Biscuits with Bartok 7 – Breton Prune Far (again)

Apologies for those that may have recently received this post, as Stefan’s Gourmet Blog recently recounted, I too have had problems with this specific post showing up in the Reader, though it has gone out to Facebook and Twitter. Please bear with me while I make a test of this as a scheduled post.  I know tag no’s are not the problem, and suspect it is a random issue with the platform! Thanks for your patience.

—————————————————————————————————–

As an appropriate welcome to the French horn to accompany the string section this week, I introduce the Breton Prune Far.  This delicious custardy pudding cake, similar to a clafoutis but with a dense, smooth, flan-like texture is best eaten cold. The recipe is a very quick and easy way to indulge in a refined ‘cake’ incorporating this most delicious of dried fruit. In fact, the French horn is really just an excuse to post about the Far, which I actually made for the musicians several weeks ago – and it is now Mozart, with cake.  I really need to change the title….

I know there are many prune dissenters out there, but I will not have a bad word said about my number 1 dried fruit. I eat it as a snack while out fishing or hill walking, add it to my breakfast muesli, or have gently stewed prunes for breakfast or as a treat with home made vanilla ice cream. So many people still recoil in horror at the thought of eating prunes. So bad is this stigma that in California, one of the key areas of production, they are alternatively called dried plums, which of course they are, but this is used to dispel the nursery food associations.

The extent of the animosity and occasional revulsion directed at the poor maligned prune seems surprisingly unjustified. I too have been scarred by the affront to prunes – embedded in lumpy, thick-skinned luminescent school custard. However, it seems a travesty not to savour the prune, resplendent in the savoury richness of aromatic lamb tagines and delicious with slow cooked braised pork belly.  Not forgetting the delights of prunes in the darkest of dark chocolate cakes, the fruit first being soaked overnight in amaretto or rum, plump and ready to bring an extra special dimension and indulgence to the cake.

Musical interlude: Mastertapes – Wilko Johnson

I’m writing this while listening to the great Wilko Johnson on Radio 4.  The new series of Mastertapes starts with tales from this great Canvey Island guitar hero. Wilko is naturally witty, warm and straight-talking and is discussing the first Dr Feelgood album, 1974’s classic ‘Down by the Jetty’, as well as his terminal illness and current musical projects. It is highly entertaining, although slightly distracting!

This is a great concept for a music series where John Wilson talks to leading performers and songwriters about the album that made them or changed them. It is recorded live and comes in 2 parts, an A-side where the performer is quizzed by interviewer John Wilson then a second programme, the B-side where the audience get to ask questions.  I recommend catching up with it online if you miss out on this first episode.

Breton Prune Far

It may be very simple to make, but it is delicious and has a sophisticated, grown-up flavour ‘far’ removed from the nursery or indeed nursing home image the prune conjures up for many and is a patisserie cake in Brittany and Normandy.

I found this particular recipe in Annie Bell’s Baking Bible.  It is the last one in the book. I changed the rum in the original recipe for amaretto. The Far was particularly good with a strong high quality espresso, in this case, a single origin Columbian Bucaramanga which is full flavoured and complex.

Ingredients

50g unsalted butter, melted

125g golden caster sugar

2 medium eggs

500ml whole milk

1 tbsp. amaretto

1 tsp vanilla extract

125g plain flour

125g ready soaked prunes

Preheat fan oven to 180C

Method

• Brush a 23cm square cake tin (4cm deep) with butter and dust with caster sugar.
• Blitz all the ingredients except the prunes in a liquidiser.
• Pour the batter into the tin and scatter the prunes evenly over the surface. Bake for 35-40 minutes until golden.
• Let it cool – it will sink slightly. Dust with icing sugar and cut into squares.

Biscuits with Bartok 7 – Breton Prune Far

As an appropriate welcome to the French horn to accompany the string section this week, I introduce the Breton Prune Far.  This delicious custardy pudding cake, similar to a clafoutis but with a dense, smooth, flan-like texture is best eaten cold. The recipe is a very quick and easy way to indulge in a refined ‘cake’ incorporating this most delicious of dried fruit. In fact, the French horn is really just an excuse to post about the Far, which I actually made for the musicians several weeks ago – and it is now Mozart, with cake.  I really need to change the title….

I know there are many prune dissenters out there, but I will not have a bad word said about my number 1 dried fruit. I eat it as a snack while out fishing or hill walking, add it to my breakfast muesli, or have gently stewed prunes for breakfast or as a treat with home made vanilla ice cream. So many people still recoil in horror at the thought of eating prunes. So bad is this stigma that in California, one of the key areas of production, they are alternatively called dried plums, which of course they are, but this is used to dispel the nursery food associations.

The extent of the animosity and occasional revulsion directed at the poor maligned prune seems surprisingly unjustified. I too have been scarred by the affront to prunes – embedded in lumpy, thick-skinned luminescent school custard. However, it seems a travesty not to savour the prune, resplendent in the savoury richness of aromatic lamb tagines and delicious with slow cooked braised pork belly.  Not forgetting the delights of prunes in the darkest of dark chocolate cakes, the fruit first being soaked overnight in amaretto or rum, plump and ready to bring an extra special dimension and indulgence to the cake.

