Bread Pudding

Bread Pudding is one of the things I remember from my childhood as something my grandmother used to cook.  It's the first recipe in an old diary I use to write down recipes I've picked up from family and friends.  Mr Vitty used to have a saturday job in a bakery when he was much younger and said they used to make it from left over bread that had sat outside in the yard for a few days (with the predictable vermin/bird activity).  Mine didn't quite go through that 'maturation' process but I like that it makes use of left over bread (although I don't generally have much of that), reflecting the thriftyness of the past which we don't seem to value any more. 

Ingredients:

Large loaf of bread
500g Dried Mixed Fruit
225g Brown Sugar
1.5 Teaspoons Mixed Spice
125g Suet
125g Butter chopped into small pieces
1 Egg

Ready for the Oven

Method:

Soak the bread in cold water for 15 minutes.  Squeeze out the excess water and then mix in the fruit, brown sugar, mixed spice, suet, most of the butter and the egg. Place in a roasting tin and fleck with the remaining butter.  Cook at 180 C for 11/4 to 11/2  hours.  Remove from the oven and dredge with caster sugar.  Eat warm or cold.

Ready to Eat

Gardeners Chicken

My new year resolution to shop more locally got off to a good start as I investigated our nearest butchers - 3.6 miles away in Swanton Morley (local is a relative term in this bit of Norfolk).  As far as possible their meat is produced in the county. It's a really friendly shop which has a little deli at the back.  I bought a lovely chicken from them which formed the basis of Gardeners Chicken one of the January recipes in the 1974 cookery year.  Mr Vitty really didn't like this recipe (although I thought it was quite nice).  Its a chicken casserole with potatoes, turnips (which I couldn't get so substiuted with swede) and bacon.  The chicken is cooked on the bone which meant that Mr Vitty had to dissect his food, something he hates doing - no matter how good it tastes.

The flavours of this stew were quite simple and classic, with few herbs or spices compared with a modern equivalent. The sauce was also quite thin.  I'd happily eat it again, but I don't think Mr Vitty will.

Ingredients:

1 Chicken jointed into portions
50g Streaky Bacon with the rind cut off and diced
2 large onions thinly sliced
2 sticks celery diced
125g Mushrooms
50g Unsalted Butter
500g New Potatoes
250g Turnips or Swede diced
Tin of Tomatoes
Bouquet Garni (I used Bay, Thyme and Rosemary)
Salt and Pepper
Parsley
Orange Rind

Method:

In a large casserole dish brown the chicken and bacon in the butter.  Remove from the pan and soften the onions, celery and mushrooms in the remaining juices.  Place the chicken on the bed of vegetables and add the potatoes and diced turnips.  Tip in the tin of tomatoes and season with salt and pepper and the bouquet garni.  Seal the casserole with tin foil to prevent any steam escaping and put the lid on the casserole dish.  Cook in a pre heated oven at 150 C for about an hour and a half or until the chicken is well cooked and falling off the bone.  Before serving sprinkle over the parsley and finely grated rind of half an orange. 

I took the leftovers for lunch at work and just took the chicken off the bone so it was easy to microwave.

Crepes Suzette 1974

Over Christmas we were lucky enough to be cooked for by our families, so for New Year we decided to have a nice meal with just the two of us.  I rarely cook game so took the opportunity to try a main course of pheasant with boulanger potatoes and cavolo nero with bacon and chestnuts.  That was preceeded by smoked salmon blinis - one of Mr Vitty's favourites.

Pudding provided the ideal opportunity to get one of my food year resolutions underway with a recipe from the 1974 cookery year - Crepes Suzette.

A '70s Classic

This classic dish of pancakes in a caramelised orange sauce is something I'd never attempted before (or even eaten), but went well after the richness of the pheasant.  Unusually the 1974 recipe called for baking powder to be added to the pancake batter which made them slightly spongy, something I don't think I'll be doing in the future.  The sauce could have been a little more caramelised but the sweet, orangey, slightly alcoholic juice soaked into the pancakes. I'd forgotten to buy the lemons needed to make the sauce slightly sharper, but the creme fraiche helped balance the sugariness.

Pancakes, butter, oranges, alcohol

Pancakes soaking up the buttery, orangey juices

Crepes Suzette
 
100g Plain Flour
2 Eggs
300 ml Milk
Pinch of Salt
50 g Sugar
Juice of 2 oranges
Juice of half a lemon
2-4 Tablespoons of Grand Marnier
25 g Butter

Make the pancakes by whisking together the flour, salt, eggs and milk into a smooth batter.  Allow to stand for 30 minutes or leave in the fridge until you need it.  Cook the pancakes in a large frying pan with a little butter and layer with greaseproof paper to prevent them sticking together.

