The Big Apple

Tagine Saturday was such a success but now it's over.  Peter bought me a cazuela for my birthday & the second half of my paella book is all about rice in the cazuela, so off  we go with cazuela Saturday.  The cazuela is a beautiful dish & I think would also be perfect for risotto so I am going to try that too.  The book says that the Spanish cook almost everything in the cazuela.  It distributes & retains heat well & is great for simmering & braising and cooking rice on the stove top.  These cazuela dishes are more soupy than paella which is a drier dish with that lovely crust on the bottom.We started with something simple - white rice with herbs.  If you don't have a cazuela do this in your Le Creuset or other Dutch oven style pot.  For 4, bring 4 cups of water to the boil in the cazuela.  Blend 2 cloves garlic & 1 tbsp parsley with 1/2 cup water in the processor.  When the water reaches the boil, add the garlic mix & a pinch salt.  The rice makes a difference here & I would recommend Spanish rice - Bomba or Calasparra.  If you don't have those use a short or medium grain rice - Calrose, Japanese short grain, or any of the Italian rices.  Don't use long grain or Basmati.  Add 2 cups rice with a bay leaf and a stripped thyme stem.  Yes, strip the leaves off the thyme stem!  We used the thyme leaves in the accompanying chicken.  Cook uncovered stirring occasionally for 10 minutes over a medium high heat.  Check the seasoning at this point.  Reduce the heat & cook another 8 minutes or until most of the liquid is absorbed & the rice is al punto - the Spanish equivalent of al dente. You don't want this to be dry & fluffy and it's not quite creamy like risotto but something in between.  You just have to judge.  This was so delicately flavoured that I think you want to serve it with something equally light like chicken or fish.
 We had our old favourite chicken with herbs.  Sprinkle 4 chicken thighs with salt & pepper & brown on both sides in butter with a little oil.  Lower the heat, cover & cook another 8-10 minutes until the chicken is cooked through.  Set the chicken aside & tip away most of the fat from the pan.  Add finely chopped spring onion & when golden add 3/4 cup liquid - a mixture of chicken, stock, white wine, water. Scrape up all the bits on the bottom of the pan & reduce the liquid.  Add a handful of chopped herbs & pour over the chicken.
Sunday we went for a walk at Makara.  It was a lovely afternoon & half of Wellington was there.  We spotted some wild samphire & we had bought a fillet of porae from Yellow Brick Road at the city market, so we picked a little for dinner.  It was the perfect addition to our fish supper with roast potatoes & courgettes.
There was polenta in the cupboard & I thought it should be used up so we had chicken involtini - I think this means rolled up - with polenta.  This seems fiddly but isn't really & is worth the effort.  Make a creamy polenta - for 4, I use 6 cups water or stock to 1 1/2 cups polenta & add Parmesan & a knob of butter at the end.  Heat the oven to 200 & cut 2 large chicken breasts into six slices each including the tenderloin.  Pound them between 2 sheet of baking paper to about 4mm thick.  Lay out each slice, top with a sliver of prosciutto & a slice of mozarella.  You'll want 2 balls of mozarella for four.  Season & roll up, lay a sage leaf on top &  secure with a toothpick.   Brown on each side in a pan with butter.  You'll need to push the stick though when you turn it but it's not nearly as fiddly as it sounds.  Cook in batches so as not to crowd the pan then transfer to an oven proof dish & cook in the oven another 8-10 minutes.  In the pan crisp up a few sage leaves in butter.  Serve the chicken on a bed of polenta topped with crispy sage.
And of course you are wondering what became of the apples.  Well, Anzac Day was Apple Wednesday in our house & the smell of apples wafted through the house.  Try this cake substituting apples for pears.  I made three of these.  I cut the apples in quarters & then sliced them almost through from the fat side of the wedge (like a hasselback potato) before caramelising.
If you find you can't fit all the caramelised apples into the cake, take a break & eat the leftovers with a dollop of vanilla ice cream.  You deserve it.
That didn't make much of a dent in the apples and it was Florence White to the rescue with  a Somersetshire recipe for apple butter.  Quarter the apples - don't peel or core & put everything into a preserving pan.  I filled mine to the top - the recipe assumes you are using windfall apples so you just have as many as you bothered to pick up.  Cover the apples with water or water & cider.  I added liquid about 3/4 up the side of the pan.  Stew to a pulp which took about an hour.  Press through a sieve which was a little messy as there was a great deal of pulp & I had to use more than one bowl.
Wash out the pan, measure the pulp, then return the pulp to the pan.  Simmer for about an hour until quite thick.  Add 3/4 lb (330g) sugar for every pint (600ml) of pulp. I actually put much less - I started with a cup per quart (2 pints) then added 1/2 lemon plus peel per quart, then added more sugar and tasted till it seemed right- not losing the appley tartness.  But do remember the sugar is the preservative.  Boil up until it is stiff enough to spread without running.  Use the jam crinkle method to test.  Pour into sterilised jars & "cover in the old fashioned way with a piece of paper dipped in brandy".  That's what she says!  She adds that if properly made this will keep for 2 years.  We'll see.  It is so yummy that I could just spoon it out of the jars.  So far I have had it for breakfast on fruit with yoghurt.  You could certainly serve as apple sauce with pork.
That was not the end of the apples.  I peeled & thinly sliced a few then blanched to stop the discoloration & when cooled bagged up in pie quantities & froze.  We will have 3 or 4 pies over the winter.  The rest were stewed with rhubarb.  And that is the end of apples.

