Baked Eggs

When I was a little girl, my brother and I would be sent to stay with my paternal grandmother who seemed to like to have us overnight. Quite why, I don't know, because she only lived down the road, and could easily have given us back, but she seemed to enjoy our company without our parents on occasion! 

Unlike my mother, my grandmother had a gas cooker - town gas, in those long-ago days before North Sea Gas was discovered - and therefore felt freer to run her oven more than my mother did, and baked eggs frequently featured on her breakfast menu.  My mother never cooked them, so it was a treat for when we stayed with my grandmother.  Except when we were packed off to spend the night the night before we went on holiday. When she learnt that we were concerned about the quasi-inevitable car-sickness that would probably ensue on the journey, she gave us a breakfast she said was served at the Lord Warden in Dover before a Channel crossing, and nobody could possibly feel sick if they ate that.  It was only plain bread-and-butter and ham, but I seem to remember it did the trick!  (And I rather suspect that at the Lord Warden champagne was served, rather than the weak tea or milk we had!).

Anyway, baked eggs:

Per person:
1 egg
½ slice ham
½ a tomato or 3 cherry tomatoes, sliced or halved as appropriate (optional)
1 tbs milk
Seasoning, as liked

Put the ham and tomatoes into the bottom of a greased ramekin.  Top with the egg, left whole, and add the milk and seasoning. Bake in a moderate oven (gas 4, 180 C) for 15-20 minutes.  Eat out of the ramekin with a teaspoon, accompanied by bread, or toast, and butter.

Chilli Sherry and sauce recommendations

My grandmother used to make this, and use a teaspoonful or so to season soups, stews, etc.  If you have an empty glass bottle with a screw-top lid, do make some!

Fill the bottle about ¼ full with dried chilli peppers, and top up with cheap cream sherry.  Leave to infuse for about 3 weeks before using.  Top up with additional sherry when necessary.

Meanwhile, I should like to recommend Clothilde's magic sauce, which I made yesterday (the version with peanut butter) and found surprisingly good.  And I should also like to recommend this courgette hummus, recommended by Clothilde, which as far as I am concerned could replace mayonnaise very, very easily!

Summer Pudding

An English classic!

1 packet (750 gr) frozen summer fruit or fruits of the forest (or use fresh strawberries/raspberries/redcurrants/cherries in the proportions you prefer)
About 2-3 tablespoonsful of sugar
1 teaspoon cornflour stirred into 1 tablespoonful water
6 slices bread, crusts removed

Put the fruit into a microwaveable container with the sugar and cook, stirring every 2-3 minutes, until the fruit is thawed and the juices have run.   Stir in the cornflour/water.  Taste and adjust the sugar if necessary - remember you can always add some, but you can't take it away, and this pudding is not meant to be too sweet.

Line a 2-pint pudding basin with the bread, saving a slice for the top.  Pour the fruit into the centre, top with the remaining bread.  Place a saucer on top and weigh it down (use a couple of 400-g tins if you haven't any old-fashioned weights); refrigerate for at least 8 hours if you can.  Turn the pudding out on to a plate and serve with cream.

Frozen green orange tea

I ordered this in a coffee shop in Hamburg the other day when I was very hot. Not at all sure what to expect, but it was very good and refreshing, so I tried to recreate it at home:

1 peppermint tea bag
2 large sprigs mint
Several slices of lemon (I freeze 1/4 slices of lemon to go in tea, so just grabbed a handful of those) or lime
As many ice cubes as you can muster
Orange, apple or multi-vitamin juice

Make 1 cup of peppermint tea and add the mint sprigs, too - crush them for a bit of flavour.  Cool it down with the ice-cubes and lemon.  Add fruit juice to taste - and it might, I suspect, be very nice with some sparkling water, too.

Most refreshing.  Please note this is still a work in progress.....

Kate and Sidney

I know this is another two-posts-in-one-day, but there you are - my posts are like buses.  None for ages, and then two come along at once!  This one is specially for DBNY, who wanted a recipe.

