Purple-heart

22 Tuesday May 2012

Tags

Baking, Cake, Cooking, Food, Ingredients, Nigel Slater, Recipes, root vegetables

It’s the colour: that deep, baked-in pink. Magenta, leaning to purple, almost black at its heart. When you cut it, it bleeds, staining like a mulberry. Lusty, earthy, sublime, it’s the most medieval of vegetables. Juiced raw, it’s fresh and lemony. Roasted, it becomes silkily black. Left in the oven overnight and eaten in the morning, tenderly wizened, it’s perfect with broken bacon and some goat’s cheese. Of course it’s brilliant in chocolate cake. Damp and glottal.

It’s a bit of a brute, though, at first glance. The shaggy skin slips off like a coat once boiled or baked, and then it’s much prettier in the altogether – glossy and vibrant. It shares its pigment, betalain, with bougainvillea, those papery flowers that froth over walls everywhere in LA. And the sweetness, noticeable in all root vegetables and unmistakable here, comes from its cousin, the sugar beet.

It’s interesting to me that even when I’m writing about vegetables, I’m still writing about sugar. Apparently, we have evolved to like sweet things, to seek them out, and our quest has aided our evolution and survival. I wonder how Jaffa Cakes fit into this paradigm. I remember my brother hiding them under the bed and behind the sofa, the tell-tale crackle of cellophane, that slippery sleeve of cakes, all the more delectable for being contraband. I too was a hoarder, a squirreler of chocolate and sweets. Cadbury’s Creme Eggs at dawn, that kind of thing. Now, when it comes to sugar, I’m like a bloodhound – a sugarhound, if you will. I’m forever attuned.

The sweetness and texture of beets – a sort of ‘wet bite’ – comes from the combination of starch and sugar. Moist heat – boiling or steaming – quickly softens the starches and keeps the colour pure, and the taste direct and clean. Dry heat – roasting – creates a darker, fuller, more complex flavour. This is where the beet’s sugars start to caramelize and you get that burnished, bronzed sweetness. This is the Maillard reaction, and apparently accounts for why we are all addicted to French fries.

Incidentally, it may feel a bit late to be talking about beets (beetroot to you in Blighty), and they’ve certainly peaked, but they’re still everywhere in farmers’ markets in LA. Check for freshness by buying them with their tops attached, and leave about an inch of the top and stem on for cooking so the colour doesn’t leach out. Look at the greens as well, and avoid anything limp or drab.

Chocolate Beet Cake

Inspired by Nigel Slater, Tender

The beets translate here into glorious dankness. Moist but not cloying. Good quality chocolate is important, as is the cocoa powder. The accompanying crème fraîche is a nod to the sour cream used alongside Eastern European beetroot dishes, and is definitely not an afterthought.

8oz (250g) beets, unpeeled

7oz (200g) dark chocolate (60-70 percent cocoa solids)

4tbs/60ml hot espresso (or water)

7oz (200g) room temperature butter, cubed

1 cup (135g) plain flour

3tbs very good quality cocoa powder

1 heaped tsp baking powder

5 eggs, at room temperature

1 cup (200g) golden caster sugar/superfine sugar

(or give ‘normal’ sugar a quick whizz in the coffee grinder)

Pinch of sea salt

Method

Lightly butter an 8in (20cm) cake tin and line the base with baking parchment. Put the beets in cold water in a deep pan and bring to the boil. They will be ‘knifepoint’ tender in about 45 minutes, depending on the size. The smaller the better – look for ones the shape of lightbulbs. Drain and let them cool under running water. Peel them using a kitchen towel, or your fingers if they’re made of asbestos. Blitz in a blender to a rough puree.

Preheat the oven to 350F (180C). Break the chocolate into bits the size of gravel. Melt the chocolate pieces in a small bowl resting over a pan of barely simmering water. Don’t stir. When it looks almost melted, turn off the heat, but leave the bowl over the hot water and pour over the espresso. Stir it once. Add the cubed butter to the melted chocolate, and leave to soften, pushing it down under the chocolate if need be.

Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking powder in a separate bowl. Remove the bowl of chocolate now from the heat and let it cool for a few minutes. Whisk the egg yolks together briskly and then add to the melted chocolate. Mix in the beet puree. Whip the egg whites until stiff, then gradually rain in the sugar. Fold the egg white mixture into the melted chocolate. Do not overmix, but go deep into the goo with a large metal spoon, using a figure-of-eight movement. Fold in the dry ingredients. Scrape the batter into the prepared cake tin, smoothing the top, and reduce the heat of the oven to 325C (160C) and bake for about 40 minutes, or until the sides are firm and set, but the centre still has a little wobble to it. Let the cake cool completely, then remove it from the tin. Serve with crème fraîche.

Roasted beets with balsamic vinegar

From Nigel Slater, Real Food

Good to kill two birds with one stone and boil a load of beets for the cake and this dish too. Once you start this, it will quickly become a necessary part of your cooking life during beet season. Initially it will feel like too much work. This gripe quickly fades on eating.

Serves 2

6 small beetroot, with stems and tops on, if possible

A dash of olive oil

2 medium-sized onions, peeled

A sprinkling of balsamic vinegar

Method

Follow the instructions for boiling the beets above. Peel away the skins – using a kitchen towel if you have some – and cut each beet into wedges and toss them in a roasting tin with a little olive oil. Cut the onions into segments from root to tip. Add them to the beets and cover the roasting tin with foil. Roast in a hot oven (200C/400F) for thirty minutes. Remove the foil, add a dash of balsamic vinegar – not too much, just enough to add some depth and character – and a little salt. Return to the oven for a further thirty minutes, this time without the foil, until the beets are starting to brown and curl up. Serve with roast meat. Also, goat’s cheese is very nice. I have a feeling Roquefort would be pretty good too.

