Camembert and Walnut Bites – accentuate the positive...

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I want to love Camembert. It looks very charming on a cheeseboard, instantly adding ze strrrrong Frrrrrrench accent. And it is always up for a picnic – just add a fresh baguette and a bottle of vin - et voila! What’s not to love? Well...

Camembert is often described as buttery and nutty – I like that bit. But to me, there is a cabbage-y tang lurking in its depths. I’m not the greatest fan of cabbage at the best of times, so why would I want it in cheese... given I’m not even the greatest fan of cheese at the best of times and will easily find an excuse to skip straight to dessert.

However... as the song says, you’ve got to ac-cen-tu-ate the positive (add buttery pastry, a touch of honey, and some walnuts) ... e-li-min-ate the negative (heat and a smidgen of rosemary seems to minimise the cabbage-y note), et voila! This I can love.

For approximately 25 party-sized bites you will need...
... a 7cm empanada press (widely and generally quite cheaply available from most kitchen stores), or a little patience.

50g walnuts

125g Camembert, cut into rough chunks

½ teaspoon very finely chopped fresh rosemary

25g runny honey

500g good quality all-butter puff pastry 

a little cold water to seal the pastries 

a little beaten egg to glaze the pastries 

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C 

First, blitz the walnuts in a food processor until reduced to large crumbs. Add the camembert and rosemary and process until reduced to a moist crumbly mixture. Add the honey and blitz to combine with the other ingredients.

If you haven't got a food processor, you will need about 5 minutes and a good chopping action

Roll out the puff pastry (or buy ready-rolled) to a thickness of about 3mm. Using the cutter side of the empanada press, stamp out circles until you have used up all the pastry. (If you don’t have an empanada press, use a 7cm round scone cutter instead.)  

Using lightly floured hands, take approximately half a teaspoon of the mixture and roll it into a ball. (This might seem a stingy amount but - trust me - any more will leak from the pastries as they cook.) Repeat until you have the same amount of cheese balls as pastry circles.

Be stingy with the filling unless you want accidental camembert and walnut crisps 

Place a pastry circle on the empanada press and place a cheese ball in the centre. Dampen the edges of the pastry with a little cold water and close the empanada press, gently sealing the cheese inside a half moon. (If you are doing this without an empanada maker, fold the pastry over the cheese ball, pressing the dampened edges together, pinching them together between thumb and index finger.) Repeat until you have approximately 25 half moons made. Kids love helping with this bit.

(I often make them to this point then freeze in a single layer to cook at a later date, straight from the freezer. If cooking from frozen, you’ll need to give them an extra minute or two in the oven.) 

Place on a baking tray, approximately 3cm apart to allow them to puff up. Bake in the pre-heated oven until risen and golden – about 10 minutes. Allow to cool slightly on a wire rack before handing round with drinks. Best served warm.

Variation: swap the honey for the same amount of apricot jam, or cranberry jelly. Both go terrifically well with Camembert. 

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Piri Piri... Peri Peri... Pili Pili Chicken – Some like it hot !

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It is Piri Piri? Or Peri Peri? Or Pili Pili ? I lean towards Piri Piri, but whatever you prefer to call it, this spicy chicken dish, which originated in Portugal’s former African colonies, has been a huge hit world wide - as evidenced by the success of Nando’s restaurant chain. I’ve never tasted Nando’s version, which apparently goes from a wussy version that barely registers on the Scoville Scale, to a “throat-scorching” extra h-h-hot!

There’s not much preparation to this easy recipe, however you will need time for the chicken to wallow in all those lovely flavours – 24 hours if possible. It's worth it though, for a succulent, tasty chicken that is so easy to portion up.

The recipe below is how I like it – with the heat somewhere between 10,000 – 20,000 Scovilles so I can still taste the other flavours in the dish. The beauty of this marinade is that you can tweak the ingredients to how you like it. Use African Bird’s Eye Chillies to ramp it up to 100,000+ Scovilles if you like it hot.

For 1 spicy chicken, feeding about 4 people, you will need...
... a food processor

Piri Piri Marinade

100mls extra virgin olive oil

30mls cider vinegar

3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh parsley

2 fat cloves of garlic

2 red chillies, stalks removed, deseeded and roughly chopped

1 teaspoon finely grated fresh ginger

1 teaspoon coriander seed, crushed to a powder

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon of sweet paprika

¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

the juice and finely grated zest of half a lemon

the juice of half a lime 

1 chicken weighing approximately 1.5kg, spatchcocked* 

Time – at least 12 hours, but preferably 24 hours. 

