Homemade Pasta

Sweet Italian Sausage

When I first went to visit J in California, on the night of our arrival she had prepared a beautiful supper of Lasagne made with Italian sausage. I had never tasted a lasagne so delicious and the Italian sausage was gorgeous. Ever since then I have tried to buy them, but nothing has come close. I tried to recreate the flavour by chucking fennel seeds in, but that didn't work. But then, by chance and by Googling something very unrelated, I came across this recipe, which called itself a recipe for sausage but advised not to bother putting them into casings as they will only be broken open and the meat extracted for cooking anyway!

 I made it and they were perfect (still not as good as J's lasagne!)

We had them the night before last with some fresh tagliatelle I had made and a rich tomato sauce. Last night I piled three flour tortilla wraps with a layer of tomato sauce with broken and fried pieces of the sausage meat, cheese on top, in the oven, delicious!


900g minced pork
1tbls Salt
1 tbls ground fennel seeds
1 1/2 tbls sweet paprika
1 tbls finely minced garlic
1 tbls black pepper
3 tbsp Red wine vinegar

Mix all of these together and, hey presto, sweet Italian sausages.

Ricarelli

First time I have made these, definitely learnt how not to make them...I didn't whisk the egg whites enough, and probably over cooked the little chaps too. b=But they were nice, didn't have the chewy centre of which I have read, they were quite hard.

Must do better.

Haggis Scotch Eggs

 Apologies for the tiny photo, I am using my iPad for the first time and experiencing a slight technical hitch!

These Scotch eggs are so easy to make, I am not putting quantities here as I just used what I had in the fridge - six eggs, which I hard boiled, a big handful of haggis to about two big handfuls of pork mince. 

Mix the meats together and season. Take a quantity, about a small handful, flatten into an rough oval and lay on a larger piece of cling film. Place an egg on top and gather the film and meat around the egg, gently massaging and teasing the meat around the egg until it it completely encased.

Now roll the covered egg in flour, then beaten egg and finally toss in breadcrumbs.

Ideally you can deep fry until the meat is cooked and breadcrumbs golden. I did shallow fry these but it was tricky - by the time the breadcrumbs were golden , the meat was nowhere near hot enough. So I started them off in the oven, about 20 mins at 180, I then shallow fried them.

Cenci

1/2 lb flour, 1oz butter, 1oz Castor sugar, 2 eggs, Cognac, grated lemon peel and pinch of salt.

Combine together all of the above ingredients into a dough, wrap and leave to rest for a while.
Roll a small piece of dough out at a time, very thinly, and cut out shapes or into strips using a Ravioli wheel.
Heat some oil & turn the Cenci briefly in this and then remove.
Allow to cool and then dust with icing sugar

Moules Mariniere

I have decided that to consecutively cook every recipe in Elizabeth David's Mediterranean food isn't fitting in with my life, I can't bring myself to feed R & G soup every night, this means it is taking me weeks just to cook through the first chapter! Where as I am quite happy to eat meagre meals, G especially likes a 'proper meal' after work. Now, I don't bow down to such chauvinistic demands and, even though, when he gets home from work, he likes to tease me about what meat he's getting for his supper, he knows better than to refuse any food that I have prepared

So, slight change of plan, I am going to cook the recipes which suit the weather, my time, what's cheap in the shops and what I fancy...oh and what keeps the rest of my family happy.

Today they had rope grown Scottish mussels in the supermarket, the sun was shining (a little) and I fancied mussels...

3 quarts (2 pints) mussels, 1 small onion, 1 clove of garlic, 1 small glass of white wine, a small stalk celery, parsley.

Put a splash of olive oil into a deep saucepan and start to cook the onion, celery and garlic, don't let it colour, just heat. Add some pepper. Throw in the mussels and then the wine and a splash of water. Put on the lid and let the mussels steam until they are all open (disregard any which remain closed) Remove the cooked mussels and keep hot while you boil the liquor to reduce slightly, you can thicken this with butter and flour or add cream. Once you have achieved your desired or preferred liquor, pour over the mussels and serve. Sprinkle with parsley and serve very hot with warm bread.

Avgolemono

2 Pints Chicken Stock, strained
2 oz Rice
2 eggs
1 Lemon
Salt and pepper to taste

Add the rice to the chicken stock and boil until the rice is cooked.
In a basin beat the eggs and the juice from the lemon.
Add the boiling broth to the eggs in the basin, a spoonful at a time and keep stirring. Add this back into the broth and stir for a few minutes over a low heat.

This soup is actually delicious and perfect for summer, well worth having a go making. It is refreshing and very moorish.

Soupe Basque

1/4 Onions, chopped
1/4 lb Pumpkin (I used Butternut Squash), cut into pieces
Lard
1 White Cabbage, leaves cut up
1/2 lb Dried Haricot Beans, previously soaked
2 Cloves Garlic
Salt and Pepper
4 Pints of stock or water.