Musical interlude: Mastertapes – Wilko Johnson

I’m writing this while listening to the great Wilko Johnson on Radio 4.  The new series of Mastertapes starts with tales from this great Canvey Island guitar hero. Wilko is naturally witty, warm and straight-talking and is discussing the first Dr Feelgood album, 1974’s classic ‘Down by the Jetty’, as well as his terminal illness and current musical projects. It is highly entertaining, although slightly distracting!

This is a great concept for a music series where John Wilson talks to leading performers and songwriters about the album that made them or changed them. It is recorded live and comes in 2 parts, an A-side where the performer is quizzed by interviewer John Wilson then a second programme, the B-side where the audience get to ask questions.  I recommend catching up with it online if you miss out on this first episode.

Breton Prune Far

It may be very simple to make, but it is delicious and has a sophisticated, grown-up flavour ‘far’ removed from the nursery or indeed nursing home image the prune conjures up for many and is a patisserie cake in Brittany and Normandy.

I found this particular recipe in Annie Bell’s Baking Bible.  It is the last one in the book. I changed the rum in the original recipe for amaretto. The Far was particularly good with a strong high quality espresso, in this case, a single origin Columbian Bucaramanga which is full flavoured and complex.

Ingredients

50g unsalted butter, melted

125g golden caster sugar

2 medium eggs

500ml whole milk

1 tbsp. amaretto

1 tsp vanilla extract

125g plain flour

125g ready soaked prunes

Preheat fan oven to 180C

Method

• Brush a 23cm square cake tin (4cm deep) with butter and dust with caster sugar.
• Blitz all the ingredients except the prunes in a liquidiser.
• Pour the batter into the tin and scatter the prunes evenly over the surface. Bake for 35-40 minutes until golden.
• Let it cool – it will sink slightly. Dust with icing sugar and cut into squares.

Gloucester Old Spot pork scaloppine with nettle pappardelle

With most of the vegetables in the garden yet to surface, it seems wholly appropriate to utilise our currently most successful garden edible, nettles, and combine these in a meal with some of our local Old Spot pork.

Nettles (Urtica dioica) really is a great plant species, and not just for eating. Don’t be put off by online diatribes about nettles being ‘unpalatable, disgusting or only survival food’, or statements such as ‘nettle recipes exist for the sake of eating an ingredient because you can’, etc, etc. The secret is in understanding when to pick them (young, early season tips only) and how to prepare them to really get the best from them.

Also, I don’t buy the argument that they are a hassle to prepare.  They are most certainly less hassle to clean and prepare than some other veg we grow and prize e.g. globe artichokes. OK, an extreme example perhaps, but comparable with spinach, for sure.

Yes, nettles can be invasive in a garden, but if you have space for a patch they grow (too?) unabated, demand no attention and offer up a welcome lush green and nutritious crop during the hungry gap (our’s at least – it is longer than most). Later on, they are fabulous refuges and food for insects (and corncrake refuges here too), make superb nitrogen-rich liquid plant food and can help activate your compost heap. For all these reasons, I love my garden nettle patches. Of course, you don’t need to have them in the garden, there’s plenty to forage from urban wasteland, woods and meadows.

You might think that living where I do that a crop of pristine unpolluted nettles should be easy to forage.  Well, it is true that we have significant nettle patches in the garden but nightly visits from deer, the dogs cheerfully marking their territory (including the nettles) and most recently, a wily sheep in occupation, make most of our nettles effectively unpalatable.

Even if I wanted to run the ‘urine gauntlet’, I’m reluctant to take an early crop of young nettle tops from our biggest patches. On occasional years, corncrakes arriving from their long migration take a welcome break in this early cover in our garden, especially if the irises have yet to get going, as is the case this year.

The rasping call of the males resonates for a few nights before they move on to more productive machair areas to establish breeding territories. I was optimistic that a corncrake may visit and benefit from our nettles as cover, but our very late i.e. non-existent spring means there was no cover to attract the first arrivals this year.  They must have felt very exposed on arrival.

I shouldn’t exaggerate about our non-existent spring.  It did occur on Sunday past after all, which was glorious and confusing all at the same time.  I was fly fishing on Saturday wearing 3 layers of fleece, couldn’t feel my fingers and abandoned the outing.  On Sunday, we were bewildered by the novelty of stunning sunshine, but not just that – warmth and managed  t-shirts all day and a swim (for the dogs anyway, I’m not quite that hardy). Monday, same old, same old northerly wind, rain and low cloud.  Where art though spring?  Or please can we cut to the chase of summer?

Spring wildlife spectacular

Despite the less than ideal conditions, the wildlife is undeterred and the breeding season is in full swing.  Lapwings and redshanks show their irritation as I pass by their breeding territories on my local run.  I know exactly when and where to expect the next irate protective parent to rise from the vegetation to give me an earful as I pass by.

I watch the oystercatchers nesting round the bay having their frequent and noisy altercations with a pair of local ravens.  Gregarious eiders also nest around the bay, the gentle and soothing call of displaying males resonates on (rare) still nights.  Females will soon form crèches with their broods to help protect the vulnerable ducklings from predation.

The spring migration is ongoing and we currently have reasonable numbers of whimbrels on passage north, stopping at the bay at the bottom of the garden on their way to breeding grounds from Greenland across to Central Siberia. Male cuckoos make their presence heard and wheatears dart around the garden, a flash of white on the rump making them stand out against the grassy backdrop.

We have had spectacular views of a pair of hen harriers and short-eared owls hunting daily across the garden, often flying within a couple of metres of my office window.  This is very distracting while I am working!  Many parts of our garden have remained largely ungrazed for years and the sward is longer than the surrounding common grazing vegetation, so we have a genuine vole hotspot that is proving very fruitful for the local short-eared owls.

