Poached Peaches with Ginger, Lemon & Cardamom

Apricots, strawberries, peaches, cherries, raspberries are all abundant at the moment and we've been ordering them by the box load at Cook House. The window between not ripe and overripe can be small, sometimes overnight on a hot day... Remember those, we had a few before we hit monsoon season...

We're pickling cherries by the bucketload, using a Diana Henry recipe with vinegar, sugar, cloves, black pepper and juniper, they are totally delicious with cheese... I want to keep plenty for autumn however as I think they will be brilliant with some autumn game; duck, venison, pigeon... The syrup even has a use when the cherries have all been eaten, a splash of soda and you have yourself a brilliant cherryade! Add gin at your own discretion... 

I've been poaching the apricots and peaches, to serve with a cardamom panna cotta and also with yoghurt and granola for breakfast. I love the flavour of both and I think poaching them really brings it out, it's like that peak ripeness that you get for 5 minutes extended into something that keeps for a while. It also takes me back to those tins of fruit that my granny used to serve with ice-cream and a wafer. I always liked the peach, the bright red cherries were the best, and I staunchly avoided the gritty white bits which I guess were pear perhaps? 

I've been poaching them in a 1 part sugar 3 parts water syrup, it isn't overly sweet, I prefer it this way as I want to taste the fruit not a sugary sweet syrup, but if it is not sweet enough for you just increase the amount of sugar.

Take 400g sugar and add to a pan with 1.2litres of water and heat to dissolve. I've added a few different flavourings, I really like a bit of fresh ginger, if the peaches are quite ripe they need a bit of lemon and today I added 2 bashed pods of cardamom. Other ideas I might try are rosemary, juniper, thyme, pepper, star anise, fennel seeds...

I added 1 lemon, the juice squeezed in and the squeezed halves added in too, 6 or 7 slices of fresh ginger and 2 bashed pods of cardamom. Simmer this for 5 minutes, then add the peaches. I used 6 large peaches cut into quarters with the stones removed. Simmer the peaches gently for between 5 and 10 minutes, until soft. It will depend on how ripe they are to start, it's better to be a bit under cooked as they can fall apart when overcooked. The skins will fall away as they cook, just pull them off. Cool them in the syrup and keep them in the fridge.

They are delicious with yoghurt for breakfast, or with a bit of thick cream for pudding. I've been serving them on top of a cardamom panna cotta too which is bloody lovely!

Roast Carrot and Cumin Seed Salad with Feta, Mint and Honey

People wander down from offices and studios around the Ouseburn for their lunch, friends and family visit, people staying at Hotel du Vin pop in, tourists and curious visitors to the Victoria Tunnel tour ask what I’m up to. Someone new and interesting seems to pop their head in everyday to ask what exactly is going on in this little shipping container.

There have been so many lovely customers in a very short space of time; I have only been open a month... long may it continue. I’ve met lots of new faces and taken on some new and exciting projects as a result. I can honestly say that I’m thoroughly enjoying the whole Cook House experience, albeit whilst totally exhausted...

I’ve been trying to plan my menus a week ahead, but I’m still getting used to the nuances of running my own ‘caff’... How much people will eat, how many people will come, what days are busy; it is all a learning curve that I’m trying to map out with tasty food... I think everything I have put on the menu has gone down pretty well so far. Most days are a balance of hearty meaty sandwiches or tarts with interesting tasty salads, which have been very well received. Today was Cauliflower Cake with mint salad, Pancetta and Gruyere Tart, Green Herb Couscous, Roast New Potato Salad with Dill and Orange and this... Roast Carrot and Cumin Seed Salad with Mint, Feta and Honey, a tasty new addition to the menu...

Chop 500g of carrots on the diagonal, cutting them down again if your carrots are particularly large, think bite size pieces... Then toss them in olive oil in a large roasting dish and sprinkle with salt and pepper and lots of cumin seeds. Roast them for 25 minutes at 200°C, until they have started to turn golden brown in places but still have a slight bite to them.