1 tbs olive oil
1 large onion
1-2 cloves garlic (optional)
1-2 large carrots
1/2 punnet mushrooms
1 400 g tin tomatoes
1 beef stock cube or Stock Pot
The tomato tin full of water (or red wine)*
400 g stewing steak (or thereabouts)
200 g kidneys (ideally ox, but whatever you can get)
1 tbs flour (I used besan, or gram flour, which added a lovely flavour but didn't do much in the way of thickening)
Salt, pepper, mixed herbs, Worcestershire sauce

Peel and chop the onion, garlic, carrots and mushrooms, and fry in a little oil for several minutes, ideally until the onions are softened.  Meanwhile, mix the seasoning with the flour (not the Worcestershire sauce, of course, but....), and toss the cubed meat in it.  Transfer the vegetables to a slow cooker*, and then fry up the meat, stirring constantly, until it has browned.  Transfer this to the slow cooker, and add the tomatoes and water (and Worcestershire sauce, if using).  Leave cooking on high or auto for the rest of the day, and in any case at least 5-6 hours. Serve with potatoes or a hearty pasta and a green vegetable or two.  Left-overs even better re-heated next day!

* If you don't have a slow cooker, use an ordinary casserole dish and cook it in a slow oven for 2-3 hours.  You may well need more water than I used, though.

Unrepeatable soup!

This was so delicious, but it's very hard to find wild garlic in London which is why it's unrepeatable.  I did buy a bunch at my local farmers' market, but it was eye-wateringly expensive.  I am actually wondering whether spring onions (scallions) would work instead - after all, the French cook their peas with lettuce and baby onions....

1 bunch ramsons (wild garlic, bears' garlic)
Outside leaves from a Little Gem lettuce (or any floppy lettuce, really)
1 litre vegetable stock
About 100g frozen peas
2 tbs creme fraiche
A plank of Chinese noodles (or a large packet of instant noodles and discard the flavour sachet)

Boil the ramsons and lettuce in the stock for about 10-15 minutes.  Blend until smooth.  Add the peas and noodles and cook for a further 4-5 minutes.  Stir in the creme fraiche.

If you try this with spring onions, let me know how it works!  And if I do, I will update.

Carrot salad

AKA carottes rapées.

3-4 medium-to-large carrots, peeled and grated
2 snack pack boxes of raisins (the kind you give children who are low blood-sugar or bored)

The traditional dressing is lemon juice and olive oil, and when I made it this way earlier in the week I also added some honey as it was a little too sharp.  However, my preferred dressing is toasted sesame oil and balsamic vinegar, which doesn't really need anything else.

Put everything in a bowl and mix.  Keep in fridge.

Giant couscous salad

About 1/2 cupful giant couscous.  I got mine in Morrison's but if you can't find it, ordinary couscous is fine.
About 2 tbs cooked chickpeas (tinned is fine, but dried are nicer)
About 2 tbs sunflower seeds
About 1-2 tbs sultanas or dried cranberries
1 tomato, chopped
Chunk of red pepper, chopped
Handful of parsley, chopped.
You could also add a chunk of chopped cucumber, but I've gone off cucumber, so I didn't.
1 tbs lemon juice
1 tbs olive oil
I also had some tahini dressing that wasn't doing anything, so that went in, too.

Cook the couscous - if you're using the giant stuff, you boil it for 6-7 minutes like ordinary pasta; the regular stuff you just soak for 10 minutes in twice as much boiling water.  Drain and transfer to a bowl and mix in the rest of the ingredients.  Leave in the fridge for a couple of hours for the flavours to develop.  Serve with lettuce, flatbreads, hummus, olives, other salads..... 

Pesto

Have I ever posted my pesto recipe?  I am not sure that I have.  For me, pesto has to contain basil; I know there is such a thing as red pesto, made with sun-dried tomatoes, and people make pesto with all sorts of different green leaves, but for me, it's basil or nothing!  I will happily substitute walnuts or even peanuts for the pine nuts, and use a strong cheddar instead of parmesan, but it has to be basil!

A large quantity of basil - if you have a growing tub, give it a haircut.  A good handful.
1-2 tbs pine nuts, walnuts, or even peanuts
1 clove garlic
Large chunk - about 60 grammes or so - Parmesan, or maybe strong cheddar
1-2 tbs olive oil

Place it all in a food processor and blitz until it gets to the texture you like.  If it's too dry, add a little more olive oil.

