Winging It

11 Monday Jun 2012

Tags

Dessert, Fear, Food, Fruit, Ingredients, Nonfiction, Recipes, Spices, Stories, Trapeze

On Wednesday, I flew on the trapeze. When you watch it, it looks so easy. I came down after the first try, my body shaking with adrenalin and fear and, frankly, embarrassment that people had had to watch me.

I kept looking at the grapefruit tree that stood in the background and the orange tree next to it, its branches crowded with fruit and tried to think about recipes, and yet who was I kidding. I was thinking of not getting it right, of somehow not hearing the instructor’s orders, his barks up to the platform. The platform wobbles as you stand on it, by the way, and is 40 feet off the ground. It’s also frighteningly slim. This is what they tell you, the trapeze aficionados – that the experience teaches you to become a ‘connoisseur’ of your fear. And then you jump.

I had three goes at the ‘knee hang’ – see the picture. If you think you’re fit, try doing that one day. You have to use all your upper body strength to hoist your legs over the bar. I now realize I have no upper body strength. I had one more go left before the instructor called time. “Think of something that makes you really angry,” he shouted angrily. And then: “You can do this!” “Knees to nipples!” a woman yelled. She was a midwife.

I can’t remember what happened next except a feeling of relief and then the blood rushing to my head. I let go of the bar too late – everything in you resists it – and was out of whack with the catcher. I was all over the shop, but his grip was monumental. I dangled, a dead weight. But it’s that in-between moment that gets you, the moment of weightlessness. You’re flying! Everybody looks the same when it happens – lost in rapture. You hope that no one notices, but they do.

There are other sensory impressions: the grass turning brown underfoot. Scorching flagstones. The smell of horse from the field next door. Not dung exactly, but the smell almost of the horse’s breath; musky and hot, mixed with summer air. Low slung wire fencing turning a rusted orange. The clink as you’re unclasped from the ropes. The enormous web of net. Toes inching over the platform. The two bushy trees – grapefruit and orange against the back wall, the flashes of colour a pleasing backdrop to the soaring, swooping and plummeting bodies, the last one being mine.

Citrus with Orange Caramel

Adapted from Deborah Madison, Seasonal Fruit Desserts

This is fruit at its most chaste. The caramel is very subtle; warm rather than sweet. I used grapefruit and oranges because they come from the story, and I made it that night, but you can use anything citrussy.

6-8 citrus fruits

⅓ cup (70g) organic sugar

½ cup (120ml) freshly squeezed orange juice

1 cinnamon stick

1 clove

A few splashes of orange-blossom water

Fresh mint sprigs or lemon balm

Method

Finely grate the zest of an orange, and put to one side. Peel the rest of the fruit. Use a sharp knife for cutting citrus, if you want it to look pretty. Take a narrow slice off the stem and blossom ends. Cut down the sides of the fruit from top to bottom, slicing away the skin and the white pith. Now cut into rounds and put into a bowl.

Melt the sugar over a medium heat, until it turns a rich, chocolatey brown. Don’t stir, but keep tipping the pan this way and that, so the sugar doesn’t burn. When it has become liquid, stand back and pour in the juice. It will splutter and the caramel will seize, but after a few minutes back on the heat, it will dissolve again. Add the reserved orange zest, cinnamon stick, and clove. Splash in a few drops of the orange-blossom water, slide in the slices of fruit and swish them around so they’re coated, then pour the fruit and caramel back into the bowl. Serve very cold, speckled with the fresh herbs. This dish is very accepting of ice cream, and Greek yogurt.

Cucumber Gazpacho

04 Monday Jun 2012

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Food, Greece, Ingredients, Nonfiction, Recipes, Stories, Travel, Yoghurt

I know cucumbers can be a bit ‘whatever.’ I mean, I could go my whole life never missing them. And yet they are fresh and summery and lend themselves beautifully to cold soups as well as interesting herbal combinations. They like a bit of salt and lemon. I can’t work out why so many recipes ask for cucumbers to be peeled and de-seeded. What’s left? Thankfully, the recipe I’m using here is less prissy and allows you to chuck the whole thing into the blender. Which is good because you really get the essence of cucumber – light but with a herbaceous edge – and the seeds are what creates a lot of the juice.

My first memory of cucumbers was in Crete as a child. We were staying with a Greek family. I developed a crush on the son, who was a teenager called Vazeles. I thought he was very sophisticated because he drank his tea with a spoon. I spoke to him in fake Greek a lot and he smiled politely and continued about his business. The thing I remember most though was that whenever I entered the dining room, which was where the whole family congregated, the grandmother would start peeling a cucumber into the fire. She laughed – actually, she cackled – and so did everyone else, including my mother. I have to say, as a child, I couldn’t see the funny side. Even now it seems a bit disturbing; the insinuation was that this act was in some way sexual which was why everyone found it funny. Anyway, if anyone reading this knows of a Greek custom where old ladies start to peel cucumbers into the fire whenever a small child enters, I’d love to hear from you.