Turn them out into a large bowl and toss with a tablespoon of honey and a tablespoon of lemon juice. Keep giving them a stir as they cool to room temperature so the dressing can sink in. When they have cooled stir through a large handful of lambs leaf lettuce and a large handful of chopped mint. To serve crumble over about 100g of feta cheese... I’ve added toasted walnuts before if you fancy that too, and you can use caraway seeds as an alternative too... The carrots are sweet and spiced, delicious with fresh mint and creamy cheese, a tasty lunch...

Ricotta, Radish, Mint and Fennel Salad

I’m working on my salad repertoire... The menu, at my new venture Cook House, will be full of local seasonal flavour, huge delicious salads, salt beef bagels, roast chicken sandwiches with homemade mayonnaise, granola, stewed fruit, the occasional bacon sandwich, I’m nearly ready to show you the website... so watch this space...

This is a very simple salad I’ve been making for a while now, originally from the Polpo recipe book, I have free styled a bit. It’s really delicious. The radishes are my own, they are so easy to grow and I love the real kick of spice you get from home grown radishes, a much more powerful tasty version of the little bags in the supermarket. I’m also going to give homemade ricotta a go and try it with that... I’ll keep you posted.

These amounts will make one large plate of salad. Use a mandolin or a very sharp knife and thinly slice a big handful of radishes, take half a fennel bulb and thinly slice that too. Add everything to a large bowl. If you have some fresh radish leaves you can thinly slice the small ones and scatter them in, then add a large handful of roughly chopped mint. Add two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil and the juice of quarter of a lemon, add more to taste, and a pinch of salt and lots of black pepper. Toss the salad and scatter over a large plate. Then crumble half a pot of ricotta over the top of everything and drizzle over a little more olive oil...

This is delicious with spicy radishes, aniseed fennel and creamy ricotta, fresh mint and lemon, it’ll be on the menu soon, when I’m open and the thunder stops...

Roast Courgette and Garlic Soup and Lemony Courgettes on Toast

Two more courgette recipes today, neither of which are going to win any prizes in the beauty stakes... but are pretty damn tasty! And you shouldn’t judge those courgette books by their mushy covers... Lots of people have been tweeting me saying they are experiencing glut related problems, even throwing in a few courgette facts... and tips about fritters, ratatouille chutneys and little Italian courgette cakes... and I only have about 15 more courgettes to get through...

A very simple soup to start... Roast Courgette and Garlic, simply chop up 4 large courgettes into bite size chunks, 2 onions into quarters and add 6 cloves of garlic still in their skins, a big glug of olive oil and a large pinch of salt and pepper. Roast for about half an hour at 180°C, giving it a stir every so often, until it has begun to brown and the water has disappeared. Some of those massive guys from my allotment produced a lot of water, it varies each time... Give the roast courgettes a good stir and check to see if they need more salt, squeeze the garlic out of their skins, then add everything to a pan with a chicken stock cube and 600ml of water.

Finally blitz and serve, this should be enough for 2 big bowls of soup, sprinkle a bit of mint on the top and a slice of buttery toast...

Next some Lemony Courgettes on Toast, of Guardian Cook supplement fame, one of the highlights of my blogging career so far was not the fact that this was published in a article about favourite things on toast, more that in the comments section below someone wrote 'the day I make Lemony Courgettes on Toast is the day you can take me out the back and shoot me'... it still makes me laugh...

So if you want to make them, rather than get shot, you just need to chop up 3 courgettes, add to a big glug of olive oil and cook slowly for about 10 minutes, add a finely diced clove of garlic and continue to cook. All the water should cook off and the courgettes start to fry rather than simmer in juices. This can take a while depending on the courgettes, about half an hour usually. Then add the juice of quarter of a lemon and a big handful of chopped mint. Pour the soft minty courgettes and the tasty lemony oils over two slices of hot toast and share...

Courgette and Lemon Salad with Feta and Mint

I picked over twenty courgettes the other night and they are growing faster than I can keep up. I have other people offering me courgettes, I'm trying to give away courgettes, everyone seems to be growing them, even people I didn’t know grew vegetables are growing them... In social situations people have started asking what to do with their glut of courgettes, not your average party chat, but a glut needs ideas and I've discovered a few good recipes recently...