Bacon

15 Tuesday May 2012

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Bacon, Breakfast, Cooking, Food, Ingredients, Nonfiction, Recipes, Stories

Life would not be complete without bacon. I even love Frazzles – pretend rashers eaten as potato chips – which is about as far as you can get from the real thing, and yet, there’s still something, a shadow, a tantalizing reminder. Bacon is dressed up now in all sorts of eclectic fare. You’ve got your candied bacon ice cream, your bacon muffins, your chocolate-covered bacon. But nothing beats a bacon butty. Even the name spells hope in the morning. One bite and you know that everything is right with the world. Muffled bread and sweet splinters of saltiness.

When I was on Coronation Street, each morning before shooting would begin with a trip to the breakfast bus. Bacon butty, strong milky coffee. Bliss. Years before, my long trudge to drama school every day was spent scanning the pavement for a glinting pound coin possibly overlooked, so I could get the tube in. My reward, when I finally made it, with aching feet and translucent blisters: a bacon butty. No ketchup (oh, go on then), ungreased bread, crisp fat, eaten immediately – bacon cools within seconds off the heat. No actual tomato (heaven forfend). Nothing green.

Incidentally, a butty is another word for sandwich – often used specifically to mean a bread roll or ‘bap’. Along with fried bread, a bacon butty is firmly in the Full English Breakfast pantheon, which is in itself a hangover from a less fussy culinary age – when everyone thought English cuisine was appalling and we were all terrible cooks and coated everything in lard and died at 45. Despite its damning history, bacon is properly egalitarian, and lends itself to endless permutations – it loves cabbage, carrots and peas, being crumbled over avocado, and brings depth and edge to stews and soups. Then there’s the sweetness factor. Here in California, it’s paired with maple syrup and pancakes as big as duvets, or French toast thick with apricot jam. But sandwiched between a soft cloud of dusty white bread, the fug of bacon smoke still hanging in the air; there is no bettering it.

God knows you don’t need to be told how to make a bacon butty, but here are a few tips about cooking bacon in order to achieve nirvana, and avoid greasy disappointment.

Bacon Butty

Let your bacon come to room temperature. This allows the fat to release, and ‘loosen’ slightly. Lay the bacon in a large, unheated pan. Make sure the rashers don’t overlap. Place the pan over a medium heat. Cook the bacon in its own fat – do not add any. This ensures you have a few arteries to spare at the end. Let the bacon sizzle away until crisp. Flip only once (pretend it’s steak). Drape on paper towels so some of the grease can be absorbed. Embed in the fluffiest bread imaginable. Doctor with whatever else you feel it needs. Die happy.

For a bacon sandwich, my preference would be for the streaky kind – cut from the belly – rather than the leaner back bacon. Streaky has more fat which crisps up beautifully, and this is an occasion when more is definitely more. Nigel Slater loves his bacon; he suggests buying it loose wherever possible from a butcher or cheesemonger, or even a provincial post office. And go for bacon that is slightly dry to the touch, with a sweet, smoky smell. If it’s packaged, look for the colour, which should be a pinky-maroon, and avoid wet and flabby.

My nephews with their black pigs in Cornwall

And now to the thorny subject of pig farming. As many – including my brother – will know who have kept pigs, it is ‘meat for the cruel months’ – quintessential autumn and winter fare. The best pork is rich and fatty, supple and succulent, and this is because a happy pig will have spent his days rootling and tootling around, snuffling for acorns and eating kitchen scraps with his mates. They are surprisingly affectionate, curious and clever. Intensively farmed pigs are to be avoided at all costs; if you were ever wondering how to shame a pig, this method would be it. Most live in concrete hell, pumped full of protein to accelerate growth and so suffocated by the lack of space, that they become atypically aggressive. No wonder their bacon turns to pink, watery slime in the pan. Beware the labels “outdoor bred,” “traditional” and “country” too – vague, pointless and dishonest. Free range and organic are the only labels to trust and always go small-scale if you can.

Bacon in LA

I have found it harder to find good bacon here, because trying to trace it to a specific farm and breed is a lot of work. And the state of California is huge – bigger than the whole of the UK – so ‘local’ can be defined as anywhere within a 150 mile radius. Taylors is homespun and family-run. I’ve heard only good things about them – friendly, helpful and they deal exclusively with local farms. It’s also in Sierra Madre, home to the world’s largest wisteria (which has already gate-crashed five backyards). Going further afield, the bacon from The Black Pig Meat Company is beautiful looking stuff: a rude pink, wonderfully stippled, juicy and clearly made with love and mindfulness. You can order online. If you are able to get to the Hollywood Farmers’ Market or the one in Santa Monica, seek out the Rocky Canyon Farms stall. It’s run by Greg Nauta, a small-scale rancher and farmer from Atascadero, California, who grows organic vegetables and raises free range cows and pigs on an open pasture. His applewood bacon is lovely, and it feels good to support him.

Foodster Jonathan Gold in the LA Weekly magazine also gives the lowdown on his favourite cuts of bacon and where to find them in LA. If anyone has any bacon-related thoughts to share, particularly if there is a gem of a butcher you would like to champion, please write in. I would love to hear your stories.

