Author: drceit

Coconut Loaf

Submitted by Fiona Ballantyne. This is adapted from a recipe from a book called ‘Home baking’ by Carole Handslip, which was 99p well spent in a bargain book shop.

INGREDIENTS:

  • 125g (4oz) margarine
  • 125g (4oz) golden caster sugar
  • 2 eggs (duck eggs work very well)
  • 175g (6oz) self raising flour, sifted
  • 4 tbsp desiccated coconut
  • 2 tbsp milk (may need slightly more)

METHOD:

  • Cream the fat and sugar together till light and fluffy.
  • Beat in the eggs one at a time, adding a little of the flour with the second.
  • Add the remaining flour, 3 tbsp of the coconut and the milk.
  • (This recipe also works well by adding all the ingredients to the food mixer and mixing together, and I often add all the coconut to the mix rather than sprinkling on the top and it binds well with a little extra milk).
  • Turn into a lined and greased 1lb loaf tin and sprinkle with the remaining coconut.
  • Bake at 180°C for 1 to 1¼ hours. Turn out and cool on a wire rack.

Nice plain but also very good with home made jam and desiccated coconut on the top.

Broad bean salad

I have a lot of broad beans at the moment; I planted them late and I’m just picking the last of them now. We used some to make this salad, which was perfect with barbequed food: we had shish kebabs, nan bread, yoghurt and cucumber salad, humus, lots of things. I got the idea from a Jamie Oliver Recipe, but he had added some other ingredients at the end. I stopped short of the full thing, as the salad was delicious enough without the extras. I made it at the last minute, as it is good slightly warm.

INGREDIENTS:

  • Allow around 30g beans per serving
  • Lemon juice to taste (1 lemon for 4 servings)
  • olive oil (ratio of lemon juice:olive oil is 1:3)
  • Salt and pepper
  • 1 sprig of fresh mint per serving
  • 1 spring onion per serving

METHOD:

  • Pod the beans, and blanch them, unsalted, in boiling water for a minute or two. Drain and set aside to cool.
  • Put the warm beans in the serving dish, and dress with lemon juice and olive oil. For every 1 tbsp of lemon juice, add 3 tbsp olive oil.
  • Season with salt and pepper, and add finely shopped mint. Slice the onions very finely, and fry in a little olive oil, until the onions are soft and starting to colour. Stir them into the salad.

This works really well served with sour cream or greek-style yoghurt.

Truffle Risotto

Mm. A recipe to start early, it doesn’t take 20 minutes, more like 3 to 4 hours. It involves making a mega rich stock, and then adding the rice. This is from one of my favourite recipe books, ‘Risotto Risotto’ by Valentia Harris.

INGREDIENTS:

  • 40g pork fat or lard
  • 40g prosciutto crudo
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 1 carrot, finely sliced
  • 1 celery stick chopped well
  • 400g beef offcuts or skirt
  • 1.5 litres boiling water
  • salt and peppper
  • 400g risotto rice
  • 75g butter (
  • 75g grated parmesan
  • white truffles, preferably fresh, but can be bought as a paste or in oil

METHOD:

  • Put the pork fat, onion and prosciutto in a blender and whiz to make a thick paste.
  • Put the paste in a large and heavy pan, and fry until soft and golden, at least five minutes, then add the carrot and celery and fry for another five minutes.
  • Add the beef and brown on all sides. Cover with the boiling water, season with salt and pepper and put a lid over the pot. Simmer for three hours.
  • Remove the meat and set aside. If you have used a very rough cut like the skirt, then discard this. We used left-overs, which we shredded and added back later.
  • Put the remaining stock through the food processer so that it is really smooth, and add boiling water to make up to 1.2 litres.
  • Bring the smooth stock to the boil, add all the rice and simmer for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until there is no free fluid
  • Add the butter and cheese and any reserved beef that is tender enough to eat. Stir and leave to relax for five minutes.
  • Cover the risotto with shaved truffles, or stir in the white truffle paste, and serve.

Polpette, meatballs, or ….

Once again, I reached into the gastronomic lucky dip that is our freezer, that great storage zone for all things local and perishable. The day before yesterday I fished out a bag of locally produced beef mince. I used it to make polpette. This is probably not worth making with cheap mince, but they were great with what we had. I used the mixture to make polpette (small meat balls) the first night, and then formed the rest of the mixture into patties and had them as burgers in buns. The following recipe will serve six. I got it from ‘Italian Food’ by Elizabeth David.

