we used to microwave, now we just eat nuts and berries

so part of being a vegetarian, as you're all probably well aware, is having to deal with jokes about all the wholefoods you apparently solely consume. now, as an omnivore i never really saw anything wrong with the humble lentil, chickpea, or slab of tofu, in fact in a fair few of the recipes i use regularly they were something i could get excited about. as as an omnivore i never took any shit for it. but the minute you announce you don't eat meat, whether you eat these things or not, the jokes and disparaging comments abound, from what i would, anyway, classify as the meat and two veg bores of the universe. if you can't imagine meals without meat on a regular basis, you're not thinking hard enough about what you eat, is my theory. i have always been evangelical about vegetables; nothing upsets me more than people suggesting they are merely boiled supporting actors to the starring role of a roast. somebody grew that in the ground, watered it, fought off slugs, and harvested it. show some damn respect, yeah? i don't want to go too far into the opposite territory and become a joyless gwyneth paltrow style plant material bore, nor fetishize fruits in the language of female sexuality as so many cookery writers are apt to do, but i do think it's probably time that some of these supposed tasteless, joyless foods got their time in the sun.

on that note, ladies and gentlemen, i am here to talk to you on behalf of the much-misunderstood tofu. ever since my dad's then-girfriend-now-wife ordered spicy fried beancurd while we were having chinese food at twins in southsea (possibly the best chinese restaurant i have visited ever; portsmouth locals should note it is situated at the top of festing road), i have found opportunities to order fried tofu in any form i can get it, pretty much every time i have had any kind of asian cuisine. why? because it's good. texturally it gains itself a ridiculously crisp and toothsome coat, while remaining gloriously creamy inside, and it absorbs all manner of wonderful flavours easily. i only really started cooking with it about a year ago. as a home ingredient it can seem kind of daunting, i guess, given how entangled it is into the whole po-faced health-motivated movement, but there is one bloke who can drag me straight out of my self-outlined comfort zones (no ed, it's not you, we'll chalk up a success to you on that if i ever take your advice and make pasta), and his name is yotam ottolenghi. the recipe for the black pepper tofu i am about to write about is in plenty, his collection of recipes for the guardian weekend's 'new vegetarian' column, but i first encountered it in an a5 booklet previewing it, free with the observer.

before i write about it, i'll just make two things clear. one, i halved this recipe and still had leftovers (it doesn't reheat very well but the tofu pieces are pretty sweet in flatbread with salad the next day), and two, ottolenghi mentions nothing of pressing the tofu prior to cooking with it. whether this is assumed knowledge, or he just doesn't do it, i still do it regardless, placing my block of tofu between two plates and putting a heavy weight on it (i always have at least one unopened two kilo bread flour bag in my house, but you can use a norton anthology of literature in a pinch, i've found) for an hour, a couple if possible. it gets rid of the excessive moisture that can cause the tofu to fall apart.

so anyway:

black pepper tofu

800g firm tofu
vegetable oil for frying
cornflour to dust the tofu
150g butter
12 small shallots, thinly sliced
8 fresh red chillies, thinly sliced (fairly mild ones)
12 garlic cloves, crushed
3 tbsp chopped fresh root ginger
3 tbsp sweet soy sauce (kecap manis)
3 tbsp light soy sauce
3 tbsp dark soy sauce
2 tbsp caster sugar
5 tbsp coarsely crushed black peppercorns
16 small and thin spring onions, cut into 3cm segments

start with the tofu. pour enough oil into a large frying pan or wok to come 5mm up the sides and heat. cut the tofu into large cubes, about 2-3cm. toss them in some cornflour and shake off the excess, then add to the hot oil (you'll need to do this in batches so they don't stew in the pan.) fry, turning them around as you go, until they are golden all over and have formed a crust. as they are cooked, transfer them onto kitchen paper.

remove the oil and any residue from the pan, then put the butter inside and melt it. add the shallots, chillies, ginger and garlic. saute on a low to medium heat for about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the ingredients have turned shiny and are totally soft. next, add the soy sauces and sugar and stir, then the crushed black pepper.

add the tofu to warm it up in the sauce for about a minute. finally, stir in the spring onions. serve hot with steamed rice.

so here is mine:


as usual, terrible pictures are de rigeur at casa mitchell, but you get the idea. this is a startlingly simple recipe to make, so imagine my joy at having seen contestants freaking out at doing something i make for dinner on a fairly regular basis on this year's series of masterchef. does wonders for the kitchen potterer's ego, seeing something like that. this recipe is a joy in the eating too, spicy, sweet, soft and crisp, all at the same time. i normally include some steamed greens as well as the rice, just because greens of any kind please me in ways other food doesn't, but this time i had it with steamed asparagus i had leftover from an impulse market bulk buy, and bloody marvellous it was too. i'm not gonna give it any of that 'you can feel it doing you good' nonsense, because you're too busy being hit by all the flavour and texture to feel anything, so i'd be lying to you. i'd happily feed this to any 'i'm not eating that weird soybean shit' archetype, not out of a desire to be bold and confrontational but out of a desire to show them exactly how good it can be. also, i have previously veganized it by using vegan margarine instead of butter, but, and here i must concede to my own tastebuds, it wasn't as good. the margarine doesn't 'take' the flavours so well, everything remains seperate. but then, posting a totally vegan, straight up and down tofu recipe just wouldn't be my style, would it? as you can see, i remain a fully paid up hysterical ottolenghi convert, and that isn't about to change any time soon.

tried and tested

right, so me again, guiltily apologizing for not being more attentive to my posting duties. again, the garden has seduced me away from the computer, and if you factor in a drunken jaunt to brighton with my esteemed blogging partner (how hard has that phrase stuck, seriously?), and working carnage-tastic bank holiday shifts whilst filling out paperwork about them, that doesn't leave me much time for waffling about what i have been making.