I can’t remember where those cucumbers ended up – I mean, in what dish – although it’s fair to surmise it was probably for a Tzatziki, a popular Greek dip made with strained yoghurt, cucumbers, lemon, salt and dill or parsley; a choppier and breadless version of cucumber gazpacho.

If you’re using thick-skinned cucumbers, by which I mean your standard, long, dark green cukes, you may want to peel them as they will have a tougher hide, and may have been waxed. I used thin-skinned Persian cucumbers here, because that’s what I found at the farmers’ market. They’re smaller, but taste the same – in other words, like a cucumber.

The garlic is non-negotiable in my opinion. I really don’t think gazpacho works without it, but you can play around with the intensity. I think three cloves gives you enough of a heady sensation without feeling you’ve been garlic-snorkelling. It’s the cleanness of the cucumber and the sulphurous hit of the garlic that is the key to this dish, so be brave. Stale white bread is a central component of a traditional Spanish gazpacho, and will give the soup a ‘thick cream’ texture. If you use it, I would strain the soup into a bowl before chilling, to remove any rough bits.

As for which herbs to use, mint is traditional, and lovely. Sorrel is less common, and a good reason to experiment. It is a perfect time of year for it. For a spring leaf, it’s incredibly juicy, lemony and refreshing. Can a leaf be creamy? Strangely yes. I hope I’ve piqued your interest.

Cucumber Gazpacho

Serves 4

3 large cucumbers or 6-7 small ones

A small handful of mint or sorrel leaves, stems removed

3 cloves of garlic, crushed

2 tbs extra virgin olive oil – or a couple of very hearty glugs

Sea salt

A squeeze of lemon

1 cup (½ pint) of plain, Greek yoghurt

Optional: A couple of handfuls of stale, white bread, torn up, with crusts removed

Method

I have deliberately kept the amounts quite loose, as this is where feel and taste rule. Coarsely chop the cucumbers – peel them first if you think the skin looks a bit tough – and put them in a blender. Add the crushed garlic, a pinch of sea salt, the olive oil, a squeeze of lemon, the yoghurt and the stale bread (if using) and puree to a wet pulp. You may have to do this in batches depending on the size of your blender.

Take the smoothness as far as you like – silk soup is very pleasing, some like a rougher texture, but I would strain the mixture through a sieve if you’re using the bread. Cover the bowl and chill thoroughly. Go almost to icicles. To serve, season the soup again. Remember that chilling dulls the flavour. Add a streak of yoghurt and strew with the herbs. Drop in some herb-flecked ice cubes for some shock and awe.

About Cucumbers

Originating in the Himalayan foothills, the wild cucumber is hideously bitter by nature. It has taken centuries of breeding to make it edible. It is a member of the Cucurbit family, to which the melon and winter and summer squash also belongs. It is a fruit.

How to eat a peach

30 Wednesday May 2012

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Dessert, Food, Ingredients, Italy, Recipes, Stories

Peaches and brown paper are forever linked in my mind, the rustle and crumple of the bag as I withdrew the fruit, its downy skin against mine, the slight indentation my thumb made and when I dug in feeling the juice drip down my arm.

It was the day I didn’t buy nectarines, the contessa’s favourite. Why she preferred them, I couldn’t fathom. Their baldness never appealed, they were flinty and hard to look at. So I went for peaches instead. That was over twenty years ago in Venice and I can still remember the stallholder’s look as I handed him the note the following day, telling him what I couldn’t. That it must be nectarines you give the girl and not peaches. Pesca noce. He was weary, surrounded by clumps of basil and buckets of artichoke hearts floating in water. A wave of peaches and nectarines rose up behind him.

But it was that first peach I remember most. It was warm and tender, baked by the sun. The nude pinky-orange flesh caved, the tiny fibres clung to the stone, a lake of juice pooled in my mouth. I remember wanting to eat it out of sight. Go somewhere secluded. It would be something to deny on arrival, with suspiciously sticky hands.

I will always go for warmth and not cold. Peach ice cream I can take or leave. It gets lost – it could be anything pretty and fragrant-smelling. A peach is itself more when baked, poached or simply wondrously ripe and filled with the coldest of blue cheeses. I understand the puree thing, but then I miss the shape; those delicate mounds in a tart, perfect circles like cobblestones running down a street. I know what I’m getting and that’s part of the pleasure. I can imagine it before it arrives. I once saw a lady peel and wash a tomato with its own skin. I like doing this to ripe fruit and it works well with peaches. I like the skin, but I want the flesh, so I keep peeling. A very ripe peach will slip off its skin almost in one. The hussy.