INGREDIENTS:

  • 450g good quality organic local mince
  • 2 slices white bread
  • milk
  • 1 egg
  • 2 cloves of garlic
  • A small bunch of parsley, finely chopped
  • salt and pepper
  • nutmeg
  • a little lemon rind
  • plain flour
  • olive oil

METHOD:

  • Cut the crusts off the bread, and soak for fifteen minutes in milk
  • Squeeze the excess milk from the bread, which should be really mushy.
  • Add the garlic, parsley, tiny strips of a little bit of lemon peel, seasoning and spices and blend in a food processer. It is possible to do this by hand as well.
  • Add the bread mixture to the mince, and beat in the egg, until everything is well mixed
  • Next, flour a board and your hands. Form little slightly flat meat balls from the mixture, each just over an inch across, and coat with flour. Make a little dent in the top of each meat ball.Fry in hot oil. I think you can deep-fry these, but I just fried them in a pan. When they are done drain them on paper before serving.

I served these with pasta and tomato sauce. The book suggests serving them with a green salad. The next night, as I said, I made small burgers out of the mixture, possibly a culinary crime, but it was very tasty.

Sweet and easy tomato sauce

‘The Moro Cookbook’ by Sam and Sam Clark is one of my favourinte cookbooks. They have also written Moro Easy, and Morito (tapas).

This particular recipe is from their first book, and was a revelation. Until now, if I wanted to make a tomato sauce, for example to pour on meatballs, I would have added all kinds of things, and certainly started with an onion. This recipe is easier and better.

INGREDIENTS:

  • 1 tin organic tomatoes (or 500g fresh tomatoes with the skins removed).
  • 2 tbsp organic olive oil
  • 3 cloves of garlic
  • salt and pepper

METHOD:

  • If you are using fresh tomatoes, chop them finely. If you are using tinned tomatoes, put them in a bowl and squish them up with your hands
  • In a medium saucepan, heat up the olive oil. When hot but not smoking, add the finely sliced garlic and fry until the garlic is beginning to turn brown
  • Add the tomatoes and a pinch of salt. Cover and cook over a low heat until a lot of the liquid has evaporated, a least 30 minutes. You can also leave this in a slow oven for 30 minutes or more, until the sauce is at the right consistency.

If you wish, add cinnamon or chilli with the garlic at the start.

Spicy venison meatballs in a tomato sauce

I made this with some left-over roast venison, but you can also make it with venison mince. I have found that having a mechanical mincer is a game-changer. I think this would also work really well with minced beef. The recipe is from Norman Tebbit’s book, The Game Cook. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • 450g minced venison
  • 1 onion, finely chopped
  • 50g breadcrumbs (I used panko)
  • 1 tsp ground cumin
  • 1 tsp ground coriander
  • 1 red chilli, finely chopped
  • 1 egg
  • ground black pepper
  • chopped parsley
  • salt 
  • olive oil
  • Another onion, finely chopped
  • 1 can of chopped tomatoes
  • 4 tbsp tomato puree
  • 300ml red wine
  • 2 tsp sriracha sauce, or 1/2 tsp paprika and 1/4 tsp chilli powder
  • salt and pepper

METHOD:

  • preheat the oven to 180C
  • Start making the tomato sauce. Fry one of the chopped onions in olive oil over a medium heat. 
  • When the onion is soft and beginning to brown, add the tomatoes, tomato puree, red wine and sriracha sauce. Season with salt and pepper if required. Simmer over a low heat while you make the meat balls. If it looks too thick, add a little stock or water. I like to blend the sauce with a soup blender. 
  • Mix the minced meat with the onion, beaten egg, cumin, coriander, chilli, chopped parsley, salt and pepper. Mix well by hand and then mix in and combine the bread crumbs. 
  • Form the mixture into golf-balls (or slightly smaller). Fry in olive oil until browned. They should be handled carefully as they have a tendency to fall apart.
  • Put the meatballs in a casserole dish with the tomato sauce, put the lid on and cook in the oven for around 40 minutes. 
  • Serve over spaghetti, with a green vegetable on the side, and a grating of parmesan on top. 

Roast Venison with red wine and rosemary

I’ve made this twice now, using a large piece of loin from a red deer. This is a very easy and quick recipe, good with mustard mashed potatoes, and green vegetables. The timings given are for a rare to medium rare roast. 