The End

Candied kumquats & rose jam

08 Tuesday May 2012

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Breakfast, Cooking, Fruit, Ingredients, Los Angeles, Nonfiction, Recipes, Stories

A bit of a whimsical pairing, this. Someone was throwing out a load of roses – they were lying in a sorry heap on the ground, by the bins – so I scooped them up, fished out the earwigs and got to work. In the same week, I found kumquats tumbling all over the road, the tree bowed down by its own luscious bounty, so I shoved as many of them into my bag as I could manage, and walked away whistling (always a sign of guilt).

Anyway, I was brought up to believe a bit of light thieving is not only acceptable, but common sense when we’re talking about food that would rot otherwise. Seeing a laden citrus tree in LA – a common sight, sadly – its golden orbs lolling on the ground mere yards from someone’s front door, makes me feel quite sick. “It’s food!” I want to shout through the letterbox. “You can eat it and everything!” It takes every cell in my body not to jump the fence and fill my pockets, secreting the fruit about my person like a drug mule. To put this in context, I am the daughter of a woman who regularly scaled a neighbour’s wall to forage for dandelion leaves, which she did at nightfall, as if she were about to make off with their stereo. The leaves were for us, by the way, in lieu of salad.

The kumquat is the perfect oval shape, like a little orange egg. The neatness and polish, the deep apricot hue of the skin, lends itself to being shown off on posh after-dinner fruit plates where no one knows what to do with them. They’re so small that it seems a pointless exercise to peel them and you don’t have to, because the rind is in fact the sweetest bit. In an interesting about-turn, the flesh is sour, so the idea is to pop the whole thing in your mouth and crunch. You are expected to eat the seeds. The tree itself has been known to sit at the table – the potted version, I should say – where guests can pluck directly from the branch.

I think these work best candied. It shows off their texture, that nubby rind is almost all there is, and sugar in this setting brings out the sour. It reminds me of a bitter version of quince paste and works well with cheese, particularly Manchego and Cabra al Vino. A chalky, wincing cheddar is also lovely. For breakfast, it takes on a poached complexion, particularly with yogurt. I know I’ve already mentioned apricots; these have more bite but retain the same sweet-sour balance. Limequats, as the name suggests, are a hybrid, and much tarter, more marmalade-like. In fact, both work well as a quick version of the preserve. In ten minutes you have a credible, and beautifully syrupy, burst of sunshine for your morning toast.

Candied kumquats

Adapted from David Lebovitz

This recipe is adapted from ‘sweet king’ David Lebovitz, who suggests poached prunes as an accompaniment. Interestingly, the rose petal jam is prune-like both in texture and appearance, though lacking the prune’s deliciously plump sloppiness.

1 cup (250ml) water

¼ cup (50g) sugar

15 – 20 kumquats or limequats

2 tbs crystallized ginger, chopped finely

1 cinnamon stick

Method

Slice the kumquats into thinnish rounds and de-seed. Any seeds you don’t get can be easily sieved out later, so don’t worry if some escape you. Bring the water, sugar, cinnamon, ginger (feel free to improvise if you don’t have these) and kumquats to a gradual boil in a small saucepan.

Reduce the heat to a simmer and cook for about 10 minutes, keeping an eye on it near the end. The liquid will now be reduced and syrupy. Remove from the heat, take out the cinnamon stick, and let the kumquats come to room temperature. They can keep in the fridge for a good six weeks, stored in an airtight container.

Interesting fact: The kumquat, though it behaves like a citrus, was discovered in 1915 to have enough cellular differences to be moved to a separate genus known as Fortunella, named after Robert Fortune, an English traveller who introduced the fruit into Europe in 1846.

My rose booty

I have been longing to make this jam for some time now, ever since I came across it in Alys Fowler’s book, The Thrifty Forager. I’ve never been much of a rose fancier – who can forget Annette Bening shrieking in her gardening gloves in American Beauty? – but I always hoped to be given some, or at least to be walking past a compost heap at the right moment.

I found my multi-coloured stash took on a deep port-wine appearance, and started to reduce after it was allowed to cook for 20-25 minutes. It managed this cleverly without pectin – I suspect the sugar does most of the work – and the result is delicately toothsome. A faint ‘tearing’ sensation is important here – some resistance, rather than a general jammyness. For breakfast, serve with the candied kumquats over Greek yogurt. Some chopped pistachios would make an interesting contrast.

Rose petal jam

Adapted from The Thrifty Forager by Alys Fowler

250g (9oz) unsprayed rose petals

1.1 litres (2 pints) water

Juice of 2 lemons

450g (1lb) granulated sugar

Method

Shake the petals free of any bugs, place in a bowl, and add half the sugar. Leave for a few hours or overnight. This infuses the rose flavour into the sugar, and darkens the petals. In a heavy-based pan, add the water, lemon juice and remaining sugar, and heat gently until all the sugar has dissolved. Stir in the rose petals and simmer for 20 minutes or until the rose petals look as if they are melting and have softened. Try one – there should still be a slight bite to it. Turn the heat up and bring to a boil for another 20 minutes or until setting point is reached. Remove any scum that may have risen to the top and allow to cool slightly, stirring gently so that the petals are evenly distributed. Cover and bottle as usual.

Food Forward

If you live in the LA area and have a groaning fruit tree that you can’t deal with or you know someone who does, Food Forward will come round, pick the excess fruit (and vegetables too, if you have them) and distribute them to those in need. You can also get involved in picking the fruit and canning it, and they run hands-on food preserving workshops, with some of the leading LA ‘foodsteaders’.