Place all the ingredients for the marinade in a food processer and blend until combined into a smooth liquid.

Place the spatchcocked chicken in a large Ziploc-style bag or non-metal container and pour in the marinade. Seal and refrigerate for 12 hours or overnight, turning occasionally to make sure the marinade gets a chance to reach all parts of the chicken.

Pale and interesting? Nah!

 When ready to cook, pre-heat the oven to 200°C. Place the chicken in a shallow roasting tin and roast for 35 - 45 minutes, or until cooked through. To test for doneness, pierce the thickest part of the thigh and if the juices run clear, with no trace of pink, then it’s cooked.

Looking so much better with a tan !

I’m serving this with a carrot and orange salad and baked potatoes.

 

*A spatchcocked chicken is prepared as follows: 

Sit the chicken on its breast and, using a heavy duty kitchen scissors or poultry shears, cut down both sides of the backbone, and remove it. Open the chicken out and, using a heavy knife, cut into the cartilage in the centre of the chicken, until the knife reaches the breastbone. Turn the chicken over and gently press down to flatten it out.
 

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Chicken ‘Kindorf’ Salad – Waldorf, kind of !

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Have you ever heard of William Arthur Ward before today? Me neither. However, you will probably know some of his words. He’s a guy frequently quoted by bumper stickers and fridge magnets and you’ll have seen this quote at some point in your life:

“Every person has the power to make others happy. Some do it simply by entering a room, others by leaving the room.” So true.

For me, it totally applies to the grapes in Waldorf Salad. I know they are a classic ingredient of this classic salad but they have the power to make me happy by leaving the salad well alone.

Don’t worry. Several other non-classic ingredients that have the power to make me happy have entered the salad, and more than made up for the absence of grapes.

 

For Chicken Salad for 2 – 3 happy people you will need...

Dressing

2 tablespoons mayonnaise

2 tablespoons Greek yoghurt

¼ teaspoon finely grated lemon zest

a pinch of salt 

Salad

1 large cooked chicken breast, sliced into bite-sized pieces

1 red-skinned dessert apple (I used Fuji), skin on, diced

1 stick of celery, peeled of stringy bits, finely sliced

1 tablespoon fresh parsley, finely chopped

15g almonds, roughly chopped

25g walnuts, roughly chopped

25g sultanas

35g ready-to-eat-apricots, snipped into sultana-sized pieces

 

Simply mix the ingredients for the dressing together until combined. Then add the salad ingredients, stirring them through the dressing until coated with the creamy sauce. Instant happiness!

(This also makes a great sandwich filling.)  

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Basmati Salad – from leftover, to lively !

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I haven’t done a War On Waste recipe for ages – perhaps it’s because I’m getting much better at not wasting food. However, I miscalculated last night’s dinner and ended up with an extra portion of basmati rice left over.

It stared accusingly from the fridge so I introduced it to a few other ingredients. In the right company, and given an overnight in the fridge to think about things, it has become a lot livelier than it was before.

For quick and lively side-salad for 2 – 3 people you will need...

Salad

1 portion of cooked basmati rice, cold

1 large ripe tomato, diced

1 Braeburn apple, (or other crisp sweet-tart apple) skin on, diced

1 spring onion, finely chopped

2 teaspoons finely chopped pickled jalapeno peppers (optional)

25g walnuts, finely chopped

25g sultanas

1 teaspoon very finely shredded fresh mint 

Dressing

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

1 heaped teaspoon wholegrain mustard

¼ teaspoon fine table salt

a little freshly ground black pepper 

In a mixing bowl combine the salad ingredients.

Place the dressing ingredients in a screw top (or tightly-lidded) jar and shake well to combine. Pour over the salad and toss lightly to coat all the ingredients. Cover and refrigerate for about half an hour to allow the rice to soak up the flavours.

This will keep some grilled skate company on my plate this evening.

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Quick Blackcurrant and Rhubarb Jelly – Appeals to my inner cave-dweller !

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From disgusting to delicious in about 20 minutes

As a devoted eater, I love trying tastes new to me. This isn't always a success initially. I often need to try a food several times to check if I still don’t like it, or whether the taste is something I could get used to – or might even get to like.

