February 2008 Archives

There's always a new one, isn't there? No sooner have you mastered Bittman's No-Knead Bread and played around with jars of starter for your own Sourdough than another intriguing bread recipe comes along. I discovered this one through the NZ FoodLovers Forum, found the recipe, and discovered the book that it comes from - Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg and Zoë Francois - here.

Last Monday I mixed up the dough, cooked my first loaf on Tuesday evening and ate nearly half of the misshapen bread warm out of the oven. There was another, slightly larger, loaf cooked on Saturday and I made some little bread rolls to be filled with one-egg French Omelettes for supper today. Over time the flavour develops more of a sour tang - once I make more space in my fridge (there's still a very useful jar of sourdough starter in there!) I'm looking forward to keeping some dough for a longer time and seeing how it progresses.

As usual, I've played around with the recipe. I had some of Shipton Mill's textured, seed-speckled Organic Three Malt and Sunflower Flour in the house so used it in combination with some strong flour and it worked well. Next time I'll try to restrain myself and actually follow their instructions. I don't have a pizza stone, though, so I just bake the bread on the tray it has been relaxing on for the last 40 minutes. Still haven't gotten around to slashing it before baking either! I've written up the recipe with my own adaptations below but I I think there just might be a book purchase coming up...

Watch Zoë and Jeff demonstrate their Five Minute Bread technique here and read more on on Zoë's own blog at Zoë Bakes.

It's not exactly salad time yet but, when a gloriously sunny Sunday coincided with the local point-to-point races and the family coming round for a pre-race lunch, I couldn't resist poking out an old bag of puy lentils (still working my way through two kitchen's-worth of ingredients!) to combine with the last of our Ushiki Kuri squash.

This squash variety is due to become a garden staple - we had a fantastic yield last autumn, they stored well and the skin is thin enough to be eaten, all good things from a small garden patch. I decided to give the squash a Moroccan accent, roasting it with a sprinkling of Ras el Hanout. The current blend that I am using is a sweetly aromatic sachet that I got while in Morocco, and contains, amongst other spices, black and white peppers, cloves, maniguette or grains of paradise, ginger and rose petals. You can find numerous recipes for Ras el Hanout online (including this one from Greg Malouf) or, for this recipe, you can use a mixture of spices that you find appealing - cumin, coriander, cinnamon and cayenne pepper would do it for me.

I served the roasted squash on a bed of warm lentils, which I tossed in a chilli-spiked, citrus dressing, alongside a large empty-out-the-fridge-and-garden Tortilla, or Spanish Omelette, filled with potatoes, leeks, broccoli and bacon. Then it was off to the races - although some people were luckier with their betting than others!

The veggie garden is looking a little sad at this stage in the year. Just a few scraggly kale plants, as-yet-unformed purple sprouting broccoli - but we still have some leeks, when we remember to cook them! We've recently been having a cold snap so I've been making lots of soups and, one day when I happened to remember that we still had to use up the leeks in the garden and actually had some potatoes in the house, I made a version of Clothilde's minimalist Leek and Potato Soup, which she in turn had adapted from Sophie Brissaud's recipe. As I was just after a stock-making session, I used chicken stock as well as water in the soup for more depth of flavour, and finished it off with dollops of ever-present yoghurt. This is very much an approximation of the recipe - I just didn't want to get out the weighing scales!

I was on RTÉ Radio 1's Mooney programme yesterday talking about baking and breadmaking - if you're interested, you can listen here (I'm on after the 4pm news!) and here are some links to recipes that I either mentioned, or intended on mentioning, during the show.

My ever-popular Chocolate Brownies
Choc Chip Cranberry Cookies
Lemon & Pistachio Yoghurt Cake

And, for those breadmakers out there, here is a recipe for a simple Brown Soda Bread and - if you're getting more adventurous! - you could try Mark Bittman's No Knead Bread or even experiment with some Sourdough Bread.

Due to a car battery failure, our Valentine's treat got put on hold until Saturday night but the fondue was definitely worth waiting for. I didn't make the traditional Gruyere/Emmental fondue but I did put together a variation of Myrtle Allen's Ballymaloe Cheese Fondue, using local Hegarty's Farmhouse Cheddar, a few splashes of Fern Bay Sauvignon Blanc, some garlic and parsley. We dipped cubes of sourdough bread, which had been crisped up in a hot oven, pieces of rosemary flatbread from work, dried apricots, some thinly sliced Gubbeen chorizo and salami, cutting the richness with a few cherry tomatoes, gherkins (my latest foodie love!) and a green salad from West Cork. So simple and so good - I'm a fondue convert.

The following day we were around at my Clonmel-based Cousin's for brunch (yummy muffins!), waxing lyrical about our new fondue set and making her pull an almost forgotten old Christmas present from the back of the cupboard. Don't forget to use it, Ruth!