Serve with pasta, and we like to save a little to have on bread next day!

Neither Kedgeree nor Kitchari

I had been toying with the idea of a vegetarian kedgeree - I adore kedgeree, but it's expensive and I don't make it often.  Anyway, a bit of research brought me to this recipe, only me being me, I wanted vegetables in and with it, plus we had loads of veg in the bottom of the fridge that wanted using!  Serves 4.  This recipe is vegan and gluten-free.

½ cup mung beans
1 tbsp cooking oil (I used sesame oil)
1 chunk frozen grated ginger (or grate your own!)
1 tsp turmeric
 ½ each asafoetida, cumin seeds, coriander seeds, as liked
1 leek, chopped
1 large courgette, chopped
3 tomatoes, peeled and chopped
½ cup basmati or other long-grain rice
500 ml boiling water
1 vegetable "stock pot" (or use 500 ml vegetable stock)
Salt and pepper to taste
Mango chutney to serve

Soak the beans for several hours.   Fry the spices and ginger in the oil for a minute or two, then add the vegetables.  Stir, and allow to cook for a minute or two.  Add the soaked beans and rice, and then stir again.  Finally, add the stock and adjust the seasoning.  Bring back to the boil, then reduce the heat to very low and simmer, covered, for about 20-25 minutes until the water is mostly absorbed.  Serve with chutney.

Leeks and ham au gratin

This is an old favourite.  It is traditionally made with chicory (endives) rather than leeks, but for St David's Day, which it is, one wants something in which leeks are a central feature, rather than an "also-ran". 

4 small or 2 large leeks, trimmed. If large, cut in half widthways.
4 slices ham - the nice kind, without added water
250 ml milk
1 heaped tsp plain flour
A very little salt (only a pinch - the ham will add a great deal)
Black pepper
Dry mustard powder
Knob of butter
c 75g grated cheese (cheddar, emmenthal, Parmesan, one of those bought mixes....)

Boil, or (preferably) steam the leeks until tender. When cool enough to handle, wrap each leek or 1/2 leek in a slice of ham.  Place side-by-side in an oven-proof dish.

Meanwhile, whisk the flour, milk and seasoning together and melt the butter in a saucepan.  Pour the milk mixture on to this and bring to the boil, stirring all the time.  Stir in half the grated cheese, then pour this over the ham and leeks.  Top with the rest of the grated cheese.  Bake in a moderate oven for 30-45 minutes.

This is traditionally served with mashed potato.

Chicken and mushroom curry

Yet another day when two posts come along at once!  I hadn't made a curry quite like this before, but it was very good!

4 chicken breast fillets
1/2 large or 1 small onion
1/2 punnet mushrooms
1 tbs olive oil
1 large tsp curry powder (or more, to taste)
Around 200 ml boiling water
1 Knorr chicken stock-pot
1 tbs coconut milk powder
Salt and pepper to taste

Fry the curry powder in the olive oil for a few minutes; add onions and chicken fillets, allow to cook for a couple of minutes and then turn the fillets over.  Add the sliced mushrooms, reduce the heat, cover and cook gently for about 15 minutes, until the mushrooms are all juicy.  Now add the water, stock and coconut milk powder, stir, bring back to the boil and simmer uncovered for a further 15 minutes.  Adjust seasoning. Serve with rice, and perhaps a vegetable side dish (see previous post).

Broccoli Bhaji

Our Chinese take-away has been closed for a couple of weeks, which meant the weekly take-away came from the local Indian place, which is slightly further away.   We ordered a vegetable thali, which was heaven, and which introduced me to the delicious dish called bhindi bhaji,which is made with okra.  I was going to make that this evening, but my daughter and grandson came to stay unexpectedly while their boiler was being replaced, and my daughter said she didn't care for okra, so I made it with broccoli instead. I thought it just a tad dry, but it tasted good!