 

So I thought I would share a few of them with you over the next couple of days. My favourites include this lovely fresh salad, a cheesy courgette and herb risotto, garlicky buttery slow cooked courgettes, a grilled courgette salad with garlic and chilli breadcrumbs and a roast courgette soup. I've also been thinking about a courgette and lemon cake with lemon butter icing... I need to start experimenting with that one asap...

 

So I'll start with this light fresh salad, wafer thin slices of courgette dressing in lemon and oil, with crumbled feta and fresh mint. I had it for lunch today, outside in the Lake District, trying to pretend that it wasn’t raining...

To make a small salad for two people to share, take one courgette, any type and shave it into wafer thin ribbons using a vegetable peeler. In a bowl mix the courgette with a big splash of extra virgin olive oil, salt, pepper and the juice of about quarter of a lemon. Scatter the courgette onto a plate and then crumble about 50g of feta cheese over the top and a handful of chopped mint. It is delicious and fresh, full of lemon, creamy cheese and mint. The dressed courgette on it's own is lovely too...

My second very, very simple recipe, which isn't even really a recipe is just to grill them, cut into thin slivers about 4mm thick. On a plate pour over a little olive oil and a pinch of salt and coat them all over. Then either put them on the BBQ for a few minutes each side, or under the grill or on a hot griddle pan. The best I've found them so far is on the BBQ, courgettes can often be quite watery and the high heat of the BBQ works perfectly... You can have them hot from the grill or delicious left to cool their flavour really comes out...

Lemon and Rosemary Posset

I'm in a bit of a manic cycle of shopping, supperclubbing, travelling, packing, unpacking, washing up, shopping, supperclubbing... You get the picture. It's very challenging, particularly as I'm hosting suppers three weeks in a row... but also beautiful and fun. The Farne Islands was the latest challenge, this weekend just gone, a much more unusual dining location than Lindisfarne, but really stunning. The sun shone, looking back over the calm hazy sea to Bamburgh guests had drinks and watched puffins hop around, it was just beautiful... A minke whale was spotted passing just hours earlier... Each time I'm only envious I'm not joining in with them; but someone has to be in charge of the kitchen chaos...

Running the gauntlet through the diving arctic terns with plates of food was interesting, either getting pecked, or worse... the other end. Luckily they just missed the food each time, splatting only us, a camera lens, the dining table and the floor... the baby terns kept on making a run for our dining room determined to see what was going on in there... But there weren't many sand eels on the menu so they eventually lost interest...

 

I have served this Lemon and Rosemary Posset for pudding at both Lindisfarne and the Farnes so far, it's one of my new favourites... I love a lemon pudding but the addition of rosemary is really special. It's basically just cream, sugar, lemon and rosemary and pretty simple to make.

These amounts will make 8 little puddings or 4 large ones. Peel off two big bits of lemon rind and take two big sprigs of rosemary, add them to a pan and give them a bit of a bash to get their oils out. Add 300ml of double cream and heat till it is steaming, don't let it boil. Then leave to infuse, anything from half an hour to overnight.

 

Remove the rosemary and lemon from the cream and put the cream back on the heat, adding 110g of caster sugar, bring it slowly to the boil and simmer for two minutes, then remove it from the heat and add the juice of 2 lemons, about 60ml. Add to glasses, cups or bowls, however you want to serve it and pop it in the fridge to set for a few hours or overnight. It is so delicious and creamy, very lemony and sweet but also dusky with rosemary... It's gone down very well so far, I've been serving it with almond meringues and clotted cream, even more delicious...

  

Beef Meatballs with Broad Beans, Lemon and Herbs

I spent some time in London last week... It was a flying visit to catch up on what was going on down there in shops, restaurants and galleries. Have a look at some new pop-ups, architecture, interiors, handbags... I was quickly calculating how many meals I could fit into the short time I was there. I loved Upstairs at the Ten Bells, my favourite of the weekend I think, elements of secret dining above a packed Spitalfields boozer, amazing food, lovely people, beautiful cosy dining room... tick.

