Courgette, Ricotta and Walnut Tart

A quiche simply does not look as glorious the day after.  Just-pulled from the oven this specimen billowed beauty, exhibiting crisp yellow-orange curls of courgette flowers on ricotta clouds while the heavensent scents of roasted walnuts and garlic blustered on the kitchen air... And yet today, camera in hand, it looks most mundane.  So be it.  A Courgette, Ricotta and Walnut Tart is a thing of glory - you have my word.

For the pastry: 4oz Flour 2 oz Butter 1 Egg.

Grate the cold butter into the flour, mix to breadcrumbs with the fingertips, add an egg and bring quickly into a paste.  The addition of the egg should mean you don't need any water.  Put this in the fridge for at least half an hour.

Soften two onions in butter, until translucent, sweet and not quite beginning to brown.  Remove from the pan and add four or so courgettes cut into rounds.  Fry these with lots of Garlic.  When beginning to brown remove from the heat.

Roll out the pastry on a floured surface until very thin.  Press this into a buttered quiche dish.  Pop it back in the fridge while you prepare the egg mix.

Beat four or five eggs and a pot of cream or similar (I used Mascarpone, Milk and Fromage Frais as these were to hand).  Season and I think this would be delicious with Thyme.  (I forgot to add the thyme). 

Fill the pastry with  the layer of buttery onions followed by the garlicky courgette rounds.  Pour over the egg mix (it should reach the edges of the dish).  Then place Ricotta in cloudlike spoonfuls over the top of the quiche, sprinkle with Walnuts and decorate with Courgette Flowers.

Bake about 45 mins 180C until risen through to the centre.

A thing of glory is it not?

Rainbow Carrot Cake

Ostensibly the most ordinary of Carrot Cakes this is in fact a colourful celebration of our magnificent crop - the cake is a melange of the conventional orange carrot, the Limburg yellow, and the splendidly named purple haze.   I have gone for a traditional cake: butter, spices, lemon icing.  But my foray into the world of carrot cake recipes has shown that they are many in number and variation.  This is only therefore the beginning of the odyssey.

Cream 200g Butter with 150g Sugar.  Beat in 4 Eggs.  Fold in 275g Spelt Flour, 1 tsp Baking Powder, 1 tsp Bicarb, 2 tsp Cinnamon, 1 tsp Ginger, 1 tsp Nutmeg.  Then fold in five grated multicoloured carrots, 2 in. grated Ginger and a handful of Walnuts.  Bake in a lined loaftin for about 40 mins at 180C until cooked through.

I made the icing by creaming butter and mixing in icing sugar, lemon juice, lemon zest and mascarpone to taste.   A bit too sloppy perhaps... still delicious.

A Fool

I should start this post with a one-liner: you'd have to be a fool not to be able to make one... or something.  Fergus Henderson, who is rather more direct, entitles his fool recipe "You Fool" and begins: "Who are you calling a fool?"  Whatever the pun, the fool is quite the easiest and most delicious of fruity puds.  While you can smarten it up with drizzles and jus and marblings, or replace some cream with yoghurt, I think simple is best: a true fool is just whipped cream, fruit and sugar.  To my mind the tarter the fruit the better the fool.  Think: Gooseberry Fool, Rhubarb Fool - the dreamiest of creamy puddings.

This season we are into Damson, Blackberry or Raspberry Fools.  Here is a suitably messy Blackberry and Raspberry Fool.  The raw fruit is macerated in the sugar for a few hours then folded into the whipped cream.  Fergus Henderson's recipe from The Complete Nose to Tail [brilliant, brilliant, brilliant book - every kitchen must have it - where else does tradition meet style so imperiously?!] reads more or less as follows:

200g Fruit - 50g Caster Sugar - 400ml Double Cream.

Lightly cook fruit with half the sugar till juices run, or if very ripe just mix with sugar and crush with fork.  Whip cream with rest of sugar to soft peaks.  Fold in fruit.  Serve with Shortbread.

Yes, shortbread is a super accompaniment to a fool. I follow his recipe for shortbread too, but rather than cutting shapes, press it into a tin and break it at the table.

750g Plain Flour - 500g Butter - 250g Caster Sugar

Half quantities suffice.  Grate the butter into the flour.  Breadcrumb it between the fingers.  Add Sugar.  Press into a tin. Cook about 15 - 20 mins 160 C.  Should be pale but crisp not doughy.