Chocolate marmalade slump

27 Tuesday Mar 2012

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 11 Comments

Tags

Baking, Cake, Chocolate, Cookbook, Cooking, Dessert, Ingredients, Lucas Hollweg, Pudding

This is a shameless steal from my cousin Lucas Hollweg’s book Good Things to Eat, a collection of quietly ravishing recipes and stories with beautiful photos of real food, made with love, and that (as we say in the West Country).

This cake has been variously called “boss” (as in “this cake is boss”) “rad” (radical) “wowser” (in the absence of a suitable adjective) and “phenomenal.” Our recent German guests thought nothing of tucking into this first thing despite Joe’s concern that, according to his understanding, “Germans don’t like sweet.” But they do and besides, this is not sugar-sweet, but rather darkly fruity, earthy and voluptuous with the marmalade adding depth and spice. Basically, it’s the Eartha Kitt of chocolate cake.

Our English guests had it around mid morning with a cup of tea and then kept creaming off sections until it looked like this. It is both cake and mousse, with a rich-as-a-truffle interior and a seriousness that stops it feeling too indulgent. It’s not a “naughty” cake. It’s too volcanically strong and direct for that. This is my answer to all those American cupcakes I’ve sampled over the years that are the equivalent to eating sparkly Pollyfilla. If I’m going down, I’m taking a damp, tannic wedge of chocolate marmalade slump cake with me, and you can keep your red velvet sprinkled doodahs for another day.

As for chocolate, I used Valrhona Noir Amer, which has 71% cocoa solids in it. Too far over 70% and it starts to feel dry in the mouth; you want dark silk, not chalk. Green and Black’s Organic Dark 70% and Scharffen Berger 70% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate would be my other faves. Most recently, I used lime marmalade in the mixture and this came through well; clean, bright and sharp, it lifted the cloak of chocolate and gave it zip. The addition of bergamot and orange marmalade on another outing was lovely, too – warm and floral. I’ve also used a jar of shop-bought Seville orange marmalade and it was spankingly good, which goes to show: a good cake is a good cake regardless.

The ‘slump’ occurs right after removing it from the oven, and as well as being quite dramatic to watch, thankfully takes the cake far away from sponge territory. Lucas suggests cream as an accompaniment – I love crème fraîche here, with its clotted appearance and tang, and though sometimes its sourness can be bullying, this cake can take it.

Chocolate Marmalade Slump Cake

Lucas Hollweg, Good Things to Eat

I’m lifting this recipe ‘clean’ from the book, so ounces and grams will feature, and not cups. Apparently, professional bakers always measure by weight, not by volume (i.e. cup size), so a digital scale would probably be a wise purchase in the long run, if you’re on a serious baking jag.

Makes a 23cm (9in) round cake

100g (3½oz) Seville orange marmalade, with lots of chunky peel

finely grated zest of 1 large orange

125g (4½oz) caster sugar

150g (5½oz) unsalted butter

150g (5½oz) good dark chocolate (60 – 70% cocoa solids), broken into bits

4 medium eggs, separated

a pinch of salt

50g (1¾oz) cocoa powder

icing sugar, for dusting

“Preheat the oven to 190C/375F/Gas Mark 5. Line the bottom of a round, loose-bottomed 23cm (9in) tin with a circle of baking parchment, and cut a long strip about 4cm (1½in) wide to make a collar around the inside. Put the marmalade and zest in a food processor and blitz to a slush. Add the sugar and whizz in. Put the butter into a small saucepan and melt over a gentle heat. Remove from the hob and leave to stand for a couple of minutes, then throw in the chocolate, pushing it under so it’s just submerged. Leave to melt without stirring for about 3 minutes, then mix until smooth and glossy. Stir in the marmalade and orange zest slush and tip into a bowl.

Beat the egg yolks vigorously into the chocolate mixture, then sift the cocoa powder over the top and beat that in as well. Put the whites in a clean metal mixing bowl with a pinch of salt and, using a scrupulously clean whisk, whip until they form soft peaks – they should flop over at the top when you lift the whisk. Beat a third of the whisked egg whites into the chocolate mixture to loosen it a little, then carefully fold in the rest, scooping the chocolatey goo from the bottom of the bowl as you go, until it’s a uniform brown.

Pour the mixture into the lined tin, smooth the top and bake in the oven for 30 minutes, or until the centre has risen to form a set and slightly undulating plateau. Remove from the oven and leave to cool for at least 15 minutes, then carefully take it out of the tin on its base and peel the paper from around the sides (I deal with the paper on the bottom when I come to slice it). Leave to cool until just warm – about 30 minutes out of the oven – or room temperature. Just before serving, sift a bit of icing sugar over the top. Serve in slices with double cream, creme fraiche, ice cream or mascarpone.”

A word about limes

15 Thursday Mar 2012

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Citrus, Cooking, Food, Fruit, Ingredients, Los Angeles, Recipes, Stories

Although lemons and limes are often used interchangeably (and both names come from the Arabic word limah), limes are noticeably different: stronger, sharper, almost darker in taste. Whereas lemons grow well in a Mediterranean climate with long, dry spells and poor soil, true limes favour the tropics. The little beauties above came from an expedition we took to a Mexican supermarket in the valley. So taken were we with the meat section – pickled pigs’ ears daintily presented in trays, sheets of beef honeycomb tripe that looked almost marine-like, and the wonderfully labelled “beef feet” – that we temporarily forgot why we had come, which was to find proper Mexican limes. These nuggets of blistering juice are pretty standard in Mexican cuisine: spritzed over avocados, as a way of ‘cooking’ fish in a ceviche, in margaritas, mixed with sea salt and squeezed into a cold beer, mixed with salt again and sprinkled over chunks of mango, as well as being the star of the show in limonada.

