Cooking The Books

Banana Muffins

One of my food related Christmas presents was a silicone muffin tray.  I'd never made muffins before, and don't even eat them that much, but I wanted to start and so had dropped some hints and Santa obliged.

I got rather a lot of chocolate for Christmas too, so much so that there was no chance of me eating it all as was and I decided to make Selection Box Muffins for my virgin effort.  I took a Nigella double chocolate muffin recipe and then replaced the chocolate chips with a chopped up Crunchy, Chomp and Dairy Milk.  Alas it didn't go exactly according to plan as the Crunchy's cinder toffee filling and caramel from the Chomp melted into the mixture.  Nice and moist and sticky inside, so not a complete disaster, but they were a tad sweet because of this and so something I've no intention of blogging.

After the sugar rush of them I wanted something a bit more refined and turned to the girlfriend's initial request of banana muffins, using this recipe from the Beeb website and omitting the walnuts as I didn't have any.  I liked the idea of the spices and they turned out to be a winner, lovely and moist with a nice overlay or nutmeg and cinnamon.  I'll definitely make them again and think next time I'll go with the walnuts too, although I think I'll chop them up and have them running through the muffins rather than sticking them on top.

Christmas Food

I imagine most bloggers are well and truly finished with Christmas reporting by now but I've been in Switzerland since the 27th (blogging to come) and so unable to sort out my camera.  So here we are on January 3rd.

A little family tradition of ours is pork pie with mustard for Christmas breakfast.  We carried on the tradition this year but for the first time I made the pies, rather than resorting to the rather tasty pies from Tompkins Butcher in Hanslope, Milton Keynes (I had one of those Christmas Eve so didn't miss out).  I followed my recipe but used 100ml instead of 200ml of water in the pastry, as I'd suggested in my post, and it worked out well.  The pastry was stiffer and so much better for a raised pie.

I spoke a while ago of my ideal Christmas meal , and although I had very little input into what got cooked this year I ended up with pretty much what I said.  The main event was a lump of fore rib that was - excluding the sides of cow I used to see hanging in my Grandad's butcher's shop fridge - the biggest lump of beef I've ever seen.  With 5 ribs it must have weighted at least 10-12lb and took up the entire of an oven width roasting dish.

I think that there's a weight above which you don't need to increase the cooking time for a joint.  After a certain size the furthest bit away from heat stops getting any further away (the joint gets wider not thicker) and so it's pointless adding more time.  For this cut I was thinking about 7lb would be about right, so using Hugh Fernley Whittingstall's timings I went for the 'half hour burn' at full temp then 12 minutes per lb at 160 C, aiming for reasonably rare.  This left a total cooking time of about 1hr 55.  This sounded quite low and it ended up that way, the meat thermometer said it wasn't quite ready so it got anouther 20 minutes before a 45 minute rest.  I'm not quite sure how it worked out this way but the meat was near perfectly cooked for my taste (pinky red) for its entire length.  Delicious.

One advantage of sprouts for Christmas dinner (this is what replaced my ideal of kale) is bubble and squeak for breakfast Boxing Day.  It turned out fantastically, a crisp outside giving way to buttery potato and sprouts.  I ignored the fact that over the last couple of days I'd eaten enough meat for a week and partnered it with bacon, sausage and black pudding.

One advantage of sprouts for Christmas dinner (this is what replaced my ideal of kale) is bubble and squeak for breakfast boxing day.  It turned out fantastically, a crisp outisde giving way to buttery potato and sprouts.  I ignored the fact that over the last couple of days I'd eaten enough meat for a week and partnered it with bacon, sausage and black pudding.

L'Atelier Des Chefs - Macarons

When I got into blogging I had no idea I’d get free stuff from it, it was merely a way to vent out my food thoughts and somewhere to put the photos of food I was amassing.  A week ago though I went to the second freebie it’s got me (courtesy of Trusted Places ), a day at the very cool L’atelier des Chefs to learn how to make macarons.

 L’atelier des Chefs started in France and has now made the move over here.  They provide cooking classes from simple to complex, a quick half hour to three dishes over 2 hours and various cuisines all with the help of their chefs in the very nicely equipped Central London location.  They’ve also got a rather nice cookery equipment shop where you can purchase a lot of the stuff you used during the lesson.

As much as I adore macarons I’ve never made them and frankly thought something that nice looking and tasting must be fairly complex to make so I was keen to learn from a professional.  We were told we were going to make four flavours – salted caramel, raspberry, lime and ginger and foie gras (certainly different) – and when we arrived I ended up on the table making lime and ginger.  It wouldn’t have been my first choice but as good a flavour to learn on as any and we were going to get to eat them all at the end anyway.

For those that don’t know a macaron is just a pair of almond enriched meringues sandwiched together with some form of normally rich filling.  We were told that although labour intensive if you remember a couple of things you should turn out decent examples OK.

Being meringues the first stage involved beating egg whites, sugar and colouring (food dye or squid ink for our various flavours) into some fairly lurid coloured stiff peaks.  To this was added ground almonds and icing sugar that had been forced through a fine sieve.   This was the first of our tips; fine ground almonds and icing sugar lead to shiny macarons.  Unlike the addition of most stuff to beaten egg white here we didn’t fold but beat the dry ingredients in.  We didn’t want to keep the air particularly as air bubbles expand and pop when cooked and that could spoil the smooth exterior of the macarons.

Cheesey, Meaty, Eggy Bread

This recipe is based on one I saw in an old Jamie Oliver book.  The idea of all these bits of leftovers - cured meats and sausages, that last remaining lump of a piece cheese - rolled up in white bread dough sounded so tasty.  As with many a dish though it's taken me a good few years to crack on but I won't wait that long for the next one.

The JO recipe was rather huge, using a kilo of flour, so I reduced it a bit.  I thought an olive oil rich dough would go nicely too so I fiddled around a bit until I got to this result. Unfortunately I overcooked it a little bit so it was drier than I would've liked but it was still a great tasting bread, loved by everyone that had it.  I was a bit worried how long it would keep, having ham and hardboiled egg in, but it didn't last too long anyway, just through being eaten.  A quick burst in the toaster on the second morning revitalised the cheeses and made for a fine, if slightly strong with all the blue cheese, tasting breakfast.

Macarons

One of the nicest things about Paris for me is the cafe culture.  People sitting around drinking coffee and chatting and, even though I don't do it myself any more, having a cigarette.  The cafe is even better when it has a pâtisserie attached.  It was in one such establishment, just at the bottom of the funicular down from Sacré Couer, where I had these macarons.  They weren't even the nicest macarons, being a little overcooked, but it made for a nice rest and snack - plus I think they're really photogenic.

I've been meaning to try my hand at these for a while.  When I do I'll now have something to compare them to.