Put the sugar in a large frying pan over a low-medium heat and leave to caramelise, resisting the temptation to stir the sugar until it begins to melt at the edges.  When the sugar is golden brown stir in the orange and lemon juice.  Allow to reduce a little and then add the Grand Marnier.  Burn off the alcohol.  Add the butter in small lumps and allow the sauce to thicken slightly. Fold the pancakes into quarters and put them in the pan in the syrup, turning them over so they are coated in they syrupy sauce.  Add some orange segments and allow the pancakes to warm through before serving with creme fraice or cream.

New Year Food Resolutions

Its the time of year for making changes (or at least resolving to).  I'm terrible at keeping New Year Resolutions and therefore tend to make the same ones annually!  The annual food related resolutions are:

1. Shop more locally

2. Eat more seasonally

3. Diversify the meals we eat (we tend to get stuck in a rut)

 (and lose weight of course)

I live in rural Norfolk a region of the UK which is dependent on the agrifood industry for much of its economic growth.  The land I drive through every day on my way to work produces fruit, vegetables, poultry, pigs, dairy products (as well as vegetable oil, sugar and bootiful turkey).  Norfolk also as one of the longest coast lines in the country with the associated remnants of a fishing industry.  Good farm shops are around but it takes more effort to visit them than doing my weekly on-line sainsburys order.  Yet having vegetables grown in Peru which have been flown half way around the world so I can eat strawberries in December is bad for the planet and doesn't help me diversify the foods I eat.  I know I'll never be able to only eat food produced/sold locally (I'm not imaginative or disciplined enough), but I plan to increase the amount of locally produced food we eat to reduce the food miles and help the survival of our local small businesses.  Some of the regional food producers are the best in the world at what they make and with a bit of extra effort I can make sure we make the most of the skill and abundance of the people and land around me.


To help in both the seasonality of our eating and in diversifying what we eat I'm planning to cook one recipe each week from my 1974 copy of the Cookery Year.  The book was a wedding present for my parents and published the year I was born.  I 'borrowed' it in 1994 when I went to University and last year one of my colleagues rebound it for me in return for me teaching her how to cook profiteroles (which I still haven't done).

Like some of Nigel Slaters books (which I love) The Cookery Year gives recipies for each month with ingredients that are in season.  It also explains what to look for in terms of quality of ingredients and uses what to us now are unusual cuts of meat.  The quanity of double cream used in some of the recipes is a little alarming, but I'm sure we'll cope.

Bringing Christmas

Food is such an important part of what makes christmas special in my family.  Sitting round a table with friends and family enjoying prawn cocktail, turkey, pigs in blankets and invariably overcooked sprouts. My sister used to say that I used to bring Christmas with me when I arrived home on Christmas Eve.  That was because I usually arrive with the Christmas Cake, Christmas Pudding, Mince Pies and (her favourite) Delia's Chocolate Log.  This year was no different, so even though my Uncle was cooking the main event we filled the car with ‘Christmas’ as we drove down to Kent.

This year's cake dispensed with the normal marzipan and royal icing.  The glazed fruit topping was quite effective and healthier than the 'normal' - although Mr Vitty missed his sugar rush

Chocolate log

Stollen for my Mum

Changing Christmas food traditions at christmas can be difficult -so changing the chocolate log recipe from Delia’s to Will Torrent’s from his Chocolate at Home Book was quite a risk.  I chose this recipe because it included a french meringue buttercream which I wanted to try and make.  It involves making a french meringue and then enriching it with butter and flavourings. It was quite straight forward and Mr Vitty said the buttercream tasted like Sara Lee Chocolate Gateaux - which I guess is a compliment ?!

Chocolate Cake Base

Meringue Butter Cream

Probably the strangest thing I've done with a cake - but it was subsequenly easy to roll

Ready for covering

As well as the chocolate log I made the Christmas Cake, Mince Pies and Christmas pudding.  I have made mincemeat in the past but generally find that enhancing the shop bought stuff serves just as well.  I therefore added some hazelnuts, flaked almonds, fresh orange juice and zest and a good slug of brandy to some quite basic mincemeat and made them up into mince pies with a mishmash of puff and shortcrust pastry and crème amande that I found lurking in the freezer.  The crème amande ones went down particularly well with my father-in-law.

The crème amande was left over from what has become a more recent christmas tradition - a gift of stollen for my Mum and work colleagues. The recipe I use is from Richard Bertinet's book Crust. It's less sweet than much of the shop bought stollen, freezes well and tastes really good.

Enriched Bread Dough

Fruit and nuts ready to be incorporated into the dough

Dough, creme amande and marzipan for the filling

Proved and ready for the oven

Baked and ready for eating

Christmas baking over for another year it's now just eating up the left overs and planning the New Year's diet and fitness kick.