I am embarrassed to say I have often been at a loss as to how to best employ limes. It was only when I chanced upon them at the farmers’ market that I gave them any real thought. These were Persian and Palestine sweet limes, the difference here being the lack of acidity which creates an exceptionally mild flavour. What character they have is concentrated in the rind, which has a light, clean, fresh pine aroma, so I used this in a curd and simply ate the fruit which was at least succulent, and, for an added bonus, apparently cures “everything.”

Tarter and more piercing are the California-grown Key limes. Interestingly, these are lemon-yellow, which according to my sage at Mud Creek Ranch – who patiently puts up with my endless battery of questions – is their natural colour here; green rind can actually be an indication of the fruit’s unreadiness. They are hell to pick. The branches have thick, angry thorns that slash the skin and make it itch for days. The fact that they can grow here at all is due to an amazing micro climate at the ranch, where they flourish alongside bananas and cherimoyas.

I was surprised to find that my brief investigation into US recipes for lime yielded little apart from Key Lime Pie, a local speciality from Florida’s coral islands – the keys – which is made with the juice of the fruit (Citrus aurantifolia ‘Swingle‘), eggs and condensed milk. The lime’s acidity cleverly ‘cooks’ the pie, and this is possibly why the first recorded recipe came from local sponge fishermen who had no access to refrigeration or a stove (and obviously went through a lot of condensed milk). Semi-wild limes still grow in the area to this day, though they are no longer cultivated due to the 1926 hurricane which destroyed all the citrus groves. Growers replaced the Key Lime trees with Persian Lime because they are easier to grow and pick, but have none of the original’s arresting flavour.

I don’t know whether it’s because I’m a Northerner (as in I hail from Northern Europe), but I am instinctively drawn to the more lumpen uses for fruit – a baked pudding, a warm tart, a crater of puff pastry exuding steam, something thick and hopefully syrupy within, so lime marmalade was pretty much a given for me to try, if only to plunder my childhood memories of Rose’s fluorescent version, with its dainty green shred.

Grilled bananas with lime marmalade and spices

Bananas are best eaten in the spring, according to the experts, so this recipe can make you feel doubly smug. If you haven’t got round to making the lime marmalade – or never intend to – then a squeeze of lime would also work here. Serving this with something creamy is essential if you want the syrup to matter. Thick yoghurt is good in the morning, cream at other times, and add almonds if you want a more interesting texture. Lime is a friend of the banana and opposites definitely attract in this case; soft and placid meets brisk and glossy, yet somehow each makes the other more itself in the process.

Serves 2

2 bananas

2 tbs of juice from an orange or tangerine

2 tbs lime marmalade with shred (or lime juice)

Pinch of nutmeg

Pinch of cardamom

1 tbs butter

Peel the bananas and slice them in half, lengthways. Lie them cut side up, in a shallow baking dish. Mix the marmalade and juice together and spoon over the bananas. Dot with butter which has been mixed with the ground spices. Grill until soft and brown (about five minutes). Scatter with toasted slivers of almond if you have them, and serve with either yogurt or cream. You could also try grilling the whole fruit, unpeeled, until black, tearing off a strip of skin to eat the hot, banana fondant within, and serve the syrup separately.

Interesting fact; British explorers and traders in the West Indian colonies used limes to prevent scurvy, which is why we’re still called ‘limeys’ to this day.

Steering clear of the sweet: Yotam Ottolenghi is a fan of lime. His Iranian legume noodle soup uses the juice to cut through soured cream, and lime halves accompany his corn and squash fritters. If you’re a fan of pickles, then pickled limes can be used as the basis of a sour relish for spicy dishes, and anything with an Indian bent.

Mexican limes

A word about thyme

08 Thursday Mar 2012

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

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Tags

Cooking, Dessert, Herbs, Ingredients, Mediterranean, Recipes

Of all the herbs, I find thyme the most satisfying and the least temperamental to grow. Native to the Mediterranean where it grows wild, it loves neglect, drought and miserly earth – the more woeful the better – as well as a fair whack of sun and heat. It suits the confinement of a terracotta pot, just make sure it’s thoroughly parched before watering; it hates wet feet. One of my favourite pastimes is running my fingers through each knotty cascade and getting a headful of that bracing, lemon-and-fresh-grass aroma. Then there is the taste; pummeled with lemon zest and roasted with garlic and tomatoes, or deposited into the cavities of lamb and chicken, it can be slow to release its flavour but when it does, woody, herbal, charcoal notes can lift a pedestrian offering and make it sing.

Thyme is a herb that loves to be steeped and infused with citrus, lending an aromatic depth to dishes. In desserts, I find it tempers the sugars and brings out the other, less sweet, elements. It works particularly well in this way with figs and stone fruit, such as apricots and peaches. Flecked through a cake it can get lost, so a good bruising beforehand will encourage the release of essential oils. On the other hand, too much thyme and too leisurely a steep in custard (for use in ice cream or a flan) and it’s like drinking cough mixture.

March is a good time to talk about herbs. Even in Southern California, where it’s reported that the amount of uninterrupted blue sky is commensurate with the number of people in therapy (a lot), this is the month when LA can have a frosty face. Traditionally, March has always been known as the famine time; the Irish used to call it “the grey blast of spring.” Any stored fruit had more or less expired by this point, so the cook was dependent on fresh new shoots from herbs to awaken tired dishes. Conveniently grown near the kitchen door, it meant a single hand could slip out, grab what herb it needed and then beat a retreat, away from glowering skies.