Other highlights were Ducksoup in Soho, a seat in the window and a glass of red wine saw me in holiday mode pretty quickly. They had a turntable by the door, daily hand written menus and lovely booze list on wipe down white ceramic tiles - octopus with paprika and capers was great, a duck egg you had to peel with mayonnaise and sumac to dip was cute and tasty... Venison with potatoes, olives and aioli at the Canton Arms in Vauxhall hit the spot for lunch, and a piece of morcilla with soft red peppers and a little fried quail's egg at Morito would do me right just about now...

Before stuffing myself silly in London I had been immersing myself in Ottolenghi's book Jerusalem, much like every other food blog I read it seems. But these meatballs were just a bit too lovely to not tell you about for the sake of being different... Delicious fresh, lemony and herby, a nice contrast to my usual lamb meatballs, cooked in a lovely fragrant broth with broad beans, garlic and spring onions. Definitely my best Jerusalem experiment so far...

 

These amounts will serve 4 people. Start with the meat ball mix; 300g of minced beef and 150g of minced lamb, I got mine from Charlotte's Butchers, a cute little butchers newly opened in Gosforth. Add the mince to a bowl with a finely diced medium onion, 120g of breadcrumbs, 2 tablespoons each of chopped parsley, mint, dill and coriander. Add 2 cloves of finely chopped garlic, 1 tablespoon of ground cumin, 2 teaspoons of chopped capers, 1 beaten egg and 1 tablespoon on Baharat spice mix. You can buy this or you can make it...

 

I made myself a little jar by bashing together a mix of spices in a pestle and mortar: 1 teaspoon of black peppercorns, 1 teaspoon of coriander seeds, 1 small cinnamon stick, ½ teaspoon of cloves, ½ teaspoon of ground allspice, 2 teaspoons of cumins seeds, 1 teaspoon of cardamom seeds and ½ a teaspoon of ground nutmeg. Grind it all to a powder...

Roll the mix into meatballs the size of a ping pong ball and then fry them in batches in hot olive oil, until they are brown all over. I did mine in 2 batches for about 5 minutes each. Then remove them all from the pan and wipe it clean and add 2 tablespoons of fresh olive oil. Then sauté 4 sprigs of thyme, 6 cloves of garlic sliced and 8 spring onions cut into 2cm pieces for about 3 minutes. The recipe calls for 350g of blanched broad beans, half shelled and half unshelled, I couldn’t get any so added a tin of broad beans at this point. Also add 1 ½ tablespoons of lemon juice, 80ml of chicken stock, ¼ teaspoon of salt and lots of black pepper and cook for ten minutes on a low heat.

 

Return the meatballs to the pan and add another 420ml of chicken stock and simmer for 25 minutes. I found the meatballs soaked up a lot of the sauce so don’t worry if it seems a lot. You can also cook them to this point and reheat them later if needs be. Just before you serve them add a handful of chopped mint, dill, parsley and coriander, a tablespoon of lemon juice and a handful of fresh blanched peeled broad beans if you have them.

I served the meatballs with some steamed rice, they are delicious and sticky with a fresh tasty broth full of lemon and herbs. It is a lot of ingredients as Ottolenghi recipes often are, but is definitely worth the time and effort, I'll be making them again asap.

 

Juniper and Wood Smoked Potted Pheasant

The shooting season came to an end last week, but instead of mourning its passing I had to get on with plucking the two pheasant, two duck and seven woodcock that landed on my doorstep courtesy of WTH (Woody The Hunter) and Mr. Hedworth. I have been inundated with birds all season from the shoot my dad attends, so as a thank you I potted up some pheasant for the proprietor and the keepers. He tells them stories of everything I cook and I get the impression he forces them, and others, to look at my blog, so I thought it only right that I show my gratitude in the form of food...

 

Pheasant is the main thing that comes home from the shoot, sometimes duck, then more rarely a partridge, a grouse and very rarely a woodcock. So with lots of pheasant filling up the freezer I have been trying to find inventive ways of serving it. Roast pheasant often dries out when cooked, and just doesn’t do the bird justice really. It is better in a casserole or pie I think. I've made a Pheasant Salmis in the past, a lovely French dish with a rich truffle sauce. I have also, a few times, attempted a St. John Pheasant and Trotter Pie, although delicious it takes hours, hours and hours, and each time I have become so frustrated and annoyed by making it I have vowed never to go there again. I was going to write about it on here some time, but I am yet to find a point in time where I'm ready to relive the experience via the written word...