Among the foods that have grown on me over time are: avocados, anchovies, olives, asparagus, some blue cheeses, oysters, smoked fish, snails, liver (but only in certain guises) – I could go on but there’s quite a list. 

We can acquire a taste for something previously repellent, but it needs repeated trials before your inner cave dweller will accept that you are not trying to poison yourself.

When it comes to blackcurrants, however, repeated trials have failed … eh… repeatedly. The cave-dwelling part of my brain flatly refuses to allow fresh blackcurrants past my lips. The taste of this beautiful little berry nauseates me... which is funny because if I could eat just one jelly or jam for the rest of my life, I would probably choose blackcurrant. There is obviously some alchemy in the cooking that magically transforms the taste from disgusting to delicious.

For a small pot of jelly (approximately 400g) you will need…

260g blackcurrants

140g rhubarb, washed and sliced into 1cm chunks

4 tablespoons unsweetened apple juice (or water)

400g sugar

4 tablespoon lemon juice

Wash the blackcurrants and pick them over to remove any stray leaves etc. You needn’t be too fussy about removing the stalks as the solids will be sieved out at the end.

You’ll need to select a saucepan large enough to allow the ingredients to expand up to 5 times without bubbling over. Place the washed berries in the saucepan with the rhubarb and apple juice (or water). Cook for about 20 minutes over a medium-low heat until the fruit has softened.

Meanwhile, place 3 saucers in the freezer – use these later to check if the jelly will set.

Add the sugar and lemon juice and keep the heat low until the sugar has completely dissolved. (If you stir the mixture with a wooden spoon, you will feel any undissolved grains of sugar on the bottom of the pan.)

When the sugar has dissolved, turn up the heat so that the mixture begins to boil energetically. Boil for 6 minutes before testing to see if the end product will set.

To test that the jelly will set: remove one of the saucers from the freezer and spoon a little of the mixture onto it. Let it cool for a minute then push your finger through it. The surface should wrinkle and your finger should leave a clear path. If not, continue to cook for a further minute or two before testing again on another cold saucer.

Pour the mixture into a metal sieve set over a bowl to catch the liquid. Press the fruit with the back of a spoon to extract as much juice and pulp as possible (We’re not aiming for a clear jelly here). Transfer the contents of the bowl to a *sterilised jar and discard the solids left in the sieve. 

This quick and easy preserve will keep for up to a month in the fridge and is delicious on toast, with goats cheese, or as an unusual filling in a Victoria Sponge.

The End

What foods have you come to like over time? What tastes are still to pass the cave-dweller test?

*The easiest way to sterilise jars is to run them through a hot cycle of the dishwasher. Otherwise, wash in hot soapy water, rinse, and dry in the oven at 100°C. 

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Rhubarb and Strawberry Popsicles - a sophi-stick-ated Summer treat !

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Sophi-stick-ated !

It’s been over a hundred years since the 11-year-old Frank Epperson went to bed, leaving a soda on his porch (so the story goes). After a freezing night, he reclaimed his drink, which had frozen around a stir stick left in the glass. I don’t imagine the soda remained untouched by the local fauna overnight and I guess if he’d looked closely he would probably have seen one or two drowned insects trapped in the world’s first recorded ice pop.

In 1923, Frank patented this frozen treat (insects not included!), calling it the “Epsicle”. His kids had a better name for it and it’s been the “Popsicle” ever since - that’s Ice Pop or Ice Lol(ly) to you and me depending on what part of the country you are from.  Anyway, whatever you call it, Summer just wouldn’t be the same without flavoured ice on a stick.

Over the years, I have gone through various unsophisticated favourites: the luridly lime-y Loop the Loop, the Iceberger, the Wibbly Wobbly Wonder, Solero, and Magnum but I have less of a sweet tooth now.

Sweetened poached fruit combined with Greek yoghurt makes a creamy but relatively healthy (and sophi-stick-ated) alternative. 

Ice pop molds are available in most supermarkets and kitchen stores at this time of year.

For 12 – 16 popsicles (depending on the size of mold) you will need…

600g rhubarb, washed and cut into chunks

200g strawberries, sliced

3 tablespoons unsweetened apple juice (or water)

200g honey (or sugar)

500g Greek yoghurt

a few sliced strawberries to decorate

Put the fruit in a medium saucepan with the apple juice or water. Place over a medium heat, and cover. As it cooks, the rhubarb will release a lot of juice, which will provide enough liquid to poach the fruit.

