While browsing French supermarket online last night I really felt like some madeleines. The fastest way would be to bake them, I thought, found a decent recipe on BBC Good Food and this morning engaged The Child to shell the pistachios and grind them. 50 g of them. 100 g of unsalted butter was getting melted on the stove. 55 g of plain flour got added to the pistachios. 25 g of my candied orange peel. 100 g of caster sugar, some of it vanilla sugar. 1 whole egg and 1 egg white. Both egg whipped stiff, all other ingredients apart from butter gently combined, butter at the end. Moulds were waiting, nicely greased by The Child. Once filled, they went into the oven at 170 degrees for around 12-13 minutes. Most delicious when eaten still warm, straight from the moulds!
Bali Prawns.
From Marion’s. I saw this on youtube the other day and actually (I know, I am sick!) dreamed of them last night. There was no other way to it, a bag of Iceland prawns was defrosted this morning and the recipe was made around lunch time. Once the isolation period is over, I will have to top up my prawn stock in the freezer, as well as some spices.
So, the prawns were deveined, all I had to do was to lose the shells and butterfly them. Then a simple marinade was made; about a tsp each of mild, sweet paprika and turmeric, a good squeeze of lemon juice, fresh grated ginger and garlic, salt and pepper and a splash of olive oil to make it all into a paste. The prawns all got a nice coating of it, I got my seasoned flour, egg and crushed cornflakes ready; the cornflakes idea is genius. They need a good crush to resemble breadcrumbs and once deep fried they not only taste great, they stay lovely and crunchy, unlike tempura. Once out of the oil a quick sprinkling of salt and job was done.
Marion’s dipping sauce was different from mine, as I had no tamarind and stuff, so I mixed some sweet chili sauce with a drizzle of soy, sesame oil and yuzu juice. Unbelievable, I know, but Florek had 2….! 🙂
Christmas pate and a festive cheesecake.
Took me a while to sit down and mention a few highlights from last Christmas. It was months in planning, not knowing if my family will be able to overcome all covid restrictions and hurdles. They did manage and so all my efforts were not in vain, the freezer packed full of goodies ended up well enjoyed. We had traditional Polish carp at Christmas eve, the next day we had ox cheeks and turkey. My main cake was a lovely New York cheesecake with a topping made of fresh cranberries, the recipe from Bake Off book. An excellent cheesecake, apart from the base made with digestive biscuits, which refused to come off the bottom. Maybe a sponge next time.
I have to add, it tasted much better than it looked!
We also had a delicious pate that my mum makes a couple of times a year. Mum and her lovely man Gienek did all the work, I just brought the meat home from the butchers. The whole thing was made out of some pork shoulder, half a chicken, some pork belly and some liver. It took hours to make, then bake, but the result, on a crusty cracker, topped with fresh horseradish is hard to beat. I will be making it myself one day, but for now I still have one of these beauties frozen. 🙂
As usual, we have been eating too much, but I simply had to treat mum to some wonderful Cotswold lamb, we all loved it. Took her out to Cote for some mussels too.
And all this finished with most of us now having caught covid and having to self isolate. Happy New Year!
Orange cake with a Spanish accent.
A couple of days ago I received my first order of fruit from crowdfarming.com, a website Ken recommended when he was here last time. Spanish farmers send their produce directly to the customers, lovely, fresh, organic fruit. I ordered a 10kg box of oranges and a 5kg box of avocados and mango. Avos are not ripe enough to try yet, mango is sensational, oranges could be sweeter, but I put some of them to a good use today. We needed a cake, so having quickly looked through mojewypieki.com I brought Izzie from school and got cracking.
I used 200 g of soft butter, which I creamed with 170 g of caster sugar. Slowly added 3 beaten eggs. Then, with the mixer off, 180 g of plain flour, 30 g of potato starch, 1,5 tsp of baking powder slowly added and combined with the spatula. 100 ml of freshly squeezed orange juice, an orange peel from one orange and some of my candied orange peel too. All this gently combined went into the oven for 40 minutes in 170 degrees.
A nice drizzle of orange juice/icing sugar kind of combo went on top and then a good sprinkle of desiccated coconut. I’m thinking might even serve it with some whipped cream later. What a lovely cake!
Ultimate sticky toffee pud.
The recipe is from Good Food, as I was not able to find the exact one they use at Rick Stein’s. I have tried to add my own spices combination, but I can’t say they come through particularly amongst the dates and sugar. It is, however, an excellent recipe, 10 out of 10, all Bankses agreed. Rare! 🙂
225g of medjool dates were chopped and soaked in 175 g of boiling water. 175 g of self raising flour, 1 tsp of bicarb soda, 2 beaten eggs were sitting ready. 85 g of softened butter got creamed with 100 g of brown sugar ( original recipe called for 140 g, I thought it was too much). Beaten eggs went in. 2 tbsp of black treacle in. Then flour and soda, gently folded in. 100 ml of milk. The dates, mashed into smooth loveliness, in. I also added a generous amount of cinnamon, freshly grated nutmeg and some of piernik spice combo. This lovely batter went into a square tin all together, rather than into 7 small ramekins and was baked in 160 degrees for around 40 minutes. In the meantime toffee sauce was made out of 130 g of brown sugar ( 175 g recommended in the recipe), 50 g of butter, 225 ml of double cream, 1 tbsp of black treacle. All this gently combined together on the stove, heated up until thick and bubbly.