Brown the onions in the lard, add the remaining ingredients, seasoning and liquid. Cook, covered, for 3 hours.

*Served this with griddled Sour Dough Bread - surprisingly good. Excellent on such a cold winter, sorry,  summer, evening!!

Soupe Au Pistou

                                                     
1lb French Beans cut into inch lengths

3 Pints of Boiling Water

4 Medium sized Potatoes, chopped finely

3 Chopped, peeled Tomatoes

1/4 lb Vermicelli

Salt and Pepper

Into the boiling water throw the beans, potatoes and tomatoes. When the vegetables are almost cooked add the vermicelli.

For the Aillade

3 Cloves of Garlic
Sweet basil, a good handful
1 grilled tomato, skin & seeds removed

Pound these ingredients together until smooth, add 3 tablespoons of the Pistou.

Pour the Pistou into a tureen, stir in the Aillade and some grated Gruyere

Chelsea Buns

Sift 500g Strong Plain Flour with a teaspoon of salt (I warm the flour in the microwave for 30 seconds. Tip a sachet of dried yeast (7g) into the middle of the flour. Warm 300ml of milk and add to the flour with the egg. Mix together to form a dough, knead for 10-15 minutes until soft and springy.

Put the dough into greased bowl and cover with clingfilm. Leave for an hour to rise.

Knock back and roll out into a rectangle. Brush with 25g of melted butter and sprinkle with 75g of soft brown sugar, a generous amount of cinnamon and 150g of sultanas or mixed fruit. Roll up into along sausage and cut into slices - about 3cm.

Place slices onto a lined baking tray and cover with a damp tea towel and leave for about 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 190 degrees C or Gas Mark 5. Bake buns for 20-25 minutes.

Raised Pie

With the elusive arrival of summer comes the promise of meals eaten outdoors. I love picnics and evening meals eaten on the half rotten table that wobbles on the decking in our 'communal' garden. Last year we would take one of those disposable barbecues out there, once it was up to heat we would sit it on a 'fireproof' base (a couple of bricks and an oven tray!). I would have a plate of very thinly sliced beef, chicken, pork and streaky bacon and we would each take a slice, cook it in seconds over the heat and eat, dipped in Dijon mayonnaise, Hollandaise, ketchup, HP sauce - whatever we had to hand.

One of my favorite picnic foods is the pie, shortcrust or hot water crust I'm not fussy I love them both, and the filling too (although I'm not too keen on a lot of jelly in my Pork Pie). This recipe for Raised Game Pie is simple and very savoury.

RAISED PIE - A carried meal or served hot or cold for lunch

80z plain flour 3oz fat bacon, minced

1 teaspoon salt 1 onion, minced (2oz)

2 oz dripping or fat 2 level teaspoons mixed herbs

1/4 pint water 1/2 level teaspoon salt

8oz sausage meat 1/4 level teaspoon pepper

Mix the flour and salt. Boil the dripping or cooking fat and water and add to the flour. Knead well and line a 1 lb bread tin with the pastry, keeping back enough to make a lid. Mix the other ingredients thoroughly, place in the tin and cover with the remaining pastry. Brush over with a little egg or milk and bake in a moderate oven for 1 hour.

Salad and Steak

Every other weekend we were child-free, so that Friday night became Steak Night. We would treat ourselves to a beautiful chunk of cow from our fantastic local butcher and eat it with all the culinary kitsch of a Berni - onion rings, oven chips, garlic mushrooms, peas and grilled tomatoes. These became affectionately known as Dirty Dinners

But those covert dinners were brought to an abrupt end when R gave up her weekend job, never to be mentioned again. But today I burnt my hand at work and to cheer myself up I decided we would have steak again! I just wanted my rare meat with a green salad and some tomatoes (I have a bit of a 'thing' about roasted tomatoes at the moment). A piece of topside, a big bowl of spinach, watercress, sugarsnaps and broad beans (from the bag I bought to keep my hand cold as I walked through the supermarket in agony), halved tomatoes, seasoned and dotted with garlic butter then slow roasted. All with my favourite salad dressing.

Dijon Dressing

Into a small jug put a generous teaspoon of Dijon mustard, add about a tablespoon of tarragon vinegar, whisk together. Gradually add Olive Oil in a thin stream as if making a mayonnaise. You should end up with lovely thick dressing, the consistency of which you in complete control of adjusting with the addition of more oil. Season and add lemon juice to taste.

Cowboy Cookies

I have eaten all the Fig Rolls I made last week, I'm not ashamed as the figgy bit counted as one of my Five-a-Day. I can now compensate by making cookies with the chocolate chips my Gourmet Sister sent me. Flicking through the Field Guide to Cookies I decided to make 'Cowboy Cookies', maybe things would have been different on that Mountain if they had had a supply of these?!