Hedgerow Loaf Cake

It has to be said that, after a hot and close Summer, this past fortnight has definitely felt like Autumn.  Along with the cooler weather, the hedgerow fruits are here in abundance.  Here then a recipe for a hedgerow fruit and nut cake, which will hold whatever fruits you deign to gather.  This simplest of recipes served as a wholesome birthday cake for a mother-in-law fond of the hedgerows, and is seen here the following day with coffee.

Cream 200g Butter with 150g Sugar.  Beat in 4 Eggs one by one.  Fold in 150g Spelt Flour, 1 level tsp Bicarb., 1 level tsp Baking Powder (all sieved) and 150g Ground Almonds.  Then fold in autumnal fruits, nuts and seeds.  In this case I have used Windfall Apples, Elderberries, Blackberries, Walnuts and Hazelnuts.  The fruits and nuts should be about the same volume as the mix so that when folded into the mixture it contains them, but only just.  Spoon into a lined loaf tin.  I have then topped it with slices of Apple and Flaked Almonds.

Bake at 180C for about 40 mins until cooked through.

...

Notes:
You could try replacing some of the ground almonds with ground hazelnuts - heat them, rub off the skins, then grind to flour.  I think that Maple Syrup instead of Sugar might taste really lovely in this cake.  I have yet to try this... Also, this is not a very sweet cake.  If you would like it to be sweeter you could sprinkle with Brown Sugar before cooking or drizzle with Honey or Maple Syrup once cooked and when still warm.

Blackberry Cake... longing for teatime

The Blackberries are definitely here.  The allotment is teeming.  I have persuaded some friends to come for tea, simply for an excuse to make a Blackberry Cake.

This is again taken from Sarah Raven's Garden Cookbook.  Mine an adulteration of her Blackcurrant and Almond Cake.

200g Butter
150g Demarara
3 Eggs
200g Ground Almonds
Zest of a Lemon
1 tsp Vanilla
200g Blackberries

Cream Sugar and Butter.  Beat in eggs.  Fold in Almonds, Vanilla and Lemon.  Put mix in tin and scatter with Blackberries.  Bake 30mins at 180C.

I added the Lemon Zest and used less Sugar.  The aim is a moist, buttery, zesty, puddingy cake with the sudden bite of the first Blackberries.  Cream wouldn't go amiss.

Just longing for teatime...

Les Tartes aux Pommes

The season for Apple Tarts is upon us, and last night I set to on that pud suited to autumnal feasting: Une Tarte Tatin.

For the recipe see last year's post:  Tarte des Demoiselles Tatin 

It is important to use apples that don't fall to pieces, here I used Spartan, Cox and Egremont Russets.

And for the Pastry:  6oz Flour, 2oz Ground Almonds; 5oz Butter; 2oz Icing Sugar; 1 Egg; Vanilla Essence.

This morning, with the leftover pastry I made an Apple and Pear Tart.  Glazed only with Brown Sugar.

Winter Feasting (iii) A Feast Indeed! or How to eat Terrine: with lashings of Bread & Butter, Pickles, the like...

Besides the Terrines, how to satiate the stomachs of twenty-odd banqueters?

Game Terrine

The stoic winter staples: Puy Lentils, Cabbage and Bread.  These, and piles of Pickles and Jellies from the shed.  This finished with Baked Apples, and a variety of alcoholic fruit, again to be found in the shed-cum-pantry.  A moment to rejoice in that Summer-Autumn of perpetual preserving!

Redcurrant Jelly and Pickled Crabapples

Before dining: long milling over Mulled Cider.  The Cider, a dream, made by a friend and sweetened slightly in its flagon with the addition of Honey.  It was mulled with Quince, Allspice, Cinnamon, Cloves, Lemons.

The Lentils I failed, once again, to photograph in their steaming glory.  Simply: cooked the night before with Onions softened in Butter, Garlic Cloves in their skins, Thyme, Bay Leaves, Juniper and Water, flavoured nearing the end with Balsamic Vinegar, Red Wine, some Apple/Rosemary Jelly, a touch of Soy Sauce, Salt and Pepper.  They sat luxuriating in their sauce for a day, and were then heated up.