I have seen them hunt successfully on a number of occasions, once taking a short-tailed field vole literally from under the kitchen window.  I never tire of watching their graceful billowing flight.  One owl has regularly taken to saving energy by scanning the grass in the garden while perching on a favoured fence post.

Another rare and spectacular wildlife watching experience happened this week.  For the first time since we have lived in this house, we had a visit from an otter in the bay at the bottom of the garden.  It is not at all rare to spot otters here and we have had many very close encounters, but our bay is unlikely to form the core part of an otter territory due to the large component of the day when the tide is some distance out of the bay.

However, this young otter appeared to be exploring the area with a view to establishing a territory.  It ran up and down the grassy slopes at the bottom of the garden, methodically exploring overhanging rocks some distance from the shore, before returning periodically to play and feed in the seaweed on the rising tide. It was delightful and a privilege to have such prolonged views of this secretive mammal from our window.

Nettles: weeding and feeding

My pristine young nettle tops were picked from my raspberry beds where no marauding beasts have access.  This served to let the new rasp shoots have more space and light to grow. I find this to be the only downside to applying old manure (pig in our case) to permanent beds – weed seeds proliferate.  The nettles are small beer though – I’ve got my hands full with the chickweed later in the season.

I have a pretty extreme reaction to nettle stings, so I harvest using heavy-duty rubber gloves – gardening gloves are not robust enough and I learned my lesson the hard way when I was stung through them.

Although sensitivity to stinging nettles does vary between individuals, my sensitivity has very much increased as I have got older.  I remember, like most children, running through nettle patches and coming out with the familiar white blotches and associated red rash, but it never really hurt as much as just irritated slightly. I would just grab a dock leaf (Rumex spp.), rub it vigorously over the affected area, usually my knees, until my skin turned green from the dock and then continue on my merry way.

Now, even the slightest brush against the youngest stem covered in the small silky irritant hairs, which contain histamine, serotonin and formic acid among other things, is to be avoided. These hairs generate the familiar rash but this is coupled with considerable pain.  Although the rash looks the same, the pain stays and I can feel the effects for up to 2 weeks after being stung and the area of skin remains tingly and sensitive, which is a bit disconcerting. I wonder how common increased sensitivity is with age and expect it isn’t unusual, just unpleasant!

Preparing your nettles

I wanted to incorporate the nettles into pasta.  The best way to deal with them for this is to blanch the young tips, plunge them into boiling water for 3 – 4 minutes, then refresh in ice cold water to retain the vibrant colour.  The stings are now gone and the nettles can be handled.

All stems should be removed and the leaves squeezed lightly before blitzing in a food processor to a fine texture.  The nettles then need to be squeezed hard to remove as much moisture as possible as this will impact on the texture of the pasta.

Nettle pappardelle

I wanted to make a rustic hearty pasta to accompany the pork and thought pappardelle would be a fitting choice for the nettle and to complement the gutsy flavour of the pork scaloppine. I have used the same pasta recipe for about 20 years as it has never let me down.  It is from Nick Nairn’s first book ‘Wild Harvest’. The standard recipe calls for 150g of flour (plain, but I use ’00’).  For this recipe I used 180g to offset the additional moisture the nettle brings to the mix.  I got away with it.  Just.

Ingredients

180g flour, ’00’ or plain

1 whole egg, medium

1 egg yolk, medium

80g of fresh young nettle tips, rinsed, blanched and refreshed, trimmed and blitzed

Method

• Combine the flour, eggs, blitzed and squeezed nettles together in a food processor for 2 – 3 minutes. The mix should resemble fine breadcrumbs, not be gooey.  Add a bit more flour if it is.
• Tip out the dough and knead briskly for 1 minute.  Wrap in cling film and place in the fridge to rest for an hour.
• Cut the dough into 2 pieces, flatten each with a rolling pin to 5 mm thick then roll and refold the dough 7 times until you have rectangles about 8 x 18 cm.  This is important to work the gluten to get a shiny dough and gives the correct al dente texture after cooking.
• Using a pasta machine, set the rollers at the widest setting, pass through the dough and repeat, reducing the roller setting with each pass until the penultimate setting.  Pass through at this setting again and hang up to dry for at least 5 minutes.
• Lay the pasta sheet out on a lightly floured surface and roll before slicing about 2 cm wide to produce rustic pappardelle ribbons. Hang them up again until you are ready to use them.
• To cook, place in salted boiling water, bring back to the boil and cook for 2 – 3 minutes.  Check the texture as you cook.

Pork scaloppine with prosciutto, capers and balsamic vinegar – a fitting accompaniment

Ever since I got a hold of our local Old Spot pork, one particular recipe has been pouting at me and I knew it would work very well with this nettle pasta.  I saw this recipe on the The Garum Factory blog pages.  The pork is sumptuously blanketed in prosciutto with pungent sage delicately folded within which also shines enticingly through the prosciutto. The sauce is perfect with the pork – and the nettle pappardelle.

Jody and Ken are not just accomplished chefs, but Ken is also a superb photographer.  His images capture the essence of this recipe and my photos would simply not hold up to their exquisite gallery of images that accompany the recipe. I do not reproduce the recipe, but it can be found here.  Thank you Jody and Ken.  It was really delicious!

