Stuff yer bake

I bought some oxtail a week ago, froze it before going on holiday and decided to do a recipe from the new Cook with Jamie book when I got back.

The recipe was devised by one of Jamie Oliver’s proteges (Aaron, the guy who won the competition to run a pub on a recent Jamie Oliver series). He got the idea from a trip to Italy, when he found out that years ago, if the butcher had oxtail left over at the end of the day he would take it home for the family and cook it up in a big pot with tomtoes and fresh herbs from the garden.

The oxtail itself is from the Berkswell farm shop and is of rare breed stock. I’ve never knowingly had oxtail before so I was intrigued to try it. The oxtail is seared and then slowly braised for four hours with onions, carrots, celery, leek, dried chilli, fennel seeds, cinnamon, juniper berries (I couldn’t get these) tinned tomatoes, tomato puree, sage and oregano. The meat is then stripped off the bone. The result is a delicious, rich, tomatoey, meaty sauce which goes really well with gnocchi (sadly I didn’t make my own but what do you expect on a bank holiday!). The recipe makes quite a lot and I expect to get three meals out of it (or maybe just two me portions ).

Technorati Tags: oxtail, rare breed, gnocchi, tomatoes, celery, leek, onion, carrot, dried chilli, fennel seeds, juniper berries, cinnamon, sage, oregano

Today I got back from a week’s R&R on Arran, which is an island off the west coast of Scotland. I have to say it was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been (The weather helped as we had bright blue sky and sunshine every day).

I was expecting it to be like the back end of beyond, where the people eat their children and you can only get a loaf of bread and a paper between the hours of 10am and 11am on a wednesday (a slight exaggeration possibly) but it was extremely well stocked with local produce as well as the normal supermarkets from a well known Co-operative (and the people were lovely ).
They really seem to be geared up for tourists as well, with plenty to keep you occupied. We arrived Saturday and got ourselves aquainted with the surroundings, and what surroundings. The picture at the top is the view from the old coverted church we were staying in with eight other members of Graeme’s family.

The accomodation was a lovely, spacious, modern conversion and was very well set up for guests. The upper floor was an open plan kitchen and lounge with a large window seat to admire the stunning views.

The picture above is of Goat Fell, the highest peak on Arran, which we climbed on the wednesday. My legs are still complaining three days later. The picture below is me after a brief paddle at the sea shore. Graeme tells me my bright white legs were too much for the camera (the git!!). I attempted to darken them a bit with moisturiser with a hint of self tan but I just ended up looking like I hadn’t washed in a few days. Guess I’ll just have to put up with my pale, Irish, milk bottle skin (damn!!)

Needless to say, to recover from all this outdoor persuits lark we ate lots of food (”You?”….”never!”, you may exclaim). We had some lovely meals out, which consisted of fresh crab sandwhiches, organic beef burgers, grilled prawns with garlic butter, phesant… need I go on? We also made a mandatory trip to the brewery and the distillery and of course it would have been rude not to take some samples back with us.

We had an absolutely fab time and I would recommend it to anyone. I will most certainly be going back.

Technorati Tags: Arran, Whiting Bay, Goat Fell, self tan, Crab sandwhiches, Phesant, Grilled prawns, organic beef burgers, brewery, distillery, fab

Here is the finished article of all those weeks of hard work, with a dash of stamping tears and swearing thrown in! As I thought the collars were incredibly difficult to get off the board and three of them broke in the process. I then put them on the cake breaking another and when putting on the final touches, I broke another, so it kind of has a rugged look about it. All that remains is to eat the thing.

Unfortunately I have a real weakness for fruit cake and marzipan, so three slices later I’m kinda regretting it. I intend to take the cake into work tomorrow so that the vultures can devour it and I fully intend to decorate a dummy cake next term to avoid the temptation to eat it (although I’m told polystyrene is low in fat!).

Technorati Tags: cake, cake decorating, fruit cake, marzpian, dummy cake, collars

Well I’ve been shopping again today! My credit card is now singed at being swiped so many times. After a long hard day shopping, you need something yummy to revitalise you.

I was watching Rick Stein the other day and he was in Staffordshire. Staffordshire is well know for it’s oat cakes, which are only made within thirty miles of Stoke-on-Trent. I had never had them before, but Graeme having grown up in Staffordshire has had them a few times. I decided to try them filled with spinach, cheddar cheese and a poached egg.