Peaches are not what they were. Gone are the days when a peach would be presented in a black velvet box at the end of a meal in French restaurants. Perhaps we no longer know what a peach could be. They are too over-extended, under-ripe, hard, watery, wooden. Historically, they were grown in vineyards and would come to ripeness at vintage time. The trees would then renew themselves from the fallen stones.

A few of these places still exist. It’s best to be on the side of the grower, and trust the smaller producers. They stress the peaches, breaking them in like dizzy mares. It seems cruel, feudal at first, but the rewards are huge. In California, a few good men are wresting the peach back from the hand of commerce. The trees are small and watered abstemiously in nutrient-poor soil. Peas, barley, wheat and wild oats grow like weeds around them. All this stress concentrates the flavour. I think the peach likes it that way.

To pick a good peach: trust your nose. A ripe peach has a rich, musky sweetness. Although it will continue to ripen after picking, getting softer and juicier, it won’t get any sweeter. A perfect peach – a mature peach – is one that has hung on the branch long enough for the sugar to develop. You will know it when you smell it. It will have made its final swell. When it comes to colour, forget red – this is a genetic variation, though we are all seduced.

Instead, it’s the quality of the background colour that’s important: a yellowy-orange cast signifies maturity, so pick that one. Farmers’ markets are always the best bet. Santa Monica has some orchard kings. This is the very beginning of the peach season in California, so I’m being a bit previous, but there are still some early gems around, particularly the flat peaches, Saturn, Donut and Saucer. The season proper starts mid June and will extend to August and even September. Often one variety will only last a week or so. Best to roll with it.

Peach and Amaretti Tarte Tatin

Adapted from Tamasin Day-Lewis, The Art of the Tart

This is a good one if you have slightly below par peaches, or they’re not as ripe as you’d like. I’ve always been a bit afraid of things I have to flip over at the last minute, but this is fairly straightforward, if you don’t mind tatty pastry, ragged peaches, and half the tart being left behind in the pan. Personally, I like a bit of rustic, which is just as well. Also, it’s lovely cold.

Serves 8

For the dough

8 amaretti biscuits

1½ cups (210g) plain flour

6 tbs (85g) cold butter, cubed

2-3 tbs iced water

For the top

8 peaches

Juice of 1 lemon

6 tbs (85g) sugar

4 tbs (55g) butter

Method

To make the dough, whizz the amaretti biscuits in a coffee grinder to a fine-ish dust. Add to a bowl with the sifted flour and butter and, if using your hands, work quickly to amalgamate. If using a food processor, process briefly until the mixture comes together. In both cases, you need to add 2-3 tbs (maybe a little more) of iced water for the dough to cohere. Chill for at least half an hour.

Preheat the oven to 375F/190C. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface ½ inch wider than the circumference of the pan you’ll be using. I use a 10-inch pan whose handle doesn’t melt in the oven. Set the pastry shell to one side.

Scald the peaches in boiling water for 30 seconds and slip off their skins. Sprinkle with lemon juice to prevent discolouration.

Now warm the sugar in the pan until it is a deep, dark brown. This will take a while and I suggest keeping the heat on very low at first so the sugar doesn’t become too bitter or burnt. Don’t stir, but move the pan around to prevent scorching. Wait for the sugar to become totally liquid, then remove from the heat and dot with half the butter. Put half a peach in the middle of the sugar mixture, cut side up. This is where it all starts to go a bit Raggedy Ann – peaches that have been scalded and skinned are slippery buggers. It’s best to accept the tart will not look as clean as you’d like. Quarter the peaches and lay them next to one another in a tightly packed wheel. Arrange the remaining quarters in the inside wheel. Dot with the remaining butter and put the pan back on the heat for a few minutes to gently begin the cooking.

Remove from the heat, cover with the pastry (be prepared for it to break and for a lot of swearing to ensue), tuck it inside the pan edge, and bake for about 35 minutes – it should look lightly browned and the caramel will be bubbling deliciously. Remove from the oven and let it cool for a few minutes before inverting onto a plate. Good luck. Serve with vanilla ice cream or crème fraîche.

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’.