My pork scaloppine and nettle pappardelle

Stornoway black pudding bon bons, Angus asparagus and Gloucester Old Spot pancetta

Last week, after a 5 year campaign, Stornoway Black Pudding at last received its deserved Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) status, under the EU’s Protected Food Name (PFN) scheme. It is not often that these islands on the fringe of Europe have a gastronomic accolade bestowed on them. What better reason to indulge in my favourite blood pudding.  It might be mid-week, but what the heck…

In fact, this post is one in celebration of prime Scottish ingredients at different geographical scales; National: Angus asparagus; Regional: Stornoway Black Pudding; Local (very): my neighbour’s Gloucester Old Spot pig for our home made pancetta.

In the land of the deep fried Mars Bar

It is unfortunate indeed that Scotland is synonymous with bad food – not least deep fried everything – indeed it could be argued that this recipe, in part, reinforces the stereotype.

When I lived / worked abroad (in Portugal, Hungary) and on excursions across Europe and beyond, I came to appreciate how different our food culture is from that of a sizeable chunk of the planet – we had no daily food market culture and yet it is such an intrinsic part of life elsewhere.  It is something I have long admired and missed about living in Southern Europe.

It is worth reflecting on this because I think in the last decade, a lot has changed. We have become aware of the value of food provenance as well as eating locally and seasonally. Farmer’s markets bring new insights into good British artisan produce.  Perhaps the tide has turned, we just need to look a bit harder in the surf to find the gastronomic gems.

I think this is the essence of the problem we face as British consumers trying to seek out the clichéd ‘Best of British’, it can be hard to find, and you have got to work (comparatively) hard to get a hold of the best. This is exemplified by the efforts one must go to here to seek out the very best produce but be reassured, there is no doubt it is here.

In Uist, we export the finest seafood in the world to continental Europe, principally France and Spain.  I am lucky since if I want live langoustine, lobster or crab and hand-dived scallops, I know where to source them.  I know where and how to collect local shellfish and where to catch trout / seafish. I can forage for seaweed, samphire, nettles, herbs.  However, all this takes considerable local knowledge, effort and that thing that life always seems be short of – time.  Here in particular, food really has to matter to enable one to access the best. It does pain me that often visitors ask where they can get local seafood, fish and meat.  The answer in never straightforward.

And so to our fine produce…

National gem: Angus Asparagus

If it was not for Fiona Bird (see my last post reviewing her book ‘The Forager’s Kitchen’), I would not have become aware of the suppliers of fine Scottish asparagus from Eassie farm, Glamis, Angus.  Fiona has roots in Angus and after a recent trip, kindly left me some of this fine product at a specified drop off point (again – this time the Cal Mac ferry office, Lochmaddy – thank you Fi and staff).

Eassie Farm asparagus is suberb quality and supplied to London’s Covent and Borough markets as well as fine dining restaurants across the UK such as The Kitchin, Edinburgh (one of my favourite restaurants, more on that later).  I can see why discerning customers would seek it out.  This is probably the best asparagus I have eaten. Of course, I have tried and failed spectacularly to grow it here.  However, I think after tonight’s asparagus excursion, I am determined to try again.

More about the Angus asparagus can be found here. Asparagus production is not Eassie farm’s only talent, they also produce sea kale, and I really hope to try some of that in future.

Regional delight: Stornoway Black Pudding

This genuinely wonderful product joins the ranks of Champagne, Parmigiano-Reggiano, Stilton Cheese and another Scottish favourite, Arbroath Smokies. The PGI status now guarantees the provenance of this iconic Scottish product. This status can only be described as Stornoway Black Pudding if it is produced in the town or parish of Stornoway on Lewis.

It is intrinsically linked with the food heritage of these islands and black pudding has been made on crofts in the Outer Hebrides for hundreds of years.  PGI will hopefully eliminate the threat to the pudding posed by  imitation “Stornoway Style” black puddings, produced elsewhere that are invariably, in my experience, inferior products.

Stornoway Black pudding is produced by only 4 butchers in the Stornoway area. It is rich, moist, decadent, delicately seasoned and every bit as distinctive and unique as the delectable Spanish morcilla and French Boudin noir.

Local hero: Gloucester Old Spot pork 

Except for the occasional tweet about the progress of our Gloucester Old Spot pig butchery, sausage and bacon making, this is the first time I have had the opportunity to include this wonderful produce in a recipe for a post.

We bought half of one of my neighbour’s Old Spot pigs a few weeks ago.  I could see the two Old Spots wandering around the croft from my office window until their demise and I am delighted to say I know they had a wonderful time, freely rooting around in their luxurious field and quarters until their time came.

It is widely understood that pigs are very intelligent and sensitive animals and no secret that there are welfare issues associated with pork and derivative products such as sausage (if indeed it is pork!) and bacon we can buy commercially in the UK.  I do not choose to consume this kind of pork.

To use the cliché, to buy free range, slow grown pork of a heritage breed is a totally different animal. I will focus more on the butchery, sausage and bacon making of the Old Spot in a future post. For this recipe, we wanted to include some of the dry cured bacon we made from the pork belly.  Some of this was kept in chunks and frozen to provide us with pancetta-style lardons for recipes such as this.

This green bacon is as far removed from average shop bought bacon as you could imagine. It is succulent and flavoursome without exuding water (commercial bacon is usually injected with water to speed up curing) and is not overly salty.