Pasta, grains & greens

When I first introduced soup Monday I made a wonderful barley soup inspired by Alison Holst & I returned there this week.  This had two pleasing consequences.  I discovered I had more pearl barley in the cupboard than I needed & remembered a barley salad I had been meaning to make.  You could serve this with anything really but we had lamb meatballs which worked well.  Just make your favourite meatball recipe.  We included onion, garlic & cinnamon.  For the salad cook 1/2 cup of pearl barley for about half an hour until tender.  It may take a little longer.  Drain, toss through 2 tbsp olive oil & set aside to cool slightly.  In the meantime mix a cup chopped parsley, 1/4 finely diced preserved lemon, a few black olives, juice of 1/2 a lemon, crumbled feta & some finely sliced mint leaves.  Mix in the cooled barley & top with meatballs.  Good as lunch leftovers later in the week.  Look forward to lots of barley on these pages in the coming weeks.Are you wondering what the second consequence was - did you think I had forgotten?  The soup requires a can of creamed sweetcorn & I only needed 1/2  a tin for two.  We added the remaining corn to the Friday night omelette.  Try this - it was delicious.  I have a real soft spot for creamed corn.
I often think of the green vegetable first & then come up with a way to fit a meal around it.  For a simple weekday meal you can't go past Hugh F-W's macaroni peas.  Cook pasta - we used macaroni but penne or whatever shapes you have to hand would do as well.  Cook some frozen peas.  While the peas are cooking gently soften a clove of garlic in a little butter.  Blend half the peas with the butter, garlic, 25g Parmesan & enough of the pea cooking water to make a puree.  Think pesto.  Combine with the rest of the peas & pasta, add more Parmesan & mix through basil or parsley.
Roasted roots crumble seemed like a good accompaniment to leeks & greens this week.  Roast a selection of pale root vegetables - potato, parsnip, swede, celeriac - cut into smallish chunks & some sliced onion, with a mustardy dressing.  Mix equal quantities of wholegrain mustard, honey & olive oil with a good quantity of chopped rosemary and toss the veg around in it.  Cover the veg & roast at 180 for 45 minutes then uncover & cook a further 20 minutes at 200.  You want the vegetables well cooked & golden but not browned.  Pour a few tbsp cream over the vegetables - this is just to meld them together a little so you could omit if you don't have cream in the cupboard.  Top with a crumble made of a handful of rolled oats, 2-3 slices of crumbed bread, toasted hazlenut roughly chopped , grated cheese & a little melted butter.  Return to the oven for 10-15 minutes to crisp up the crumble.
We made way more than we could eat & there was a little cranbapple sauce in the fridge so the next day we had lamb rack with the left over crumble mixed with the left over leeks & greens.
If we are planning to eat mixed greens it seems impossible to buy only what we need for a single meal so another pasta & greens meal was called for.  Again this can be whatever pasta & greens you have to hand.  In our case penne & cabbage with beetroot leaves.   Soften an onion in a little oil then add finely chopped garlic & chilli & cook a little longer.  Cook the pasta in the usual way & a few minutes before the end of cooking add the shredded greens.  Drain the pasta & greens & toss with the onion mix & some grated Parmesan & a drizzle of olive oil.
There was still some spinach & beetroot leaves to use so out came that meal of the moment  - spicy potatoes with greens.  Top it with a poached egg and you have a splendid meal.
This week a work colleague gave me 5 kilos of windfall apples.  Look out for apple recipes next week.  If you have any ideas post them here.
You may remember that when I go to the market every Sunday & have a cup of chowder from Yellow Brick Road for Breakfast.  I occasionally try something different but always return to chowder.  Nothing else quite measures up - until now.  I may have found a new favourite - Vicky Ha and The Dumpling House.  Try those dumplings.  She now sells them frozen by the dozen and I am planning to buy a dozen tofu & spinach dumplings to treat a vegan.  I think my favourite is the pork & cabbage but the Nepalese lamb & veg is a close second.