i mentioned in my last post that i have lately been returning to old recipes i know like the back of my hand, perhaps out of a need for kitchen comfort, perhaps out of a kind of autopilot mentality given how busy things have been here at casa mitchell. that practice is still going strong, in both baking and cooking, and as a result i find myself sort of at a loss as to what to write. there are certain recipes you make so many times that they absorb a kind of fabric of memory narratives, and in the telling, the stories trip all over each other and get jumbled. it becomes very difficult to stay coherent, nevermind actually just writing about the food.


so we'll start with nigel slater's coffee and walnut cake; a recipe so good he has printed it in both tthe kitchen diaries and tender vol II. my urge to make this came about after i got a kilo bag of walnuts free from work, as my company is very stringent on what needs to be thrown out when, and so they're always erring on the side of caution in terms of things like nuts and fruit, which so far has resulted in hauls of dried cranberries and pine nuts as well. if it's just going to be wasted, i may as well cook with it. luckily my kitchen manager agrees with me. i perused the walnut chapter in tender vol II, looking at all the things i will undoubtedly make over the next couple of months, but i settled eventually, due to familial request, on coffee and walnut cake. i first started making this cake in my second year of university, when i was living in a creaky victorian maisonette in southsea, portsmouth. it was my then-boyfriend's favourite so it got made fairly regularly, and there was a moment for me, where i had made it for his mother, when i realized that she was deliberately displeased at everything i was doing, because she unconvincingly claimed to dislike it intensely, despite the fact that this cake is cake in the ideal. it didn't really fuss me, it has to be said; i am entirely unsurprised when people's parents dislike me, as any environmentally minded, arts studying vegetarian who dresses like a drag queen, drinks like a fish, and swears like a sailor is apt to be. and it did nothing to stop me from continuing to make the cake in question, obviously.


so anyway, the cake. only on this one petty occasion has it not been met with immediate going back for seconds, and i consider it one of my most reliable recipes for emergency requests re: bake sales and the like. so here we are:


coffee and walnut cake

butter- 175g
golden caster sugar, 175g
large eggs, 3
self raising flour, 175g
baking powder, 1 teaspoon
instant coffee granules, 2 teaspoons
walnut pieces, 65g


for the butter cream:
butter, 200g
icing sugar, 400g
instant coffee granules, 2 teaspoons
walnut pieces, 60g


you will need two 20cm loose bottomed sponge tins.


set the oven at 180 degrees c/gas 4. line the base of the sponge tins with baking parchment. beat the butter and caster sugar until light, pale, and fluffy. you could do this by hand but it is far easier and, frankly, better with an electric mixer (not in my house mr. slater!). crack the eggs into a bowl, break them up with a fork, then add them a little at a time to the butter and sugar, beating well after each addition.


mix the flour and the baking powder together and gently mix into the butter and sugar, either with the mixer on a slow speed or by hand, with a large metal spoon. dissolve the coffee granules in a tablespoon of boiling water, then stir into the mixture. chop the walnuts and fold them in gently.


divide the cake mixture between two tins, smooth the top lightly and bake for twenty to twenty-five minutes. remove from the oven and leave to cool.


to make the butter cream, beat the butter with an electric beater (ahem, or by hand) till soft and pale, then add the icing sugar and beat till smooth and creamy. stir a tablespoon of boiling water into the coffee granules, then mix it into the butter cream. fold in the walnut pieces.

as soon as the cake is cool, turn one half of it upside down on a plate or board, spread it with a good third of the butter cream, then place the second cake half on top. spread the remaining butter cream on top and round the sides.


i have to say it actually felt odd reading that recipe in depth to the point of typing it out, having made it regularly for a fair few years now. anyway, here is the obligatory badly-taken picture of said cake (i couldn't get to photographing it before my family fell to eating it, i shit you not):


so yeah, again, sorry for the bad picture, but it should be a bit of an indicator of how much was gone within two minutes of it being iced, eh? i know you'd think a coffee and walnut cake is kind of unremarkable, but it's exactly the sort of cake i like to make. it doesn't require any razzle dazzle in the form of unusual ingredients or sugar architecture, it's moist, textured, and plastered in enough buttercream to quietly hold its own without. it's the kind of cake everyone thinks of fondly, with either real or false nostalgia depending on age, unless they happen to be impossible to please matriarchs, and if you get hold of a piece good enough to warrant seconds, it's the kind of cut-and-come-again cake that was basically invented for seconds, and thirds, and so on. i would also like to note that this recipe keeps pretty well, which is a good job, since it makes a big cake, but since i've been living with my family i've found the shelf-life of cakes to not be nearly so big a problem.

i don't often outwardly implore people reading this to absolutely try one of the recipes i have posted, but with this recipe, i would wholeheartedly recommend doing so. it's a totally well behaved cake batter from beginning to end, and literally never fails. besides, you guys, buttercream icing. not enough things have buttercream icing these days. i will never turn down ganache, or cream cheese frosting, but buttercream icing, i am afraid, will always win the day for me. whether it's because it reminds me of when i was little and chocolate cake always came iced with butter cream (we're talking pre-chocolate fudge cake as a menu standard days, here), or because it's basically an excuse to just eat butter and sugar, i don't know, but you really can't beat buttercream icing in my book. i like how decidedly unfancy it is, how it gets all over your fingers when you eat, and, let's face it, how ridiculously sweet it is. i may have to singlehandedly try and kickstart the buttercream revolution if i keep thinking about it. in which case, i've got icing sugar to buy, so until next time lovely readers.

weekend without makeup

so, i have this terrible habit of ignoring whatever i should be doing in favour of other things i find more interesting; especially if what i should be doing has a deadline on it. it meant i spent time knitting cardigans, filing fashion magazines in chronological order, and making cakes every other day whenever i had an essay due at university. about the time my dissertation was due, my house looked like martha stewart had come to stay, so neat and filled with newly crafted things as it became. it resulted in several all night typing binges, but i still managed a first, and i got lots of cake into the bargain. this method of living hasn't changed at all, and this weekend, in a petulant, slightly hormone fuelled hissyfit at all the paperwork coming my way at the moment, i gave myself fully over to the sway of all things distraction related.