Stornoway Black Pudding bon bons, Angus asparagus and Old Spot pancetta

Originally, this recipe was set to feature hand-dived scallops since scallops are a tried and tested combination with asparagus.  Unfortunately, the weather has been a bit rough for the last week for the divers to get out.  I’m trying hard not to complain about the atrocious weather we are having, in fact, it doesn’t feel like spring has yet started and the vegetation and garden are testament to that fact.  However, this weekend, I saw the first few broods of greylag geese and the short-eared owls are hunting around the house, otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to tell whether it is November or May!  I have the utmost sympathy for visiting tourists – not least cyclists, I have been there and it is not pleasant.

The elements of this dish offer no great innovations in combination, but they work.  If it isn’t broken, don’t try and fix it – just use the best quality ingredients available, which is what I have tried to do.

The bon bons are simple to make and are deliciously soft and sumptuous and packed with flavour. They are simply shaped spheres of Stornoway Black Pudding coated in seasoned breadcrumbs with Parmesan cheese and parsley (parsley from the garden, home made breadcrumbs).

The asparagus was simply sauted.  This approach was inspired by Tom Kitchin and his “à la minute” style of cooking, where the sauce is prepared just before serving, very fresh and captures the essence of the asparagus. I had watched him demonstrate a similar recipe to students on the new BBC series ‘The Chef’s Protégé’ this week and it seemed like the most respectful way possible to treat this high quality asparagus.

Advice for asparagus: Because asparagus spears are tapered, unlike when contained in an asparagus steamer, when sauted, the tips cook at a faster rate than the more woody bases.  To compensate, remove the green outer layer from the bases of the spears at about 4 cm from the bottom.  That way your spears will sauté evenly and the tips will not be soggy and over cooked.

I used the best quality balsamic vinegar and Jerez sherry vinegar to finish the sauce. This provided the right balance of acidity to accompany the rich elements of the dish. Timing is all for this dish and each of the elements have to come together within a couple of minutes, so get everything prepared in advance to bring it together quickly.

Ingredients

For the Stornoway Black pudding bon bons:

1 Stornoway black pudding

200g white breadcrumbs

50g Parmesan cheese, finely grated

plain flour

2 tbsp. parsley, finely chopped

salt and pepper

1 egg, beaten

Groundnut / sunflower oil for deep frying

For asparagus and sauce:

10 fresh asparagus spears, bases trimmed

2 more asparagus spears, shaved for raw garnish

250 ml chicken stock

1 tbsp. balsamic vinegar

1 tbsp. Jerez sherry vinegar

a splash of rapeseed oil

salt and pepper, to taste

Pancetta:

150g pancetta, chopped into lardons

a splash of rapeseed oil

Method

• Roll pieces of the black pudding about the size of a walnut, coat in plain flour, then egg, then the herby breadcrumb mix: breadcrumbs, parmesan cheese, parsley, salt and pepper.
• Trim and remove the outer layer from 10 of the asparagus spears.  Shave the last 2 spears using a potato peeler – these will be served raw on top as garnish.
• Heat the oil ready to deep fry the black pudding bon bons.
• Sauté the asparagus spears in a little rapeseed oil in a sauté pan over a fairly high heat, keep them moving.  When they have gained a bit of colour, and start to produce some liquid, but are still firm (1 – 2 minutes), add a ladle of chicken stock and quickly cover to sauté.  Keep a close eye on the asparagus, keep it moving and add a little stock at a time, as required.  Cooking will take no longer than 5 minutes. The asparagus should flex but be firm with some bite.
• Deep-fry the black pudding bon bons until they are cooked through and the crumb coating is golden.  Be sure the oil is not too hot or they will burn on the outside and be raw in the middle.
• At the same time (!) gently fry the pancetta in a frying pan, bringing together all 3 elements to be ready at the same time.
• Remove the asparagus from the sauté pan, add the butter, allow it to start to bubble up through the asparagus liquid and chicken stock, whisking then add the Jerez sherry and balsamic vinegar.  Allow to cook for a minute or so to evaporate off some of the vinegar. Season to taste and serve, garnish with the raw asparagus and drizzle over the sauce.  Simple!

Hebridean carrageen pudding with rose water and cardamom

I have recently been busy processing seaweed to make the traditional Hebridean carrageen pudding, with an aromatic twist.  I was very lucky to receive a gift of this red seaweed (Chondrus crispus) freshly picked on South Uist by our very own resident Hebridean professional forager, Fiona Bird. I have been trying to write this post for some 2 weeks, but due to a work trip away and other commitments, I am only just getting round to it now.

I met Fiona a few weeks ago at a soirée on South Uist to celebrate the publication of her new book dedicated to foraging, ‘The Forager’s Kitchen’. Suitably impressed by the diversity of recipes within and some of the delightful nibbles on offer incorporating foraged produce, I ordered a copy which I received last week.

Fiona gave me some wild garlic that evening, foraged in Angus.  Unfortunately, despite being pretty much ubiquitous throughout most of the UK,  it is more challenging to find  on the Uists and I am not inclined to collect it unless it is super-abundant as it is elsewhere. The wild garlic was hence a rare treat which I cooked as a purée with venison.  More on that recipe another time.

The Forager’s Kitchen – a  book recommendation

If you have an interest in foraging in any way, this book is a must to add to your culinary collection. While it is true that foraging is currently in vogue, in reality this is not a passing fad and it has always been there as an underlying component of our food heritage.