Sliced Terrine and Cabbage

The Cabbage was cooked in batches on the day, first with onions in Olive Oil, then slowly in a light, homemade Cider Vinegar, and masses of Caraway.  Reheated at the last minute, laid on Cabbage leaves and topped with roast Pumpkin Seeds.

An enormous Pumpkin

The enormous Pumpkin, was chopped into big beautiful chunks, and doused in a Marinade of Olive Oil, Chilli, Demarara Sugar (for lack of Maple Syrup), and a touch of Balsamic and Soy Sauce, and French coarse Sea Salt.  After about an hour of marinating it was roasted at high heat in the oven, and served hot.  The idea for the recipe (minus Soy and Balsamic) came from a fortnight spent in November back ‘midst the gales on Clare Island, a recipe for Pumpkin Crisps made with Uchiki Kuri.  I shall tell about the fortnight anon.

...chopped in big, beautiful chunks, sat in marinade

The Bread, all five loaves, were cooked as per the previous recipe.

Bread

Great sloshing bowls of Pickled Apples, Pickled Crabapples, Bar-Le-Duc Redcurrant Jelly and Rosemary Jelly were lain between bowls full of Butter.

Apples baked in Gin-soaked Bullace

Following on from that Baked Apples, stuffed with Figs (Norfolk Figs – oven dried) and Sultanas soaked in Quince Brandy.  Cooked in a bed of Gin-soaked Bullace, these the remnants from the Bullace Gin.  With those, to feed the multitude, Potted Brandy Figs, and a selection of post-Christmas chocolates of all varieties, Satsumas, and bowls of Hazelnuts and Walnuts (again from local gardens).

Potted Brandy Figs

Oh ‘twas a feast indeed…

...

...breakfasting on leftovers

I know a boy who bakes...

I know a boy who bakes...

His technique honed over many a long Georgian winter

Strong Organic White Flour; Easy-blend Yeast;
Rock Salt; Table Salt; Demerara Sugar

He adds water, at body temperature to the dry mix...

Then kneads the dough:

Kneaded, he adds some water, again wetting the dough...

And, while we drink Coffee, rises it warm

The dough, risen to more than double its original size,

is scooped from the bowl, cut into three,

briefly kneaded by folding,

placed on a baking tray, 

 

slashed

...and proven a second time

...while we hunt for Mushrooms to adorn our breakfast

On our return, the bread is baked, left a moment to cool,

then eaten with Baked Eggs and Ham, a plate of Mushrooms,
a Sunday morning...

Mutton and Quince Tagine

Partly inspired, I have to admit, by Hugh FW’s Lamb and Quince Salad, which featured in The Guardian a fortnight ago, I endeavoured last week to concoct a Mutton and Quince Tajine.

It was a feast of medieval charm.  The meat falling off the shoulder of Mutton, the Quince a fragrant, if slightly tart companion to the meat.  Spicing the dish Morroccan style gave it an edge, cutting through ingredients that might otherwise have verged on stodgy.

The recipe I concocted was as follows:

Marinade

Toast 1 tbsp Cumin Seed, 1 tbsp Coriander Seed, crush.  Chop 2 Chillis.  Slice 1 Lemon.  Crush and peel 1 head of Garlic with the back of a knife.  Mix the lot in Olive Oil, adding a sprinkle of Salt, lots of Black Pepper, 1 tsp Paprika.  Rub into the shoulder of Mutton and leave to marinade for two to three hours.

Mutton in Marinade

Meanwhile cut 1 large Quince into 8 slices.  Poach very gently in water with a sprig of Rosemary, 2 tbsp of Honey for about 20 minutes.  (Normally I wouldn’t cook the veg prior to placing it in the Tagine, but Quince being such a stubborn fruit, I decided to do so.)  Remove Quince, saving liquid and mix it into Marinade with Mutton.

While these are marinating prepare the Bread Dough

I use a Nigella recipe, which I adapt only slightly.  500g White Flour (mixture Strong White and French) sprinkled with 1tsp Yeast.  Mix.  Mix 2 tbsp Yogurt with 2 tbsp Olive Oil and add a touch of warm water.  Add this to Flour mix, adding more warm water, stirring with a wooden spoon into a dough.  Knead gently.  Leave ten minutes.  Knead again.  Rise in a warm place covered in a plastic bag.