i decided to make hot cross buns. i mean, i know i'm early on this one, but before you point any fingers at me, the supermarkets have had easter stuff in since january (i don't think either of us here at pot tossery are complaining, pretty sure both of us have salvaged bad days with bags of mini eggs at various points this year) so i don't feel guilty in the slightest at having made hot cross buns early. not least because i don't believe in jesus (not since child-me realized brunette girls only get to be shepherds in the christmas play, anyway), i just have a sweet tooth. it does feel a little jarring though, making religious food when you're in fact an atheist, but i rationalize it in that eventually all such symbolism in eating becomes a sort of hollow signifier; if christians don't object to tesco selling their imagery, they're hardly likely to be annoyed at little old me whipping up a few. and since these little buns have been a presence in my life every year since day one, i can honestly say i feel no guilt regarding the cultural appropriation. there is also the fact that hot cross buns are a continuation of the yeasted baking i have been busying myself with lately, and as a consequence i got my recipe from daniel stevens' river cottage bread handbook:

hot cross buns

250g strong white bread flour, plus extra for dusting

250g plain white flour

125ml warm water

125ml warm milk

5g powdered dried yeast

10g salt

50g caster sugar

1 medium free range egg

50g butter

100g raisins, currants or sultanas (i used half sultanas, half dried cranberries, as this is what i had to hand)

finely grated zest of 1/2 orange

1 tsp ground mixed spice

for the crosses:

50g plain white flour

100ml water

to finish:

1 tbsp apricot (or other jam), sieved

1 tbsp water

if you have a food mixer, combine the flours, water, milk, yeast, salt and sugar in the bowl and fit the dough hook. add the egg and butter and mix to a sticky dough. now add the dried fruit, orange zest and spice, and knead on low speed until silky and smooth. you can do this by hand, but it will be sticky to handle (note: i did. and it is.). cover the dough and leave to rise in a warm place for about an hour until doubled in size.

knock back the risen dough and divide into 8 equal pieces. shape into rounds, and dust with flour. place on a floured board, covered with plastic or linen and leave to prove for about half an hour until roughly doubled in size.

preheat the oven to 200 degrees c/gas mark 6. to make the crosses, whisk the flour and water together until smooth, then transfer to a greaseproof paper piping bag and snip off the end to make a fine hole (or use a plastic food bag with a corner snipped off). transfer the risen buns to a baking tray and pipe a cross on top of each one, then bake in the oven for 15-20 minutes.

meanwhile, melt the jam with the water in the pan. brush over the buns to glaze as you take them from the oven. transfer to a wire rack to cool. serve warm, cool, or toasted. so here are mine:

it is perfectly okay to laugh, i know i did when i got them out of the oven. maybe only real christians can make the crosses right? or maybe using a miss selfridge jewellery bag as a piping bag kind of lacks the correct finesse? oh well. they're not going to win any beauty contests but they were damned amazing. my improvising with dried cranberries and using my honey and lemon marmalade to glaze them paid off-adding a sharpness that would have otherwise been absent. they really didn't last very long in my house, i might even have to make another batch by popular demand this coming weekend, which would be more appropriate. i would definitely make these again just as normal fruit buns, they have a longer lifespan than other buns due to the fact they can be toasted, so they don't stale as such, but nothing so far has knocked the chelsea buns off the top spot in my estimations.

okay, so the other baking i did was of a slightly more nostalgic bent. there are certain recipes that you make so many times that just the act of gathering the ingredients on a worktop is enough to put you in a kind of ritualized trance state. one of these recipes, for me, is nigella lawson's recipe for banana bread in how to be a domestic goddess. i started making this in halls of residence, because i am finickety about bananas, and rather prefer them slightly underripe, and the bunches at the market i shopped at were so big that i could never eat them all before they started to tinge brown on the skins and sweeten. i made this so regularly that my flatmate at the time, dan, still maintains that the funniest state he's ever seen me in is savagely hungover, eyes barely open, fag dangling out of mouth, pulling this out of the oven to cool on our kitchen windowsill. it started as an exercise in not wasting food, but the recipe was so good i have spent the rest of my adult life buying too many bananas for my purposes in order to whip up a loaf of this. it's the easiest recipe ever, and i'd rank it up there as one of the best tasting too. so without further ado:

banana bread

100g sultanas (i used dried cranberries this time as i had run out of sultanas making the hot cross buns)

75ml bourbon or dark rum

175g plain flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

125g unsalted butter, melted

150g sugar

2 large eggs

4 small, very ripe bananas (about 300g weighed without skin), mashed

60g chopped walnuts (i used almonds because at the time of baking i was also out of walnuts)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

loaf tin, buttered and floured or with a paper insert.

put the sultanas and rum or bourbon in a smallish saucepan and bring to the boil. remove from the heat, cover and leave for an hour if you can, or until the sultanas have absorbed most of the liquid, then drain.

preheat the oven to 170 degrees c/gas mark 3, and get started on the rest. put the flour, baking powder, bicarb, and salt in a medium sized bowl and, using your hands or a wooden spoon, combine well. in a large bowl, mix the melted butter and sugar and beat until blended. beat in the eggs one at a time, then the mashed bananas. then, with your wooden spoon, stir in the walnuts, drained sultanas, and the vanilla extract. add the flour mixture, a third at a time, stirring well after each bit. scrape into the loaf tin and bake in the middle of the oven for 1-1 1/4 hours. when it's ready, an inserted toothpick or fine skewer should come out cleanish. leave to cool.

