What's for dinner?

Soughdough Day 5 - Ups and Downs

Ooo, it's a bit of an emotional rollercoaster ride this creating of sourdough!  So, what's been going on?

Last time I posted I'd just done the first feed (Day 2).  That was about 4pm on Monday.  By the time I got home from dinner about 11pm that evening it was frothing enthusiastically and had a strong, fairly sweet/rotten smell - like when meat is just starting to go off (apparently I need to get to know the smells of my sourdough).  The frothing seemed positive so I went to bed happy.

By the time I got in from work the next day - feeding time - it had stopped frothing, separated a bit (there was a watery layer on top) and the smell was much less pungent.  This didn't seem good but nowhere in my book does it have a FAQ or troubleshooting section so I just got on add fed it.  The feeding process from this point on is to remove and discard half of the starter and then top it up with another cup of flour and one of cold water.

So by yesterday, Day 4, Wednesday, I was feeling a little anxious about my sourdough and I checked it a LOT of times.  It looked like it was fermenting slightly, a few tiny bubbles on the surface but not much smell.  Hmmm, I was a bit worried really.  Had I killed it in 4 days when others kept theirs for 30 years?  I didn't feed it owing to its lack of activity, just gave it a bit of a whisk.

Up at 6 this morning - not sure why - it's my day off.  Anyway, I picked the lid off the starter, a little despondantly if I'm honest, and was hit by that rotten smell :-)  It's frothing again.  Phew.  I think the smell might also be gaining a slightly sour yoghurt-y edge to it.  Also it looks a bit separated again so perhaps that's just something it does.  I'll feed it again (half out, a cup of flour and a cup of cold water in) and hopefully we're now into a regular daily feeding cycle and will be ready to bake in the next few days!

Sourdough Day 2 - The first feeding

Yay!  It happened.  My starter started to froth slightly.  Apparently this is a sign that it is ready for its first feed - and that it isn't dead!   So, 29 hours after its creation all is positive :-)

I've now fed it by whisking in (by hand this time) another cup of flour and one of warm water.  According to the book it should now need subsequent daily feedings and it's time to start to get to know my starter, its behavoiur and characteristic smell.  Right now it just smells yeasty - rather like the smell of uncooked bread dough.  Promising I guess!

Sourdough Day 1

Right, the sourdough is begun!  I'm using a recipe from the River Cottage Handbook on Bread for the starter.

The first stage requires 1 cup of flour and 1 cup of warm water and they recommend whisking it well in a food mixer for 10 minutes to incorporate plenty of yeast spores from the air.  They also recommend wholemeal flour for a quicker and more vigorous fermentation so I chose a good quality organic wholemeal bread flour from Doves Farm.  I'm hoping things will get started quickly because I'm going to drive everyone mad with my constant checking until they do!

So here it is, my first ever sourdough starter in a French earthenware casserole dish which my Mum received as a wedding gift almost 50 years ago and has passed on to me. 

Maybe one day my starter will have a similar vintage - the book tells of a 30 year-old starter at a bakery in England that originated in Russia.  But perhaps I'm getting ahead of myself.  Let's try to get it to the point where I can produce a loaf of bread from it first!

I'll be back when fermentation begins and the first feed is required.

 

Cooking 2012!

It's that time again.  A time to review the past year and think about the coming one.  I love the feeling of new beginnings and the clean, almost austere feeling of the post-Christmas calm and the new year.

Last year I planned a few foodie projects for the year including growing 10 edible items, making cheese and making sourdough bread.  Looking back at 2011 I see that I did none of those things but I did cook lots of lovely meals!

Despite the lack of success of last year's projects I'm still intent on setting some for the coming year.  Forget the food growing - I love the idea but I am just NOT a gardener - but the cheese and sourdough stay.  So, in 2012 I will ...

