Tapas Bars

When is a Tapas Bar not a Tapas Bar? When it's in England. How has every 'Tapas Bar' in this country missed the point of Tapas? They've done to Tapas what Centre Parcs has done to the Great Outdoors; taken something that should be enjoyed for it's very simplicity; for the free licence it gives to tuck in, get messy and have fun and has spent millions cleaning, sterilising and re-packaging it. It's just another safe and shiny ride in the slowly evolving theme park of modern life - another Accessory Experience to add to the generic calender of 'Great Family Days Out'.

Food is such a major commodity in bars and pubs now that it can't be simple, simple is their secret weapon, their 'buzz word', it's what Gastro Pubs thrive on, less is more. Everyone wants to see simple meals on the chalk boards; Pies, Liver & Bacon, Ploughman's Lunches... but there is the small print; the Pies are made with the most expensive 'Normandy Butter and Flour milled by Fairies and baked in an original 18th Century Baker's Oven', the Liver is from farmed Unicorn and the ploughman's lunch has 'Handcrafted' bread. Why can't we have a Tapas Bar that sells snacks; just small morsels of food, of bread, sliced sausage, potato croquettes, olives, ham, meatballs, anchovies? Just small dishes of food, plain and cheap but very tasty and easy to eat with a drink in one hand, not a thesaurus.

Casseroled Sheep's Hearts

There is something quite sinister about Sifta Sam in his white bell-bottoms, comedy sailor's hat, starched beard and the grin of a man who has just pickled his neighbour's cat. He's the kind of character who would have given me nightmares as a child and put me off salt for life. Most of the recipes in the book are inviting but there is one which I am sure is the work of Sifta Sam, Casseroled Sheep's Hearts. Now I'll eat liver and, on occassion, will eat edited kidney, but not heart. Maybe I will try it one day and think differently? But for now this recipe is nothing but grim. Please don't try this at home!


Recipe No 102

CASSEROLED SHEEP'S HEARTS

Clean four hearts and soak them in salt water for half an hour. Dice 2 carrots, 2 onions and 1 turnip. Put them in a casserole with A1 Cooking Salt, pepper and a bunch of herbs. Lay the hearts on top. Half cover with stock or water. Cook slowly for about two hours. remove the herbs. Thicken the liquor with blended browned flour. Serve with boiled potatoes.

Golden Soup

I love my ministry of Food leaflets. I imagine my grandmothers following the recipes and conjuring up simple meals and treats from the tiny bounty in their wicker shopping baskets.

This recipe is so modestly simple and it tastes lovely with lots of warm bread and butter.

GOLDEN SOUP

serves four

2 1/2 Pints of water

2-3 Level teaspoons of salt

3/4 - 1 lb Carrots, coarsely grated

1/2 oz Dripping or margarine (I used butter)

2 Level tablespoons semolina

1/4 Level teaspoon pepper

2 Level tablespoons chopped parsley or watercress

Bring the water and salt to the boil, add the carrots and fat and boil gently for 10 minutes, or until tender. Blend the semolina and pepper to a smooth paste with a little cold water, add some soup, mix well and return to the pan. Stir until it boils and boil gently for 5 minutes. Serve hot sprinkled with chopped parsley or watercress.

Cinnamon Crisps

The Ministry of Food 'Cookery Calendar' were recipe sheets designed to give the frustrated housewife ideas to make the most out of her weekly rations. Some of the recipes are nothing short of grim like the spaghetti sauce made from root vegetables and cabbages 'boiled together for 30 minutes', but many sound intriguing and also very cheap! These humble Cinnamon Crisps are lovely and, as the name suggests, very crisp, they remind me of those little plastic-wrapped biscits you sometimes get free with coffee.

(Recipe copied as printed)

CINNAMON CRISPS - another tea-time treat

1 oz. margarine 4 oz self-raising flour 1 level tablespoon syrup

1/2 level teaspoon cinnamon 1 oz. sugar A very little milk or water

1/4 level teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

Melt the margarine in a saucepan, remove from the heat and mix in the syrup, sugar and soda. Add the flour and cinnamon and just sufficient liquid to bind the mixture. Turn on to a board, knead well and roll out very thinly. Cut into rounds and bake in a moderate oven for 10-15 minutes, until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack and when cold store in tins.

N.B. - this quantity makes about 16 biscuits with a 2" cutter.