so here's mine:

again, possibly not a beauty contest winner, but if it ever needs tarting up i've just mixed cream cheese with icing sugar to taste, spred thickly on top, and dusted lightly with ground cinnamon, to great success. as you read, i made a few adaptations, and have always done so, using whatever's around in terms of dried fruit, nuts, and soaking liquid. i love this recipe so much, i like the idea of acquiring basic recipes and creating my own set of cooking classics, and this one is top of the list. it never fails to rise, it is always pleasingly moist, and when cooked in any kind of shared living space, lasts no more than an hour after coming out of the oven. what more could you possibly want in a recipe?

so a weekend of distracting myself and those around me with sugary treats was had. to those who might, bizarrely, be worried about such things, i did eventually get round to my paperwork, resulting in sitting some seriously lengthy exams today. but the distraction was far more fun than the satisfaction of completing the task actually in hand. i think we'll file that under reason #273645 why i don't yet classify as a grown up.

casa mitchell everyday.

so, things have been crazy busy at casa mitchell lately. i've had preparation for our spring menu at work (not to mention easter weekend and the royal wedding, phew), my garden has been bursting into activity every time i turn my back for more than ten minutes (there are blossoms on my strawberry plants already, and my red lettuces seem to be making the push to be eaten at an alarming rate), and my mum's partner bob is moving in today so i've had to make a concerted habit to stop leaving piles of my crap everywhere. difficult, because i have a tiny attention span, which i blame on overstimulation. i leap from one task to another without even thinking about the mess i'm leaving behind; it's a pretty terrible habit.

all of this hasn't left an awful lot of time for the slow cooking i'm so accustomed to, and the weather is too nice to be inside pottering and stirring and fussing anyhow, no matter how much i enjoy it. so i've regressed somewhat into habits i had at university when i had a deadline on, or was possessed by some academic obsession that meant i barely left my desk. i've been making up massive batches of things that can be dipped into by the bowlful here and there. it's not necessarily the most exciting way to eat; but food can't always be the central focus of life, even i'm not that optimistic. the trick to doing something like this for a week or so, or so i find, is to make sure that a) you choose something appropriate to the task you're asking of it (to remain something you want to actually eat for a couple of days, namely), and b) you make sure it's possessed of enough colour and flavour to keep your interest (dishes that improve in flavour over time are your friends here). then it crosses the line from being boring to making you feel like an enterprising little kitchen-squirrel, stashing stuff away for later. brilliant, right? right. so here's two of the things i whipped up for just this purpose this week just past.

blue cheese and walnut coleslaw

1/2 red cabbage

1x red onion

4x celery sticks

50g walnuts

2 tbsp creme fraiche

about 75g blue cheese (i used danish blue cos it's what i had in the fridge)

juice of a lemon

couple of tablespoonfuls of creme fraiche

apples to serve (totally optional)

okay so this is easy, you don't really need me to tell you how to make coleslaw, but whatever. i grated the cabbage, and finely sliced the onion and celery in the food processor, then chucked it in a big bowl with the walnuts. i crumbled the blue cheese into the creme fraiche, squeezed in the lemon juice, and whisked like mad, then tossed the veg in the dressing until everything went a kind of surreal lilac, and seasoned to taste.

everytime i grabbed a bowlful of this i served it with chopped apple (you want a tart variety with this rather than a sweet, i used some tiny unnamed variety that was not dissimilar to a cox's orange pippin, but use whatever you can get), like so:

so this is the first of many batches of coleslaw i will be making in the warmer months. when i was younger, my dad always homemade coleslaw for barbecues, the traditional kind, with white cabbage, onion and carrot, and while monumentally better than shop bought stuff for obvious reasons, i'm pretty sure he dressed it with heinz salad cream, so i have never really tried to replicate it. having spent four summers in a row on the sunny south coast, beach barbecues, garden barbecues, and southsea common barbecues were de rigeur from about april to september, and i've got a few years of coleslaw making under my belt as a result. in truth, i love it in all it's forms, and think it's one of the easiest barbecue staples to calibrate to whatever else you're cooking. in my time i've made wasabi dressed chinese cabbage versions, apple and mustard white cabbage variants, all sorts, but my heart still lies with the red cabbage for colour purposes alone. the minute red cabbage meets dairy it goes the bizarre purple colour you see above, a colour that you almost instinctively think food should not go; it feels almost transgressive in the eating, like you've cheated nature into becoming an artifice or something. it reminds me a bit of the barbecue scene in edward scissorhands (the only film guaranteed to make me cry on every watching, by the way), where all the (totally stylin') technicolour housewives are force feeding him all these psychedelic pastel coloured foods. or like, maybe if john waters directed a coleslaw or something. either way, i may have mentioned that virtuous vegetable cooking isn't really my style; i leave that to tumblr's massive californian vegan contingent. so yeah, this recipe has a lot of dairy. why? because it's awesome. especially if you add in the apples. the tastes all blend and contrast together in such a way that you forget you're essentially eating raw veg. blue cheese, cabbage and walnuts? there's no way it isn't going to work. and this was ideal for some mid-digging eating out on the bench in the garden while i read american short stories and tried not to get sunburnt.

so the second recipe is maybe a little bit more substantial. i flicked through nigel slater's tender, looking for inspiration for the excellent spinach i keep buying lately, because it's all well and good eating it raw with oil, lemon juice and salt while i pad around my little veg plot, but that isn't exactly gonna keep me going on a saturday night shift, is it? i went with this indian influenced little beauty:

an indian inspired dish of spinach and potatoes

potatoes, 500g

a large onion

vegetable oil or melted butter, 2 tablespoons

garlic, 2 fat cloves

a small green chilli

ginger, a 2cm lump

black mustard seeds, half a teaspoon

turmeric, half a teaspoon

spinach, 450g

the juice of half a lemon, probably less.

scrub the potatoes, cut them into large pieces, then either boil in deep, salted water or steam until tender. drain and set aside.

peel and finely slice the onion. warm the vegetable oil or butter in a large pan, then add the onion and cook till soft and just starting to colour. finely chop the garlic, chilli and ginger and stir them in with the mustard seeds and turmeric. continue cooking briefly, stirring the onion and spices regularly so they do not burn.

