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.

In celebration of the short and sweet – Ottolenghi style

I am looking forward to the new series starting next week on Channel 4, Yotam Ottolenghi’s Mediterranean Feasts. I follow Ottolenghi’s regular column in The Guardian for recipe inspirations and only recently acquired my first Ottolenghi cookbook, his eponymously titled first book. I have hardly had my nose out of it over the last month. What a truly inventive chef, who has almost single-handedly revolutionised the UK perspective on cooking food inspired by North Africa and the Med.

Yes, when I find books by an inspirational chef it is always tempting to get onto the web and order everything they have published. Having done that, I know the resulting recipe saturation means I don’t really explore each book in depth and they become coffee table objects, gathering dust but no food splatters – the real mark of love on a cookbook.

After a visit to Nick Nairn’s Braeval restaurant in Aberfoyle back in 1996, my first real experience of Michelin star level fine dining (it was a genuine revelation), I indulged in almost every recipe from that first Wild Harvest book, which is now extremely dog-eared (and food splattered). I don’t use it so much now, but still leaf through the pages and revisit nostalgic memories of the flavours generated from within. I do use it to remind myself of his marvellous creme brulee recipe – the finest, easiest and most reliable I know.

So far Ottolenghi has inspired me to try 20 or so recipes over the last month, a mixture of savoury and sweet. Most I have enjoyed and would recommend and all without exception are unfussy and simple to prepare, part of the Ottolenghi philosophy. I plan more Ottolenghi cookbook forays over the next week. To celebrate the beginning of the long overdue TV series next week, here are a couple of the tasty sweet recipes I have tried and loved.

Pistachio shortbread

Much as pistachio is my favourite nut (well, vieing for the title with hazelnuts), the draw of this recipe is the aromatic inclusion of the ground cardamom, reminiscent of the decadent sweetness of baklava. Apparently Persian baklava typically has the essence of this sweet pastry that I favour – infused with pistachio, rosewater and cardamom.  I do not have a sweet tooth, but enjoy a modicum of this divine filo delight, preferably served with an authentic cardamom-infused Turkish coffee.

But cardamom with shortbread?  Oh yes, this turns my experience of this Scottish stalwart on its head.  I must admit, I veer away from some traditional recipes and I have never made shortbread. I remember helping my mum make it,  pressing the playdough-like sweet buttery mix into a wooden mould depicting a thistle, but I was never excited by its buttery decadence.  I was deterred further by the fact that traditionally, some recipes call for the inexplicable inclusion of fine semolina which is supposed to add a grainy, crumbly texture and is, in my opinion, a spoiler.

So, much as the pistachio and cardamom encouraged this shortbread virgin to give it a try, so did the inclusion of ground rice, to my mind much more refined and a superior choice than semolina.

The recipe suggests crushing the contents of 8 cardamom pods.  I wanted to know how much ground cardamom this equated to, as I also have ground cardamom in the store cupboard.  You can buy it online from the Ottolenghi store, but I also found it in our local North Uist independent shop at Bayhead.  They keep a surprisingly extensive range of herbs and spices. The cardamom I ground from the whole pods was, unsurprisingly, much more intense than the ground I had in store and amounted to about half a teaspoon, although I would add more if using pre-ground.

While making this recipe using the Kenwood Chef I inherited from my grandmother (a 1960’s model, I think), I was surprised to find how much icing sugar appeared to be puffing up out of the bowl.  Then came a whiff of electrical burning and I realised the motor on the old Chef had expired.  I thought of all the clootie dumplings my grandmother had made with it and I had killed it with my first batch of unconventional shortbread.  I can imagine what she would have said.  She was a bit scary.

Oh well, looks like I will need that new KitchenAid after all, but it will have to get in the queue behind the new washing machine, which broke the same day as I broke the Chef, helpfully spewing it’s soapy contents over my feet as I absent-mindedly opened the door.

I know shortbread is decadent with butter quantities that could reduce the European butter mountain, but a nice treat once in a while…enough of the pre-amble, although, one final warning.  Most of Yotam’s recipes appear to use every bowl in the kitchen, except this shortbread (see next recipe as an illustration). Here is the recipe:

Pre-heat the oven to 150oC

Ingredients

8 cardamom pods, split and contents ground in a pestle and mortar

200g unsalted butter

25g ground rice

240g plain flour

1/2 tsp salt

35g icing sugar

60g shelled pistachio nuts

1 egg, lightly beaten

2 tblsp sugar, vanilla flavoured, if available

Method

Crush the cardamom in a pestle and mortar.

Use an electric mixer (if you have one)  to turn the butter, ground rice, flour, salt cardamom and icing sugar to a paste. It’s a bit of a battle without the mixer, but achievable using a wooden spoon or scraper.

Take the dough, dust with a bit of flour and roll into a log 3-4 cm in diameter.  Wrap in cling film and put in the fridge for an hour or so.

Chop the nuts reasonably finely, brush the log with beaten egg and roll in the chopped pistachios.  The dough is quite forgiving, so don’t be afraid to apply a bit of pressure to get a good coating.

Wrap and put the log back in the fridge for at least 30 minutes ( I forgot about it, but a couple of hours did it no harm).

Unwrap and cut the log into slices about 5 mm thick.  I experimented with the thickness, but found 5mm to be just right, 1cm too thick.

Put on a baking sheet lined with parchment, each about 2cm apart, sprinkle with sugar and bake.

Recipe suggests 20 minutes, mine needed about 28, but you have to know your oven and watch them as they shouldn’t be more than pale golden.

The dough can be stored in the freezer if you want to make smaller batches.  I got 23 biscuits out of the full recipe.

Pistachio shortbread – Does what it says on the tin – wonderfully short and aromatic.

Pear and Amaretto Crumble

Oven temperature: 170oC

150g apple (peeled weight) cut into 1.5 cm dice

150g pear (peeled weight) cut in the same way

30g toasted walnuts, roughly chopped

grated zest of a lemon

2 tblsp Amaretto

210g plain flour

3/4 tblsp baking powder

3/4 tblsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground cloves

45g ground almonds

3 eggs

180ml sunflower oil

230g caster sugar

1/3 tsp salt

120g crumble mix (see recipe below)

Method

Grease you loaf tin/s with butter and line with parchment.

Mix apple and pear with walnuts, lemon zest, and Amaretto. In another bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and cloves. Add the ground almonds.

Separate 2 of the eggs, keep the whites separate while mixing the yolks with the third egg.  Beat together the oil and sugar in yet another bowl for one minute.

Slowly add the yolk and egg mix, then add the sifted dry ingredients followed by the fruit.  Mix until just incorporated.

Whisk the egg whites with the salt to form stiff peaks (using yet another bowl – that’s 4 so far!) and fold gently into the cake mix. Put the mix in the cake tin and sprinkle liberally with the crumble.

Bake for 45 mins to an hour, or until a skewer comes out clean when pushed into the middle of the cake.  If it gets a bit brown on top, stick some foil over it until it is ready.

Crumble recipe

300g plain flour

100g caster sugar

200g cold unsalted butter cut into small cubes

Method

Thankfully, no need for another bowl. Fling the mix into a food processor and pulse until it forms a breadcrumb consistency, or mix using your hands. If you use a processor, make sure it just turns to breadcrumbs and no more, or you will have cookie dough.

Put the excess in the freezer to use another time.

Pear and Amaretto crumble cake courtesy of Ottolenghi. Light and decadent.