• Make sourdough bread (see next post)
• Make cheese (I did buy a book on it last year!)
• Keep contributing to the Kitchen Reader book group - I fell off the wagon in November but I've already started January's book
• Explore Mexican cookery and find some favourites
• Try more Far Eastern cookery and bring more freshness and vibrancy to my everyday cooking
• Practise baking (turns out somewhere along the line I forgot how! 2011 was THE year for baking disasters - how can somebody make that many florentines without producing a single successful one?!)
• Blog more - I mean a LOT more - I posted 5 times in 2011 (well 6 including this one!)

Here's to a great 2012 full of good food and happiness!  I wish everyone all the best.

Mrs Beeton's Every-Day Cookery

Well, nobody could accuse me of blogging too often!  Right now I'm really busy spending four days a week (the days I don't spend in my regular job in a software company) sharing the running of a cafe in an antiques centre in Sheffield.  It's really good fun and great experience and gives me the chance to spot new items as dealers add them to their units.  On Saturday I spotted an old copy - not dated but I'd guess 1930s or early 1940s - of Mrs Beeton's Every-Day Cookery.  I bought it straight away and having been browsing it since, I thought I'd share a couple of gems.

She includes a recipe for Dry Toast (yes, really!) and has quite a lot to say on the matter including the following:

"To make dry toast properly a great deal of attention is required; much more, indeed, than people generally suppose.  Never use new bread for making any kind of toast, as it is moist and tough, and, in addition, is very extravagant."

Well, I feel sure that Mrs Beeton would turn in her grave to see some of the extravagances of my everyday cooking!  Much of this cooking is vegetarian and I have an array of lovely vegetarian cookbooks.  Given Mrs Beeton's thoughts on that topic I am now wondering whether I need them:

"In time, vegetarians lose their liking for preparations possessing much flavour and seasoning and usually prefer simpler fare."

A fabulous book which so far has just made me smile a lot but I am looking forward to trying out some of her recipes - though maybe not the vegetarian ones!

Book Review: Spiced

I have been thinking a lot about baking lately.  I used to be known amongst friends for my cakes and desserts but over the past few years, apart from a dessert for the odd dinner party or cakes to take to work on my birthday, I really haven't done much.  I guess it didn't sit well alongside my nutritional therapy studies and I just got out of the habit.  However, having become absorbed in the Great British Bake-Off on TV and been given an application form for next year's competition by a friend, my thoughts have turned back to the sweeter things in life.  So it was a happy coincidence that this month's Kitchen Reader book group book was Dalia Jurgensen's book Spiced, "A pastry chef's true stories of trials by fire, after-hours exploits, and what really goes on in the kitchen", selected by Libbi of Domestic Wandering.

 

 

I loved this book.  I didn't really expect to but I did.  If you had been attracted by the promise of salacious details implied by the book's title and subtitle then you might have been disappointed but for me the fact that the bulk of this book is about the food and the work that goes into preparing it made it a fascinating read.

It is an autobiography of the author's career in kitchens from the point in her 20s when she left the safety of her office job to take on 7-day weeks shared between the kitchens of Nobu and culinary school in New York.  Over the next 15 years or so we travel with Dalia through established 3-star New York restaurants, start-ups with her friend and colleague Joey, and even a stint working in Martha Stewart's test kitchen developing recipes (that one sounded like my kind of job).  What struck me most about this book was how hard the restaurant business is.  You have to be truly devoted to spend so much time working long unsocial hours in the hot testosterone-fuelled atmosphere of a kitchen.  I've always secretly fancied the idea of working in a big full-on kitchen - this book put me off!

However this book did inspire me to work on my baking and dessert skills.  I want to make beautiful desserts!  Dalia's descriptions of the desserts she produced and their elegant, considered presentation shone like a little oasis in the hustle and bustle (and cursing and teasing and 'sexploits') of the kitchens she more or less lived in.  The tales of the banter and in-fighting were entertaining but it was the descriptions of her day-to-day work that had me really engrossed.