add the cooked and drained potatoes and a wineglass of water. bring to the boil and simmer for four or five minutes, until and crustings of onion and spices stuck on the pan have dissolved into the liquid. turn up the heat so that the liquid bubbles almost to nothing and the potatoes are starting to take on some of the colour and flavour of the spices, then add the spinach, thoroughly washed and trimmed of it's toughest stalks. season generously with salt and a little ground black pepper. once the spinach has wilted and is bright green, check the seasoning, squeeze over a little lemon juice, and eat.

here is mine, enjoyed in the garden while i read up on planting peas:

again, just look at the colours on that. way brighter and zestier than the traditional saag aloo, and an interesting bowlful to eat but with enough starch to keep me on my feet for the lengthier shifts. this was a pleasure to eat sat on my bench in the sunshine before work, collecting the last few minutes i had to myself before a series of intensely demanding weekend shifts.

so, not the most glamourous of cookery from me today, but i'd be lying if i said i was creating intricate and complex dishes every evening and baking cakes every other day as standard. especially not when life is this hectic.

long overdue

well, that resolution i made not to leave it so long between blog posts no matter how busy i was in the garden? it didn't work, did it? i have to say work has played a big part in it, my shifts have doubled in both length and intensity with the good weather, and schlepping up and down the flight of stairs to the beer garden carrying massive plates has ensured i have little to no energy for anything more strenuous than lifting a glass of near-frozen chenin blanc to my face of a night. i can't complain, my buns of steel and t-shirt tan will be remarkable come july if this keeps up. still, between pouring pints and wielding a watering can, i have found time to be in the kitchen, making, admittedly, incredibly minimum effort food that requires very little supervision, in pretty big batches so that i can be outside as long as possible.

now, i got myself back on the breadmaking wagon, caving to ed's continuous suggestion that i should try my hand at focaccia. we've discussed in many a time, but i had, thus far, resisted; my babysteps approach to breadmaking didn't factor in different types of bread until i'd mastered the basic technique (cue master baker joke here for those of us who refuse to get their minds out of the gutter). you don't need me to tell you the recipe, because i used precisely the same one as ed, as it also appears in my copy of the river cottage bread handbook. i chose to do focaccia purely for it's low maintenace qualities; it needs fuck all shaping, and if i'm to make hay while the sun shines i haven't got time to poach bagels, or mollycoddle loose ciabatta dough, so focaccia seemed like a good variant to play with. i got a good result, as you can see:

i used rosemary from my garden. i had to replace my rosemary plant after the last one got decapitated by a flying fence panel some time in january, which was gutting; my rosemary plant is so new that i was tempted to sub in lemon thyme while i let it acclimatise but in the end i stuck with the basics. the olive oil i used was a present from one of my regulars, bought back from the south of france in an old wine bottle, pressed by one of his neighbours there. it's these little touches i like about cooking. knowing where my ingredients come from and letting them tell ther own story is a part of the process for me. i was re-reading appetite by nigel slater the other day; and he rather exasperatingly pours scorn on people who like to make absolutely everything from scratch; insinuating they've something to prove. i have a feeling he's since changed his mind, having written a two volume series on plot-to-plate cooking, but it still makes me angry to read shit like that. i have the time to put in the extra leg work on my food, and i think it makes it more pleasurable to eat. i don't do it to impress; but if it does impress, well, result. anyway, tangent aside, the focaccia was excellent, and very well received both by my boss (who sulked last time i made bread because he didn't get any), and my american septagenarian friend ed (he of the olive oil from france, no less). it was definitely different from working with normal bread dough; and i have to say i wasn't a fan of the lack of resistance in kneading, but as it requires no shaping and no fuss it's a pretty easy bread to make between planting up pots of veg.

the other things i've made are more directly concerned with the garden. i am a big fan of multitasking, so have been zealously reading up on what weeds i can put to good use as i clear my garden of thigh height specimens. one of the most well-known edible intruders is nettles. i hesitate to say intruders because i have developed an interest in a movement called permaculture, which started in australia and is a contraction of 'permanent agriculture'. it's basis premise is to create symbiotic environments that support and sustain themselves, and it encompasses everything from companion planting to creating greywater usage systems and favouring perennial plants over annuals where possible. what has this got to do with nettles, i hear you ask? well, aside from localized weeds allowing you to determine your soil type very easily and pick plants that will thrive more intelligently, nettles are an amazingly multipurpose plant, and i am sorely tempted to leave a patch of my growing space purely for them.

now is apparently the perfect time of year to eat nettles; the spring shoots are really what you should use for cooking, as the older leaves can be somewhat tough. i made two things with my nettles, a pesto, and a soup. this was my first time cooking with them so i went with tried and tested ideas for their use, wanting very much to get a feel for what they were like as an ingredient. i read several recipes and then just sort of winged it as i went along, so here are my results:

nettle pesto

so i basically eyeballed this one. i had about 100g of nettles (a lightly packed food processor's worth), about 25g vegetarian parmesan, two cloves of garlic, a slug of olive oil (probably about fifty ml), a good handful of pine nuts, and a squeeze of lemon juice. i just blended that to a coarse paste, popped into a container, and put a layer of oil over the top; and that'll sit happily in the fridge for a month, if it lasts that long.

it's really good, actually. i tried it on pasta, first, and the heat of the pasta gave the nettles a slightly mushroomy note, which was nice. but where this stuff seems to really shine is paired with mild cheese like wensleydale, especially on homemade spelt rolls. i think if i were making this again i might be tempted to pop in a few sprigs of mint, as the nettles have a really delicate flavour. i might thin some down and use it to dress my first garden salad when my radishes, broad beans and lettuces have come to fruition, as i have a feeling that will be really good, if not necessarily traditional spring salad practice.