Brownies

03 Thursday May 2012

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Baking, Cake, Chocolate, Claudia Roden, Dessert, Food, Ingredients, Recipes, Stories

I’m sure there’s a Brownie Consortium somewhere that meets regularly to debate such topics as Cakey vs Fudgy, The Role of Cocoa, and Walnuts: A Fresh Perspective. I also recently learned the brownie isn’t technically a cake at all, but a cookie. Fanny Farmer listed it as such in the 1906 edition of her Boston Cooking-School Cook Book and in some ways that’s what a brownie really strives to be. Think of the best chocolate chip cookie you’ve ever tasted – the memory of the oven still lingering over it, a shatteringly tender shell, a warm, melting middle, rich but light and gone in seconds. I have used a brownie recipe from a children’s cookery book for the last few years and it’s served me well. It’s child’s play (as all baking should be, in my opinion) and not remotely fiddly and the results delight all humans. My allegiance is definitely to the fudgy camp. Why have cake when you can have a dark, dense bar, baked to a sugary crackle on the outside, with gently weeping chocolate within?

The brownie (named after its original ingredient, molasses) took off in the early 1900s in Chicago when it was made as a dessert item for ladies attending the fair. It needed to be flat and square, hence the absence of raising agents, so they could eat it easily from a ‘boxed lunch’. Touchingly, our most recent guests carried them around in a foil parcel in much the same manner.

I know it’s almost heresy to say this, but I don’t like walnuts in brownies. I prefer to keep to similar textures, something that releases its flavour in a liquid burst, rather than a hard, grainy morsel. Sour cherries, prunes, chocolate chips, cooked beetroot would all work. I don’t mind the bitterness of a cocoa nib, or the sunken, darker hit of alcohol. I just don’t want to be picking things out of my teeth.

Chocolate Orange Brownies

This recipe uses whole oranges boiled and pureed – skin and all. As it takes a couple of hours for them to be cooked through, add the zest of a large orange, and maybe try an orange-infused chocolate, such as Green and Black’s Maya Gold if you are pushed for time. However, there are dividends in using the whole orange approach – if you chuck another two on to boil, you can try Claudia Roden’s lovely almond and orange cake from her Book of Middle Eastern Food. The puree can also be added to muffins and quick bread, used as a base for custard or ice cream, as well as spread over baking salmon or mashed into a herby butter.

The orange is fresh and sharp here – ‘on the lip’ you could say – which is what a brownie needs. The chocolate is deep and steady, and the cocoa keeps things earthbound. Incidentally, the fudgy, chewy texture of these brownies comes from melting the butter with the chocolate, which prevents any air from being trapped. If you want something cakier and crumblier, go for the creaming method. And, of course, you can have a straightforward, orange-less brownie, by simply leaving out the orange component entirely.

Chocolate Orange Brownies

Inspired by Sweet Treats, Williams-Sonoma

175g (6oz) *good quality chocolate (60-70% cocoa solids)

25g (¼ cup) cocoa powder (such as Green and Blacks)

250g (2 sticks/1 cup) unsalted butter, cut into chunks

300g (1½ cups) organic cane sugar

3 eggs at room temperature

70g (½ cup) plain flour

1 tsp vanilla extract

Pinch of salt

2 organic, unsprayed oranges

Method

Put the whole oranges into a pan and cover with water. Bring to the boil, cover and simmer for two hours or until soft. Drain and leave to cool, then cut them in half and remove the pips and any stalks. Put the oranges, including the skin, into a blender and puree until smooth. Set aside. This can be made in advance and kept in the fridge for two days.

Preheat the oven to 350F/180C. Butter and line a 9 inch/23cm x 23cm baking pan with parchment paper. Break the chocolate into smallish pieces and put in a pan with the butter. Melt both over a very low heat, stirring occasionally with a spatula. Pour the melted chocolate and butter into a bowl and whisk in the cocoa powder until smooth. Stir in the sugar and the vanilla extract. Whisk in the eggs, one by one, beating well after each addition. Now add the orange pulp. Whisking the mixture vigorously at this point will create a crisp outer layer to the brownie.

Gently fold in the flour and salt. Stir well to make sure there are no streaks. Scrape the batter into the baking pan and smooth the top. Bake for 35 – 40 minutes or until a skewer comes out with a few crumbs attached but no raw stuff. Let the brownies cool a little before cutting them into squares. Serve warm with some ice cream or a dollop of crème fraîche. If you don’t want instant gratification, these actually improve with time; store in an airtight container and enjoy picking.

*The orange-infused chocolate will have less cocoa content, so you will need to slightly increase the cocoa powder.

Muffins

26 Thursday Apr 2012

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Almonds, Baking, Food, Ingredients, Recipes, Spices, Stories

I came late to the American muffin. It was too close to the cupcake for comfort, architecturally at least. And the last shop-bought muffin I tried was like eating my own washcloth. There was also a disconcerting bounce to it, no doubt the result of all the preservatives required to keep it ‘fresh’.

