Posts tagged butter

Tiffin

June 9, 2020 Comments Off read Sweet Treats

iffin sits with a lot of childhood memories for me. I think its been overtaken by its more indulgent, American cousin rocky road in recent times but a traditional brandy punching tiffin is a winner. I do wonder if my childhood tiffin was quite as alcoholic.

Its a rich treat so be warned! You can make all sorts of substitutions to this recipe and its completely open to personalising. For example, its traditionally made using Digestive biscuits but I rather like the spice of a ginger nut and the contrast to the brandy. I’ve made some suggestions below on how to adapt but feel free to go wild.

50g dried cranberries (or try raisins)
75g dates, chopped
4 tbsp brandy (or try Amaretto)
350g dark cooking chocolate
150g unsalted butter
3 tbsp golden syrup
250g biscuits – traditionally digestives but I use ginger nuts. You need a plain biscuit though so no oreos or custard creams.
Zest of 1/2 orange

Grease and line a brownie tin or round 20.5cm tin with parchment
Put the cranberries, dates and brandy in a bowl and let them soak for 20-30 minutes
Melt 125g of the butter, 200g of the chocolate and the syrup in a bowl over simmering water stirring until smooth. Remove from the heat.
Crush the biscuits – I like to put them in a sandwich bag and bash them with a rolling pin. You get some large and small chunks and a bit of biscuit dust.
Add the biscuits, orange zest, a pinch of salt and the cranberry/date mix (including the brandy) to the chocolate and stir well.
Tip into the tin and level the mixture pushing it into the corners. Leave to cool before chilling for 1 hour.
To make the topping, melt the remaining 25g butter and 150g chocolate in a bowl over simmering water until smooth.
Pour over the chilled tiffin and smooth it out. Chill for 2-3 hours until the topping is set.
Remove from the fridge and cut into generous chunks and enjoy with a cup of tea on a blue Monday – it’ll help!

Creamed Spinach & Goats Cheese Crumble

February 5, 2018 Comments Off read Vegetables and Salads

appy New Year! This was quite rightly a while ago now. January has come and gone and I’ve yet to even blog a shortbread biscuit or mince pie. But I’ve been sunning myself on South Africa’s beaches, drinking from their vineyards and eating…biltong. I don’t regret my absence. However, it has been a shameful while since I’ve given FITP some loving attention. Importantly I must confirm it is NOT because I’ve stopped cooking or experimenting. My pans continue to earn their keep and my fellow friends kept fed and watered. Its been quite an adventure over the past months and that combined with the lack of natural light, I’ve had limited time to take pictures worthy of my perfectionism and blogging standards. Recent stressful distractions at the later end of 2017 have sucked my what would have been ”recipe daydreaming time” for my blogging creations. More so I have sadly (?) opted for either comfort eats or trusty go-tos. That said there have been some blog worthy comfort eats that will have to grace these pages before the summer…

But this Monday evening in early February once again faded into another dark quiet Monday with nothing to excite me except the idea of coming home for dinner and a round of ‘Silent Witness’ (Judge as you will). That coupled with the tight budgets I’ve restricted myself to in order to fund my tenacious sun worshiping this year means that experimenting is also not such an attractive prospect for the bank balance. This dish therefore fits quite nicely. Its amazing what a £1.20 bag of frozen spinach can make and just how far it’ll go. You’re skeptical about spinach going a long way…I can tell. But this could feed a vegetarian army if such a thing exists.

Tip – opt for a larger more shallow baking dish for a better eat. Mine was a little deep and small.