okay, so i also made soup. and it seems like there are as many nettle soup recipes as there are cooks, so i'm going to add mine into the mix:

kirsty's nettle soup

okay, so you need about 200g of young nettle leaves, which for the record is about this much: they obviously need to be thoroughly washed. you also need a knob of butter, a medium onion, two medium potatoes, a clove or two of garlic, a litre of veg stock, and a dollop or two of creme fraiche.

so what i did was soften the onions and crushed garlic in the butter on a low heat, and then added the peeled, diced potatoes and let them soften for about ten minutes, not letting anything catch or colour. i popped the nettles in the pan, let them lightly wilt, and added the stock, simmering until the potatoes were tender. i liquidized it with a stick blender (my new favourite toy), and added a dollop or two of creme fraiche and stirred through.

i bunged it in a bowl, finished with another swirl of creme fraiche and some black pepper (and the last of my focaccia), like so:

as you can see, it went a spring-y jade green (incidentally the exact same colour of the nail varnish i was sporting at the time, models own's grace green, which is a nifty little imitation of last year's chanel spring effort, fashion fans). it tasted like a milder version of spinach, and was immensely satisfying to eat. if i made it again, i'd probably add a glass of dry white at the same time as the nettles, because while there's a place for virtuous vegetable cookery, it's nowhere near my kitchen, and i'm madly in love with the marriage of greens, white wine and cream. so, nettle picking is now on my mandatory spring activities list, and the beauty of it is that wherever i live, there will always be nettles.

so next year's nettle projects might be more ambitious; i fancy learning the art of home brewing next year, so nettle beer might be on the cards. the best bit about eating the nettles was the satisfying feeling of both clearing space in my garden, getting something for free, and trying an ingredient i had never worked with before. also, where i only used the shoots, i cut down the rest of the nettle plants and made nettle manure for my plants. because permaculture is about giving back to the environment as much (if not more, in the early stages of establishing a system) as you take out. lovely.

A Change of Plan

I must say whilst sitting in a pub may not be the most objective of examples to demonstrate a barmaid taking work home, it's true (since no one actually asked).

Anyway, I said back in Bacon Times that I would try the same process again with added flavourings to the cure mix before moving onto other forms of curing ("I'll warn myself not to get too carried away" to be exact.)  Well, as good as my intentions were at the time, I lied and ignored my own warning.  To be fair, curing another belly of bacon first probably wouldn't tell me much that is relevant to this stage, as I already know my cellar works as ok conditions for hanging meat for curing.  So I suppose so much chomping at the bit has finally worn it down and there are currently four cow intestines (see further example of ethical Using Up All Bits of Animals - my stance on that is already outlined on this blog) filled with pork hanging up in there.  Another spoiler, shit, there goes the chance of Disaster Post, I hear you cry.  Well, for the cruel and sadistic amongst you, there's up to 10 weeks from now for it to all go wrong, and I have no more idea than you about how, when or indeed, if that will happen.  So here's what's happened so far.  As always, guided by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and The River Cottage Cookbook.

Basic salami recipe and instructions;

400g lean pork, coarsely minced
100g back fat, cut into small pea-sized pieces
10g fine cooking salt
100ml red wine
½ garlic clove, crushed to a paste (1 clove for every kilo of mix)
½ teaspoon acidophilus

You will also need
Ox-runners
Butcher's string

Before you get to work on your salami mix, put the ox-runners to soak in a large bowl of fresh water.  Slosh them about to rinse off the salt, then run the tap through the inside of them to flush them clean.  When they are slippery, flexible and thoroughly rinsed of salt, they are ready to use.

Mix all the ingredients together thoroughly - with your bare (but clean) hands, if you like - so that the salt and fat are well distributed throughout the mix.  Load up your sausage-making machine with the mix, slide a length of ox-runner on to the nozzle, and tie the end of the casing into a knot, as you would tie a balloon.  Then tie a short length of butcher's string in an ordinary granny knot inside the knot in the runner.  Stuff the casing with the mix until you have filled a length of 40-50cm.  Then cut this length off, leaving enough unfilled runner at the end to tie another knot.

Hold the filled casing up with the knotted end at the bottom and squeeze the mixture down the casing gently, so it is nice and tight.  Then tie another knot in the top of the runner and another length of string inside that knot.  The compacted sausage, tied securely at both ends, will now be about 30-40cm long.

Here's my ox runners soaking (and looking lovely), and one of my two varieties pre-mixing.

I've gone for two variations, one a sort of chorizo (I'm loathe to refer to it as chorizo, as it kind of isn't really, but I'm even more loathe to call it chorizo style, because that just sounds shit) using paprika as the predominant flavouring (and a Spanish red wine) and the other a more basic (I suppose Italian style) salami, using fennel seeds and an Italian red.  Excuse to buy red wine?  Probably.  In fact the guy in Noble Green, the awesome beer and wine shop where I buy alcohol expressed surprise at seeing me buying wine rather than the Belgian trappist ales I usually stock up on, so I explained what they were for.  I now have two local tradesmen enquiring for updates, the other being the butcher I bought the meat from. 

The acidophilus is what encourages the mould growth on the outer casing.  Hugh suggests hanging the salami with others that have already developed their own mould as an alternative, but as this was my first attempt I went off to Holland & Barrett and got the smallest amount I could.  One hundred capsules.  Fortunately they keep for about a year as, as far as I am aware my digestive health is perfectly fine so I'll always have some for future salami making. 