We had ours with Haagen Dazs vanilla ice cream, half of the cake awaits in the freezer for when we want it again. Better ice cream will be purchased for this occasion though.
An excellent use of ingredients, I must say. 🙂
Raspberry macaroons with a twist.
I recently splashed out the whole £7 on a book “Secrets of macaroons”. Some useful tips, do’s and don’t’s, but most importantly ideas for beautiful macaroons with lovely fillings.
As I’ve cleaned the freezer the other day, I came across some frozen raspberries, which I topped up with blackcurrants, roughly 60-40 and made some lovely macaroons today, perfect for The Bake Off this evening. The guy’s recipe for the shells does not differ much from what I normally do, so I stuck with the usual method and quantities, but the filling was made yesterday, only this morning reheated and topped up with more gelatine, it was too runny. So I cooked down the fruit, then pushed it through a fine sieve. Made a sugar syrup out of 170 g of caster sugar ( could have used less, I decided when tasting the finished jam) and 100 ml of water. Once the syrup reached 110 degrees I added the fruit and a juice of half a lemon. Brought the temperature back to 105 degrees, cooked it for a further few minutes and took it off the heat. Added 1,5 gelatine leaf and left to cool.
This morning it was still far too runny, so another 2 leaves went in and that made it perfect.
Next macaroons will be hazelnut ones, but the filling will be chocolate, a dark chocolate, methinks. 🙂
Truffle ficelles.
I dusted off my Paul Hollywood’s baking book. Last Tuesday on Bake Off they were excelling at making focaccias and bread sticks, I had a warm up today with these posh little French things. Having tasted a couple, 15 minutes after baking them I think they could have had more flavour in them, so this weekend I’ll try to make Hollywood’s ciabatta bread sticks with cheese and olives, there will be no problem with lack of flavour!
The dough was unbelievably tricky. Super runny, needed a heavy dusting of flour to come anywhere near handling it. I started off with 250 g of strong white bread flour, 5 g of salt, 10 g of fresh yeast, 200ml of tepid water, which kitchen aid worked into a mess barely resembling something one can handle. A drizzle of olive oil was also added towards the end and it was POURED into a well oiled, rectangular container for proving. When tipped out, it looked like that;
I then laboriously shaped it into something resembling sticks, sprinkled with salt, oregano and some of my truffle butter from Italy ( original recipe wanted truffle oil, I don’t buy any anymore as it goes off quickly and I tend it waste it). The shaped dough proved for another 30-40 minutes and went into the oven for about 11 minutes in 230 degrees. More truffle butter on top once baked.
They’re nice and crunchy, in our bread loving family they won’t last beyond this evening, next time however- olives and cheese ones. 🙂
Roast chicken.
A decent cook that I am, I roasted a whole chicken once or twice in my life. Tragic, isn’t it? I love roast chicken, especially thighs with the crunchy skin. Florek doesn’t love roast chicken, most of all the bones are in the way for him, but this week he is on a training course, so Mariusz came over and we roasted a chicken. I bought a medium bird off my butcher’s , Mariusz seasoned it well( salt,pepper, herb pepper, two different kinds of paprika) , placed a few crushed garlic cloves inside and left to sit in the seasoning for about an hour and then we placed it in the oven at about 180 degrees, but kept checking and controlling the temperature, as we wanted it perfect, but also my oven was not dealing well with the steam, fat and the spitting – I am NOT looking forward to scrubbing it!! It roasted for around an hour.
The result of our joint efforts was the most succulent, moist, delicious bird I’ve had in a long time. There were chips on the side and a roasted beetroot salad, and with Izzie’s help we practically destroyed 3/4 of it.
The oven is a massacre, I’ll be at it tomorrow! 🙂
Coconut panna cotta.
This little number finished off our nice get together last Sunday. The Gray’s come over for Sunday lunch, a meaty one ( we had some steaks, some grilled lamb shoulder, some sausages and some burgers, plus a few sides).
6 panna cottas were made out of a 400 ml can of coconut milk, 250ml of double cream and about 120 g of caster sugar all heated up together, then once off the heat 3 soaked gelatine leaves went in. Cooled mixture went into the moulds and set in the fridge. Before serving I grated some lime zest on top, crushed some ginger biscuits for the texture and some freshly sliced mango. It received great reviews! 🙂
Pesto, a bit more sexy than usual.
Every now and then I flip through my recipe folder and find things that excite me. And although shopping was delivered yesterday, I went out this morning to get some bacon( and place order at the butcher’s for an upcoming Vegetarian Feast with the Gray’s on Sunday) and basil.
Normally pesto in my kitchen is freshly made and served with spaghetti or tagliatelle, today it was rigatoni and crispy bacon and fresh cherry tomatoes were added. Excellent idea, we agreed, especially the tomatoes, which, said Florek, made the dish more lively and vibrant. `
Thumbs up. 🙂