Serves 4-6 (Adapted from Jamie O’s classic here)

Ingredients

1kg frozen spinach ‘blocks’
1 red onion, chopped finely
2 garlic cloves, crushed
Nutmeg
150g soft goats cheese
100g breadcrumbs OR bread
100g oats
100g cold unsalted butter, cubed
50g flaked almonds
250ml creme fraiche
1 lemon

Preheat the oven to 180.
Start by sweating the onion in a little oil in a large frying pan until soft and translucent. Add the garlic and fry for a few more minutes.
Add the spinach ‘blocks’ and turn up the heat to a medium setting. You want to cook out the spinach for a out 10 minutes until the blocks have melted down and you have evaporated the majority of the water.
Meanwhile, blitz the bread in a processor into breadcrumbs. Season well.
Add the oats and pulse lightly just to combine.
Add the cubed butter and blend until you have a crumb like texture.
Stir in the almonds and reserve this topping for later.
Once the spinach has reduced in moisture, grate in a good few gratings of nutmeg. Add the mixture to the food processor and blend until smooth. Taste and season well.
Add the creme friache and the zest of the lemon and pulse to combine. (These steps are optional. If you don’t have a processor you can simply stir the creme friache and spinach together to achieve a more textured mix).
Tip a third of the mixture into a shallow baking dish (In hindsight, the one I used was a little deep). Crumble over a third of the goats cheese.
Repeat with the next layer alternating with goats cheese and spinach. (Alternatively, you could add the goats cheese to the spinach mixture and pulse lightly. I preferred having nuggets of goats cheese rather than an overall flavour throughout).
Once you’ve used up all the mixture, top the spinach evenly with the crumble.
Bake in the oven for about 35-40 minutes until the crumble turns a golden brown and the juices from the spinach are starting to bubble up around the edges.
Dive in!

Cheesy Breaded Hake

November 22, 2016 Comments Off read Seafood

his recipe is a perfect Monday night dinner to start the week on a healthy note and get some flavour after perhaps (I mean I’m just suggesting….) a boozy weekend…ahem..? The fresh delicate flavour of the fish, the slight decadence of the greasy fried cheesy breadcrumbs with a good squeeze of lemon and the sharp tang of a few gooey capers satisfied all my cravings in one. With a fresh crunchy salad with yet more lemon it cheered a soggy Monday after what was the worst day of rain we’ve had in long time. So after laying out my running shoes and the entire contents of my running rucksack to dry I cracked on with priority two….dinner.

I’ve left the measurements vague. Its really dependant on how many you’re cooking for and how cheesy you like it. And I’ll admit, after a soaking run home I wasn’t really in the mood to measure for the sake of this blog post as that really does take away the ease and love of this recipe for Monday night. No rules, no orders, just guidelines…..Experiment!

White fish fillets – use a meaty fish here. I used hake but cod, haddock, tilapia, whiting, monkfish etc all work too (skinned)
Breadcrumbs
Grated parmesan cheese
Parsley, chopped roughly (reserve a handful for garnish)
Lemon, zest and juice (1 between 2)
Egg, beaten (Around 1 per fillet)
Plain flour
1 heaped 2tsp capers per person
Sunflower oil, 1 large knob butter

Preheat the oven to 180°C..
Place the flour in a small bowl and the beaten egg in another.
The measurements for the coating are loose….use as many breadcrumbs as you require for the number of fish fillets. Use about a quarter of the weigh in breadcrumbs for the cheese and as much parsley as you dare. One very large handful of breadcrumbs usually accommodates 1 fillet but it depends on size and if you’re double dipping (see step 4)! Combine the breadcrumbs, cheese, parsley, and a pinch of salt and pepper in a large bowl.
Taking your fish fillets, dip first in the flour and dust off the excess then dip in the egg. Then plunge the fillets straight into the breadcrumbs and coat well. Repeat with a second layer of egg and breadcrumbs if you like a thick coating. It will be a messy job, press the coating into the fish as best you can.
Place the fillets on a plate and chill for 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, preheat a large deep saucepan with a good layer of sunflower oil and a knob of butter.
When hot but not smoking, add your chilled fish fillets and fry for 3-4 minutes on each side until golden and crispy. Flip and repeat until you have a toasted solid golden crust. Either continue to cook throughout in the pan or finish in the oven until cooked to your liking (depends on the fish size but around 7-8 minutes).
Whilst finishing cooking or whilst the fish rests, chop the capers roughly with the remaining parsley. Add the zest of the lemon and combine. Garnish over the crispy fillets with half a wedge of lemon on the side to squeeze over.