Easter Eats

This year's Easter menu is almost the same as last year & the year before.   Good Friday means hot cross buns, hot from the oven around 11.30.  Dinner is smoked fish pie.  I like the predictability of traditional festive eating.  It reminds me that we do have food traditions although they are mostly ignored these days & some people are unsure where they came from.  Most relate to the old agricultural year so although they are seasonal are not always relevant to modern city dwelling.  I do like to bring them out on high days & holidays.  I'd like to do more of them.
Saturday was an unbelievably hot Wellington day.  Possibly the warmest of the summer & there was no wind in our garden so we dined outdoors, mezze style, for lunch.  We had sourdough with carrot hummus, flatbread with leafy greens & goats' cheese, a tomato salad & spicy potatoes with spinach.  This has become one of my favourites.  It is really quick & would do as part of a spread, a meal on its own or as I did with the leftovers, topped with a poached egg.
Boil some small waxy potatoes & set aside to cool enough that you can handle them.  Heat a little oil in a pan & soften a thinly sliced onion.  Add a clove of crushed garlic, 1 finely chopped chilli, a knob of grated ginger, 2 tsp garam masala & cook for a couple of minutes.  Thickly slice the cooled potatoes into the pan & heat through.  Thinly slice a handful of spinach & add it to the pan.  Stir through until wilted then season with salt & pepper.  If you are not feeding a vegan think about adding a little cream to bind or you could use coconut cream.  I like it both with & without cream.
Easter lamb is one of my favourite meals of the year.  This year we did a very simple slow cooked shoulder of lamb served with roasted vegetables and leeks & greens.  We included beetroot leaves with the greens.  Keeping with the rosemary theme of the lamb, I roasted carrot, parsnip & swede coated in mustard, rosemary & honey.  Cut an appropriate number of vegetables for your table into bite size chunks & toss in a mixture of wholegrain mustard, honey & olive oil.  Use 2 tbsp each per 1 kg veg.  Season & add rosemary sprigs, then tip everything into a roasting dish & cover with foil.  Bake for 30 mins at 180 then uncover & turn up to 200 for another 30-40 mins.  You want them tender & beginning to caremelise.
To complete the meal I made a sauce with the 15 crab apples off our trees.  This was a variation of something I found on the internet called Sassy Crabapple and Cranberry Chutney.  I found there are heaps of recipes called Sassy crabapple and/or cranberry  - who can say why?  I named mine simply Cranbapple.  Use a ratio of 2:1 crab apples to cranberries.  We didn't have enough crab apples so I included a couple of windfall apples as well.  Peel and core the apples and add the cranberries.  For 750g fruit, add grated ginger, a clove of crushed garlic, a cinnamon stick, zest & juice of a lemon, a sprig rosemary, 1/4 cup muscovado sugar, 1 tbsp apple syrup (you could use maple if you have it - use real syrup not maple style syrup).  Put it all on the stove and cook until the fruit is soft - 20 mins or so.  Remove the cinnamon stick and rosemary before serving.

There were leftovers of the roasted roots.  Later in the week I heated them in the microwave, pureed in the processor then mixed with a freshly mashed potato.  We cooked up a fresh batch of leeks & greens.  A savoy cabbage is a pretty big thing and will stretch to quite a few servings.  We served with sausages & cranbapple sauce.  There is still a little sauce left - maybe a lamb rack over the weekend? 

Sticking with the fruity theme we had apple & blackberry pie & vanilla ice cream for pudding.  I had hoped to get fresh blackberries but we had to settle for frozen.  If you have a favourite pastry recipe use that or buy good short pastry.  We used this recipe and recommend making pastry with lard.  My mother-in-law does this & she is the queen of pastry.  Phoebe hopes to follow in her footsteps.  Mix slices of apple & blackberries (about 1 kg fruit) with 1 tbsp sugar and 1/2 tsp each nutmeg & cinnamon then turn into a pie dish.  Cover with pastry & bake for 40 mins at 200 until golden.