I will leave you with some of Dalia's desserts for inspiration: 

• Maple creme caramel with candied pecans and sour cherry sauce;
• Pistachio-crusted passion fruit cheesecake with wine-stewed berries;
• Apple-rhubarb crisp with white pepper ice cream;
• Coconut panna cotta with saffron cream;
• Buttermilk creme brulee served with miniature blueberry scones;
• Chocolate-espresso custard tart with "Creamsicle" sherbet.

I'll take one of each please!

Book Review: Home Cooking, A Writer in the Kitchen

I found The Kitchen Reader book group just over a month ago via Stonesoup and thought I'll join that when I've got more time ... but then when I saw that September's book was Laurie Colwin's Home Cooking, a book that had been sitting on my shelves for a few years waiting to be read, I decided that must be a sign so here I am.

 
I first came across Laurie Colwin many years ago when I read her novel Happy All The Time.  I can't remember much about it now but I do remember loving it which is what attracted me to buy her food memoir.  I was sad to read on the back of the book that she'd died far too young in 1992.

Before I go any further I must admit that I haven't quite finished the book.  I have about 20 pages to go.  Leaving things until the last minute - it's what I do!  But I've really enjoyed what I've read so far.  It's a very easy read, a collection of short essays around various food topics, mostly including a recipe or two, with chapters such as "Feeding the Fussy", "English Food" and (probably my favourite) "Bread Baking Without Agony".

Laurie Colwin is American so as a Brit it is probably a different read for me.  For an American of her generation I can imagine it awakening a lot of reminiscences.  For me it raised a lot of questions: What is an Idaho potato? (well, I know it's a potato but what's particular about it and what's our British equivalent?) What's a hero sandwich?  And what's Salmon Loaf - I don't know but I plan to find out because it sounds like a good idea (I'm a bit of a salmon fiend).  It also intrigued me with things such as the blending of raw potatoes in the making of potato pancakes.  Does that really work or am I missing something?!

I approached the "English Food" chapter with some trepidation - I know that here in England we have a bit of a reputation for our food, not necessarily good.  But it turned out that Laurie's a bit of a fan of English food.  Still there's no room for complacency since two of the dinners that feature in "Repulsive Dinners: A Memoir" had been eaten in London!

I found the recipes to be of a mixed appeal.  I'll be trying some of her potato salad recipes and the braised fennel, celery, onion and red pepper dish sounds good; a fancier version of the braised celery I loved as a child and had forgotten about.  However, I won't be taking on board the recommendation to serve your vegetarian guests a selection of steamed vegetables with watercress sauce.  If I was the said guest I'd be wondering where the rest of my meal was!

Having looked ahead to see what the last few chapters hold in store I'm really looking forward to trying her recipe for black cake.  This is the Caribbean equivalent of our Christmas (fruit) cake and I remember discovering it when I lived in Guyana.  As a hater of dried fruit it was amazing to discover that I can not only tolerate but enjoy large quantities of it once it has been ground up, soaked in rum and turned into a cake.  I need to get my fruit in soon if it's going to be ready for this Christmas so that's a job for the weekend.

I will finish with a lovely quote from the foreword: "No one who cooks cooks alone.  Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, the wisdom of the cookbook writers."  Doesn't that make you feel part of a really special gang?

Crispy Mushroom Bake

This is a dish that I've been cooking for at least the past 20 years.  It was a student favourite when I lived with my friend Cheryl who is vegan.  The ingredients look too simple to be anything special but they combine to create a really tasty, hearty dish.

In the original recipe (where it came from is lost in the mists of time - maybe one of the original Cranks books but I'm not sure) the dish is layered, alternating mushroom mixture and crumbs and making sure you end with a crumb layer on top.  When I  made it last night I didn't read the recipe because, well, I don't need to I've made it so often (!), and I completely forgot about the layering, instead putting all the mushrooms on the bottom and all the crumbs on the top - and it worked really well.

The parmesan is completely optional - I've never added it before and it's nice either way.  The dish is easily made vegan by skipping the parmesan and using a vegan margarine instead of the butter. 