The craggily homemade version is much nicer; unprecious, easy, malleable. It’s a great one for using up left-overs, marmalade bits, old cranberries, stewed this and that, collapsed bananas and it’s good for experimenting. I like the deliberate under-mixing, and then watching it rise into smooth little balls through the smoky glass. It also absorbs and holds onto the essential flavour of things in interesting ways, like ginger nubbins, dates, vanilla and cinnamon. The botanically named ‘flavedo’ of citrus zest comes through startling well. It’s honest fare; simple, good, true, the workhorse of the kitchen. Wet into dry is the only rule, and then it likes to be left alone. But breaking it open, and getting a headful of that steamy, sweet interior, the texture reminiscent of soft, hot bread is lovely. And it has that essential lick-the-bowl-clean component, central to all great baking expeditions.

Muffins are what is known in the trade as ‘quick bread.’ Bread that uses yeast – ‘slow bread,’ you could say – has a long fermentation period, whereas quick breads use chemical leaveners such as bicarbonate of soda and baking powder and need to go straight in the oven. Muffins favour the casual, almost sloppy cook. A few desultory swipes with a spatula is all you need for the mixture to be ready – any more and the gluten will start to work, and the result will be tough and dense. Keeping a light hand also creates all the nooks and crannies for the butter and jam to fall into later, and hopefully – if the muffin is still warm – liquefy and dance around your mouth in a delightful way.

This recipe can be made as a loaf or as individual muffins, and you can substitute the raisins for a cup of something else (prunes would be nice). Fennel is an acquired taste, I admit, being the Marmite of flavourings, but the liquorice warmth balances the sweetness here. Play around with spices though, and see what takes your fancy. I have added ground almonds to the mix because I believe that the muffin’s downfall is its tendency to dryness which almonds will mitigate. If you are less catholic in your muffin persuasion, and want to keep things simple, stick to two cups (250g) of flour.

Fennel, orange and raisin quick bread

Adapted from Nick Malgieri’s The Modern Baker

1 cup (160g) raisins

1¼ cups (150g) plain flour

¾ cup (90g) ground almonds

⅔ cup (130g) sugar

2 tsp baking powder

½ tsp baking soda

1 tbs fennel seeds

Pinch of salt

¾ stick (6 tbs/3 oz) butter

Finely grated zest of 2 oranges

⅔ cup (160 ml) buttermilk

(or make up 1 cup/250 ml of milk and add 1 tbs of lemon juice. Let this stand for 5 minutes and use the required amount)

2 large eggs, at room temperature

Method

Put the raisins and about 75 ml (5 tbs) of water in a small saucepan and bring to the boil. Remove from the heat, cover, and leave until the raisins have absorbed most of the liquid. You don’t have to do this but it makes the raisins very plump and juicy. Drain and leave to one side. Heat a dry frying pan/skillet over a medium heat and add the fennel seeds, shaking the pan so they toast evenly. They are ready when they start to release their fragrance and are beginning to brown; then whizz them in a spice or coffee grinder for a few seconds.

Preheat the oven to 400F. Lightly coat the muffin pan or loaf tin with butter. Put the flour, ground almonds, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, blitzed fennel seeds and salt in a medium-sized bowl and combine well. In a saucepan, melt the butter gently with the orange zest. Turn off the heat and add the buttermilk to the melted butter and let it sit for a few minutes, until it’s tepid. Pour the melted butter mixture into a bowl and add the eggs and whisk until well blended.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir gently with a wooden spoon or spatula. Mix until just blended. Gently fold in the raisins. Use an ice cream scoop or a spoon to pile the batter into the muffin cups (fill to the top if you want a billowing ‘crown’), or simply pour into the loaf tin. Bake the individual muffins for 18 – 20 minutes and the loaf for about 35 – 40 minutes. The top should feel firm and a skewer will come out cleanish when it’s ready. Leave the tin to cool for five minutes and then prise the loaf/muffins out using a thin knife and leave on the rack until okay to handle, but still tender and steaming. Eat very soon.

Some things to remember: All the liquid ingredients must be brought to room temperature before beginning. If, when you whisk the milk, eggs and butter together, the milk or the eggs are chilled, the butter will congeal and won’t blend well. Always add any zest to the melted butter rather than to the dry ingredients, as this releases the essential oils. Stop mixing the batter as soon as you can see no streaks of flour or liquid; don’t worry about lumps, they’ll even out during baking. Just get the darn thing in the oven.

These muffins, unlike their commercial counterparts, have a shorter shelf-life. After a day, they need a zap in the oven to bring them back to life, but by day three it’s all over. Freeze them once they’ve cooled on the rack, if you want to keep them for a while; they freeze for up to a month, wrapped and sealed in a freezer bag. When you’re ready to eat them, thaw for 30 minutes and then reheat. Alternatively, prepare the dry and wet ingredients, cover and store them separately until the morning (keep the wet in the fridge), and then whip them together and bung in the oven.