INGREDIENTS:

  • 3 tbsp olive oil
  • 700 to 800g venison loin or haunch
  • salt and pepper
  • 2 to 4 carrots, peeled and cut into large chunks
  • 1/2 celeriac, peeled and cut into large dice
  • 1 red onion, peeled and cut into 8+ wedges
  • 2 tsp red current jelly
  • 1 to 2 large sprigs of rosemary
  • 100ml red wine
  • 250ml stock
  • 1 tsp cornflour (optional)

METHOD:

  • Preheat the oven to 220C
  • Heat the oil in a large oven-safe pan, and brown the meat on all sides, and season with salt and pepper.
  • Pack the chopped vegetables around the meat, and roast in the oven for 15 minutes
  • After 15 minutes, turn the heat down to 180C and roast for another 20 minutes (less for a smaller cut of meat)
  • Remove the pan from the oven, and take the meat out. Put it on a dish and cover with a lid or tin foil.
  • In the pan, add the wine, redcurrant jelly and rosemary to the vegetables, and bring to the boil, stirring to mix in any bits of meat from the bottom of the pain.
  • Simmer for a couple of minutes, and then add the stock and cornflour. Simmer for another ten minutes and adjust the seasoning.
  • Serve the venison sliced with the gravy and vegetables, mustard mash and a green vegetable such as cabbage or broccoli.

Chocolate Muffins

Margaret says this is her favourite chocolate muffin recipe. Not exactly wholefood, but they can be made with organic and fairly traded ingredients. The recipe comes from ‘Chocolate’ by Patricia Lousada which a friend gave me a while ago.

INGREDIENTS:

  • 125g unsalted butter
  • 90g granulated sugar
  • 30g dark brown sugar
  • 2 free range eggs
  • 1 tsp vanilla essence
  • 200g self raising flour
  • 15g cocoa powder
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 150ml milk,
  • 60g good quality plain chocolate in 1cm squares

METHOD:

  • Set the oven to gas 5, 190c and line a bun tin with paper muffin cases
  • Cream the butter and the sugars and beat until light and fluffy
  • Beat the eggs and add gradually to the butter and sugar, beat the two together as you add the eggs
  • Sift the flour, cocoa and salt together a couple of times and fold into the egg mixture, adding the milk as you go to make a soft ‘dropping’ mixture
  • Half fill the paper cases with mixture, and divide the squares of chocolate between the muffins. Cover each chocolate topping with a little bit of mixture
  • Bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes until the muffins are cooked and springy to touch. Put on a cooling rack.

Muffins are best fresh. Say no more.

Beef and beer stew, prehistoric style

I so very nearly called this post ‘Prehistoric beef and beer stew’ but then thought at least one person might find that too funny to pass up for a joke.

This is one of the recipes from a book called ‘Prehistoric Cooking’ by Jacqui Wood. I picked this one because I was still experimenting with honey from last month’s article. My sister sent me the book, hopefully because she thought I would find it very interesting.

INGREDIENTS:

  • 500g stewing steak
  • 25g wholemeal flour
  • 25g butter
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 bunch of sorrel (grows wild, I have some cultivated in the garden)
  • 50g honey
  • 1 pint of ale

METHOD:

  • Cut the meat into 2cm cubes, and dust with the flour
  • Fry the meat in the butter until browned. Use a casserole dish with a well-fitting lid.
  • Add salt, chopped sorrel, honey and beer.
  • Put on the lid of the casserole and cook over a low heat for one and a half hours, until the beef is tender.

For authenticity, serve with wholemeal bread rather than potatoes. Carrots are a good side dish. 

Polenta Cake

This is a delicious recipe that can be made using duck eggs. Polenta is gluten free so this is a useful cake to whip up for the GF tea table.

INGREDIENTS:

CAKE

  • 110g butter
  • 225 g caster sugar
  • 4 eggs, beaten
  • 110g ground almonds
  • 2 tsp almond extract
  • 225g fine polenta

SYRUP

  • 3 tbsp runny honey
  • 2 tsp lemon juice

METHOD:

  • Preheat the oven to 180 C. 
  • Cream the butter and sugar together until soft and creamy
  • Beat the eggs into the mixture with the ground almonds, then add almond extract and polenta
  • Line an 18 x 28 cm swill roll tin with greaseproof paper, allowing the paper to stand about 2cm higher than the tin. Spread the mixture into the tin and bake for 1 hour.
  • Meanwhile, prepare the syrup. Warm the honey in a pan and add the lemon juice, and bring to a boil. Simmer for five minutes until the syrup has reduced a little. Set aside to cool. 
  • When the cake comes out of the oven, cut into squares and pour over the syrup. 

You could garnish these with slivered almonds while still hot and sticky, the syrup should hold the slivers in place. Serve when cooled. These are good at the end of a meal, with a cup of coffee.