Ingredients:

4 Staffordshire oat cakes - you can get them in sainsbury’s or order them online

Spinach - two large handfuls

eggs - 2

Cheddar cheese

a knob of butter

Put a pan of water on the stove and heat till barely simmering. Meanwhile put a frying pan on and melt the knob of butter. Add the spinach to the pan and wilt, adding seasoning to taste. Once the water has come up to temperature, swirl the water and gently drop the egg into the middle of the swirl. Cook for three to four minutes. Once the spinach and egg are cooked, heat the oat cakes through either on a dry pan or in the microwave or under the grill. Layer the spinach on one oat cake and grate over as much cheese as you like, then put under the grill for a minute or two to melt the cheese. Finally lay the poached egg on top of the spinach and cheese and top with another oat cake. Delicious!

You can pretty much do anything with these versatile little things. Bacon and cheese works well, spicy chicken with mango chutney and greek yoghurt would also be nice. They can also be used for sweet things. Served warm with golden syrup and creme fraiche would be really lovely. May have to go have that now!!

Technorati Tags: Staffordshire oat cakes, poached eggs, spinach, cheddar cheese, golden syrup, crème fraiche, bacon, spicy chicken, mango chutney, butter

As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before I’m not in the least bit green fingered, but I have managed to nurture some little seedlings and by some stoke of luck they have sprouted ( get it!!!) into luscious purple sprouting broccoli. This is the first I’ve picked from the garden, and I intend to serve it with some lovely trout with salsa verdi and baby boiled potatoes for dinner tonight.

Technorati Tags: purple sprouting broccoli, trout, salsa verdi, potatoes

This morning I decided to have a stab at making a sugar rose. I’ve seen the technique described in cake decorating books that I have, but have never attempted it, or been given any tutoring on it. Despite all that, I am rather pleased with the result, but I imagine seasoned sugar crafters may spot a few mistakes.

The rose has nothing to do with the cake I am decorating in class, I just thought I’d try it. The cake itself should be finished in two weeks, if not before. I will put pictures up of the finished product, but this is what it looks like so far.

Technorati Tags: cake decorating, sugar, pink, piping, rose, sugar craft

I am actually managing to stay on the dreaded diet wagon at the moment and by some minor miracle have lost about 10 pounds in the last three weeks, wohoooo! So in celebration I decided to make a cake, because frankly the dry rivita and a banana aren’t really inspiring me.

I took the main bulk of the recipe from the river cafe puddings, cakes and ice creams book but altered it slightly. It was very nice but definately better served cold as it tastes a bit eggy when warm. I used large eggs so that might also be the reason it tasted a bit too much of egg, medium ones would be better. Medium ones are easier for the chickens to push out especially as we need 8 eggs. It is like when you hear of people giving birth to big babies. I think chickens would be crossing their legs at the sight of some poor hen trying to force out one of those large ones.

Orange, almond and cardamom cake

Ingredients

• Grated zest of 2 large oranges and 2 lemons
• 300g ground almonds
• butter for greasing
• 8 eggs, separated
• 200g caster sugar
• 10 cardamom pods
• crème fraiche to serve

Syrup

• juice of two large oranges and a lemon
• 1 1/2 tablespoons of runny honey
• 10 cardamom pods
• a splash of Cointreau

Method

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade and grease and line with baking parchment a square 25cm cake tin.

Beat the egg yolks with the sugar until pale, add the citrus zests and ground almonds and stir together.Remove the black seeds from the centre of the cardamom pods and crush with a pestle and mortar. Add this to the mixture. Beat the egg whites to soft peaks and gently fold into the almond mix with a metal spoon. Pour the batter into the cake tin and bake for 35 to 45 minutes.

To make the syrup put all the ingredients into a saucepan, minus the Cointreau, and bring to the boil. Reduce the liquid to about 200ml and then add a splash of the Cointreau. Leave the cardamom pods to infuse, removing them just before pouring the syrup over the still hot cake that has been pricked all over the top with a skewer. Leave the cake to cool completely before turning out and serving with a dollop of crème fraiche. Yummy
This cake is in honour of my cat, Poppy, as she is also orange.

Technorati Tags: orange, diet, cardamom, honey, eggs, almonds, syrup, Cointreau, River Cafe, Poppy

I’m not going on about my actual belly, although it’s probably has as high a fat content as the pork belly we had for dinner last night (not sure if mine would make such good crackling though). I saw Rick Stein doing a chinese style pork belly dish recently and thought I had to try it again. I’d tried it before, but I don’t think the pork was that good quality, so the crackling wasn’t up to standard.