When the fruit is soft (after approximately 15 minutes), remove from the heat. Add the honey (or sugar) and taste. (I don’t have a very sweet tooth but you may prefer a sweeter mix. If so add more honey or sugar to your own taste.)

Place the fruit in a sieve over a bowl and leave to cool, catching any excess fruit syrup in the bowl.

Next, place the yoghurt in a bowl and stir the cooled fruit through. (It is delicious just like this, served up with a little fruit syrup drizzled over.)


Line popsicle molds with slices of strawberris and drizzle over a little of the syrup to form a thin outside layer on one side of the popsicle. (If you are using upright molds, this won’t be possible so just mix some chopped strawberries through the yoghurt before freezing.) Place in the freezer until the thin layer of syrup has frozen. Spoon the yoghurt mixture into the molds, insert popsicle sticks and freeze for at least 4 hours or overnight.

You will have some fruit syrup left over. This will store in the fridge for up to a week and is delicious mixed with sparkling water or dry cava.

Taste-tester verdicts

Sister: “Mmmm! Very refreshing.”

Niece (2½): “Euugh! I don’ like it!”

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What kind of fool am I? Roasted Peach, Basil and Cardamom Fool, that's what!

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One of the food horrors from my childhood was Black Forest Gateau. In theory it should have been delightful – rich chocolate cake soaked in kirsch and filled with cherries and cream. The reality was a mass-produced travesty of cheap ingredients that turned up at too many birthday parties and didn’t pass muster when compared to my mum’s home baking. No, I don’t think I was a little food snob. Like most kids, I just knew Yuk! when I tasted it.

Instead of becoming a classic of the dessert trolley, the BFG has been consigned to that same hall of infamy as the prawn cocktail, and cheese hedgehogs.

In contrast, a dessert that has stood the test of time – originating in the Middle Ages – is the fruit fool (also spelt foole). This simple classic combination of tart fruit folded through sweet custard causes my taste buds to swoon with pleasure time and again. Play with the flavours and the seasonality of fruit to find your own perfect combination. At the moment, mine is this peach of a dessert.

Mmmm... a peach of a dessert!

For 8 servings of Summer you will need…

For the fruit base:

8 ripe peaches, halved, stone removed

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

8 fresh basil leaves, shredded

2 tablespoons orange flower water (optional)

Preheat the oven to 180°C

Rub the peaches with the olive oil and place in one layer in an ovenproof dish deep enough to catch any juice. Scatter with the basil leaves and place in the preheated oven for 20 minutes. Remove and leave to cool before chopping into a rough puree. Stir in the orange flower water if using.

For the custard:

1 litre fresh full-fat milk

200mls single cream

the seeds from 1 cardamom pod, crushed

8 egg yolks (the whites can be frozen for later use or you could whisk up a meringue for tomorrow’s dessert…)

4 tablespoons runny honey (or sugar)

3 tablespoons cornflour

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

To finish

200mls cream whipped into soft peaks (or Greek yoghurt)

8 sprigs of fresh basil or mint

Place the milk, cream and cardamom in a large saucepan over a medium heat and bring to simmering.

While the milk is heating, place the egg yolks in a large bowl with the honey (or sugar), cornflour and vanilla extract and whisk until combined. Remove the milk from the heat and slowly add it to the egg mixture, whisking all the time. (Never add the egg to the milk unless you want sweet scrambled eggs!) 

When all the milk has been added return the mixture to the saucepan and place over a low heat and stir until thickened. Be careful not to let the mixture boil as it can become slightly grainy in texture. Once the custard has thickened, taste and add a little more honey (or sugar) if you prefer a sweeter dessert. Remove from the heat and leave to cool, stirring occasionally to prevent a skin forming on the surface of the custard.

To serve, divide the fruit between 8 glasses or bowls. Spoon the cold custard over the fruit. Top with a swirl of cream and a sprig of basil or mint. Chill until needed.

(You can, if you prefer, fold the fruit and cream through the custard before serving but I prefer the separate layers).

Other favourite fool flavours include:

Gooseberry with Elderflower Custard

Rhubarb with Cointreau Custard

Damson or Plum with plain old Vanilla Custard

Loganberry with Lemongrass Custard

Cherry with Almond Custard, topped with crushed Amaretti biscuits

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