1 tsp coriander seeds
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp each asafoetida, tumeric (I didn't have any and so perforce left this out), garam marsala  and chilli powder (to taste, but that sort of thing)
1/2 large or 1 small onion, chopped
2-3 ripe tomatoes, chopped
1/2 large head of broccoli, reduced into florets and the stem chopped small.
1 tbs olive oil
Salt to taste 

Crush the coriander and cumin together in a pestle and mortar, and put them, with the other spices, into the olive oil which you have placed into a frying pan or wok that has a lid.  Allow to cook gently for a few moments, then add the rest of the ingredients.  Stir well, cover, and allow to cook gently for about half an hour, stirring occasionally.  Use as a side dish with curry and rice.

Cheese Pudding

I love this once in awhile; it's the savoury version of bread-and-butter pudding. 

3 slices wholemeal or granary bread
Large lump strong Cheddar cheese (75-100 g)
250 mls milk
2 eggs

Whizz the bread and cheese together in a food processor, as you would for a topping for a savoury dish.  Place in a greased ovenproof dish.  Whisk the eggs and milk together until smooth, seasoning with salt, black pepper and mustard powder.  Pour this mixture over the breadcrumbs and stir.  Leave to sit for a few minutes - 10 or 15 - and then bake in a moderate oven (Gas 4) for about 45 minutes.  I topped this with a sliced tomato, which was lovely, and it would probably have been even nicer if I'd saved some of the cheese to sprinkle on the top. 

Perfect opportunity for roasted veg, which can go in the oven on the shelf above!

Cauliflower cheese bake

½ large or 1 small cauliflower, cut into florets
2 medium potatoes, peeled and sliced
2 hard-boiled eggs, peeled
1 small tin sweetcorn (optional)
250 ml milk
1 heaped teaspoon flour
2 tsp olive oil or similar amount of butter
Salt, pepper, 1/4 tsp dry mustard powder
A little more butter and milk for the potatoes
c 60-100 g cheese, grated (should be 60 g but I'm greedy!)
If liked, a tomato or several cherry tomatoes, sliced or halved

Steam cauliflower florets and potatoes. Make a whisked or roux sauce, as preferred, with milk, flour, seasonings, oil/butter.  Add the tin of sweetcorn, if using, and half the cheese.

Place the cooked cauliflower florets into an oven-proof dish, and tuck the hard-boiled eggs in beside the handles (so you know where they are!). Top with the sauce, then with the potatoes you have mashed with the extra butter and milk (and seasoned), with the rest of the grated cheese and, if liked, the sliced or halved tomatoes.  Bake in a moderate oven for 30-45 minutes.

Cauliflower recipes

No posts for ages, then two come along at once. Mostly because we have, for the first time for ages, bought a cauliflower, and I have been thinking of my two favourite ways to eat it.  The first is very quick to make:

1 small, or ½ large cauliflower, cut into florets
Large chunk of butternut squash, peeled and diced
Small slab Feta cheese
1/2 cup (125 ml) by volume dry couscous
Olive oil
Rosemary or thyme
1 tin tomatoes      )
1 heaped tsp flour )

OR

1/2 punnet cherry tomatoes
2 tsp balsamic vinegar

Steam the cauliflower florets; spray the squash with olive oil and sprinkle with rosemary or thyme.  Microwave it for 4 minutes (you can roast it if you have time, which is nicer, but this is a quick meal).  Soak the couscous in 250 ml boiling water for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile make a tomato sauce by whisking the tin of tomatoes with the flour (seasoning it to taste) and then adding this to a saucepan with c 2 tsp olive oil; bring to the boil, stirring all the time, and ideally simmer for a few minutes.  If you prefer, you can make a fresh tomato sauce with 1/2 punnet of cherry tomatoes, pierced, cooked for a few minutes in olive oil and a dash of balsamic vinegar and then mashed!

Mix the squash, couscous and feta and served topped with the cauliflower and the tomato sauce.

Carrot, lentil and split pea soup

In the interests of remembering how I did it!

