Spiced Nuts

We had some friends over for supper last night. I made all the food on Friday so I could enjoy the evening. This was a lucky bit of foresight on my behalf because, during a bike ride yesterday morning, I fell off and hurt my knee. I would like to say that it was during a death defying stunt that I lost control and gracefully tumbled to the floor, but the truth is I was trying to re-arrange my cycling attire, lost control of my bike and hit the ground. Unfortunately my free hand was wrestling with wayward underwear and wasn't quick enough to free itself and break my fall. My shoulder and knee smacked down onto a sharp gravel track. Ouch! So I was very grateful for the minimal kitchen tasks I had to perform last night. The only cooking I had to do was make the Spiced Nuts.

SPICED NUTS

2 tbl Butter

2 tbl Water

100g Soft Brown Sugar

1/4 tsp Ground Cumin

1/4 tsp Cinnamon

1/4 Cayenne Pepper

1/2 tsp Salt

500g Mixed Nuts

• In a frying pan lightly toast the nuts, keeping them moving so they don't catch. Remove to a bowl.
• Put the butter, water, spices and salt into the pan and heat gently, stirring to combine. Heat through to form a sticky glaze, about 3 minutes.
• Toss the nuts into the glaze and cook until they are shiny and brown. Tip onto a baking sheet lined with foil or greaseproof paper and allow to cool. Serve with drinks or store in an airtight container

Potato Pete

My daughter bought this postcard for me from a trip, with her father, to the National War Museum. It's an example of World War II public information art. I love the colours and the font, it's so simple and basic and, ironically, from a time of severe rationing and shortage which resulted in the nation being at it's healthiest!

I would include one of my favourite potato recipes here but, due to G pouring me a large Gin and Tonic earlier, I think it would be safer if I didn't!

Tortellini

Apologies for the huge gap between recent blogs, this is due to lots of secretive birthday cake making for my daughter's eighteenth!

I haven't made fresh pasta for ages and thought it was about time I got my faithful pasta machine out and knocked up some tortellini. There are so many pasta dough recipes, some seem to have dozens of eggs, others have just egg yolks and others recommend only one or two per hundred grams of 00 Flour? It's very confusing. The methods vary too, but I used the processor method and started with 200 grams of 00Flour, one egg and one egg yolk. I blitzed this but it still felt a little dry, so I added one more yolk. The dough came together nicely, I wrapped it in cling and rested in it in the fridge for a hour.

Whilst the dough was resting I blitzed a small punnet of mushrooms, melted a little butter and olive oil and fried the mushrooms with a finely chopped garlic clove. Once this had cooked down I stirred in a couple of tablespoons of grated Parmesan, seasoned and left it to cool.

The best gadget I ever bought was my Kitchenaid Pasta Roller. I cut the dough in half, kept one piece covered while I flattend the other half and started to put it through the rollers, largest setting first. After rolling, folding and re-rolling through this setting I then started to pass it through the thinner settings until I was left with a long sheet of gossamer. Sprinkled semolina across the work surface and laid the sheet down

To Make Tortellini

Score squares (about 5cm) onto the dough as a guide and place a teaspoon of mushroom stuffing in the middle. Use a little water to dampen the edges, fold in half to make a triangle. As you press the sides together, gently massage from the stuffed centre to the edges to force any air out. With the longer edge of the triangle at the bottom, take the two 'arms' and pinch them together, you should have a little tortellino! Place on a tray, with a generous layer of semolina, to dry.

To Make Ravioli

Score a rectangle onto the pasta sheet, about 5cm by 10cm (this is just a guide, the finished Ravioli can be any size you like!) Place about a teaspoon of filling in the centre at one end for the rectangle, dampen the edges with water and fold over to make a square. Again, carefully press the edges together, easing out any air. Place on the 'semolina tray' to dry.

These can be kept in the fridge for three days or frozen for up to three months. To cook, drop into a pan of boiling salted water, turning down the heat so that the water is just simmering, you don't want to have to little parcels thrashing about in a maelstrom, they might burst open and all that fiddling about would have been in vain!

I melted butter, quickly fried some sage leaves, poured this over a dozen totellini and gave them to R as a treat for finishing her essay.

Salmon Escalopes in Champagne Sauce

A long time ago, before Rick Stein was invented, I was lucky enough to eat at his Seafood Restaurant. I remember the plates were huge (or maybe I was just smaller then?) and the food, of course, was simple and very delicious. The Salmon dish I chose was unlike anything I had ever eaten before and it had a huge effect on me.

Before we left I bought a copy of the chef's new book, my only regret is I didn't have the balls to ask him to sign it for me!

SALMON ESCALOPES IN CHAMPAGNE & CHIVE SAUCE

(Rick Stein)
Serves 4

750g/1.5 lb Salmon Fillet

Sunflower Oil

Salt

25g/1oz Butter

1 Small shallot

100ml Champagne

1 Pint Fish Stock

100ml Double Cream

Fresh Chives

Caster sugar

• Melt the butter in a saucepan and gently soften the chopped shallot. Add the Champagne and boil for a couple of minutes, add the sugar and stock. Reduce by about three quarters.
• Add the cream and boil until thickened.
• Take your salmon fillet and place, skin side down, on a chopping board. Remove any bones with tweezers or fine pliers.
• You want to slice the fillet at a slant, about a 45 degree angle, towards the skin. You need about three slices per person so you are aiming for twelve equal slices.
• Brush each Escalope with a little sunflower oil, season lightly with salt and place on an oiled baking tray.
• Preheat the grill to it's highest setting. Warm four (huge) plates. Warm the sauce and stir in 2tsp finely chopped chives (more or less to suit your taste)
• Place the salmon under the grill for a minute to cook through and transfer to the warmed plates.
• Bring the sauce to a boil, stir in a knob of butter and spoon over the fish.