My flavour variations were;

Aglianico Terredora 2009
½ teaspoon fennel seeds
½ teaspoon ground black pepper

Quinta el Refugio Tinto, Toro 2008
1 teaspoon hot smoked paprika
½ teaspoon fennel seeds
1½ garlic cloves

I don't possess a sausage stuffer, hand cranked or automated, so I went out and bought the widest nozzled plastic funnel I could find (which wasn't actually very wide at all) and then sawed half the nozzle off to widen it whilst leaving enough to pull the bung over and smoothed the edges off so as not to potentially rip holes in it.  In the end I managed to tear a couple of holes in the first attempt, but that was more down to some sort of over-exuberance and novice Coaxing Of Meat Down A Cow's Intestine By Hand rather than self-made plastic splinters.  Fortunately they were relatively near the top of the bung and were easily rectified by cutting it off below the tear, but it did lead to increased trepidation, especially as I got near the end.  It had taken me longer than I anticipated and didn't particularly fancy the prospect of having to start all over again and waste one of the bungs.  They are actually a lot more robust than I was expecting, and it is not as delicate a process as I thought it would be.  Which is a very good thing.  I suppose they should be pretty strong really, given their original purpose.  Hugh does advise that "for large quantities of salami, a sausage-making machine... is invaluable"  Unless you particularly want to spend an entire day filling salami, I'd have to agree.

Having trimmed the first filled salami I discovered that (actually rather obviously) it is much easier to fill half of one than a whole, so come the second lot I decided upon filling them effectively from the top down, rather than attempting to push it all the way to the end.  I think it was probably down to the longer soaking time afforded the one I used for the chorizo as I found it much easier, and filled and tied the two in at least half the time as the first lot. 

I'm trying to monitor temperature fluctuations in the cellar, due to the sporadic temperature increases in the weather lately.  It tends to stay pretty cold regardless of the outside temperature.  So far it seems to have stayed pretty rigidly to about 13℃, which means either it does stay cold despite it getting pretty warm outside, or the thermometer is broken.

So now I just have to wait and see and eagerly look at them every day.  I suspect I shall approach the first mould growth with the same level of excitement one might expect for say, a new seedling sprouting, as some kind of reassurance that it is at least giving the impression of working.  The lack of control in leaving something to its own devices, as such, is the sort of thing that piques my curiosity to some level of substitute for the nurturing that isn't really required.  I ended up almost completely ignoring my bacon once I'd hung it, yet so far I've snuck down to look at the salamis every day now.  So far after about four days the skins have almost completely dried out and the meat has just started to firm up.  I could just leave the chorizo hanging for about a week, then use it for cooking, but I'm going to leave both for at least the minimum four weeks required for eating raw.  Obviously I'll update any interesting progress, good or otherwise.

barbie girl

it was only when i dyed my hair red that i realized how much (to my own surprise as much as anyone else's) pink there was in my wardrobe. i have never necessarily been a 'sugar and spice and all things nice' kind of young lady, but while brunette, my craving for bodycon neons appeared to have manifested itself mostly at the rosier end of the spectrum. the reason i realized it after the hair change was because the colour had, in fact, ceased to work for me. red and pink require a lot of effort as a combination; and i'm pale enough without having to work harder to look less washed out as it is. colour is a bit of an obsession of mine, and if bright hues are suddenly unavailable to me sartorially, i try to replicate them elsewhere in my life. so, for example, this year, my childlike delight at the spring blossoms that are currently painting my village pink, is all the more heightened for being a colour presence now absented in my wardrobe. but the best idea so far, given to me by my former housemate lara's musing on cooking, is to create the colours you wish to see in your food. lara and i used to waste plenty of days drinking cider and talking about food and gardening; her desires for a garden full of purple brassicas, and her love of turning meals pink with beetroot were key themes. and while we're here i'll just mention that lara isn't exactly a nursery rhyme girly girl either; she looks just like the original drawings of tank girl and is happiest when playing sax, mandolin, or drinking jagerbombs and planning to blow things up. i've kind of adopted this idea; you might have noticed reading my posts that colour is the first thing about a dish that is likely to send me into raptures of enthusiasm. so it was how i decided to solve my pink deficit.

i have spent months now, hunting high and low for forced rhubarb. possibly the pinkest fruit/vegetable going, and since i was little, one of my favourite flavours in general, i have had several recipes in mind since january for this particular member of the vegetable family. and i cannot believe i had to wait until late march for it this year. i have dug in two crowns and a bulb in my garden out of an impetuous scarlett o'hara style sulk in which i swore i would never go without early rhubarb again. it really did get that bad.

eventually i had to concede to my mother's actual love of supermarket shopping, and when she texted me from the local sainsbury's saying she had found rhubarb, i swallowed my principles and told her to bring me back two kilos. yes. two whole kilograms. i ended up with over that, as it's sold in 400g plastic wrapped bundles (i'm sorry earth, i'll make it up to you) and so, after an evening spent marvelling over its sheer pinkness, i got my supplies together, and spent a day in the kitchen focusing on a trio of rhubarb recipes (current running joke between my mother and i is that on masterchef everything is served in trios, and this week it gave me the rage a little bit, so now everytime there's three of something an anguished 'what's with all the fucking trios?!' is yelled). so, first up, still preserving pan-less, but no less determined (yes, i am that badass), i set about a recipe from pam corbin's river cottage preserves handbook. i was a little nervous about this one as rhubarb is notoriously low in pectin, nature's little setting agent, so i wasn't sure how it would work, but i powered on ahead anyway. so:

early rhubarb and stem ginger jam

1kg forced rhubarb (untrimmed weight)

900g jam sugar (this is labelled as such because it has added pectin)

100g chopped crystallized stem ginger

wipe and trim the rhubarb and cut into 2-2.5cm chunks. pour a layer of sugar into the bottom of a preserving pan (or a normal pan. seriously amazon, fuck you), then add a layer of rhubarb and ginger. repeat, continuing until all of the sugar, rhubarb and ginger are used, finishing with a layer of sugar. cover and leave for at least an hour or two, preferably overnight. this draws the juice from the rhubarb and the resulting syrup helps keep the rhubarb chunks whole when boiled.

gently bring the mixture to the boil, stirring carefully without crushing the rhubarb pieces. boil rapidly for 5-6 minutes, then test for setting point. remove from the heat and rest for 5 minutes before pouring into warm, sterilized jars. seal immediately. use within 12 months. et voila:

this jam is, in a word, awesome. i have nearly eaten half a jar already. i got three varying sizes of recycled jars from it; a bright coral-pink as you can see. it's sweet, sharp, slightly spicy from the ginger, and the set is soft and slippery with just the right sticky give in the rhubarb pieces. whether i will be able to give any of this away remains to be seen, but i am actually already tempted to buy more rhubarb and make some more of this. it is literally that good. and it was a lot easier than my amateur's nerves let me think.