Serve with fresh vegetable, salad or some big sweet potato wedges. A tartare sauce wouldn’t go amide here either…or a lemony yoghurt. Being in the wine trade, I’m also dying to advise a wine that would go perfectly here but seeing as its Monday and a healthy start I won’t. But if you were to open a bottle of something sharp and zesty like a Chenin Blanc then you wouldn’t be going far off…ahem….cheers.

Gooseberry Cobbler

October 2, 2016 Comments Off read Sweet Treats

feel ashamed to call this cooking. Assembling if you like. It must be one of the easiest puddings out there – hearty and warming. It doesn’t have a chance against a crumble I’ll be the first to admit but lets just say its the crumbles foreign not so pretty and less intelligent cousin. With a sad tinge of Autumnal chill to the weather this weekend and being the first day of October my expectations of an endless Indian Summer were dampened metaphorically and literally after ending up a little wet at work.

A few weeks back I returned home to my Wiltshire bolt and origins of the real pantry to a bounty of delicious homegrown gooseberries! Picked from the allotment and waiting patiently for my greedy hands! So cobbler it was….adapted from Delia Smith.

Serves 4

500g gooseberries
100g caster sugar
2 tbsp elderflower cordial
225g plain flour
3 tsp baking powder
110g cold, cubed butter
170ml buttermilk
Pinch salt
Demerara sugar
Ice cream/custard to serve. Or my cinnamon creme anglaise

Preheat the oven to 200°C.
Start by placing the gooseberries in a baking dish and scatter over the caster sugar and cordial evenly.
To make the topping, place the flour, baking powder, salt and cubed butter in a food processor and blend together until you have a breadcrumb like consistency. Then at this stage add the buttermilk and pulse until you get a sticky dough.
Rustically distribute large tablespoons of the topping over the gooseberries making sure you cover the majority of the fruit.
Sprinkle over some crunchy demerara sugar and bake in the oven for about 25-30 minutes until the topping if golden, cooked and the fruit is bubbling up underneath.
Serve warm with custard or ice cream. My cinnamon creme anglaise is recommended – see here for full recipe

Sprouts with a Makeover

December 26, 2013 Comments Off read Vegetables and Salads

Sprouts are such a controversial topic. Whether you truly hate the unique taste or you have simply had their unfairly stereotyped reputation brainwashed into you as an impressionable child. Sprouts are very bitter by nature and this is accentuated with the cooking time. This I painfully discovered after using a few of the festive leftovers in a gratin last year along with some freshly boiled ones. The unlucky guests to get the odd effectively double cooked sprout soon knew…..excruciatingly bitter and metalic and unworthy of my delicious and creamy gratin.

So, this year I cooked them differently. Risky -my dad being a traditional man grew this years batch on his precious allotment and harvested within the day of eating. But safe to say I heard no objections as soon as the word bacon was batted around. As a member of the cabbage family I decided to cook them like cabbage or savoy cabbage to be precise. Shredded and sauteed lightly in garlic butter with some salty gems of bacon lardons. Chestnuts, had we had some, would have also been delicious here. By keeping them as raw and crunchy as possible to reduce the cooking time but enough to soften them, they were a welcome change to the Christmas lunch which will be continued from here on….plus, much less risk of choking for the health and safety conscious among us!

