In season: more asparagus


A few weeks ago I treated myself to a ‘Tarte Maison‘ tin from John Lewis. Its a lovely thing, 3 times as long as its wide and calling out to have something pretty made in it. Initially I’d intended to make a rhubarb tart that I’d seen Jonathan (aka @Browners), over at ‘Around Britain with a Paunch‘ mention on Twitter. I’ve not got to the rhubarb tart yet – mainly because we don’t eat that many desserts so it just hasn’t happened.


But this weekend I thought it would be nice to do something a little bit different with asparagus that still let it shine and played to its best qualities but moved away from simple steaming and dressing (much as I love it just steamed).

The tart tin seemed just the thing to show off the asparagus.

It was quick and easy:

1. Steam 10 asparagus spears until tender and then immediately plunge them into cold water so they retain their vibrant green colour. Cut each spear in half so you have a bottom end and an end with the tip on.
2. Grease the tart tin and then line with four layers of filo pastry (I needed 8 sheets which overlapped in the middle). Pour in baking beans and blind bake for 7 minutes at Gas 6/200C/400F. Remove from oven and careful remove the baking beans. Allow to cool slightly.
3. Lay the bottoms of the asparagus spears in the pastry case. Add soft goats cheese cut into small pieces (I used 100g of Pants y Gawn). Pour in beaten and seasoned eggs (it took 6 medium eggs).
4. Lay the tops of asaparagus spears on the eggy mix. Bake 20 minutes at Gas 6 until the mixture is firm. Allow to cool, admire, slice and serve.

Under the bonnet: Sourdough progress

On Sunday Monday I finally decided to make a sourdough starter. It takes FOUR weeks of patient waiting and ‘feeding’ before you get to make a loaf.


Blimey.

I’m not a patient person so each time I pass I have to try very hard to resist taking a peek to see what’s happening under the lid. Sometimes I just manage to leave it alone others I succumb. So I thought I’d share these peeks with you so you too can live the joys and worries of making sourdough.

I’ll keep updating this post so come back if you want to see what’s a foot – or follow me on Twitter to hear the latest. As I add new pictures they’ll be right here so you’ll need to scroll down if you want to watch the full process.

Update 6 (above): Well the yeasty foam is disappearing day by day to reveal the pinky brown cloudy liquid – nice. The smell is just as bad each time I lift the lid – so I’m mostly staying away. Feeding commences Friday 8.00am BST so have stocked up on flour and am ready to enter phase 2 with my sourdough – can hardly wait. Date/time: 13 May 2009 2.00pm BST

Update 5 (above): its now been just over a week since I made the sourdough thing (yes its a thing). I tried not to peek too much this weekend as we had guests and I imagined they might not want to feel like they were visiting an unattended football teams sock laundry pile! Anyway today the starter is looking rather sad. Its getting a bit of the promised pink tinge but the thick yeasty foam is collapsing and glimpses of dirty looking liquid can be seen below. Ugh. Only a few more days before the phase 2 feeding ritual commences….Date/time: 11 May 23.00 BST

Update 4 (above): just clocked through 100 hours of bubbling (and waiting). Its getting smellier but so far this isn’t creeping out to fill the kitchen (a good fitting lid is clearly essential). Here’s more of a close up on all that home grown yeasty-ness. Date/time: 9 May 2009 9.30am BST

Update 3: We are now 3 1/2 days in and its smelling like a VERY ripe cheese (but still only if you lift the lid). It doesn’t look much different from yesterday so I decide to prod it with a spoon. I can tell its liquidy underneath with a thick sticky stretchy topping. Still yellow-ish coloured. This is where may patience is going to be tested severely I think…..Date/time: 8 May 2009 8.00am BST

Update 2: At 60 hours its going a bit crazy, lots of bubbling, bit more smelly and I’m worried its going to break free from the bowl: Date and time 7 May 2009 9.30am BST

 



First up: 36 hours old, yellowy colour, flour has settled to bottom, slightly tangy smell starting to develop (but only if you lift the lid): Date and time 6 May 2009 9.15am BST

For starters: thats sourdough starters

I love sourdough bread in all its varieties and I’ve always quite fancied making it myself. Looking around some of my favourite food blogs recently I saw that sourdough is of those things people are trying out – maybe its the credit crunch that makes us all want to bake bread, I don’t know, but it certainly seems to be on the rise (!).


A  bit of looking about, a bit of tweeting and it seemed that the king (and queen) of sourdough recipes comes from Sam and Sam Clarks ‘Moro’ cookbook. It doesn’t seem hard (or maybe it is and I’m just about to find that out) but it requires patience – lots of it – four weeks of it. Like WHAT – I’ve got to wait FOUR weeks before I can even get close to baking a loaf….now I’m not especially renowned for my patience so I decided to go off and look for other starter recipes. But I kept drawing a blank – they seemed too short and they had easy blend yeast in them – like right that’s not real sourdough its just a minor tongue tingle effect.