Pheasant is probably one of the milder game birds, the wallflower of the game world; I prefer partridge and woodcock who really up the gamey-ness levels. That was until I thought of potting it, or to be more precise, smoking it, confit-ing it and then potting it, so now I'm a pheasant convert.

 

 

I smoke the pheasant in Mr. Smokerson for 2 hours, the whole bird, with a mix of hickory and apple wood and some juniper berries. You are meant to add a small handful of woodchips, but TLI has taken to packing the whole box full with the intention of 'smoking the f**k out of them'... It works... If you don't have a smoker you can just roast them for 15 minutes instead of this stage.

To confit, put the jointed pheasant in a pot that it fits in snugly and pour over 350g of warm duck or goose fat, a standard size jar per bird. You want the fat to cover the pheasant as much as possible. Add a bay leaf and a bunch of thyme, then cook in the oven for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, until the meat is soft.

 

 

When it is done take it out of the fat and leave to cool, you can keep the fat in a jar in the fridge and use again, reserve a bit to pour over the top of the finished pheasant. Then shred the pheasant meat into tiny pieces; this is best done by hand so you can discard any bits of bone, skin or fat, and you get a nice irregular course texture rather than a pâté texture if you blitz it. Add a little of the melted fat now and again to keep in from drying out and add quite a few fresh thyme leaves and some pepper. Then melt 25g of butter per bird and the juice of half a lemon and add this all to the meat.

 

Finally pack the meat into a jar or small pots and pour over a thin layer of the melted fat, just enough to cover, this will keep for a few months in the fridge. I find that one bird makes two regular jars of potted pheasant. You can use this method with a range of other meats, I have made Potted Duck previously, you can also try pork in the same way, which is known as pork rillettes. I have also read about potted goose and rabbit, which I'm keen to try too.

The best way to eat this potted pheasant is either slightly warmed through, or at room temperature, on hot toast with butter and a scatter of capers. I also like a little bit of Bread and Butter Pickle on the side. It's so delicious, the meat is soft and tender and smoky, the thyme and butter really add to the flavours. It's changed my view of pheasant no end...

 

Lemon and Orange Polenta Cake with Limoncello Syrup

Mother's day has been and gone, I was planning to tell you about a lovely ox tail, beef shin and red wine stew that I made, only it wasn't that lovely... So I'll have to try it again and come back to you, I'm not sure what I did wrong... I've made it before and it was thick and delicious with sticky slow cooked meat, but this time it was thin and watery and not so good. I blame the challenge of cooking with an aga which I'm not used to. The only thing I succeeded in was becoming hot, bothered and stressed...

So after failing the 'make something lovely for your mother in a calm and relaxed environment' challenge, the next challenge was 'make a birthday cake for a friend at work who is gluten intolerant and doesn’t like most things'. It's been a challenging week... I feel a bit nervous about specialist gluten free cookery, especially because I might poison some poor gluten intolerant soul. I'm not sure I like a substitution food, so I was looking for a cake that just didn’t go anywhere near flour, wheat or gluten. Gluten free flour make me think of quorn, is it not just a poor substitution of the real thing, is it not better to just eat something else? It is a world I know very little about so I approached with trepidation.

I've made rich flour-less chocolate cakes before, and almond cakes. A polenta, orange and almond cake drenched in lemon, orange, sugar and lemoncello syrup sounded interesting. I think I've almost convinced myself that by using polenta it is healthy? A healthy cake? Hmmm... Maybe not. It was a Nigel Slater recipe that I have tweaked a bit to suit.

Start by finding a cake tin about 20cm in diameter, line the base with a piece of baking parchment and set the oven to 180C°. Then beat 210g of butter and 210g of caster sugar in a food mixer till light and fluffy. Next break 3 free range eggs into a small bowl and beat them lightly with a fork. Pour a little of the beaten egg into the creamed butter and sugar, beating thoroughly, then slowly continue adding bit by bit, beating till all the egg is used up. I often seem to get a bit of curding going on at this point so may need to hone my baking skills a bit as I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong...