You can put the batter into squares of parchment paper, which then sit in the muffin tray, as pictured below. Though it looks quite pretty, the downside is the paper’s tendency to cling to the muffin, thus tearing it asunder. This makes it easier to eat though – doing the job of fingers.

Soft-boiled egg and soldiers

20 Friday Apr 2012

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Breakfast, Devon, Food, Ingredients, Nonfiction, Recipes, Stories, Toast

I remember where I was: sitting at a round, wooden table opposite my mum’s friend Pat, and flanked by her three kids in a kitchen somewhere in the Devon countryside. She’d borrowed this place I seem to remember on a break from London and I don’t know where she got the eggs, but they came in an unmarked box. They were brown and small and there was a pile of wonky toast, which we slathered in butter. There was also Marmite.

But the thing I remember most was that first scoop of egg on my spoon. Up until that moment, my mum’s insistence on runny eggs had incensed my brother and I; we wanted them as hard as ping-pong balls, rubbery if possible. Absolutely nothing must be moving within. But this was different – there was a faint sweetness on the tongue that salt only seemed to intensify. The texture was soft and yielding with the merest bite to it. To my mind the yolk was (still is) unthinkable without the white. They belong together and here it proved most true. Toast was almost redundant; the white tenderly curled itself around each spoonful of plump, yellow yolk. Everyone was quiet for a time – there was only the sound of muffled cutlery, the crunch of crust and crackly shell.

So began my life-long attachment to the boiled egg, though nothing has ever come close to that moment of transcendence. Maybe it’s because it’s so easy to be distracted nowadays. The act of standing over a pan of gently bubbling water for precise minutes requires a presence of mind, a slower heartbeat perhaps. An over-boiled egg is rarely uneatable – even with grey yolk and a sulphurous ring of shame – but a runny egg, the white still translucent, the yolk thin and watery, is not simply a disappointment but a waste. Perhaps we have become too removed from what Henry James called the “bloom of punctuality.” We no longer have any concept of the laying season, where we must wait for the hen – everything is available so nothing really matters.

Soft-boiled egg and soldiers

Get room temperature eggs and a small pan of water (so the eggs don’t go careering all over the place). Bring the water up to a simmer and gently lower the eggs into the pan using a spoon. Let them cook for exactly 1 minute. Remove the saucepan from the heat, cover and leave for 6 minutes. If you want a slightly firmer set, go to 7 minutes. Serve with soldiers. I would say that a little heap of sea salt and a grind of black pepper is essential.

As eggs are invariably stored in the fridge, you can bring them to room temperature by sitting them in a bowl of hot tap water for 10 minutes. Interestingly, our habit of refrigerating eggs is not necessarily good for them – they don’t like extremes of temperature (who does?) and prefer a cool environment to a cold one. The bottom of the fridge is the safest place or an unsunny countertop.

Soldiers and their substitutes

A strip of toast – the ‘soldier’ of the title – dunked into an egg is a great stand-in for a spoon, and it’s fun watching the yolk cascade down the sides. Butter is poetry in itself, but a soft-boiled egg can take all sorts of aggressive interlopers. Aside from Marmite soldiers, anchovies flattened on toast adds salty drama, as does a smear of pesto. If you want to forego bread altogether, asparagus tips are fresh and spring-like. Here you want a runnier yolk, so cook the eggs for 6 minutes only. Shards of crisp bacon dipped into egg are lovely; both are salty sweet, but bacon brings the toast-like ballast you may have been missing. Finally, a little spear of parmesan is nice to go rooting around with; the combination of crumbly, salty creaminess has a natural affinity with eggs in any form.

Buying eggs

I know it probably goes without saying that the words ‘natural’ and ‘fresh’ mean nothing in the context of egg buying. I can’t remember the last time I bought some ‘stale and unnatural’ eggs. And just because hens are ‘free to roam’ doesn’t mean they will; their natural tendency is to stay close to the nesting area. The most we can hope for, at least in California, is to seek out the Certified Humane and Certified (by the USDA) Organic labels, where there is third-party verification that no pesticides or herbicides have been used, hens are able to spend their days outside, grazing in small flocks, scratching around and generally being themselves. Incidentally, the best way of telling if an egg really is ‘fresh’ is to put one in a bowl of cold water; if it rests on the bottom in a horizontal position, the egg is very fresh. If it tilts or becomes vertical it’s less so.