Many high end fine dining restaurants currently feature foraged items within dishes on their menus. This book is therefore a timely reminder that making food with foraged ingredients need not be exclusive, complex or challenging but is an accessible and health-giving addition to the cooking experience.

Fiona’s infectious enthusiasm and knowledge for her subject couldn’t but help but make any reader want to have an excuse to get outdoors and see what bounty is on the doorstep. What better encouragement does one need than free food and a comprehensive compilation of recipes to assist the cook to develop new recipe ideas?

Fiona, as well as being an experienced cook and forager (she was a Masterchef finalist) is also clearly passionate about food and its associations with family. Her personal anecdotes within the book and warm and engaging writing style help to bring the foraging experience alive.

The introduction provides essential and sensible guidance about where, when and how to forage, words of wisdom about misidentification and associated risks and a useful kit list for aspiring foragers.

The book is separated logically into 5 chapters covering flowers and blossom, woodland and hedgerow, fruits and berries, herbs and sea / seashore. No matter where you live, there is a chapter that will capture the habitats around you and help you seek out the free bounty within.

There is more than adequate background information on species and where to find them, how to forage for and use them.  There are interesting snippets of folklore associated with many of the species, notably plants. It was lovely to be reminded of the Scottish name for rosehips, ‘itchy coos’. As children, I remember we would tear the hips open and squeeze the seeds down the backs of each other’s school shirts, a prank guaranteed to make anyone itch all afternoon.

The additional ‘Wild Notes’ dispersed throughout the book are a lovely touch, providing the reader with tips to help them develop different ways to expand use of foraged food and broaden their repertoire. Although the cover states there are over 100 recipes, these notes pack in many more recipe ideas.

The layout makes the book very visually appealing and there are many fantastic photos.  The outdoor images in particular cannot help but lure the reader outside to explore local woodland, or in my case, seashore.

There are a lot of excellent tips and ideas that I would not have thought of before as well as many ingredients I had not previously considered using e.g. Scotch quail eggs with sea lettuce – delicious idea. There are many intriguing and inventive uses for the natural sweetener, sweet cicely (Myrrhis odorata), from smoothies and sorbets to tempura.

What I really like about Fiona’s approach is that it is relaxed, unconstrained and encourages culinary creativity.  You can take her ideas and run with them to develop recipes and interpret the way nature’s larder can be used in your own way. That way, you will have the freedom to enjoy the outdoors while collecting some of your own food during which time you can contemplate what you might produce, inspired by the environment around you.

For me, foraging adds to what lies at the heart of everything that is great about food and cooking – it is a voyage of discovery, with twists and turns provided by intriguing ingredients that can be combined in infinite combination.   Foraging also helps me to get outside my culinary comfort zone and I enjoy nothing more than the revelations it may bring. Hence, this is an appropriate time to introduce my new friend Chondrus crispus.

‘The Forager’s Kitchen’ by Fiona Bird is published by Cico Books and can be ordered online via major internet booksellers.

Fiona also provides regular updates on her foraging activities on Facebook at The Forager’s Kitchen and Twitter (@TheForagersKitc).

I purchased this book and my review in entirely independent.

Carrageen – a very traditional pudding

If it wasn’t for Fiona’s generosity in providing me with freshly foraged carrageen, I’m ashamed to say it might have taken me a lot longer to get round to using this traditional Hebridean ingredient.

I should also thank one of her children who kindly left it at a drop off point i.e. the school in Benbecula.  Thankfully the receptionists didn’t take against keeping the well wrapped weed until I got there to collect it!

This attractive red seaweed, Chondrus crispus, called carrageen here in the Hebrides (also known as Irish Moss, pearl or jelly moss) grows on rocky coasts around the UK and Ireland and around the northern Atlantic. It is a small branched purplish-red seaweed that grows up to about 20 cm but its appearance can vary significantly in both colour and size, depending on levels of exposure to waves and turns quite green or yellow, being bleached in strong sunlight.

It grows in a wide range of habitats from exposed shores to sheltered estuaries. It is found lower down on the shore from the mid intertidal to sub tidal zone, so the best time to find it is at very low tide, or preferably on a spring tide. The Marine Life Information Network (MarLIN) is a tremendous resource for information on all aspects of the ecology of Chondrus crispus and other marine flora and fauna around the UK coasts.

Carrageen is part of the Gigartinaceae family of seaweeds, some species of which have been used historically as food additives all over the world for many hundreds of years. They are harvested commercially, notably in the Philippines most recently and have a multitude of applications in the food industry.  This is because seaweeds from this family have a high content of unique polysaccharides called carrageenans.

Carrageenans bind strongly to food proteins so are particularly useful as thickening or gelling agents to add viscosity to dairy products such as ice creams and desserts. They are added to processed meats as a stabiliser, help to clarify beer and are a vegetarian or vegan alternative to gelatine. They are also used in shampoos and toothpaste and have many other non-food related applications.

Traditional carrageen pudding

Carrageen pudding is still regularly offered as a local delicacy in the Outer Hebrides and in my experience tends to be served with a very soft jelly-like set, much softer than pannacotta.   The dried seaweed is traditionally soaked to soften it, then boiled in milk, strained and sugar is added, perhaps along with other flavours such as vanilla  or whisky.  I have also been served it with soft fruit added.

my dried carrageen

I have only ever used dried carrageen, however, being given fresh carrageen by Fiona was an exciting prospect.  I wanted to experiment with making a carrageen pudding using the fresh weed, but also to dry the rest for future use, much more the normal practice.  A small handful of dried weed (about 10g) is usually adequate to set a pudding with about 600 – 700 ml of milk.