Add 225g of ground almonds to the egg cake mixture. Then stir in 150g of polenta and a teaspoon of baking powder or gluten free baking powder gently to the mix. Lastly, mix in the grated zest of 1 large orange and its juice.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared cake tin, it is quite thick so smooth it out evenly with a spoon. Bake in the preheated oven for 25 minutes, then turn the heat down to 150C° and continue cooking for a further 30 minutes, cover the surface with tin foil if it is browning too much. Then remove from the oven but leave the cake in its tin.

To make the syrup, grate the zest from 1 lemon and 1 orange into a measuring jug, cut the fruits in half and squeeze their juice into the jug, then top it up with water so it measures 250ml in total. Pour into a saucepan and add 100g of brown sugar. Bring this mix to the boil and keep at a rapid bubble until the sugar has dissolved and the liquid has reduced to about 175ml. Then add 2 tablespoons of Limoncello.

Finally make small holes in the top of your still warm cake with a thin skewer and pour the syrup mixture very slowly over the top of the cake. You want to get an even spread of syrup soaking down into the cake. Leave to cool and let the flavours mingle.

I was very impressed with my first gluten free attempt actually, the cake has quite a grainy feel to it from the polenta, but is light and drizzly, sweet but tangy and fresh from all the orange and lemon.

Berry and Mascarpone Lemon Pastry Tartlets

I like Valentine's Day... I know it is tacky and naff, but I like a little romance, over planned, over hyped, over commercialised or not... I also just like an excuse to plan a menu, a menu that includes cute little berry tarts. Little tartlets of love! Ha!

I suppose I like certain elements of Valentine's Day... I liked the little chocolate hearts scattered over the table when I had guests at mine for supper last night, they looked really pretty... I like the section in Fenwick's with towers of tiny heart shaped boxes of truffles and bumper boxes of Love-Hearts, what's not to love about a sickly sweet candy with a naff message of love printed on it? I didn't like trying to choose a card for TLI surrounded by men in suits looking uncomfortable, nervous and a bit clammy. I don't like Valentine's cards I've realised, they are all naff, every single one... I watched the uncomfortable men pick up tiny heart shaped plates with 'love' written on them, they looked confused, was this what they were meant to be doing? I left the uncomfortable men to it, it was making me squirm...

These little tarts are very easy once you have made the sweet lemon pastry and that isn’t very difficult either... I found the recipe in one of the Ottolenghi books. This will make 18 little tartlets, the pastry will keep in the fridge for a week, or in the freezer for a month. Get a big bowl and add 330g of plain flour, 100g of icing sugar, the zest of half a lemon and quarter of a teaspoon of salt. Add 180g of cold unsalted butter cut into tiny cubes and rub it into the flour, mix it with your hands until it is a bread crumb like consistency. Add an egg yolk and 2 tablespoons of cold water and mix until you have a firm dough. Take the dough out of the bowl and knead it on the counter lightly for a few seconds, then wrap it in cling film and chill it until you need it.

Take your tart tins, or I used a muffin tin, and brush them with a thin layer of melted butter, then put them in the fridge to set. Sprinkle some flour on your work surface and roll out the pastry to about 3mm thick, cut out circles using a cutter or a mug and line your tins with pastry. Pop in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Pre heat the oven to 150°C and add some cling film or grease proof paper and baking beans to the middle of each tartlet. I use dried chickpeas as my baking beans, it stops the pastry from rising up when you bake it, make sure you put the cling film or grease proof paper in or the beans will stick in your pastry. Then put them in the oven to bake for 25 minutes until they are golden brown.

Remove the baking beans and paper and leave the tartlet cases to cool. When they are cool fill them with fresh mascarpone, topped with lots of berries and some chopped mint. Serve the little 'tartlets of love' straight away. The buttery lemony pastry is delicious with creamy mascarpone and sharp sweet berries.

I should have told the confused men in Fenwick's just to make some of these instead of puzzling over strange miniature crockery and bad cards...