(I’ve left out quantities here depending on the number of guests you’re obligingly cooking for)

Sprouts, shredded
Smoked bacon/pancetta/bacon lardons
Butter
Garlic
Optional- cooked chestnuts
Salt and pepper

Start with making your garlic butter. Crush 1-2 peeled garlic cloves into a chunky paste with some coarse salt and the back of a knife and mix with a generous knob of butte (about 25g for 1 large garlic clove if you need a rough measure)
Heat a large frying pan and add the garlic butter and heat until it begins to foam. Cook slowly so the garlic doesn’t burn.
Fry the bacon in a separate pan until crisp. (You can do all this in the same pan but the bacon will soften and you loose that crunchy texture. If you’re not fussed then add the bacon to the foaming butter and cook here)
Add the shredded sprouts to the garlic butter and turn to coat. Add a splash of water to help steam things along a little and cook for a few minutes until as softened as you like them.
Add the crispy bacon and its oil and chestnuts if using. Coat in the delicious juices and serve immediately!

Gooey Cinnamon Cake Bites

August 24, 2013 Comments Off read Sweet Treats

If you haven’t already checked out the ’smitten kitchen’ food blog then do. Not only is it one of the first blogs that I was introduced to but it is a prime example of a fantastically interesting, honest, varied and drool-worthy food blog created by a passionate foodie who cooks from the heart simply because, like me, she is addicted- cooking is my happy place. However, more so, she has been one of the lucky ducks to get her humble blog made into a cook book. I can only dream of this priceless achievement! However, this is not going to happen by cooking other peoples recipes but the sound of cinnamon (one of my favourite flavours), gooey promises and the multiple times I had clicked on the recipe link only to mutter ‘I must make that’, prompted this recent cake-tin-filler. Here is the original recipe for those interested.

Base

190g plain flour
2tsp baking powder
115g butter, room temp
150g sugar
1 egg, room temp
60 ml whole milk
¼ tsp salt

Gooey Top

60ml golden syrup
60ml whole milk
1 tbsp vanilla extract
170g butter, room temp
225g sugar
¼ tsp salt
1 egg, room temp
155g plain flour

Cinnamon Crust

2 tbsp caster sugar
1 ½ tsp ground cinnamon

Start by lining a 9inch x 13inch cake tin with parchment. This may seem big but it is a flatish style cake/cake bar. Preheat the oven to 180.
Start with the base by blending the butter and sugar in a processor or with an electric whisk until fluffy. Add the salt.
Combine the egg and milk and mix into the butter and sugar until combined. Finally sieve in the flour and baking powder and stir to form a thick batter.
Spoon it into blobs into the lined tin and spread out evenly and thinly with a spatula
Now for the gooey layer, beat the butter and sugar together (no need to wash the processor) with the salt until fluffy. Add the egg.
Combine the syrup, vanilla and milk.
Sieve in 1/3 of the flour followed by half the syrup-milk mix. Add another 1/3 of the flour and then the final half of the syrup. Finally mix int he final 1/3 of flour and blend until smooth and delectable.
Scrap large spoonfuls of the batter on top of the base and spread out evenly with a spatula until flat.
Combine the sugar and cinnamon for the topping and scatter generously over the top to form a crusty cinnamon coat
Bake for 25 minutes. It should feel slightly soft but gently et in the centre. Remove from the oven and leave totally alone to cool before removing from the pan.
Cut into bite size pieces if you like.

Fish in Brown Shrimp Butter

May 26, 2013 Comments Off read Seafood

This really is my idea of a speedy fast-food supper which takes less than 5 minutes to cook. The longest part of the process in fact was getting the capers out the jar. Oh and chopping the parsley was fairly taxing…….

Serves 2

2 white fish fillets of choice e.g. cod loin (as shown), Dover/lemon sole, plaice fillets, haddock
1 small pot of potted brown shrimp (I used the Morecombe Bay brand)
1 tbsp drained capers
Juice of ½ lemon
Generous handful of chopped flat-leaf parsley
Splash of olive oil

Have all the ingredients for the sauce ready before you start as once the fish is cooked, it takes seconds and must be served warm. Heat a splash of oil and a sliver of butter in a hot frying pan.
Season your fish and depending on how thick it is, fry gently on both sides until just cooked. A fillet a few centimeters thick should take 2-3 minutes.
Remove from the pan and set aside to rest while you quickly make the brown shrimp sauce.
Add the potted brown shrimp and its butter (If using packaged brown shrimp, add with a good tablespoon of butter)
Add the drained capers, the juice from half the lemon and a handful of chopped flat leaf parsley. Allow the butter to melt and the flavours to combine before pouring over the fish and serving! Its that simple! Serve with crusty bread or roast potatoes/mash or whatever you fancy.