Drying carrageen

Carrageen can be sun-dried, but with our wet weather, I opted to use the oven.  Fortunately, my oven can be set to pretty low temperatures. Here is how I dried the carrageen to preserve it for future use:

• Carefully rinse the carrageen in several changes of cold water to remove the salt (and the array of small creatures like shrimps and snails).
• Spin the seaweed in a salad dryer to remove as much moisture as possible, then rub it with a tea towel.
• Spread it out on a couple of wire racks and put the racks in a very low oven (60C) for about 7 hours.
• Store in an airtight container or plastic bag, ensuring the seaweed is totally desiccated before doing so.

Using fresh carrageen

Following a browse on the web and through a few seaweed-related books, I was quite surprised to find there is not a lot of information out there about using fresh carrageen for cooking.  A few tweets to Fiona and a bit more info from her gave me a bit of confidence to experiment with making a pudding using the fresh weed. I knew I would need a much larger amount when using fresh than dried to get a set.

I decided a 2 : 3 ratio of fresh weed to milk and added 100 ml of double cream to the strained mixture at the end, i.e. a 1 : 2 carrageen to milk/cream ratio for the finished pudding, along with flavourings and colour. I wrapped the seaweed in muslin and floated the bag in the milk as it warmed. This amount serves 4.

I wanted to add some of my favourite aromatic flavours: rose water and cardamom to the pudding as I have only experienced traditional flavourings. I am delighted to say the pudding set was quite firm, more akin to pannacotta and the texture smooth.  The rose water and cardamom worked very well with the silky textured pudding.

Ingredients

200g fresh carrageen, washed (or 10g dried)

300ml whole milk

100ml double cream

1/2 tsp rose water

1/2 tsp ground cardamom

40g caster sugar

optional extras:

a handful of brambles or other soft fruit

a few drops of natural red food dye

rose petals

a few chopped toasted almonds

Method

• Put the milk in a pan and add the muslin wrapped seaweed bag to the pan.
• Slowly bring to the boil and allow to simmer over a low heat for 30 minutes.
• Press down on the muslin bag frequently with a potato masher or similar to extrude as much of the carrageenan thickener from the seaweed as possible.
• Pour the mixture through a sieve, into another pan, again, squeezing muslin to extract as much carrageenan as possible.
• Add the double cream and sugar, heat gently until the sugar has dissolved.
• Remove from the heat and allow to cool a bit before adding the cardamom, rose water and red dye.
• Pour into ramekins and allow to cool slightly before putting in the fridge to set.

I topped the puddings with some defrosted brambles I picked last autumn but I think they did nothing to enhance the pudding’s flavour and only served to confuse the palate, so would leave off the unnecessary garnish next time – I can put my precious few remaining stocks to better use.  Similarly, the rose petals look pretty, but the aesthetics outweigh their enhancement of the dish – they are a bit dry and papery!  I topped with almonds, just as a change from my usual pistachio choice with this flavour combination, but pistachios would work even better.

Mission accomplished, I am now going to watch the second in the BBC wildlife series ‘Hebrides: Islands on the Edge’.  I’m disappointed to report this great series is only being broadcast in Scotland but hope some of you can pick it up on iPlayer or other web resources. It really is magnificent.

Biscuits with Bartok 6 – Ma’amul

The concept of the weekly provision of a sweet treat for the musicians continues, allowing me to move away from the typical biscuit or cookie to something a little more out of the ordinary, Ma’amul.  Indeed the title of this series of posts is increasingly becoming a misnomer.  Bartok has been superseded in recent weeks by Telemann, the prolific late Baroque German composer – and there are a growing number of musicians.

There is something delightful and unique about sitting at my desk, working, listening to  music ebb and flow against the backdrop of the outdoor sound scape of birds, waves and wind. I hope it will eventually get warm enough to open the door so I can hear the pieces more clearly. Eventually, but for now it is still very cold, the wind swinging indiscriminately from south west to north and maintaining defiant persistence over the last 3 weeks.

Few seeds are yet planted outside, the soil temperature has dropped from 12 to 8 C.  I did try to plant some parsnip seeds, but they kept blowing out of the narrow drill.  I resorted to sowing small sections a few centimetres at a time and quickly covering them to ensure they stayed in the ground.

Dining out on fishing

Despite having more time indoors than I would normally care for at this time of year, I have had very little time over the last week to manage even one small blog post. Not only that, unusually, we have been out for dinner twice over the weekend.  Often, eating out is at houses of friends, but this was real dining out, on Uist. Imagine!

The annual dinners of North Uist Angling Club and South Uist Angling Club always occur back to back in the same weekend.  Friday night, we enjoyed a very well executed meal at Langass Lodge; smoked haddock risotto with samphire, hand dived scallops with cauliflower puree and lemoncello parfait with berries.  It really was spot on for a set meal for 35 people.  As current Chair of NUAC, I had to deliver a short speech, which was no hardship, and being Chair afforded us an invitation to the South Uist Club dinner the next evening at Grogarry Lodge, South Uist.  A tasty and comforting meal of salmon pate, venison and vegetables (significant portion and seconds offered!) and cheesecake was enjoyed and we were made to feel very welcome by the members of the club.