Spaghetti Bolognese

We all have a memory or two about the food we ate in our childhood, not always good memories (I used to think the rubbery tubes poking out of school liver was macaroni!). A sudden smell or unexpected taste can set your heart racing and whisk you at speed to a place hidden deep within your memory. You are overwhelmed. You breathe in the smell again, taste the food again hoping to conjure up whatever it was that had just filled you. But it has gone. Sometimes you do remember and are able to capture that memory and keep it; a forgotten ice cream flavour, a sandwich cut a certain way, the art of forcing jelly between your teeth, dark brown sugar melting onto semolina (you only eat the bit with the sugar on!)...everyone has something. Spaghetti Bolognese is one of mine.

When my mother was a young bride she was given a Bolognese recipe by a friend's Italian mother. I guess in the sixties Bolognese very exotic and a young bride cooking it for her new husband may have been considered a little frivolous. But she cooked it, he loved it and so she carried on cooking it, she cooked it for me, for my brother M and then little brother G. We would all be overcome with excitement when, returning from school, discovered we were having Spaghetti Bolognese for dinner. At some point a ritual developed, I'm sure the result of sibling rivalry; we couldn't start eating until we had forked through the sauce and picked out all the mushrooms, counted them and a winner declared. These fungal prizes would then be displayed around the edges of our plates and eaten last of all. This meal was never eaten without Dried Parmesan in it's cardboard tube, the lid with it's plastic disc which could be twisted to deliver either a pathetic sprinkle or a truckload.

As with any popular recipe there are probably thousands of variations and nuances, each undoubtedly as good as the last. This is my favourite Bolognese Sauce recipe because of it's familiarity and the memories of the five of us sitting together and really enjoying the same meal time after time. It is very rich and tomatoey, if colours had a flavour this would definitely be red!

BOLOGNESE SAUCE

Serves Five

500g Minced Beef

1 Onion, finely chopped

142g Tin of Tomato Puree

1 litre Carton Tomato Juice

100g Button Mushrooms (or more!) wiped

• Put the minced Beef into a saucepan and brown. Drain off any excess fat.
• Add the onion and cook together for a few minutes.
• Add puree, mix into the beef and onion.
• Cover the meat with the Tomato Juice (you may feel that you don't need to use the whole carton).
• Add the mushrooms. Season
• Simmer for 2 1/2 - 3 hours
• Adjust seasoning.

My First Cookery Book

I can still vividly remember being bought this book. I was ten years old and, probably due to my gender, had been allowed to accompany my mother and our neighbour Sheila on a shopping trip to SavaCentre. It was like being taken to another country as far as I was concerned, I mean we had to drive there! It was an epic journey out of Faversham and towards London, I think somewhere in my little head I thought we actually were going to London. But, in reality, it was thirty miles down the road to Gillingham.

Sheila lived down the road from us, she was one of those rare people who are almost angelic, you naturally felt happy and safe around her, she was just a very kind and happy soul. I remember that she was always smiling. My brothers and I loved to go and see her, we would ride our bikes down to her house and she would tell us stories, make us ice-cream sodas and feed us Wagon Wheels and Milky Bars. She loved children and would have been a wonderful mother, but life had denied her that wish. Even in my childish naivety I could sense a deeply buried sadness within her.

One day we went to see her. Her husband told us she had gone away on holiday and not to worry. All of the adults who lived in our road started to speak in whispers, we knew that we shouldn't ask.

Sheila had been suffering from cancer for a long time and, one day, simply didn't have the strength to smile anymore.

Sheila bought this book for me, that evening at the supermarket. I saw it on the shelf and must have taken it down to have a look. Sheila took it from me and winked. I'm sure that mum must have protested as mothers do, but that book was mine, I treasured it, reading it over and over, imagining what the food would taste like. It is quite amazing that it has travelled these thirty years with me and I still haven't cooked anything out of it!

Oat Cookies

I have made literally thousands of these simple cookies over the past four years while working at the school. I remember eating them when I was a student there in the eighties, except then they were covered in chocolate. Up until two years ago we were allowed to put a single Smartie in the centre, but then the government decided that was far too unhealthy and so the frivolous chocolate treat had to go. But, even striped of their chocolate fig-leaf, these cookies are delicious, they taste crisp and golden.

OAT COOKIES

Makes about 18

225 g Butter

225g Caster Sugar

225g Plain Flour

225g Rolled Oats

140g Golden Syrup

1/2 tsp Bicarbonate

1/2 tsp Baking Powder

Preheat the oven to 180/350/gas 4

• Cream the butter and sugar together.
• Sieve the flour, bicarb and baking powder and add to the sugar and butter along with the syrup and oats.
• Beat this all together until evenly combined.
• Roll into balls the size of a walnut and flatten lightly onto a lined baking tray.
• Bake for about 12-15 minutes until golden, leave to cool slightly on the tray before removing to cooling rack.