Some new words

Really must find some excuse to use these:

Maunder, imbroglio, circadian, louche, inkhorn, mea culpa, jejune, bucolic, “dead hand”, pilgarlic, adulate, byzantine, bird-dog, Walter Mitty, soigné, weltschmerz, incarnadine, vulpine, maladroit.

I’ve been saving that list up for a year. Don’t be pilfering.

Hiatus

I’m always on one, it seems.

In the meantime, I have bought a classic typewriter, attempted The Artist’s Way, made ciabatta at River Cottage, grown a beard, fallen for the simple pleasure of reading a book in bed, failed spectacularly to secure even one ticket for the Bright Eyes concert, took a new job, changed the direction of my hairstyle, converted to dogs and kept my nails filed and clean.

It’s great to be back. More soon.

Tomato and basil pizza

Making your own pizza is a piece of pizz, if you’re prepared to take Jamie Oliver at face value.

Actually, it’s only a piece of pizz if you have your own grandiose wood-burning oven in your garden. And a manic-depressive gonk to plant, cultivate and harvest all the organic ingredients and basically do all the mucky work for low pay. Pizza-making can and does go horrendously wrong if you don’t give it the time it needs. Much like making bread, you have to commit yourself to the dough. After that, well, the final ten minutes is the easy part.

I took a pointer from a friend (via the terrific Hugh F-W) who suggested I make and par-cook a number of pizza bases in one go and freeze them. All that cumbersome kneading and stretching is condensed into one ghastly sitting and you can have pizza once a week for a month! Perfecto. The baking method is crucial; ideally a pizza stone should be used to replicate the scorching all-around heat of a wood-burning over, but decent non-stick baking trays are okay if you look after them. I’m been looking for a decent bit of terracotta for the last year but it’s eluded me. I actually wrecked my last pizza tray through general neglect (burnt vegetables!) so I picked up a nice sturdy circular tray with rows of circles cut from it. The packaging explained that the extra heat would give a crisper base. The results were okay I guess, some of the toppings leaked through which was a bit annoying, but the base did crisp up a little. I think the main problem was that I didn’t roll the dough thin enough. Maybe it just takes a bit of practice.

So for this pizza I kept it quite simple. A homemade tomato sauce (Napolina peeled plum tomatoes, 1 garlic clove, tsp of sugar simmered for ten minutes), mozzarella and torn basil from the garden. Very nice. Reheated well for lunch the next day, too.

Blackcurrant jam

Why are there no sensible blackcurrant jam recipes out there?

I trawled the net and found only large-scale production-line recipes (free from any hope of scaling down) or succinct ideas from American cooks with their alien measurements and dubious syntax. Even that failsafe stalwart Prue Leigh and her whopping tome Leigh’s Cookery Bible remained cagey as I thumbed through. Nae bawther, that’s where a little intuition comes in – well that, and some joyous mussin’ up the kitchen trying to work it out.

Last weekend, we spent a few hours learning where vegetables come from (the ground, apparently) at a Pick Your Own farm about 30 minutes outside of Brighton. I had a mind to indulge in a bit more preserving following the success of the Rhubarb Relish (and some secret raspberry jam I kept quiet about) so I was interesting in the juiciest fruit in the whole farm. This turned out to be the plums, but I ate enough of those – gratis – that blackcurrants were the sensible option.

Now, the recipe was something of a risk. In many fruit jams it’s common to match the sugar with the same weight of fruit but for this one, not knowing any better, I used 500g blackcurrants and about 650g sugar. Incidentally, remove the blackcurrant stems with a fork.

 I simmered the fruit in about 150ml of water to soften it up, which took 30 minutes. The sugar was then added and cooked for a further 30 minutes. Off the heat and the molten bubbles died down. I checked for a setting point – little dollop on a cool plate, left for a minute and administered to with a finger. If it wrinkles you’re set. Excuse the pun.

I ladled the reduced jam into a few old jars I’d sterilised with hot, soapy water. At this point, it’s probably best to clean the pan you used, trying to remove hardened sugar is extremely difficult without help of opiates. As you can see, I finished the jars off with a classy bit of clingfilm. Store in the larder. Once opened, keep in the fridge. Don’t worry about a use-by date, you’ll have eaten it by then.

Voilà!

Rhubarb relish

I was handed almost a kilo of delicious rhubarb the other day at work and with a head full of saucy ideas slugged it homeward. That secret Rhubarb Relish recipe was about to get its turn. I was given the instructions from an erstwhile flatmate’s grandmother, having sampled it a few months ago and decided that there was nothing better to eat with red meat. I’ve given it some thought and decided that I won’t be too explicit with the ingredients as I’m the respectful sort.