The time to plant is now. Young shoots will lack the pungency of a mature thyme that has been baked by the sun; slow cooking helps give the older plant a milder presence while introducing younger leaves near the end of cooking preserves the delicacy. Aside from Thymus Vulgaris – otherwise known as common or English thyme – lemon thyme (T. Citrodius) is the one used most often in cooking; it has a softer, less searing flavour and does well in shortbread and as a final flourish. Orange balsam, caraway and Sicily, with its celery scented leaves, are among the hardiest with the most concentrated perfume, while the creeping coconut thyme has a more fugitive scent and is not considered culinary at all, though I’ve used it if there’s nothing else (I can’t say it tastes much of coconut).

The lemon cake with thyme recipe, made with almonds and a swipe of flour, is fragrantly moist with just a breath of savoury to it, thyme once again bringing up the rear, adding warmth, depth and a much-needed bit of rough.

Mushrooms with thyme on toast

I can think of no lovelier start to the day than this: earthy mushrooms, woody thyme and razor-sharp lemon zest all collapsing into a fragrant heap over a heft of hot, buttered toast. Some crushed garlic is a lovely, warming addition, as is brown butter. Although it looks in some senses ‘wrong’, brown butter (or beurre noisette) adds a toasty, nutty dimension; you simply heat the butter gently until the milk solids on the bottom of the pan turn a dark, chocolatey brown, then add the rest of your ingredients. If you want to make a concession to health, olive oil is a good alternative here.

One of Jane Grigson’s luxurious ideas is to bake the mushrooms in the oven with clotted cream, but I think we’ll leave that for another day.

Serves 2

8 smallish mushrooms or 4 large field mushrooms (Morels appear in spring, as do ‘Hedgehogs’, if you want to go foraging)

1 tbs butter

1 clove of garlic, crushed

1 heaped tbs of thyme leaves stripped from the stem

1 tsp lemon zest (or finely chopped preserved lemon)

Bruise the leaves of the thyme with the lemon zest and garlic in a pestle and mortar, or in a bowl with a wooden spoon. Add a few grinds of salt and pepper. Brown the butter, lower the heat and add the thyme mixture along with the roughly chopped mushrooms, that have been wiped clean, not washed. Cook over a medium heat until the mushrooms are wilting and have started to brown. The trick is to keep things moist, so add a tablespoon of water if you need to. If you want your mushrooms to have something of the damp, forest-like interior about them, keep them in a bag in the fridge for a day or so before cooking. As to toast, I will leave it up to you. Tradition dictates white and thick and toasted within an inch of its life (it will go soggy soon after the mushrooms have arrived) but it’s hard to go wildly wrong with this classic.

A word about lemons

27 Monday Feb 2012

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

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Citrus, Cooking, Food, Ingredients, Lemons, Meyer lemons, Recipes, Stories

I love lemons. I love the way they sit all plump and jaunty in the bowl, the zing of oil from the rind, that spike of sparkling acid on the tongue. A lemon tree heavy in fruit and blossom is simply a wonder of nature.

To be mercantile for a moment, a ripe lemon is firm but not hard and should feel heavy for its size. Thin-skinned tends to be juicier than thick and bigger isn’t necessarily better (this is also true in life generally). The juiciest is the very thin-skinned Meyer (Citrus Meyerii), an LA stalwart. Not considered a true lemon at all but a hybrid – a cross between a lemon and a mandarin, some say, though its parentage is unknown – it has a sweeter, more complex, layered flavour, less acidic but still tart enough to perk up discoloured fruits and overly sweet or rich puddings. It cleverly cuts through sugar and cream, lifting a dish to subtle heights of piquancy and freshness. More sour is the Lisbon and Eureka. Lisbon is the juicier of the two, while Eureka is the standard lemon most of us have knocking about. It’s also the one most likely to have been infiltrated with fungicides, insecticides and waxes to make it more appealing. A Eureka picked from the tree is an entirely different animal: cobwebby, misshapen and mottled, and not a bright, waxy yellow at all, but a gentle ochre. With its sea-green leaves attached, it’s almost biblical.

It’s sad we have become such shallow meddlers in the sex life of the lemon. Its journey to ripeness, the subtle changes in colour, weight and fragrance are all to seduce us into plucking it in its prime, thus allowing the reproductive cycle to continue. There’s something almost touching in the knowledge that, being picked, the fruit is experiencing physical pressure for the first time; no longer suspended in mid-air, attached to its parent, it must come down to earth.

You could also try

Yuzu (Citrus Yunos) if you can get hold of it. It’s a Japanese citron that fruits early – around September or October here. Because of its exceptional tartness, it holds up well to being cooked at high temperatures and is used as a souring ingredient, specifically in the Japanese sauce, Ponzu. It also works well as marmalade and makes a fragrant, rind-heavy syrup, used often in Korean cuisine.
Ponderosa (Citrus Pyriformis) which looked like a grapefruit to me, but is actually a lemon-citron hybrid. The Middle Eastern community in LA apparently makes jam out of the thick rind, which has a floral scent. It also makes a fine lemon curd.
Sorrento lemons, also known as Femminello St. Teresa. Native to the Amalfi coast in Italy, they’re typically the variety used in making limoncello, a bitter digestif that uses lemon rind steeped in grain alcohol (which apparently you could also use to run your car). Layers of tufo and limestone in the area create the perfect soil for cultivation, which produces an exceptionally aromatic rind. Locals eat thick slices of this citrus, skin and all, with a dusting of sugar.