NOTE: Work quickly and if the pan is too hot the butter will burn. Browning the butter will add a nice nuttiness but if it is beginning to catch, just remove the pan from the hob as the residual heat of the pan will be enough.

Salmon and Dill Ravioli, Lemon Buerre Noisette

May 4, 2013 Comments Off read Seafood

Only a few weeks after returning from my gap year travels I was disappointed in myself that I had gone all my (then) 18 years and one hearty gap year without ever having been to Italy! Venice and Florence had always been on my list of destinations……the land of food. So a quick ticket and a hostel bed later I found myself in the middle of Italy with a heavy bag and apron for company. Naturally with my priorities in the right place) I had both a Venetian and Tuscan cookery class booked and under my belt.

If I’m honest, I’ve never been a huge pasta fan but what could be better than making it yourself in the sunny Tuscan hills? I spent what has to be the most charming, authentic and relaxing day in a Tuscan cookery school just outside Florence on their magical estate. With wine in hand on arrival (their priorities were right) I cooked a 4 course meal using wines and rich olive oils from their own estate and learned how to make pasta. It was a day to remember. (For details see below).

However, not being a pasta fan I have not revisited the pasta section of the charmingly translated and authentic cookery book from the school- until now. I thought I’d deviate from the traditional spinach and ricotta variety I made in Florence and invented my own. For pasta lovers, making it could not be easier- I don’t even have a pasta machine! Whilst I would recommend one, as rolling it to a thin consistency did shamefully strain and unearth some hibernating arm muscles, but it was delicious. Fill your ravioli with whatever you like and coat in any sauce that takes your fancy! I’m now off to re-make the other dishes I so greedily enjoyed back in those sunny hills….watch this space

Serves 2-3

200g ‘OO’ flour
2 eggs
Pinch salt
Small handful of chopped dill
2 salmon fillets, smoked (Mine were raw but lightly smoked which was a nice addition, alternatively used precooked smoked trout for the same texture and flavour but non-smoked salmon fillet work fine also)
2 heaped tbsp creme fraiche/ricotta
1 lemon, zest and 1 tbsp juice
25g butter
1 tbsp capers
Bunch of asparagus, chopped

1. Start with the pasta. Make a heaped mound of flour on a clean surface and make a well in the centre. Break in your eggs and a pinch of salt. Use a fork to whisk the eggs in a circular motion and then gradually bring in the flour from the sides bit by bit to incorporate it into the dough2. Once it has all be added (its may need a splash of water or wine to add a bit more moisture) knead into a ball. Add the chopped dill and then knead with the heal of your hand for a good 15-20 minutes until the dough is really smooth and it feels elastic.

3. Wrap in cling film and rest in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

4. Meanwhile, cook the salmon in a hot oven for about 10 minutes until just cooked but still moist. Discard the skin and flake into a bowl with some seasoning, the finely grated zest of the lemon and a squeeze of the juice. Leave to cool before stirring in the creme fraiche.

5. Once the dough has rested, remove from the fridge and use either a pasta machine or some elbow grease and a rolling pin to roll out so it is really thin.

6. Cut out circles with a pastry cutter and spoon teaspoons of cold salmon into the middle. Fold over into a half moon and sandwich together and seal with a fork.

7. Place onto a lightly floured/.polenta coated plate.

8. Cook your asparagus spears for a few minutes and then drain and keep warm. Additionally, heat a splash of oil over a high heat and fry the capers until crisp and drain on kitchen paper.

