Author: Notnick

Yorkshire Puddings

There are two schools of thought on Yorkshire puddings- those who prefer the small individual puff-balls of puddings that blow up to be the size of tennis balls, and the those who prefer the single monster big pudding that you slice up and serve. The big puddings rise just as well in the oven, but fall back flat once they’re out, leaving a fluffy and crisp edge, and a flat and dense middle. The big pudding thinkers prefer the contrast of light and fluffy at the edge, contrasting with the flat and dense in the middle. The small pudding thinkers just like the crisp lightness of the puffballs.

Personally, I sit in the middle- I like both. Although, I can’t stand the pre-made or Frozen yorkshires- they’re all dry, and lose their texture and elasticity. BTW- never use self raising flour to make these- the texture is all wrong. Yorkshire Puddings rise because when they go into a hot oven, a skin forms on the batter, and the middle bit boils up and needs to expand- so you end up with a big hollow space inside a crisp skin.

Rules of the Yorkshire Pudding:

  • Put Yorkshires into the top of the hottest oven you can so they rise
  • Pre-heat the dish, with the oil already in it
  • Don’t pour the batter too thick into the dish- otherwise it all heats up too slowly and won’t puff up
  • Don’t open the oven whilst they’re cooking, or it all goes flat.

The batter recipe:
3 eggs
115g/4oz Plain flour
275ml/½ pint milk
beef dripping if you have it, veg oil if you don’t
salt

Mix it all up so that you have a smooth batter, put into the pre-heated dish and slap into the oven.

Shortbread

Shortbread is a Scottish classic biscuit, perfect with a hot chocolate. The trick is to get the texture right, the more corn flour or rice flour you add, the more it crispy crumbly it becomes. Too much corn/rice flour makes it dry and unpleasant, and too little makes it more like a pastry than a biscuit- it becomes difficult to get crisp and light.

There are a couple of recipes below to experiment with- both make good shortbread, but I haven’t hit the ideal yet!

Shortbread I
225g/8oz unsalted butter
75g/3oz caster sugar
350g/12oz plain flour
15g/0.5oz cornflour/riceflour
Cream butter & sugar
Mix in flours
Roll to 5mm/0.25″
180c/350f/gm4 for 20-25mins

Shortbread II
125g butter
55g caster sugar
140g plain flour
40g rice flour

190c for 20 mins

Triple Chocolate Brownies

I got this recipe from Caroline. It is the richest brownie I’ve ever tasted. For the absolute chocolate hit use Green and Black’s organic dark, white and milk. Don’t over cook it whatever you do- it’s better a under than over cooked. When it’s cooked and cooled, cut it into small squares- it’s very rich, and a large portion is just too much!

185g butter
185g dark chocolate, chopped
3 eggs
275g caster sugar
85g plain flour – sifted
65g cocoa powder – sifted
185g roughly chopped white chocolate
185g roughly chopped milk chocolate

Pre heat the oven to 180C
Line a 23cm square tin with baking parchment.
Place the butter and dark chocolate in a saucepan, melt over a very low heat, stir until smooth, do not allow the mixture to get hot. Allow to cool a little.
Beat the eggs and sugar until light and creamy.
Fold through the chocolate and butter mixture.
Re-slft the flour and cocoa over the mixture and, using a metal spoon or spatula, mix to combine.
Add the white and milk chocolate then pour into the lined tin.
Bake for about 35 minutes (no longer)
Allow to cool in the tin, then cut into small squares.

Wheaten Bread

Wheaten bread is a brown soda bread- This is an Irish recipe, and tastes fantastic. Mary showed me how to make it- she passes the recipe onto anyone who wants it- so I’m doing the same. You need to find a course wholemeal flour. I’ve not seen it in England or Scotland, so when in Ireland, stock up!

3/4lb wholemeal flour(coarse)
1/4lb plain white flour
1tsp salt
1tsp bicarb soda
Handful of pinhead oatmeal (for topping)
Sm handful brown sugar
small pot of Buttermilk

Mix to wet sticky dough, lightly kneed, and slap onto a baking tray
Hot oven to 450f for 30-45min

I love this stuff with a bit of butter, and fresh sliced tomatoes! mmmm.

(recipe 2)
Wheaten bread #2
4 cups brown bread flour
2 cups sr white
1/2 pt butter milk + water
1 tsp salt
1 tsp soda
180c for 1hr

Soft Cider

This stuff is great. When I was a kid at home we used to make this in a bucket and leave it in an outhouse for a few days. Once bottled up it gets it’s fizziness, but if the bottle is sealed tight it can explode! Fermentation happens in this drink, but not really for long enough to give it any great alcohol content. The longer you leave it, the more alcoholic it gets, but don’t bother, it doesn’t taste as good when it’s old. The fermentation uses natural yeast found in the fruit, so no need to add any yeast. If it’s just made, I think it’s the best time to drink it.

To make this, the apples can be rough old windfalls. Chop out the really bad bits then mince up the bits. If you have an old fashioned hand-cranked meat mincer, it works well for this, if not, coarse chopped in a food processor will do nicely.
 
Clean 3lbs cooking apples and mince up, including peel and cores.
Put in a bucket and pour on 6 quarts of cold unboiled water.
Put a cloth over the bucket, leave for a week, stirring night and morning.
Strain the liquid then stir in 2lbs granulated sugar.
Add the grated rind and juice of 3 lemons.
Set aside for 24 hours, then strain and bottle, corking lightly.
Drinkable within a week, possibly sooner, depending how warm it is.