225g breadcrumbs (I used seeded wholemeal bread)
110g chopped mixed nuts (on this occasion is was brazils, pistachio and almonds)
50g butter
1 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
225g mushrooms, chopped
1 can chopped tomatoes
1 tsp dried marjoram
50g grated parmesan (optional)
Salt and black pepper

1.  To make the crispy topping, melt the butter in a large frying pan, add the breadcrumbs, nuts and a good grind of black pepper, and fry until crispy and golden - but be careful, it burns easily.  If you are using parmesan, stir most of it into the crispy topping once it has cooled reserving a sprinkle for the top.

 
 
2.  To make the mushroom filling, fry the onion and garlic gently in the olive for 5-10 minutes to soften.  Add the mushrooms, tomatoes, marjoram, black pepper and a little salt to taste and simmer gently for 5 minutes.

3.  Put the mushroom mixture in the bottom of an ovenproof dish.

4.  Cover the mushroom mixture with the crumbs and finish with a final sprinkle of parmesan if using.

 
5.  Cover and bake in a pre-heated oven at 180 C for about 30 minutes.  Remove the cover for the last 10 minutes of cooking to brown the top. 

Parsley and Almond Pesto

I've been meaning to try making some different pestoes (is that the plural of pesto?!) for a while now and was finally inspired by this combination of parsley (one of my favourite herbs), almonds, lemon and garlic.

You will need either a pestle and mortar or a food processor to make this.  I use a mini-chopper attachment that came with my stick blender which does the job perfectly.

This recipe makes about 4 portions but keeps well in the fridge for a few days.

 

 

50 g blanched almonds
1 garlic clove, roughly chopped
A large bunch of parsley (about 50g), leaves only
1 lemon
5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1. Toast the almonds in a dry frying pan over a medium heat, tossing until golden brown (keep an eye on them because they can burn in an instant!).
2. Zest and then squeeze the lemon - you need 2 tbsp of the juice.
3. Put the almonds, garlic, parsley, lemon zest, oil and 2 tbsp water into the food process and blitz (or grind in a pestle and mortar).
4. Stir in the 2 tbsp of lemon juice and season to taste with a touch of salt and good grind of black pepper.

How to serve it

• With pasta - I ate it as a quick meal with prawns and wholewheat pasta.

• And then the next night with the rest of the prawns, quartered cherry tomatoes, rocket and spaghetti.
• It would work well as a sauce served with white fish.
• I think it tastes a bit Greek so suspect it might be good with lamb.
• Thin with further olive oil and more lemon juice to taste and use it to dress a tomato salad.
• Use it to brighten up a sandwich.

Comfort Fish

I'm into fish at the moment but having been laid low with a stinking cold my food thoughts have turned to comfort rather than sophistication.

Fish pie must feature on most people's comfort food lists but in my sniffley state that just involved too many elements (insides AND topping) and too long a wait.  Instead I plumped for a recipe from my newly purchased copy of "Fish" by Mitch Tonks, "Brixham pollack with parsley, caper and egg sauce".  Rather than pollack, what I had in was a piece of undyed smoked haddock but that worked beautifully.  You simply poach the fish in some milk and then use the milk to make a sauce seasoned with English mustard, parsley and capers and stir in the poached, flaked fish and a chopped hard-boiled egg.  Lovely.

Fish and hard boiled eggs are one of those surprising combinations that just work.  I remember a regular Monday evening tea as a child was a dish we called Prawn and Egg Mornay.  This involved lining a Pyrex dish with mashed potato in which you then place some halved hard boiled eggs, a cheese sauce with defrosted cooked prawns mixed into it, top with a sprinkle of grated cheese and breadcrumbs and bake.  Now I write it down, it sounds odd, but it works and I think it might need a new millenium reincarnation.  The other comfort fish of my childhood was mashed potato, tinned salmon and parsley sauce but I'm happy to leave that one in the Seventies!

In summary:

COMFORT FISH = FISH + HARD BOILED EGG + A VARIANT ON WHITE SAUCE