Whipped Jelly

This is a Recipe Sheet printed for Chivers & Sons Ltd in the 1940's. The paper has faded with age and the sepia photo on the front depicts the English countryside of H.E.Bates; headscarved women picking strawberries, the flat-capped farmer and his carthorse laden with the freshest fruit ready for it's lumber to 'The Orchard Factory', there it will be transformed into 'Those famous Chivers products'. It's a world long gone, suffocated by mass importation and the forgotten honesty of seasonal food.

The six recipes are for jelly; the Jelly-filled orange segments that we, of a certain age, remember from childhood parties. Sometimes they were speared with a cocktail stick, threaded with a paper sail to resemble little boats, a detail undoubtedly since made illegal by our friends in Brussels, far too dangerous!

The Jellied Dates are one of the horrors of childhood, the kind of pudding a stuffy aunt would make for you, watching as you ate it, and then, presuming that your hurried consumption (to get the awful deed over with as quickly as possible) was a sign of enjoyment, insisted you have seconds and thirds. What could possibly be less appetising than a 'mock cream' filled date encased in jelly like some hideous dinosaur eye fossilised in Amber?

What does fascinate me though are the following two recipes (copied directly form the original leaflet) which require you to whip the jelly. I have never heard of this before and certainly can't remember ever eating anything that could have been a 'whipped jelly'?

CAMBRIDGE STRAWBERRY WHIP

1 pt. pkt Chivers Jelly (strawberry)

Chivers Strawbery Jam

Make up the jelly as directed on the packet. Set a little in the bottom of individual glasses. When set, spread a layer of jam on each. Whip the remaining jelly until stiff, pile into the glasses and decorate with a little jam.

FIRELIGHT CUBES

Pint pkt Chivers Jelly (Lemon or Orange) Chivers Jam

Melt jelly cubes in boiling water to make 3/4 pint in all. Pour half in a shallow dish, leave till set. When remainder begins to thicken and adhere to the sides of the basin whisk until stiff. When quite set, cut both clear and whipped jellies into cubes with a wet knife, arrange in individual glasses on a base of jam.

Baked Egg

I love boiled eggs with soldiers, but I hate burning my fingers whilst picking all the sharp bits of shell off it's bald head and then you always get stabbed in the gum by a shard that had burrowed into the white. So imagine having a naked egg, ready to eat without any of the disruption or risk!

BAKED EGGS

1 Egg

A Little Butter

A Little Cream or Creme Fraiche (optional

Boiled Water

Salt and Pepper

• Preheat oven to 190/375/5
• Butter your ramekin and pour in a tablespoon of cream, if using. Break your egg into the ramekin. Dot with butter.
• Place into a deep oven proof tin or dish and pour in the boiled water to come halfway up the sides of the ramekin.
• Bake for 15 to 18 minutes depending how well cooked you like your eggs.
• Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

Serve with buttered soldiers

You can also sprinkle with grated cheese or bury a number of different ingredients under the egg - chopped ham, smoked salmon or other fish, asparagus, chopped tomato, cooked mushrooms. . .

Baklava

I used to make Baklava a lot and could justify this habit by taking trays of it to work to share out. The best Baklava was, of course, that which I ate in a Kafeneon, in Methana, Greece, along with the tiny cups of thick Greek coffee. As with any holiday food or drink, it never tastes the same when you are home, but I still enjoy the act of making and eating (very small) pieces of it. It is cloyingly sweet and contains tonnes of butter to glue each delicate layer of filo to the next. Not a health food!

BAKLAVA

Makes about 24 pieces

500g Filo Pastry (about 20 sheets)

200g Unsalted Butter

350g Finely Chopped or Ground Nuts (Walnuts, Pistachios or Almonds)

Syrup

500g Sugar

300ml Water

2 tbl Lemon Juice

2 tbl Orange Flower water

• Pre-heat the oven to 160/325/Gas 3
• Butter the sides of a baking tray, ideally about 30x20cm, 6cm deep.
• Layer half of the filo pastry (10 sheets)in the bottom of the tray, buttering each layer as you go.
• Spread the nut mixture evenly over the layered pastry, then continue to butter and layer the remaining sheets of filo. Butter the top layer.
• Cut into small squares or diagonally into lozenge shapes.
• Dissolve the sugar into the water and lemon juice and simmer until thickened enough to coat a spoon. Add the Orange Flower Water (optional). Chill syrup.
• Bake the Baklava for 45 minutes and then turn the oven up to 220/425/7 and bake for a further 15 minutes.
• Pour the cold syrup over the hot Baklava. Allow all to cool and then eat, small pieces at a time, it's very sweet!

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.