I went to Berkswell farm shop again and got some Gloucester Old Spot belly. I rubbed the flesh, but not the skin as Rick did, with salt, pepper and Chinese five spice. He also added crushed Szechuan pepper corns but I couldn’t get any. I then put the pork on a tray over boiling water (so the flesh stays moist and the skin goes crisp, it also doesn’t tend to spit so much fat) and put it into a really hot oven and this was the result.

I think the skin could have been done a bit less, but I have a feeling our oven, although it’s fan assisted, is a bit rubbish and is hotter in some areas, so turning the pork round every now and again would have meant it was more evenly done.

I served the pork with some fragrant rice, that I flavoured with, bay leaves, cardamom pods, star anise and a cinnamon stick to compliment the Chinese five spice flavour of the pork, and steamed pak choi all drizzled with some soy sauce. Delicious!

Technorati Tags: Belly pork, crispy, roast, Chinese five spice, pepper, salt, Berkswell, Szechuan pepper corns, rice, bay leaves, cardamom pods, star anise, cinnamon stick, pak choi, soy sauce

After a few weeks of swearing and kicking things related injuries, the cake is sort of coming together now. There still is a lot to be done and the next bit we are doing is piping a very fine design on the side of the cake, which may lead to more attempts at suicide with a pallet knife.

The pictures are of my centre run out and collars, which go on the four corners of the cake. I managed to do the bunnies without much bother but I had to do a couple of attempts at the collars, as I couldn’t quite get the consistency right for the piping the outline and the icing to flood in. I have done all the layers of the cake as described in my earlier post, but while doing that, have scraped all the icing off the board that took me ages to ice. I’m sure I’ll be able to do something with it!!

I have a few weeks left and then hopefully the cake will be finished, as long as I haven’t lost the will to live!

Technorati Tags: cake decorating, centre run out, collars, bunnies, cake

I know it’s been a while since my last post but unfortunately I turned twenty five last week and I’ve been recovering from the depression ever since (no I’m not being over dramatic!!)

In a time honoured tradition every time it’s someone’s birthday at work we bring in something sweet (any old excuse for food, and it never lasts long). So I decided to make the above cake, a delicious chocolate and ginger cake. I kinda screwed up the pastry as I’d never made chocolate pastry, so it’s more difficult to see the consistency and I added a little too much liquid, but I think it turned out not too bad. My boyfriend was a little disappointed that I took it into work and he couldn’t eat it all.

The recipe (by Lulu Grimes, p28 of “30 irresistible cakes - baking for modern foodies”) goes as follows:

• white chocolate 200g
• liquid glucose 3tbsp
• dark chocolate 200g
• double cream 284ml
• crystallised ginger 4 lumps, finely chopped plus 2 tbsp of syrup

Pastry

• plain flour 150g
• cocoa powder 20g
• unsalted butter 75g chilled and cubed
• golden caster sugar 3tbsp
• egg yolks 3
• vanilla extract a few drops

Whizz flour, cocoa and butter to breadcrumb like mixture in a blender. Add sugar, whizz again, then add egg yolks and vanilla and process to make a paste. Shape pastry into a disk and chill.
Heat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade/fan 160/gas 4. Roll the pastry out and line a deep 20cm diameter tart tin. Bake blind for 15 mins or until the pastry is very dry, then cool. Melt half the white chocolate and paint over the base of the tart, then cool.

Melt the glucose and dark chocolate together in a saucepan over a low heat. Transfer to a bowl and cool slightly. Lightly whip the cream and fold into the chocolate, then fold in the ginger and syrup and spoon into the tart, then chill.

To decorate melt the rest of the white chocolate and using a piping bag swirl over the top of the tart. Devour

I went to London for my birthday for the day which was fun. We went to the Natural History Museum and then Harrods, where we ate in the food court. We basically had two sandwiches which, nice as they were, cost about £14 each, but then it was Harrods. We then went out to Browns in Coventry on Saturday night, so after all that revelry I’ve decided to get back on the wagon and have been eating celery since the start of the week (not really). I want CHOCOLATE!!!!!

Technorati Tags: chocolate, pastry, ginger, London, Harrods, Coventry, Browns