Crème caramel

15 Sunday Apr 2012

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Dessert, Food, Herbs, Ingredients, Recipes, Stories

Spoonable and consoling crème caramel. It’s been around forever it seems. Always a restaurant staple, but rarely made at home, or at least never by me. I think I’ve always been rather intimidated by it – dark caramel running down satiny slopes of custard seemed too fancy, too much the work of a pro. Even the texture is perfectly constructed; the sultry amber syrup has just enough bitterness to stop the whole thing feeling babyish. And yet, this is surprisingly straightforward to make and downright lovely.

On the custard continuum, it’s at the lean end, with crème brûlée (of shattered sugar fame) at the other, and pot de crème somewhere in the middle. Traditionally, whole milk and whole eggs are used which helps it hold its shape, out there on its own. It also gives it that just-set texture. These days, egg yolks or cream are often added in the quest for velvet tenderness. My first attempt without either reminded me of a Mini Milk (the only ice lolly I was ever allowed because it cost 10p); no bad thing but I wanted something a bit more grown-up, so this recipe has extra yolks.

The pudding’s complexity comes from the way the caramel ‘lining’ is absorbed by the custard over the time they spend together in the fridge and sitting on the counter top, which is why crème caramel is at its best eaten at room temperature. Cold dulls our perception of taste, and this is where you want liquid warmth, not the foggy chill of ice cream.

A vanilla bean is a traditional steeping ingredient here, but this custard also takes kindly to being infused with herbs, flowers and spices. On my first outing, I steeped rose petals in the milk mixture for about an hour, and the result was delicate and subtle. Some finely chopped rosemary on my second attempt gave it more body, with an earthy, faintly medicinal quality. Orange zest was just right; warm and fragrant, without taking away from the pudding’s beautiful simplicity, while pulling it back from mere sweetness. I include it here.

Orange crème caramel/Crème renversée à l’orange

Adapted from Simon Hopkinson, Roast Chicken and Other Stories

2 cups (500ml) of creamy milk

Finely grated zest of 1 large orange (2 if you want more intensity)

⅓ cup (80g) of sugar

2 whole eggs

4 egg yolks

Generous ⅓ cup (100g) of sugar to make the caramel

Method

Pour the milk into a pan and add ⅓ cup (80g) of sugar with the orange zest. Bring to the boil, then remove it from the heat and leave to infuse for at least an hour. Put the whole eggs and egg yolks in a bowl and whisk lightly. Bring the orange milk up to a simmer, then temper the eggs by pouring in half a cup of the milk at a time, so they don’t scramble. Mix together, but don’t allow the eggs and milk mixture to become too frothy. Strain this through a fine sieve to remove all the zest, pressing down to extract as much of the flavour as possible. Put to one side and heat the oven to 300F.

Now for the caramel. Put the generous ⅓ cup (100g) of sugar into a pan and add enough water to cover (you don’t have to be precise about how much). Heat gently until the sugar has dissolved and then boil hard. Watch as it turns from transparent to light gold to reddish brown; don’t do anything else while this is happening as you don’t want it pale and insipid, but you don’t want black sugar either. It moves from one to the other with startling speed. As soon as you think it’s ready, pour into six ramekins, swirling it so that it covers the base and some of the sides. It will harden quickly, so act fast and don’t talk to anyone. When it’s set, put each ramekin into a roasting dish, and from there gently pour the custard mixture into each mould. Now pour enough hot tap water into the roasting dish so that it goes most of the way up the sides of the moulds (about two-thirds), cover the dish with foil, and bake for about 40 minutes.

Don’t have the heat too high, or boil the water as the custard will curdle. They’re ready when there’s still a small liquid centre, which will firm up after you remove them from the oven. Take them out and keep them in the roasting tin on the counter for 30 minutes, then refrigerate, covered, for about 5 hours or overnight. Let them come to room temperature, if you can. It also makes them easier to turn out. To serve, run a thin knife round the edges of each ramekin to loosen, put a plate over the top and flip over.

Some steeping ideas: 3 sprigs of thyme or a sprig of rosemary, rose petals from 2 untreated rose heads, the zest of a whole orange, lemon or lime, ¼ cup of fresh lemon verbena, lemon balm or lavender, ¾ cup of toasted nuts, such as almonds or hazelnuts, or 2 teaspoons of toasted cardamom seeds. The amount of time you infuse these ingredients in the milk mixture will depend on how intensely you want the flavour to come through.