Tagine

A couple of hours before eating layer 1 large Onion, or in my case several Torpedo Shallots, in the bottom of the Tagine.  Follow this with some large slices of Pumpkin.  Seal the shoulder of Mutton.  If your Tagine is not large enough cut part of the meat off to bake separately.   Place the Quince and Mutton in the Tagine with a handful of Olives and Chillies.  Pour on the remainder of the Marinade and bring to heat.  Once the Tagine is hot, pour on the liquid saved from the Quince, adding more water if necessary to bring to reach the edges of the Tagine base.   Lid, bring to the boil, then simmer very slowly for one to two hours.

Bread

The bread should be punched down, salted one hour before eating.  It is stretched on an oiled baking tray in a warm place to prove for twenty minutes.  Then cooked at heat for 20-40 minutes until browning and bubbling.  Wrap in a tea-towel when removing from the oven to keep the crust soft.

Mutton and Quince Tagine for dinner

Serve the Tagine with Bread, a simple Cucumber Yogurt.  If necessary pour off some of the juice from the Tagine at the last minute and reduce with Rosemary to make a jus.  Serve baking hot, don’t be afraid to eat with the hands, and extra Harissa.

...

The Following day

A Mutton and Chilli Sandwich in Flatbread, leftovers were packed up for lunch-break working at the bookshop.

....

For other Quince Recipes, see my Pheasant Roast with Autumn Fruits and my Quince Brandy.  For another Tagine see:  Lamb and Fig Tagine. 

Une Tarte des Demoiselles Tatin

This Summer, ‘midst Apple natter, the Lord and Master of Sparham House was, it seems, imbued with an idea.  From the mists of the past appeared to him a Tarte Tatin as eaten once-upon-a-time at Les Augères, Vernou-en-Sologne.  The idea was to emulate said Tarte in Sparham House.

Before long, a handwritten note: 

“Tarte Tatin, Recipe from Jacqueline, as cooked at Les Augères.

“Apples:  Reine de Reinettes, Reinette du Canada, Golden Delicious.  [Bramley was suggested as a possible alternative].

“200g Butter spread in medium-sized saucepan, then same thickness of sugar.  Cut the apples in half, and stand them upright all the way round.  When cooked underneath, turn the apples.  Do this for at least an hour, continually making the caramel.  Then cover with pastry and cook for about a quarter of an hour.”

On the back, in postscript:

“The original is said to have been an accident-made-good in the kitchen of the Demoiselles Tatin, who ran an hotel in Lamotte-Beuvron.”

…

Autumn came, the garden, the orchards, the shed and kitchen abrim with Apples.  It was eventually, a pair of Norfolk Beefing in my hands, time to attempt replicating said Tarte.  At same time, Freddie (Cultural Concubine), who had been party to many a conversation regarding the Tarte, happened to be staying.  So it was that, proffering the Apples, I left the preparation of the Tarte to her, and returned to encourage and applaud the later stages of cooking!

La demoiselle in the kitchen at Sparham House

The Apples:  Bramley and Norfolk Beefing
turned and amalgamated with Caramel.

There is, you will notice, no recipe for Pastry included, so dear Freddie rifled through various cookbooks of the French Châteaux until she came across one that seemed suitable.

The Pastry was a mixture of 250g Flour, 25g Butter, 1 tbsp Cream… 

So it was, the Sparham Tarte Tatin was born...

Requiring only inversion onto a plate of appropriate size

In an act of the deftest gymnastics Freddie flipped the Tarte

...and it was black! Gasps of horror from the Demoiselles.  But delight otherwise, for that indeed was the colour of Jacqueline's famed Tarte Tatin.  

Obliged to eat the whole before it turned to solid Caramel, we three gorged on Tarte Tatin washing it down with only the best of French Wines suitable for a Tarte of such preparation, procrastination and stature. 

…

The Tarte Tatin did indeed occur in error chez Les Demoiselles de Tatin.  It is said that one of the spinster sisters forgot to put the pastry in her Tarte aux Pommes, and instead placed the pastry on top and inversed the Tarte after cooking.  The recipe was such a success it hailed the birth of today’s Tarte Tatin.

...

I now discover that Freddie has written beautifully on same Tarte Tatin here:  Stuck and Sticky.

 
...and...a note from the Master of the house:
The dark finish is authentic, see the photograph of the tarte Tatin as cooked at La Ferté Saint-Aubin, in Gilles and Bleuzen du Pontavice, La cuisine des châteaux de la Loire, and accompanying commentary.