Christmas Presents

Tablet and Coconut ice

I normally really like Christmas.  The lights, food, presents (and sometimes even being with family).  Its a time of year where I spend lots of time thinking about others – what do they want for Christmas? Should I give my diabetic Dad sweets he likes even though they’ll eventually kill him? How are we going to get to Kent/Cumbria/Back home as quickly as possible? and of course what are we going to eat on the way.

But this year it all got a bit much.  At the risk of sounding curmudgeonly I found myself wondering why I was shopping for Christmas presents for people who pretty much could have bought things themselves if they wanted them.  So partly to dispel the spirit of Scrooge I decided to put in time as well as money and made some presents for my family.

 

The real inspiration was my Nanny.  She’s 93 and in her younger days she was a dinner lady and great cook. I particularly remember her cakes and puddings – suet based of course, and very traditionally British.  At 93 there are various things she can’t eat but she loves coconut ice and fudge (both of which require condensed milk which kept Mr Vitty happily scraping out the residue of the tin).  They also sparked a fit of Christmas nostalga and became 'leftovers' for those family who 'don't do presents'.

Coconut Ice isn’t really cooking – more just mixing stuff together.  I used the Carnation Coconut Ice Recipe.  I made the traditional pink and white version but also made some chocolate by mixing in about 50g of melted dark chocolate to ¼ of the mixture.  I haven’t had coconut ice for years and it was a real taste of my childhood.  The most difficult thing about it was getting the mixture level in the tin (I failed miserably - do cooks spirit levels exist?)  Although I enjoyed it the texture wasn’t quite right, I think mainly due to the size of the dessicated coconut.  If I make it again I think I’ll either by shorter strands of coconut or blitz it slightly in my little chopping machine to make it a little smaller

 

The fudge was a Scottish Tablet recipe. Like many Scottish versions of sweets it’s fudge with bells on.  The texture of tablet is more crystalline than English fudge – probably due to the large amount of sugar that also makes it tooth achingly sweet.  I used a recipe that’s written in an old diary from 1994 that I scribbled down various recipes from friends, family, magazines etc.  This recipe dates from the time I spent at University in Edinburgh and brought back memories of good friends and battered mars bars.

Tablet Recipe

7oz Condensed Milk

1 Tablespoon Butter

2 lb Sugar

1 Cup Milk

Put all the ingredients in a large saucepan and bring slowly to the boil allowing the sugar to completely dissolve. Boil slowly until the mixture caramelises and reaches the soft ball stage.  Remove the pan from the heat and beat until the mixture begins to crystalise at the edges.  Pour into a buttered tin and allow to cool.

Although I've always made this without additional flavouring I think adding some stem ginger, vanilla or perhaps dried cranberries just before putting it in the tin could be nice.

 

 
 

A matter of taste: Bitter

A good gin and tonic is a careful balance of the sweet gin, sour lime and bitter tonic.  Bitterness is also a vital component of the flavour of beer, sprouts and coffee.  The bitterness of tonic water is due to quinine - a chemical which like many bitter compounds is poisonous (fortunately you'd have to drink alot of G&T before it made you ill!).  Perhaps because it prevented us being poisoned humans can detect very low levels of bitter tastes, we are up to 100 times more sensitive to bitter than to salt, sour, sweet or umami. The association of bitterness with poison may also be why we tend to dislike foods that are too bitter.

Bitter compounds come in a variety of shapes and sizes. These can be grouped into 5 different classes of compounds which have similar chemical properties.   In order to sense this diversity of compounds our taste cells have a variety of different sensors - as many as 80 different types. Everyone has a different combination and number of these sensors which influence the ability of different people to detect bitter tastes.

Some of the bitter compounds have similar shapes to those that we sense as sweet.  This means that compounds like artificial sweeteners don't always taste just 'sweet'.  When I eat or drink something containing the artificial sweetner Aspartame I can taste a bitter component and therefore dislike lots of low-sugar foods. 

Because we don't tend to like bitterness we try and reduce the bitter tastes in our food.  Yet some bitter compounds are good for us.  Some of them have anticancer properties and can help protect against heart disease.  In reducing bitterness we are losing these beneficial chemicals from our diets.  One class of these beneficial bitter compounds are glucosinolates.  These are responsible for the bitterness of brassicas like sprouts, cabbages and cauliflowers.  This has led to the breeding of vegetables with higher levels of glucosinolates.  One of these is Beneforte broccoli - developed at the John Innes Center and Institute of Food Research in Norwich.

 

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Meet Beneforté,
our ‘Super Broccoli’

Beneforté has been naturally bred to contain 2-3 times more glucoraphanin, which research suggests could help to maintain cardiovascular health and to reduce the risk of cancer.

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Bitter foods are also essential in creating a balanced plate of food, often counterbalancing sweetness or cutting through the fattiness of foods.  Given that we know most of our food isn't poisonous perhaps we need to learn to embrace the bitterness of foods - for our health and our palate.