9. Bring a large heavily salted pan of water to the boil and drop in your pasta. Simmer briskly until cooked to your liking (about 3-5 minutes depending on the thickness of the pasta) and they will rise to the surface when they are nearly ready.

10. Meanwhile, heat the butter in a large frying pan on a high heat. When it starts to sizzle, stir and allow it to turn a brown nutty colour and release a nutty aroma. Remove from the heat and stir in the lemon juice

11. Drain the pasta and serve, with the asparagus spears and drizzle generously with the lemon butter sauce. Scatter with the capers and a grating of lemon zest.

Buon Appetito!

The cookery course I did in Florence was ‘The Good Taste of Italy’ day course found here. I didn’t stay in the accommodation on the estate but I wish I had, its worth a look as they also do cookery holidays where you are housed in their stunning villa and fed silly.

The Venetian course I did was outside of Venice and was very different. It took a more homely and casual approach set in the house of an Italian Mama. Advertised to teach you to ’cook like an Italian Mama’ it was certainly the most authentic course I could have done and there were only 3 of us in the class. After being collected, we shopped for our ingredients and picked our vegetables and herbs form their own healthy allotment before being welcomed generously to their kitchen to cook up a feast.

Sunflower Seed, Vanilla and Cinnamon Butter

November 19, 2012 Comments Off read Sweet Treats

I love my seeds and nuts so once again, here is another go at a nut butter. This time sunflower seeds. Whilst reminding me of my friends late hamsters dinner, these little seeds remind me of when I was little as I’d munch them all day long…Feel free to add more oil than I have for a creamiest texture but I like mine with as little as possible to retain their wholesome goodness. They don’t have as much natural oil in them as pumpkin seeds or peanuts so you will need to add some.

Ingredients

200g sunflower seeds, toasted
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2 vanilla pods, seeds scraped (although even more wouldn’t be a crime)
2-4 tbsp mild, light olive or sunflower oil (up to 50ml)

Begin by toasting the sunflower seeds in the oven for a few minute or in a dry frying pan until fragrant.
Add them to the bowl of the food processor and begin to blend for a few minutes.
After they are fairly powdery and broken down, add a pinch of salt and continue blending, scraping the the mixture down the sides when necessary.
Add a splash of oil to loosen and add moisture as you go.
Continue to blend, adding as much oil as you like to achieve your desired texture. I like mine with as little as possible but for a spoonable soft butter add up to 50ml.
Add the cinnamon and the vanilla seeds and continue to process. Adjust by adding more to your tastes as you go.
Once you have a mixture that is buttery and tastes to your liking, store in a sterilized jar and keep in the fridge ready to top toast, porridge or with some jam in a bagel…If you come up with any winning combination, let me know!

Pumpkin Butter (Jam)

October 7, 2012 Comments Off read Extras, Sweet Treats

I’ve been seasonally experimenting with pumpkins recently. They’re versatility and texture mean they are great in sweet recipes and desserts. This recipe is titled ‘butter’ but it doesn’t actually contain any……its more of a sweet, spicy, rich, deep jam that is great with pancakes, my pumpkin muffins, smeared on a toasted bagel or in a compote with yoghurt and granola for breakfast.

1 can pumpkin puree [or you can roast and use the flesh from a pumpkin but this recipe called for the packed canned type….]
Approx 90ml apple juice
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp mixed spice
½ tbsp cinnamon
Grating of nutmeg
140g dark brown sugar

Combine all the ingredients in a heavy based pan and heat. You may need to add a little more apple juice to make it thinner in order to heat it. Bring to the boil and simmer gently for 30 minutes until thick.
Store in an airtight container in the fridge until needed.

For the breakfast pots, I layered some pumpkin puree on the bottom, some Greek yoghurt mixed with a splash of vanilla extract and topped with blueberries and my granola!

I saw the recipe called for pumpkin puree in a can and have always wanted to try this…..I slightly felt like I was cheating but it was good!