Sandwiched in between these dinners was our annual pollack competition on Loch Strumore, North Uist  when we attempt to catch pollack on the fly.  Always a challenge, the potential for some monster fish and a huge fight.  Two years ago we had a bathful of fish to deal with as a result and the winning angler caught an 8 lb beast that shredded his hand.  Alas, no monsters this year.  The weather deteriorated over the course of the day to intolerably freezing. I came home with a fish, as did The Man Named Sous, the only two pollack caught all day.  Another fishing trophy for my Dearest then as his was slightly bigger than mine.

As ever, when late spring arrives (the weather is allegedly supposed to improve about now), we have started to see our first visitors, from near and far.  I don’t expect therefore that I will get a huge amount of time to blog over the coming week, although my draft posts will continue to pile up (I have been experimenting with seaweed too – more on that in the next post). Tomorrow, we have a Swiss friend coming for dinner, musicians and more visitors the day after, who knows who else by the weekend. I will seize the moment to discuss the delights of ma’amul.

Ma’amul

Ma’amul (various spellings, commonly also Ma’amoul) is an appropriately windswept and interesting (as Billy Connolly would say) sweet experience. The innocuous looking shortbread-type biscuit conceals the surprise of a crumbly and aromatic exterior, which then relinquishes a sumptuous, sticky dried fruit and nutty rose-scented interior.  A definite curveball if you have not tried these before.

This is one of the most popular Arab cookies, eaten across the Middle East, particularly during Ramadan. They are rolled and stuffed with varying ingredients, commonly walnuts and dates, but also pistachios, figs and almonds. Ma’amul can be hand-rolled or pressed into decorative wooden moulds.  This reminded me of pressing shortbread into a wooden mould depicting a thistle, which I remember doing as a child, although, I don’t actually have that mould, so hand formed my ma’amul.

Texturally, I was looking for something different and I knew the main constituent ingredient of semolina would deliver an unusual textural experience while the flavours satisfy my continued love of all things aromatic, with the addition of orange blossom water and rosewater. The textures also extends to preparation and making ma’amul is a very pleasant quite unique tactile experience. Here I use a variation of the recipe from Ottolenghi’s Jerusalem (I know, again, but I have been abstaining for a few weeks), altering the filling to include pistachios and figs instead of dates and replaced cinnamon with my preferred ground cardamom.

Ingredients

350g semolina

40g plain flour

pinch of salt

180g unsalted butter, cut into 3 cm cubes

2 tbsp orange blossom water

1 tbsp rose water

icing sugar for dusting

Fruit and nut filling:

150g pistachios

75g walnuts

45g dried figs

45g caster sugar

1 tsp ground cardamom

1 1/2 tsp rose water

1 tbsp orange blossom water

Preheat the oven to 190C

Method

• Put the semolina, flour, sugar and salt in a bowl and mix.  Add the butter and work it to the texture of breadcrumbs.
• Add the orange blossom and rose waters and 1/2 a tablespoon of water to bring the mixture together into a ball.
• Knead on the surface until completely smooth, about 5 minutes.  By now it will smell refreshing and aromatic and you will get the sense of the distinctive texture.
• Cover with a damp cloth and rest for about 30 minutes.

Now make the filling:

• Put the pistachios, walnuts, figs, sugar and cardamom in a food processor, pulse then process until finely chopped but not completely ground.
• Add the orange blossom and rose waters and pulse to produce a coarse paste.

Moulding your ma’amul

If uniformity of biscuits matters to you (as it does to me), it is always handy to have some very accurate scales to measure out each piece of dough before rolling the finished item.  I use jewellery scales. I know such scales are often associated with clandestine activities (I do not mean weighing jewellery-related items), but my original use for the scales was innocuous, albeit slightly obscure.

I bought these many years ago as a tool to weigh birds that I was ringing, unfortunately, I can no longer find the time to ring and the scales have been recycled into the kitchen.  These were ideal for accurately weighing small passerines such as goldcrests and wrens. Goldcrests weigh only 5 -7 grams, so 5 goldcrests are the same weight as the dough for just 1 biscuit, what a random fact!

Don’t be put off by the convoluted preparation description – the dough is easy to manipulate and reshape if you put your thumb through it the first time. Ma’amul can be decorated in many ways but I have opted for simply pressing across the tops with a fork.

Method

• Get a small bowl of water and keep you hands moist to stop the dough from cracking.
• Pick up a bit of dough about the size of a walnut, it should be about 25g, roll it into a ball between your damp palms.
• Cup the dough in the palm of one hand and press the centre with the thumb of your other hand to form an indentation.  This is similar to producing a clay thumb pot, forming a space in the centre of the dough for the stuffing.
• The sides of the ‘pot’ should be about 5mm thick and 2.5 cm high.
• Keep in your palm and grab about 20g of the filling and place it in the ‘pot’.  Pull up the dough around the filling to enclose it within the dough and roll gently into a ball again.

• At this stage, I rolled the balls into slightly tall cylinders so I could press them down with a fork on the baking sheet. Place each on a baking sheet lined with silicone sheet or parchment paper.
• Press down gently  on the top of the biscuit with a fork to create a pattern across the top of each biscuit.

• Bake for 12 – 14 minutes, until cooked, ensuring the biscuits take on no colour.
• Cool on a wire rack and sprinkle with icing sugar, if desired, before serving. Enjoy with a strong espresso.