A word about bitterness

06 Friday Apr 2012

Posted by Sophie James in Recipe

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

Baking, Dessert, Food, Fruit, Ingredients, Marmalade, Nonfiction, Recipes, Seville oranges, Stories

Up until relatively recently all oranges were bitter. They originated – as did all varieties, right down to the tangerine and the kumquat – from China, and go back 3,000 years. Arab traders brought them to Europe at the end of the Roman Empire, along with spices, silk and sugar, and the main crop was established around the area of Seville, in Andalusia, hence the name we English know them by. The skin of the bitter orange (Citrus aurantium) is distinct from its sweet cousin (C. sinensis) in that it is baggy and heavily dimpled, reminiscent of cellulite. Here in southern California, bitter oranges are often left to rot on the branch, untouched and overlooked, but up until the nineteenth century it was the bitterness that people prized the most. The aromatic peel and sharp juice were symbols of opulence and sensuality, and the flowers were distilled and used to flavour food as well as to perfume baths and make-up.

They make the best marmalade, without a doubt. In fact they made the first marmalade, if you ignore the Portuguese quince version and the pear, plum and gooseberry pastes of Tudor England. And of course it was all fluke: a ship containing a cargo of Seville oranges took shelter from a storm in Dundee. Local greengrocer James Keiller bought the lot, and his wife, Janet, turned them into marmalade. By 1797, they had the first marmalade factory.

I have to include a recipe for marmalade. I came by some Chinottos here (a variety of bitter orange) and needed to put them to good use, but there are many other things you can do with them. Bitter oranges and their peel freeze well, so if you’re ever in doubt, always say yes. Their juice is a good replacement for lemon or lime, particularly to accompany rich meat, such as duck. The peel can be used for a bouquet garni which deepens and adds character to stews – pare strips of zest using a potato peeler from the fruit and hang up to dry in a warm, sunny place before adding it to a herb bundle.

The marmalade recipe below uses demerara, similar to turbinado, cassonade or Hawaiian washed sugar, which is darker and coarser than cane sugar and adds a treacly dimension. It is in no way intended to be a definitive version. Marmalade, I’ve realized, is a very personal thing and everyone has their peccadilloes – thick cut or thin, syrupy, solid, wobbly, astringent, ladled over ice cream, eaten only at night etc. In other words, marmalade is a minefield. So with that in mind, I tentatively ask you to please consider this version and we’ll hopefully leave it at that.

Bitter orange marmalade

Adapted from Pam Corbin, River Cottage Handbook No.2: Preserves

1kg (2.25lb) bitter oranges

75 ml (5 tbs) lemon juice

2kg (4.5lb) Demerara sugar

2.5 litres (4½ pints) of water

Makes 5-6 450g (1lb) jars

I followed the instructions for the bergamot and orange marmalade recipe here, with one difference: the lemon juice is added to the pan with the sugar, not before. The emphasis on weight rather than individual oranges helps keep the ratios balanced, but always taste as you go. I often add three-quarters of the warmed sugar to the juice and taste, then add some more, taking it bit by bit; only you know your sweetness threshold.

Marmalade Tart

This dough is idiot-proof and takes well to being speckled with rosemary. Think of the tart as a ‘shelf’ for the marmalade and you have yourself a fine breakfast. It also makes a suave dessert, delicately poised over a lake of cream with the breath of the oven still upon it. I have a preference for thin, ‘single’ cream, which laps at the edges of the crust and swirls, ripple-like, through the sticky juice. A crisp cloud of vanilla ice cream is also not to be sniffed at.

Adapted from a David Lebovitz recipe for Easy Jam Tart

Serves 8-12

9 tbs (110g) unsalted butter, at room temperature

½ cup (100g) sugar

1 large egg & 1 large egg yolk

Small splash of almond extract

1½ cup (190g) flour

½ cup (70g) ground almonds

½ tsp sea salt

1 scant tsp baking powder

1¾ cups (450g) marmalade or jam (apricot would be lovely)

Zest of a lemon or orange

1 tsp finely chopped rosemary

Demerara sugar

Beat together the butter and sugar until well incorporated. Then mix in the egg, egg yolk, zest and almond extract. In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, ground almonds, salt, finely chopped rosemary and baking powder. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet until the mixture just comes together. Take about ¾ of the dough and pat it into a disc shape, wrap it in plastic and put it in the fridge. Take the remaining dough and roll it into a log shape about 2ins (5cm) in diameter, wrap it in plastic and chill both pieces for about half an hour.

Remove the disc-shaped dough from the fridge and, using the heel of your hand, press it into the bottom and sides of an unbuttered tart pan (9-10ins/24cm). Pat until it looks evenly distributed. Now spread the marmalade over the top so that it forms a smooth plateau. Remove the log of dough from the fridge and slice into cookie-sized rounds, then lay these over the marmalade, in whatever pattern you want; try to cover as much of the preserve as possible as you go. Top with Demerara sugar (about 2 tbs) and bake for about 30 minutes, or until the pastry is golden brown. Let it cool slightly before serving.