So back to the recipe from ‘Moro’ and a whole lot of patience.


Here’s what you need and do:


1 bunch of red organic grapes (okay so these aren’t organic but I hope it still works)

Strong white organic flour: 500g

Water: 1 litre
Put the grapes in a muslin bag and secure the top of the bag – just so:
Mix the flour and water together to create a sloppy batter that looks like this:

Bash the grapes around a bit with a rolling pin and remember to save the juices to add the mix.

Having added the juice in go the grapes:

Cover and now its just a waiting game – two weeks and counting to next stage……


Under the clock, with the flowers

Yesterday I had an assignation at Liverpool Street Station in London with a man I’d never met before called Dan (at least that what he said his name was). 

We agreed to meet at 11.30 BST.

He said I’d recognise him by the flowers and the gentle aroma of garlic. How he was going to identify me we didn’t establish. Gave me plenty of get out but not him.

Fortunately there aren’t that many people just standing looking like they are waiting for a man bearing a wild garlic plant at that time of day – most people are busy rushing to or from somewhere. Me, I was just loitering.

Anyway along came a guy with a garlic plant and I reasoned there wasn’t going to be 2 people doing this so I said ‘Hi’ and as luck would have it it was Dan! We chatted bit, Dan told me about how to look after the plant and what to expect. We compared foodie notes. I handed him a sample of my home made sloe vodka (vintage 2006) as a thank you and he went off to carry on his day job (and sneak a nip of vodka I think) and I took the garlic for a coffee followed by lunch – most enjoyable and not too many odd looks.

The plant is now at home, the cats have checked it out and decided its not for them, I sampled some today at lunch and was impressed, so next up is to plant it at the shady end of the garden and hope that next year we have a good crop.

I can’t wait for a feast of wild garlic next year :)

With big thanks to Dan over at FoodUrchin for giving me a little bit of his garden.

In season: asparagus, part 1


The asparagus season has been going for a week or so now and so far I’ve only had one tasting just over a week ago and none since. It was great but once only is not good enough, there are only 6-8 weeks of the season, I refuse to buy asparagus out of season and I love the stuff so I really need to get focussed – I mean I’d eat it everyday if I could! So today, despite the heavy rain and blustery wind, I decided it had to be asparagus for lunch, preferably with some Jersey Royals alongside. A quick trip to the supermarket was required – now I know I should be buying this stuff at the local farmers shop/market/etc but:


a. there isn’t one near me and
b. its Monday so time is short for food shopping. 

I got what I needed – a good bunch of asparagus (it was from Hampshire – I’m really wondering where the East Anglia asparagus is this year after all its nearer – so much for Waitrose’s local sourcing policy!) and a small bag of Jersey Royals (and what happened to them being sold still in the soil it seemed so much better and they had them like that last year?).

Anyway back home with my haul of goodies I set to work to make a quick lunch. I like my asparagus simply done –I’m not one for turning it into soups it always seems best to me steamed or maybe grilled and then dressed with some oil or butter, or served with simple accompaniments such as poached egg, or a little cheese. Today I opted for steaming it above the potatoes and then serving it on a bed of parma ham, drizzling it with olive oil and sprinkling with a little bit of Sacanova Aged Mahon cheese, the potatoes were alongside with some oil and fresh mint.

Sweet and slightly nutty asparagus, earthy, nutty potatoes, sweet ham and a salty caramel tang from the cheese – perfection.

With only about 45 days left to get my fill how shall I have tomorrow’s asparagus?

Smokin’ tomatoes: an experiment


After enjoying the ‘In the Bag’ challenge so much I thought it would be good to join in another blog event. I spotted the ‘No croutons required’ event over at Tinned Tomatoes run by Holler.

It’s a vegetarian challenge, I’m no vegetarian but I do like a bit of a challenge.


One of the things I’m finding so great about food blogging is checking out the other food blogs and from that getting the grey cells moving to come up with new ideas or remember forgotten favourites. Suddenly lots of ideas come together and you want to try something different. 

This months ‘No croutons required’ has an extra twist – its been Holler’s birthday and so along with the soup or salad (based on tomatoes this month) we also have to come up with a birthday dinner menu for Holler – fortunately we don’t have to cook and test the whole lot together – though I’m thinking it might be wise to at least have tried the rest of the menu before?

So to business, the menu looks like this:


Smokey tomato and rosemary soup
Chickpea pancakes with wilted mixed greens and fresh cheese
Rhubarb and pink ginger ice cream 

Hope Holler likes it ?