COWBOY COOKIES

Makes 24

230g Flour

1 Teaspoon Baking Soda

1/2 Teaspoon Salt

225g Butter

110g Sugar

110g Light Brown Sugar

2 Eggs

1 Teaspoon Vanilla Extract
175g Rolled Oats

200g Chocolate Chips

115g Walnuts

• Preheat the oven 180/350/Gas 4. Line two oven sheets.
• Sieve the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt and set aside.
• In a stand mixer cream together the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix until combined.
• Add the flour and mix on a low speed until just combined.
• Stir in the oats, chocolate chips and walnuts.
• Grab little balls of dough, about the size of a large walnut, place on the tray and flatten slightly.
• Bake for about 15 minutes until golden and feel firm. Cool on a wire rack. Keep in an airtight container for 2 weeks, or freeze.

Bread & Marmalade Pudding

Looking through this leaflet full of ideas to 'stretch the sugar ration' I've decided upon Bread and Marmalade Pudding for tonight. I'm wondering if this leaflet should be re-named 'How to stretch the ink ration' as most of the recipes only seem to have a couple of ingredients, one of the reasons I'm intrigued with this dish! I'm not sure how confident I feel about 'spreading the marmalade over the breadcrumbs' though...

BREAD & MARMALADE PUDDING
4 0z. breadcrumbs, 1 pint milk, fresh or household
3-4 tablespoons marmalade

Place half the breadcrumbs in a 1 1/2 pint pie dish. Spread over the marmalade and cover with the remaining crumbs, adding the milk last. Bake in a moderately hot oven for 1-1 1/2 hours, when the pudding should be set and golden brown.

P.S. This wasn't very nice, like eating wallpaper paste with a hint of bitter orange and dried Copydex.

Fig Rolls

Yesterday I received a wonderful surprise parcel from my Gourmet Sister J, lots of delicious goodies and a fantastic little book 'The field Guide to Cookies' (Anita Chu/Quirk Books) with recipes for nearly every cookie imaginable including one of my favorite, Fig Rolls.

FIG ROLLS

makes about 16

150g Plain Flour

1/2 tsp Baking Soda

1/4 tsp Salt

110g Butter

175g Soft Brown Sugar

1 Egg

3/4 Vanilla Extract

1 tsp Orange Zest

Filling

215g Dried Figs, chopped

1 tbls Sugar

• Sift flour, salt and baking soda. Cream butter and sugar together until fluffy, add the egg, orange zest and vanilla extract and mix. Add flour and mix on low speed to form a dough. Turn dough onto cling film and chill for an hour.
• To make the filling put figs, sugar and 240 ml of water into a saucepan, bring to a boil, reduce heat and cook until it reaches a jammy consistency. Set aside and cool.
• Divide the dough into two and roll first piece out on a floured surface, roll into a rectangle about 18 x 30cm. Carefully transfer to a sheet of parchment paper.
• Spread the filling down the centre half of the dough, fold one side over the middle and then the other side over the top - this will be obvious as you do it! Flip cookie over onto it's seam side. Repeat with other half of dough and then chill for 20 minutes. Meanwhile preheat oven 375/190/Gas 5.
• Bake for 20 minutes. Allow to cool and then cut into 4cm slices.

Flan aux Raisins

I bought some bad grapes yesterday. I should have tried one in the shop (is that shop-lifting? I never know. I suppose you wouldn't take a bite from an apple or banana before buying, so why does it seem okay to try a grape?). Anyway, I took a chance and it didn't pay off. So here am I with a pound of the sourest grapes that nobody in the house will touch, maybe if I hide them in a Grape Flan.....

Flan aux Raisins

serves six

For the pastry

200g Plain Flour

125g Butter

1 Egg

A Little Cold Water

For the filling

125g Green Grapes

125g Black Grapes

2 Medium Eggs

100g Caster Sugar

3 Tablespoons Ground Almonds

100ml Double Cream

25g Flaked Almonds (not in photo as I didn't have any!)

25cm Flan Tin with loose base, (buttered & floured)

• Preheat oven to 230 C/450 F/Gas 8.
• Put flour into food processor, cut butter into small pieces and pulse until it resembles breadcrumbs (or rub in by hand). Add the egg and a little cold water, process again until a ball forms. Chill in the fridge for 30 minutes then roll out thinly and line the flan tin, chill again for another 30 minutes.
• Wash, pick through and thoroughly dry the grapes, arrange over the pastry base.
• Beat the eggs and caster sugar together until pale and thick, beat in the ground almonds and then the cream. Pour over grapes and sprinkle with the flaked almonds and bake for 20 minutes. reduce heat to 200 C/400 F/Gas 6 and bake for a further 20 minutes.
• If the surface is browning too quickly place a sheet of foil over the top. Serve warm.

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.