Ponderosa Lemons

Some Ideas

Hang some lemon peel out to dry in a warm place (by a sunny window, say). When it’s leathery, put it in a jar of sugar and use for baking.
I have seen children eat neat lemon quarters here as I used to do oranges (making the segment cover your teeth and then smiling eerily etc). I was both impressed and alarmed by this. I’m not suggesting you do the same, just informing you of the phenomenon.
Lemon-infused olive oil, also known as agrumato in Italy, is best made at home, and used within a couple of days. In Skye Gyngell’s recipe, you finely peel the zest – no pith – of 3 lemons using a vegetable peeler. Put in a pan with 1 cup (250ml) of extra virgin olive oil, and heat very gently to body temperature (about 99F). Remove and let steep for about an hour before using. Lovely drizzled over grilled fish, chicken, Burrata, buffalo mozzarella, ricotta or fresh Mexican cheese.
Lemon sandwiches, courtesy of Mrs Grigson: “Cut fresh, soft-skinned lemons into very thin slices and sandwich them between thin wholemeal bread slices, thickly buttered. Serve with smoked salmon and marinaded fish.”
North African Preserved Lemons

A doddle, and fantastic strewn over ice cream, in tagines, added to sauteed vegetables, couscous, and mashed into a herby butter. Use Eureka lemons because their thick skins are a bonus here, but make sure they’re organic and unsprayed as the peel is what you’ll be eating, not the flesh. Cut 8-10 washed lemons into quarters from top to stem, without going all the way, and pack the cuts with a generous tablespoon of coarse sea salt (never table salt). Squash the lemons into a large, glass jar, giving them a good ramming to get the juices flowing. Add any or all of these: a cinnamon stick, a whole dried chili, a bay leaf, a few cardamom pods and coriander seeds, then seal and leave overnight. For the next 2-3 days, keep pressing the lemons down, as they begin to deflate. Now top up with fresh lemon juice so that the fruit is fully submerged and leave for about a month, after which time they’ll be ready to use. Keeps for about six months, looking vibrant and virtuous on your kitchen shelf.

Lemon Marmalade

23 Thursday Feb 2012

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

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Tags

Cooking, Food, Ingredients, Marmalade, Recipes, Stories

I’m rather old guard in my tastes when it comes to marmalade. I find the alchemy of rind, sugar and, say, lemon juice bubbling itself to a thick amber syrup, and the smell of bitter citrus caramel more than enough to satisfy my needs. It took me about five years just to get over the fact that I’d made a jar of marmalade that was edible. But there is always more to discover – more complexity, more ways, whole fruit, less sugar, honey. I recently had a cooling spoonful of Blenheim apricot jam, and hidden in the lushness were apricot kernels that, when bitten, released their almond essence like a mini gun-shot.

But it’s taken me a while to get to herbs. This idea was introduced to me via the genius of Jessica Koslow. Her company Sqirl (based here in LA) is doing profound and wonderful things with marmalades and jams. I can only ape her originality and skill. Chamomile (meaning ‘ground apple’) adds a fruity, soft, almost soothing backnote here and in no way detracts from the citrus strength of the preserve. Harvest whole flower heads and keep them intact; crushing them releases the oils and there goes the flavour. If in doubt leave them out, or try something else in their place. Lemon balm would be interesting, either fresh or dried.

Chamomile

The Bergamot and Orange Marmalade recipe acts as my control – if I went into that much detail each time, we would probably both be reaching for the Mogadon, so I will simply give you the ingredient list here. You may also want to make the marmalade in one day rather than two, in which case omit the overnight soaking. Fills about 6 8oz/half pint jam jars.

Lemon Marmalade with Chamomile

12 lemons

1.35 kg (3lbs) organic cane sugar

20g (1 1/2 tbs) dried Chamomile (added to the muslin along with the pips and pith)

3 pints (6 cups) water (with 1 pint/2 cups added later if necessary)

A bit of history

Lemon marmalade appeared soon after the 13th century with the arrival into England of oranges and lemons. The oranges were bitter Sevilles from Spain and Portugal, or belonging to the Venetian spice ships. Jars of Citrenade were also imported; this was a kind of lemon marmalade, but solid and eaten in pieces, rather like the Portuguese ‘marmelo’ that began life in the Middle Ages. Marmelo was a stiff paste of quinces – citrus came later – made with honey and spices, cut into blocks and served as sweetmeats or fruit Pastilles (nothing like Rowntrees).

A Word About Dates

16 Thursday Feb 2012

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

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Cookbook, Cooking, Dates, Dessert, Food, Ingredients, Recipes, Stories

I’ve been on a Medjool date jag for months now. No mean feat if you consider the season is only supposed to run from September to November. Perhaps it’s because they’re grown in Coachella, a mere 132 miles away, that we’re experiencing such a glut. And they store well; six months in the fridge and they’re none the wiser. Medjools, along with Khadrawy, Halawy and Barhi, are classed as ‘soft’ dates because of their high moisture content. I will try to define the texture without straying too far into food-porn territory; your teeth break the sugar-blistered amber skin of the Medjool and the immediate sensation is a densely rich and yielding butterscotch flesh.

