and cover with a tea towel or clingfilm (to make it easier to remove the skins).

Put the basil leaves into a blender with the oregano and mint, the peeled clove of garlic and the olive oil. Add a good pinch of sea salt and mix till almost smooth.

Peel the skins of the peppers and put them on a plate. Trickle the herb sauce around them and serve warm.

Fresh apples from the garden

It is British apple season and our Discovery apples are finally ripening and falling off the tree and into the long grass.  Their taste is so beautiful, fresh a crisp.  I just wanted to put in a few photographs of their mottled beauty.