1 tbs olive oil
2 small onions, peeled and chopped
5 large carrots, ditto

1 tsp each cumin and coriander seeds, ground in a pestle & mortar
Pinch asafoetida
1/3 cup (approx  80 ml by volume) each of red lentils and  split peas
Salt, pepper, soya sauce
1 tsp tahini

1 vegetable Stock Pot
1.5 litres water

To serve (optional): 1 small tin petits pois and/or 1 small tin sweetcorn or equivalent amount of frozen sweetcorn

Pound the seeds in a pestle and mortar until they are powder.  Fry this, the asafoetida, the onions and the carrots for a few minute in the oil.  Add the rest of the ingredients, bring to the boil, and simmer for about 30 minutes, or until the split peas are soft.  Now run all this through the blender, put it back in the pan, add the peas or sweetcorn (if using) and bring back to the boil.  Taste, and adjust seasoning if necessary.

I do love the mouthfeel that both carrots and lentils bring to a soup.  And this was particularly good on an evening when nobody was very hungry, but we all wanted/needed a light meal!

Mulled Wine

Someone asked....

1 bottle cheap red wine
1-2 sachets mulled wine spices (or mix your own - cloves, cinnamon, mixed spice, nutmeg....)
2-4 tbs brown sugar
1 orange
1 tbs brandy per person (optional)

Put wine, spices and sugar into a saucepan, bring to the boil and simmer for ten minutes.   Some people boil the sliced orange in with the wine, but I prefer to put the orange slices in the mugs with the brandy, if using, and pour the mulled wine on the top. 

Instant Supper!

I didn't have my act together at all this evening, and the Swan Whisperer came in from Ice Dance Club at 8:30 pm and I hadn't even begun to think about supper.  In my defence, I had had rather a substantial snack earlier in the day.... 

So a quick trawl through the fridge yielded this, which really took no more than 7-8 minutes in total:

1 packet lardons
1/2 packet cherry tomatoes
Handful diced cheese (or grated, but I had some diced brought back from France - a mixture of Mimolette and Gruyère.  It was nice as it went all stringy, but if you don't like stringy cheese, use Cheddar!)
2 eggs

For the noodles:
1 egg
1/2 cup (125 ml by volume) buckwheat flour (or plain white or wholemeal flour, or even gram flour.  Buckwheat and gram flours are gluten-free, so suitable for those with coeliac or similar)
120 ml water
Salt and pepper

Pierce the cherry tomatoes and put them and the lardons into a saucepan and allow to cook gently.  Meanwhile put a second pan of salted water on to boil, and make the noodles by mixing the ingredients together to form a smooth paste.  It should be more paste-like than batter-like.  To make noodles, you really need a potato ricer - I have this one, which I use pretty well daily for mashed potatoes, mashed root vegetables and noodles (it comes with three different discs) and have done for some years now.
Put the paste into the tub of the ricer, using the disc with fewest holes in it, and press the noodles into the boiling water.  Bring back to the boil, and allow to cook for one minute.  Drain, and add to the saucepan where the lardons and tomatoes will now be cooked.  Add cheese, the two eggs and some pepper and stir until the eggs are cooked.  Serve at once.

Hummus

Although hummus (or homous, depending on how you care to spell it) is ubiquitous in supermarkets these days in a multiplicity of flavours, I like to make my own occasionally.  It's the one occasion where I do think tinned chickpeas are useful - I've increasingly moved to using the dried variety, only you do have to think about them in advance!

1 400-g tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1-2 tbs tahini (sesame seed paste, widely available in the World Foods section of supermarkets; but if yours doesn't do it, check your local Turkish shop)
1-2 cloves garlic (which you may, of course, omit if you dislike garlic)
1-2 tbs lemon juice
1-2 tbs olive oil OR 1 tbs olive oil and 1-2 tbs natural yoghurt

Seasoning to taste.  I went for Moroccan, and used a Moroccan seasoning mix from France, some Ras-el-Hanout, also from France, a few coriander seeds (couldn't find my cumin seeds; think they were lost in the Great Spice Rack disaster of a few weeks ago) and a little Harissa paste.

Put most of the chickpeas and the rest of the ingredients into a food processor and puree until smooth.  A tablespoonful of water or another tablespoonful of yoghurt or olive oil may help if the mixture is too thick for your taste.  Add the rest of the chickpeas just before you stop the machine, so they remain a little chunky.

Perfect with pita or other flatbreads, toast, or stirred through "slow-fried" vegetables.