Two of these dates are the equivalent in sugar rush to eating a whole Milky Way without the artificially potent high and crashing low. Medjools in particular have a natural affinity with oranges – see the Sticky Toffee Pudding recipe – and dark chocolate. A collection of all three would make a fine dessert plate. Dipping medjools into melted dark chocolate and leaving to harden would also make a fine marriage.

Semi-dried dates, such as Deglet Noor, seem to belong to childhood Christmases; the rounded rectangular box covered in cellophane and decorated with palm trees and camels would always sit alongside a tray of nuts no one could crack. These dates are stickier, tougher and go well with thick yogurt.

But Medjools are the Kardashians of the date world; their demands are such that each date must be hand-pollinated and hand-harvested, while keeping their heads hot and feet wet at all times in order to thrive. This is also why they’re so expensive; cultivation is back-breaking and incredibly complex, with workers having to scale towering date palms several times a day to ensure a satisfactory yield. Talk about high maintenance.

Hot Date Compote (serves 2)

Adapted from Nigel Slater, Real Fast Puddings

1 tbs butter

8 soft dates, stoned and chopped

Generous squeeze of a large orange (about 6 tsp/30ml) and the zest

1 heaped tbs shelled pistachios, roughly chopped

Melt the butter in a pan until just starting to brown and smell nutty. Add the dates and let them soften over a gentle heat, giving the pan a good shake every now and then. Toss in the pistachios and let them brown slightly. Now deglaze the pan with the orange juice; this will pick up all the sticky, chewy bits that have started to caramelize. Add the zest, and let it all bubble for a minute or so, until it begins to look and feel like a puree. Serve hot over Greek-style yogurt or with a ripe, juicy pear. This compote is also amazingly good with pork as well as with a blue cheese such as Stilton or Roquefort (but not for breakfast – this would be stretching it even for me).

Bergamot and Orange Marmalade

05 Sunday Feb 2012

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Breakfast, Citrus, Cooking, Fruit, Ingredients, Los Angeles, Recipes, Stories

Today I picked up my first stash of bergamots (below) from Mud Creek Ranch at the Hollywood Farmers’ Market. Knowing only of the bergamot oil in Earl Grey tea and various beauty products, it was exciting to have one in the hand. In appearance it resembles a gnarly, yellowy-green orange. The first thing I did was dig my nail into the peel to see if it would offer up that unique perfume and it still lingers as I write this two hours later; a searingly bright and fizzy citrus scent, with earthy, oily undertones. A kind of Earl Grey champagne, if you can imagine such a thing

Neat bergamot marmalade would probably take your eyebrows off – it has an intensity so startling and heady (surpassing even Seville oranges) that it would be wise to temper it with a gentler presence. Here, I’ve used sweet oranges and a couple of Meyer lemons, but you could also try something from the tangerine family.

This is a British-style, clear marmalade with a loose set and a generous scattering of peel throughout – though apparently the less peel, the more British. It is on the bitter side, as marmalade should be, and is best eaten slathered on hot, buttered toast at any time of the day or night. Fills about 6 8oz/half pint jam jars.

Bergamot and Orange Marmalade

Adapted from Delia Smith

6 Bergamots

6 Navel oranges

2 Meyer lemons

1.35 kg (3lbs) organic cane sugar

Begin by squeezing the juice from the bergamots, oranges and lemons into a jug. Remove all the pulp, pith and pips as you go and place them on a square of muslin or cheesecloth laid over a bowl; this contains the pectin which will enable your marmalade to set. Now cut the peel into shreds and add it to the juice. I like mine fine cut, but you may prefer a chunkier, more manly ‘lade. As you go, add any lingering pith or pips to the muslin. When you’re done, add 3 pints (6 cups) of water to the juice and peel, tie up the muslin to form a small bag – make sure nothing will escape – and add that too. Leave in a cool place overnight.

The next day, tip the juice and peel into a large saucepan, or preserving pan, and tie the muslin bag to the handle so that it bobs like a cork in the liquid (but doesn’t touch the bottom). I add an extra pint (2 cups) of water here as I find the muslin bag draws up a lot of the juice even after I’ve wrung it out a few times.

Now is the time to put some saucers in the freezer so you can begin testing later. Bring the liquid gently to the boil and then lower the heat and simmer. It is ready when the peel is completely soft – you can test a piece by pressing it between your finger and thumb. This can take anything from 35 minutes to an hour and a half; be aware that once sugar meets rind, it will no longer soften. Pour your sugar into a roasting dish and warm gently in the oven (200F) for about 10 minutes. This helps it to dissolve quickly later.

When the peel is ready, lift out the muslin bag and leave it on a plate until it’s cool enough to handle. Pour the sugar into the pan and stir over a very low heat until it has dissolved. When there are no crystals left, increase the heat and bring the marmalade to a rolling boil. Now squeeze every last bit of the jelly-like pectin that oozes from the muslin bag into the pan (I use a spoon to cream it off). Every little helps here, so be vigilant. Skim off any froth or scum that comes to the surface and leave the marmalade at a fast boil for 15 minutes. Now put a tablespoon of it on one of the cold saucers and let it cool in the fridge. If when you push the marmalade with your finger the mixture crinkles like a furrowed brow, then you have a ‘set’. Keep testing at 10 minute intervals until it has reached setting consistency. If you find this too much of a faff, a thermometer is a reliable alternative; when it reads 221F (105C), it’s ready. Leave the marmalade to settle for about 15 minutes otherwise all the peel will float to the top of the jar. Ladle into sterilised jars and seal immediately. Label when completely cold. See the Self-Preservation post on how to keep things clean and safe.

A bit more on bergamots here.