Smokey tomato and rosemary soup:


This is (very) loosely based on the Tuscan soup Pappa al Pomodoro. 

First some tips and WARNINGS!

We are actually going to be smoking the tomatoes with a smoking mix of rice/tea/sugar so if you don’t like smokey foods forget it now. If you’d like to go an adventure with me hop on and keep reading.

Once the smoking thing gets going it really does make the house smell, well pretty smokey, so ideally do this in the garden, on a camping stove, on the gas ring of your fancy barbeque any heat source you can find. If not open all the windows, shut internal doors, put the extractor on max and hope for the best.

The smoke, as well as creating tasty smoked tomatoes, will get all over the pan/steamer you use so don’t use your best/favourite pan as its takes a lot of effort to clean up. Use a non-stick wok if you can and one of those cheap(ish) bamboo steamers. If you have a smoker use it (not them).

If you don’t like smokey or chargrilled foods you won’t like this – stop now make something else.

Be careful where you put the steamer down post smoking; don’t make an impossible to remove mark on your new work surface like I once did ?

Ingredients (for the smoking bit):

½ cup rice – don’t worry what type – I used basmati
¼ cup tea – whatever you fancy, the stronger the tea the stronger the flavour – I used Darjeeling
2 tbsp soft brown sugar (I think its this that makes a lot of the mess)
6-8 ripe tomatoes – medium size

  • Mix the first three ingredients together – makes about 1 cup of smoking mix.
  • Get a piece of foil about 3cm bigger all round than the base of the pan you are going to use. Fold the edges up, tip in the smoking mix, pop it in the bottom of the pan.
  • If you want to skin the tomatoes then nick the skin in a cross on the bottom, plunge in just boiled water for about a minute, remove and peel off skins. I can never be bothered to do this but it’s your call.
  • Put the pan with the smoking mix on the heat, cover the pan and let is start to generate smoke – about 5-10 mins to get a good flow.
  • Put the tomatoes on a piece of foil bigger than the steamer and fold up the edges but don’t cover the tomatoes. Put the tomatoes in the steamer.
  • When you’ve got a good amount of smoke then pop the steamer on top of the pan containing the smoke mix and smoke for up to 15 minutes depending on the intensity of smokiness you fancy – we did about 10 mins.
  • The tomatoes will have cooked and let out juices don’t loose these they go in the soup.

For the soup (2 as a hearty lunch, 4 as a starter):

the smoked tomatoes (as above) – use as few as or as many as you like to adjust the smokiness of the soup
1 tin chopped tomatoes
1 clove garlic, finely chopped
olive oil
1 pint vegetable stock (made with bouillon powder is fine)
4oz dried pasta, either small soup pasta, or whatever you have broken into smaller bits (I used linguine snapped into smaller lengths)
2 sprigs fresh rosemary

  • Gently sauté the garlic in about 1tbsp olive oil for a couple of minutes but don’t let it go brown and bitter
  • Add the smoked and tinned tomatoes and squish them around to make sure they are in smallish pieces
  • Add the stock
  • Add 1 sprig of rosemary stripped from the stalk and roughly chopped
  • Bring it all to simmering point then add the pasta
  • Simmer for 10-15 minutes so its all warmed through and the pasta is cooked
  • Serve garnished with a small sprig of rosemary

And the taste – well it was pretty smokey. I liked it but Ian wasn’t convinced (which is odd because he’s usually a fan of smoked foods). I think if I did it again I’d smoke the tomatoes for less time, maybe use a very subtle tea – although Darjeeling isn’t usually though of as a strong tea the flavour after 10 minutes of smoking its pretty intense, and perhaps use fewer of the smoked tomatoes saving the others to make a bruschetta or toss in a salad.

As for the rest of the menu….

Chick pea pancakes with wilted greens and fresh soft cheese: I’d use the recipe in my Spicy chickpea pancakes post but omit the chilli, ginger and cumin seeds and add lots of fresh chopped flat leaf parsley instead. I’d wilt a mix of the nicest looking greens I could find probably spinach, kale and wild garlic for preference, pile these on the pancakes and add some lovely fresh soft cheese cut into slices (ideally I’d get some Stichill or Crowdie but any nice goats cheese would also work well) and then fold the pancakes in half and serve with some steamed leaks and purple sprouting broccoli.

For desert there’d be my Rhubarb and pink ginger ice cream, with a dash of stewed rhubarb and a little cream poured over so it freezes on the ice cream in the way I loved so much as a kid.







UPDATE (1/5/09):

I’m thrilled to say that I WON April’s ‘No Croutons Required’. I don’t usually win stuff so I’m quite excited and am going to be proudly displaying the winners badge in my sidebar :)

Thanks to all who voted, and for all the comments.