Chinese Red Pork Stew

This is a strongly aromatic main course, and is really good with just some plain rice. Deird doesn’t like me cooking this because the house smells of star anise for a couple of days. You have to cook it for a long time (2-3 hours) to get the pork to be tender and fall-aparty. 

The weird thing about this recipe is that you marinade the pork in soy sauce, then when you fry off the pork before stewing, it turns a dark red. Some of the pork juices and marinade will probably stick to the pan- which is good, because that makes the stock look good later on. If the pork has a bit of fat in it, then this adds to the flavour. Don’t use too lean a meat.

Once it’s all cooked up, you need to sieve the sauce because it can be bitty from the bits of garlic, ginger and star anise floating round in it. The sauce should be thick, rich and sticky, and well condensed down.

Diced pork, about 1lb (1 fillet)
Dark Soy sauce (enough to marinade pork)
1 Onion, sliced into ½ rings
Ginger root- size of thumb
2 garlic cloves
2 star anise
Orange peel- potato peeled from ½ an orange (or mandarin, for authenticity.) Any spare peel- dry it for use later)
2-3 tablespoons of honey
Corn flour to thicken

In a frying pan, Fry pork and pour off juices
Add onion and soften
Add soy sauce from marinade and water to cover.
Add garlic (crushed) orange peel, star anise, peeled crushed ginger and honey
Stew for 60-90 mins
Remove pork, sieve sauce, and thicken with corn flour. Reintroduce pork and serve.

Irish Pasta

It’s called Irish pasta because it has it has pasta (white) carrots (orange) and broccoli (green). OK, I suppose it’s actually a Pasta Premavera. 

A Premavera is made with crisp spring veg- like broccoli, carrots, mange tout- but the trick is the sauce. It’s a mix of melted parmesan cheese, juices and the starchy water from the pasta. It’s a very light sauce, and you have to mix it ‘as it happens’ in the pan with the pasta, cheese and sauce.  

 You can add a chicken breast if you like. I think this is one of my favourite pasta dishes a the mo. It feels quite healthy but, well, probably isn’t, with the cheese, butter and bacon hoofed in.

Deird and Poppy love this recipe too.

250g fuselli Pasta
2 carrots (medium)- cut into thin carrot strips
2 handfuls broccoli
4 slices smoked bacon
clove of garlic
glug dry sherry or white wine
1 mozzarella ball
large knob of butter
2x4cm parmesan cheese
toasted pine nuts
Boil pasta, in the last two minutes add broccoli and carrots. drain and butter.
dice and fry bacon and garlic, and deglaze with sherry/wine.
add bacon and parmesan to pasta, carrot & broccoli
stir till parmesan melts, and makes a light sauce (add back some pasta water if too dry)
chop the mozzarella and add it, along with the pine nuts, stir and serve

Pasta Salsa

The is a really quick pasta sauce that I discovered. A friend of mine makes a sauce for chicken like this- roasting the ingredients with the chicken in a hot oven. Anywho… frying it all up for a pan is quicker, and well, works a treat. It takes longer to cook the pasta than it does to prep and cook the sauce. the ingredients are a bit salsa-y, thus the name.

It works best if the cherry tomatoes are sweet and ripe. If they’re a bit sharp or hard, add a little extra sugar to compensate. You can make this with bigger tomatoes, but, well, it just ain’t the same. It also works quite well with a few olives thrown in for good measure.

Pasta- fuselli or similar
2 mugs cherry tomatoes
1/2 a chilli
1/2 clove garlic
1/2 tsp sugar
Pinch salt
Balsamic vinegar

Fry the chilli & garlic
Add 1/4-ed tomatoes + sugar
Put on lid & fry for 2 mins
Add vinegar
Fry & reduce (really hot heat, 2 mins tops)
Salt & black pepper to taste

Orange & Tomato Soup

A recipe borrowed from my auntie. Really quick and easy, and a a little different. Orange and tomato together, who’d have thought..

500ml tomato passata
1 large orange
200ml water
a little sugar to sweeten, if the tomato is sharp
Cornflour to thicken
Salt, pepper to taste
1/4pt single cream to finish
 
heat passata & water
Grate rind of orange & add
Add cornflour & thicken
Peel orange, remove pith. Cut segments into 1/4s and add
Season
Remove from heat and add cream
Serve adding final dash of cream

Red cabbage – spiced & braised

Ingredients
1 large red cabbage, shredded
2 large onions, sliced
2 large cooking apples, peeled, cored and sliced
1 tsp nutmeg
pinch ground cinnamon
pinch ground cloves
2 tbsp soft brown sugar
3 tbsp white wine vinegar
knob of butter
2 tbsp redcurrant jelly

Method

1. Place all ingredients, except the redcurrant jelly into a large saucepan, bring to the boil, cover and simmer gently for about 1 hour or until the cabbage is tender.
2. Season well, stir through the redcurrant jelly and serve.

 

Red cabbage II – spiced & braised

1 small red cabbage
1 sliced red onion
70g soft light brown sugar
70ml cider vinegar
150ml red wine
a large knob of butter
1 cinnamon stick