Happy Valentine's Day! Be you romantic or not, there's just no way of avoiding it. But you can make it easier on yourself. After hearing too many tales of horrendous evenings in restaurants from my waitress sister, I've always avoided restaurants on Valentine's Night in favour of preparing something at home. I'm working all day today so there's not going to be time to prepare any three course meals when I come home tonight - but I've got something even better.

After coveting one since I lived in New Zealand, and further inspired by an article in the New York Times, I recent invested in a fondue pot and tonight's the night that it will make its debut on our table. It's not a huge leap from last year's Baked Vacherin Mont d'Or Valentine's dinner, actually! Once we've made Melissa Clarke's Classic Fondue, she's got plenty of variations on that theme, or we could go Irish and turn to the Myrtle Allen-devised Ballymaloe Cheese Fondue. Whatever you choose to do, enjoy your own Valentine's celebration.

Kevin Thornton's Guerrilla Gourmet evening at the Rock of Cashel is now online here for any fellow television-less fans of the show.

Sunday was family dinner day. One of the advantages of living in the countryside in North Cork is getting to spend more time with my family - and getting to try out lots of new recipes on them! This time round I decided to go with something very simple - Roast Chicken with Garlic and Lemon. "That doesn't sound like you at all," the Little Sister said suspiciously when I was talking to her on the phone that morning. "What's the catch?" The last time she was around we were talking about serving her rabbit from the back garden so her reserve wasn't entirely unwarranted, although unnecessary on this occasion. A good chicken needs no disguising. I just pushed some lemon thyme under the skin on the breast, tucked a few cloves of garlic and half a lemon inside the cavity and landed it in the oven, serving it with roasted carrots and peppers (livened up with a few chillies) and potatoes. There was supposed to be a side dish of Buttered Leeks as well - our leeks, grown from a bundle of seedlings that a friendly neighbour left on the doorstep last summer, flourished in the garden all winter - but, between breakfast in bed and flat tyres we forgot to pull them.

The pièce de résistance - I had to do something new after all - was desert. I had a long-frozen brioche that I was intent on using for Bread and Butter Pudding so, that morning, I smeared the layers with marmalade and soaked them in a chocolate custard. This pudding is a little like the Greg Malouf one that I made in New Zealand, but it is definitely easier to find decent marmalade nearby than good quality Turkish Delight. Due to my mother forgetting to bring cream, we ate and very much enjoyed this with copious amounts of natural yoghurt, I'm currently in love with the organic Glenilen brand that we stock in the shop and there's always plenty of it in the house. Better than cream, any day!

A quote from one of satisfied customer's at Denis Cotter's Guerrilla Gourmet evening, when he cooked a vegetarian meal for adamant beef-eaters at Bandon Mart. Watch the whole programme and access recipes online at the RTÉ Guerrilla Gourmet website - note: the programmes are only available for 21 days after broadcast.

Read a short review of Denis Cotter's beautifully realised Wild Garlic, Gooseberries...and Me here, as well as an older cookbook and Café Paradiso review.

If you're in New Zealand at the moment, you're probably celebrating Waitangi Day on the beach or with a picnic. You could do something similar in Ireland but you wouldn't last long on a wind- and rain-swept beach and picnics really need to be at home in front of the fire! This wintery weather lends itself very much to warming soups so, after chancing on some lovely sweet potatoes in Fermoy's last remaining veg shop, I decided that it was time to make Meg's Spicy Lentil and Kumara Soup - kumara is a Maori sweet potato that we eat a lot of when we are in New Zealand but can't get in Ireland. The sweet potatoes that I picked up weren't a bad substitute, though, I'll definitely be back to get some more to make more kumara recipes. Now, time to make some Anzac Biscuits for a real Kiwi treat - although I guess I should really be making a Pavalova!

Congratulations to all those who are on the longlist for the Best Food and Wine Blog 2008 - it's great to see so many old favourites there, including Val's Kitchen, Italian Foodies, Ice Cream Ireland, Martin Dwyer, The Humble Housewife and Eat Drink Live. There are also plenty of new blogs, reminding me that it's definitely time to do some work on my blog roll!

Best Food and Wine Blog Longlist 2008

Don't forget Pancake Tuesday tomorrow! I'm looking forward to trying out a new product from Sowan's Organics - two organic pancake mixes, one with unbleached white flour and a spelt variation, which I'm particularly interested in. Both come fortified with organic vanilla, a great addition to savoury dishes - when I'm making Nic's Buttermilk Pancakes, I flavour them with some vanilla extract before adding the crispy bacon and maple syrup. If you have to buy a mix, best stick with something organic but, if you're interested in making your own pancakes, you'll find my standard recipe here with a useful dish for Pancake Tuesday - Ricotta and Spinach Pancake Bake. For more ideas check out Greatfood.ie's pancake special.

Update February 06, 2008
Sowan's Organic Spelt Pancakes were a winner, filling and flavoursome, if a little too sweet for my taste for using with ricotta and spinach, although I still think that they would work well with crispy bacon and maple syrup.