so anyway, what else did i make? well, we all know my fondness for booze. currently, due to some brand training at work, my mind has shifted slightly to vodka. i've been learning a lot about distillation and filtration and the effects they have on the finished product, and the ways certain big brands tend to emphasize different aspects of the process to maintain their image. it's not a spirit i had much working knowledge of when i came to the trade, other than that something has to be 37.5% abv to classify as a vodka, so it's been interesting gaining a new skill set. also, it meant i got to try grey goose vodka, which, can i just say, i found absolutely abhorrent. it tasted like a corner shop cheapie named after a long dead classics writer. their branding people must be laughing all the way to the bank. anyway, in the spirit (ha ha) of my newfound knowledge, i decided to tackle a recipe that caught my eye sometime in the second year of university, a rhubarb schnapps from nigella lawson's how to be a domestic goddess:

rhubarb schnapps

1kg rhubarb (untrimmed weight)

300g caster sugar

1 litre vodka, plus more if needed (nigella recommends using the cheapest kind available. do not do this unless you want a dirty hangover, because it will have been distilled only minimally and have all kinds of impurities in it. i used absolut and smirnoff. it would have just been absolut but i had to make a dash to the co-op for more and they only had smirnoff)

chop the rhubarb and divide it between your jars or bottles. add 150g sugar to each jar (nigella uses two jars, i used three bottles, therefore added 100g to each), put the lids on, and shake well. pour in vodka to fill the jars. close the lids, put somewhere cool and dark, and let infuse for at least six weeks, and up to six months. shake regularly (i do so every other day) to disperse the sugar. strain into a jug, then pour into a bottle.

okay, so here's mine:

i did actually use some cheap vodka bottles lying around (oh younger brother there has to be some good from the mess you leave) to fill, well, that and one from a fair trade chardonnay (mine, obviously), purely because absolut bottles are a) small and b) designed in thick glass so the neck is piss-awkward to get anything into. look at the colour on this already-it's not even been a week and already i have an elegant pastel pink going on. i'm imagining some pretty lethal rhubarb and white peach bellinis out of this already, and i think concocting a rhubarb and raspberry martini might be on the cards as well, if i make some raspberry gin (already planning it). i am making plans for a possible garden party when the sun gets hotter and the nights get more bearable, so expect much cocktail experimenting over the next few months. it may well be classed as taking my job home with me, but just ask ed, i can't even sit in a pub without talking shop, taking my job home with me is kind of my thing.

so anyway, at this point in my rhubarb day i'd kind of wound down a bit; i still had 600g of rhubarb left but my friend laura jayne had popped over for a cuppa and a catch up because she had the day off, so i hadn't really thought of anything to do with it. my mum got home, saw the leftovers, and demanded crumble, and lj put her vote behind this opinion, too (despite not being allowed it because she's on slimming world. hmm.). there were requests for a homemade custard too, and i agreed in a blase offhand manner and gave mum a list of things to get from the supermarket, since she was headed there anyway. at this point i tactfully decided not to inform anybody i had never made custard before, really, but the minute i was alone in the kitchen i panickedly flicked through nigella lawson's how to eat and found the recipe, figuring i could just blag it. and blag it i did, guys. i used her crumble topping ratios too, so here is what i did:

crumble topping

120g plain flour

90g butter, cold and diced into 1cm cubes

3 tablespoons light muscovado sugar

3 tablespoons caster sugar

put the flour in a bowl with a pinch of salt. add the cold cubes of butter and, using the tips of your fingers, rub it into the flour. stop when you have a mixture that resembles porridge oats. stir in the sugar. (i added a half teaspoon of ground ginger at this point)

keep the mixture in the fridge until you need it. and when ready to cook, sprinkle over the prepared fruit in a pie dish and cook in the oven at 190 degrees c/gas mark 5, for 25-35 minutes. (to prep my rhubarb i literally just tossed it in caster sugar and a tiny bit of vanilla extract)

custard

500ml single cream, or half milk, half cream

1 vanilla pod

5 egg yolks

40g sugar

half fill the sink with cold water. pour the cream into your widest pan and add the vanilla pod split lengthways. heat, and when it's about to come to the boil, but isn't boiling, remove from the heat and leave to infuse for 20-30 minutes.

whisk the egg yolks with the sugar until thick and creamy and then strain the cream onto them, beating all the while, having swapped the whisk for a wooden spoon or spatula.

pour back into the pan and stir together on a low-to-moderate heat for 8-10 minutes until it thickens.

dunk the pan quickly in the cold water in the sink and beat well with a wooden spoon. if it looks as if it is curdling, use a whisk or electric whisk. pour into a bowl to cool (you can reheat over a pan of simmering water later if needs be) or serve as is.

so here is my result: beautiful, non? having made crumbles with both my mum and dad when i was really, really little (our neighbours had particularly rampant rhubarb plants) i kind of merely glance at basic ratios and then get on with them. but the custard? i was amazed by it. i have previously mentioned my lack of confidence in tackling new ground, and my subsequent wonder at what i create when i do; so it should come as no surprise that i had a small, silent, proud moment when i pulled this one off. it was particularly satisfying to be able to say to my mother, 'and that's the first time i've ever really made custard', and see a look of awe cross her face. obviously it kicked the crap out of storebought, but i was actually amazed at how good it was. perfectly vanilla scented, thick and slightly wobbly, and not a lump in sight. lovely. i even had some leftover for the next day, which i ate cold, padding around my garden barefoot looking for what needed doing in the morning sunshine.

so, now there's sufficient pink back in my life, if not my wardrobe. all i'm gonna say is, thank fuck i can still wear teal.