Here’s the ‘barb:

Chop, chop, be luckyyy! Use a nicely sharpened knife like I did and you’ll glide through this lot in no time. Admittedly, it’s not quite as pleasurable as cutting mushrooms (lush!), but you can be fairly speedy with rhubarb shaft. I went for fairly small pieces, a few centimeters across. You can make it as chunky or as fine as you wish, but it’s worth remembering that if you go smaller it’ll probably reduce the cooking time. Wish I’d thought of that first.

Below is the kilo or so of white onions I had to peel, which took absolutely ages. You’re aiming for an even ratio of rhubarb and onion as the base ingredients. This recipe calls for 1kg of each, but as I was a little bit under on the ‘barb, I tossed in a few extra onions.

You can’t really appreciate the true effect of slicing 1.2kg of the burstiest, juiciest onions but the pain was quite searing. Note the abundance of veins, most of which are still there. Sunglasses next time.

Next in went a kilo of soft brown sugar, 500ml of cyder/cider vinegar and the mix of spices and seasoning. You can use a great deal of ingredients here – crushed cloves, chilli etc. - whatever appeals; you could even make a curried rhubarb relish. Which I thought of first. You only need about 4 teaspoons, so choose your bits wisely. What’s most important is that you get the preserving agent (vinegar) in there, along with your base ingredients and sugar. The rest is really up to you.

I simmered this mixture down for the 45 minutes as instructed, but found that it pretty much still looked like the picture above: raw and hadn’t reduced in the slightest. Try 2 hours and you’ll be closer to the thick brown gloopy mixture as shown below. You want the mixture to completely reduce down, so that all the vinegar has been absorbed. In the meantime, every curtain, carpet and area of upholstery in the flat was infused with the sharp tang of a thousand plumes of evaporating vinegar. Don’t forget to keep an eye on the pan too. Stir frequently otherwise the relish will burn onto the pan, and that’s a total bugger to clean.

And there we go – almost three hours work, a cool £5.00 spent on ingredients and this is what you get! I sampled a bit with some shepherd’s pie that evening and it was absolutely delicious – sweet and fruity, lightly spiced and with a champion smell. I’m thinking of leaving one of the jars for a month or so to see if the flavour improves. Spoon the mixture into sterilised jars and leave to cool in the larder, if you have one. Otherwise, I’ll look after it for you.

More preserves coming soon!

Longue-Dog wine

This is a truly wienerful find. Someone once warned me off blended wines, but I’ve read that blending ameliorates the weaker traits of one grape with the stronger traits of another. And I thought blending was just a way of cheaping it up on the sly. Anyway, Longue-Dog is a particularly good blend - Grenache and Syrah grapes. It’s very fruity – like a fistful of ripe blackberries smashing your tongue in, but don’t press charges - there’s a little sliver of spiciness to to ease you into the sofa. Most importantly for me, it is remarkably easy to drink; soft and velvety and a total hit with everyone I know. The sozzled bastards. And this is all before mentioning the rather lovely artwork which, as any true bon viveur knows – is key to that initial selection, hungover and encircled with trolley rage in Sainsbury’s. This process bears no likeness whatsoever to the phrase ‘never judge a book by its cover’, although I’m guilty as hell on that one. The producers also have another punny bottle out - Chat-en-Oeuf. I’m desperate to locate a bottle or two, anyone know where I can get it?

Beef lasagne with roasted squash

Finally, a perfect beef lasagne, hefty enough to feed not only the two of us but also a pair of gobblers who dropped over.

The recipe used Jamie Oliver instructions, and a few of his ingredients. Namely, roasted butternut squash (spiced with dried chillies and coriander) and homemade white sauce (crème fraîche and a few handfuls of Parmigiano-Reggiano). I pepped things up a bit with clutches of fresh basil from our ‘garden’ and homemade pasta, which I’ve finally got the knack of. I’ve never had much luck with dried pasta sheets – they either stick together or remain dry in the centre. The most interesting part of Jamie’s recipe is his tip to use grease-proof paper to draw moisture out of the bolognaise (which I believe is the correct term). Incidentally, this technique involves putting a length of grease-proof baking paper over the bubbling bolognaise, patting it down and covering with a dash of water, then replacing the pan lid. After the stated two hours in the oven, the whole lot reduces completely, leaving you with a really refined, condensed sauce which can be dished easily into the lasagne dish without slopping everywhere. Despite talking with a scientist I know, I’m no closer to getting my head around how this works or where the excess moisture goes. No bother, the flavour is absolutely delicious and the lasagne holds its shape perfectly, without any danger of being too dry.

As usual with oven bakes, the lasagne tasted a lot better reheated the next day which makes me wonder whether I should cook a day in advance as standard.