Felicity Cloake, blogger for The Guardian promised that, having tried out various recipes, this was the ultimate crumble recipe... quite a statement and worth testing as I had agreed to make the crumble for pudding.
Felicity Cloake's How to make the perfect crumble
The 'tricks' included:
- A mix or Demerara and caster sugar
- Adding a sprinkle of water to the crumble mix
- Putting in the freezer for 10 mins
After about 20 mins in the oven it was looking very soggy! So, moved it higher up the oven and left it for a further 20 mins (this might be because it was a very cheap electric oven so temperature and heat circulation was probably unreliable), which did the trick.
The verdict?
Nice crispy topping - lovely crispy clumps which the one I made one recently didn't have, so yes, I'd say this method works.
You can also scatter some oats over the top for an even more textured topping.
16.03.2013
Celery arrived in my veg box weeks ago which made me want to cook one of my all time favourite dishes - Ribollita - only I've struggled to find the time till now.
Some people, such as the River Cafe, seem to consider this dish a summer dish. I suppose to a degree it is as ingredients include fresh tomatoes and kale which are mid summer/autumn seasonal produce. However, I feel the soup works equally well in winter using tinned tomatoes and savoy cabbage.
Why is Ribollita so lauded when it is essentially a basic veg soup with beans? A fair question, but I think its the fact that one takes the time to cook the ingredients properly, the slice of toasted sourdough soaking up the juices in the bottom of your bowl and the drizzle of olive oil.
There are many recipes for Ribollita - all similar, but with a different balance of ingredients. I think everyone has their personal favourite (perhaps its a Vedic food thing?). The River Cafe and Jamie Oliver prefer a very green soup (did Jamie learn his from Ruthie & Rose?). I prefer a more tomato-based soup.
I have tended to refer to the Riverford recipe, but today I decided to follow the one in Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall's VEG book. I think this is the best recipe I've found - Its extremely simple (some Ribollita recipes are overwhelmingly long-winded for something this is essentially vegetable soup). The veg are chopped really fine, sweated for a decent length of time and then the soup is simmered for a full hour before being finished off. The addition of the herbs tied together and the garlic on the toasted bread add an extra flavour which takes it from simple vegetable soup to something wonderful. Hugh also suggests that if you are using tinned beans, you should mash half of them with a bit of water. This is new to me, but seems to help create the right consistency, especially when you consider freshly cooked beans tend to be softer than the tinned option.
It has not escaped me that both Riverford and Hugh F-W both promote rustic, kitchen garden cooking, whilst the River Cafe and JO promote seasonal produce with an urban flair.
A post run/yoga energy giving meal - perfect set up for a Sunday afternoon in the burgeoning spring sunshine sewing seeds and bulbs!
And the left-overs are in the fridge where the flavours are continuing to expand - can't wait for supper tomorrow!
03.03.13
Ken has a stinking cold... after watching Life of Pi at the cinema (finally - and isn't it amazing? Can't find a fault with it), he insisted on trawling the shops to buy a new laptop for me. I feel a bit odd having a laptop brought for me, feel its a bit of a waste of money and have many other things I need (a sewing machine that works?)... I shouldn't worry though as its not really for me, its for techno-obsessed-Ken but I will use it!
And to make him feel worse, we came home empty-handed.
So dinner needed to be something to warm him and make him feel snug inside....
You probably think I should have made a healing chicken noddle broth, but I didn't have any chicken. I did have a lovely little autumn cup squash though.... and some delicious Helen Browning organic back bacon (I do think this bacon is really scrummy - great flavour and not all watery)... and some feta..... Mmmmmm - what a great combination - now, what to cook?
I had it in my mind I wanted to do a pasta bake. For me, bakes, with their crispy tops, are the ultimate simple/rustic warming comfort food. But I couldn't be sure how to make a sauce so that it wasn't dry and tasteless - do I do a white sauce, for example, but that would be bland surely?
A brief search on the web in the usual places (BBCGoodFood & BBC Food, predominantly -not very adventurous I agree!) I found a recipe for a macaroni cheese that used squash - BBCGoodFood - Butternut-Macaroni-Cheese. Whilst some people had found it to be a bit bland, others had sung the recipe's praises. So I decided to add some bacon and sprinkle feta on the top to boost the flavour.
Served with a simple salad of lettuce, tomatoes, avocado & red onion with a balsamic vinegar dressing to make sure Ken got some vitamins!
Whilst I don't like buying tomatoes at this time of year as they are not 'in season', the lettuce has come in my veg box, so whilst a greenhouse item, I can be sure that it has been grown under ethical conditions that are not compromising the environment in any way, and providing year-round employment to those who grown them.
02.03.13
After a freezing cold bike ride what more do you want than a restoring roast dinner?
The old reliable when it comes to roasts in my mind is Nigel Slater... so today, as directed by him, I finely chopped up the leaves of three large rosemary stems, mixed them with olive oil and a pinch of Maldon salt and rubbed it all over a leg of lamb on the bone. This was then laid on a bed of the remaining rosemary twigs and a whole garlic bulb sliced in half.
I only had a (very) small piece of lamb, and was worried that my enthusiasm with the rosemary and garlic would be too over-empowering, but it was just fine. Whilst you could taste the rosemary and garlic, the taste of the sweet lamb meat was also prevalent.
I also managed to get the lamb right - lightly pink.
Served with roasted potatoes and a turnip (I'm Scottish - you may know it better as swede) & carrot mash made with lashings of butter and ground pepper. Mashing carrots it quite hard - not fully possible - if anyone knows the secret, please let me know.
All topped off by probably one of the most delicious apple crumbles I think I've ever had. I got the bramley apples from work - ordered by mistake for eating apples (we provide a fruit in the afternoon to help with the afternoon slump) - weeks ago. Maybe old apples are sweeter?!
Time for a snooze...............
24.02.12
I've been thinking of cooking a curry for a while as I picked up a great Indian cookbook a while ago and never use it. Last time was Ken's birthday in 2011 when I did a curry night for 10 friends we had over for his birthday.
Its Saturday night, I've defrosted some plump organic chicken breasts and want to do something special with them. Saturday... hmmmm... a perfect night for a curry with a movie, don't you think?
After a browse through the book for a chicken dish, vegetable dish and rice dish bearing in mind the ingredients I have in the house... plus a trip to the shop, I got going.... only to discover that I'm still missing a key item as I'd got parsley instead of coriander... so another trip to the shop (this time the small Asda on the High St 10 mins walk away as can't face going back to the local corner shop again) plus a slight menu change and I'm off on my curry extravaganza!
Menu: Chicken Rogan Josh, Aloo Gobi and Mushroom Rice.
Well, thankfully as I expected, it was all fairly straightforward, but cooking three unknown dishes brings a certain level of confusion! The cook book is simply presented and the instructions beautifully clear - what a treat... I meticulously prepared all the ingredients into little dishes like you see on TV cooking programmes. I think this is essential when cooking curries as you have to 'throw' ingredients into the pan at certain stages & timing is important (you don't want to burn the spices, or anything) - so best to have them all ready and to hand.
And the result (by which time it was almost 10pm - oops) was DELICIOUS!!!! The fresh tomato taste, the light spices, the chunky chicken pieces... the full flavour of the rice from being cooked in veg stock.... unfortunately the potatoes and cauliflower of the aloo gobi were overcooked and very soft, but for a first attempt, I think I did pretty well, thank you!
Forget Indian take-aways - even if they are meant to be 'upmarket'... fresh tastes SO much better, but maybe with a bit more preparation.
Now, when can I do it again?
23.02.13
