Jerusalem Artichoke

It is this flavour which lends itself especially well to a simple soup. While it may seem a recipe cop-out to simply make a soup out of every vegetable which comes along, this served up with a touch of double cream and just a few drops of truffle oil on top can make a really impressive first course. You could also skip the pureeing process and the double cream altogether for something chunky and a little healthier, but either way tastes perfect.

If you’ve never tried the Jerusalem Artichoke before, now is the time – they’re in season right through Winter and you should be able to get hold of them all the way through till late February. A word of warning though – they are reported to have *ahem* rather gassy side effects. Luckily I’ve never experienced that, but don’t say I didn’t warn you!

Jerusalem Artichoke Soup Recipe – Ingredients & Method

• 750g of Peeled & diced Jerusalem Artichokes
• 1 stick of celery, chopped
• 1/2 large onion, diced
• 1 leek, chopped
• 1 UK pint (roughly 1.25 US pints) of chicken stock
• Double cream (optional)
• Butter
• Salt & Pepper to taste

Start out by putting your celery, onion and leek into a saucepan with the butter and cook over a low-medium heat for 5 minutes or so until softened slightly, then add in your Jerusalem Artichokes and cook for another 3 minutes stirring regularly.

Now pour in your chicken stock and bring to a boil, reducing down to a simmer and leaving for 15 minutes approximately until everything is soft.  Now you have the choice between serve as-is (add a bit more chicken stock if needed to thin the soup down) or puree; if you are pureeing it, simply add a little double cream off the heat to create a velvety smooth texture.

Season before serving and drizzle a little truffle oil over the top (if pureed) for a touch of luxury.  You’ll love it, I promise.

The snow has finally melted meaning that Christmas now, surely, is over.  After all that seasonal indulgence, now is the right time to make yourself feed better with a little detox.  This month Julia at A Slice of Cherry Pie is hosting our seasonal food blogging event “In The Bag”, and we’ve got a great one lined up:

Bag Contents:

• Lemons
• Garlic
• Sesame seeds

Entry Details

All you need to do to enter this event is make a dish using the ingredients and blog about it then send an email with ‘In the Bag in the subject line to asliceofcherrypie AT yahoo DOT co DOT uk by Sunday 31st January with the following information:

• your name
• a link to your post
• a picture of your dish

Rules

Here are the loose rules – but ultimately remember the objective is to have fun whilst highlighting seasonal food:

1. Participants should attempt to use all the ingredients ‘in the bag’ for that particular month, but may leave one out if they prefer.

2. Participants can include any extra ingredients that they see fit.

3. Entries should include a link back to the host for that month, and the post should be tagged “In the Bag”.

4. Entries can be written any time during the month, as long as the URL is emailed to that month’s host before the closing date.

5. Participants from outside of the UK are most welcome to join in and substitute an item from their own local seasonal produce if necessary.

Britain Under Ice

In amongst all of the snow slush, I’ve somehow managed to salvage the entries for Christmas 2009’s Seasonal Food Blogging Event “In The Bag“.  For this even I challenged food bloggers to come up with a dish using the ingredients of cranberries, clementines or mandarines, and nuts.  We’re not exactly bursting at the seams with entries, but what we have are corkers; check them out below.

This month (January) sees In The Bag return to Julia at A Slice of Cherry Pie. What will she have in store? Only one way to find out, details soon…

Merry Christmas!

Christmas day is already well under-way here; the presents are opened, Mia is happily playing with all her new toys, and I’m contemplating what to make with my KitchenAid ice-cream maker attachment (thanks, Gosia!).  Yesterday we enjoyed a Polish Christmas dinner (traditionally enjoyed on the evening of the 24th), and today we’re heading to my Parents’ for the English version of turkey with all the trimmings.  Tomorrow is my turn to cook, and this Christmas Tree Cake is a great festive alternative those those who either don’t like or can’t be bothered with the traditional English Christmas Cake.

What you see pictured is nothing more than our Babka Cytrynowa (Polish Lemon Cake) recipe given a seasonal twist with the inclusion of Clementine juice and zest.  The flavour is delicate rather than overwhelming, and is very easy to make.

Clementine Christmas Tree Cake Recipe – Ingredients & Method

• 3 Large Eggs
• 1/2 Cup / 100g Cup Plain Flour, sifted
• 1/2 Cup / 100g Potato Flour, sifted
• 1/2 Cup / 100g White Sugar
• Juice of 1 Clementine
• Zest of 3 Clementines
• 8 tbsp Mild Olive Oil
• 1 tsp Baking Powder

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees c / 355 degrees f.
2. Mix flour(s) with baking powder into a bowl.
3. Separate your egg yolks and whites.  Beat egg whites in a bowl till they form soft peaks, then add the sugar.  Mix until combined, then add egg yolks and beat gently until combined.
4. Next to add the flour mixture to the egg mixture.  Add 4 tbsp of flour and 3 tbsp oil; mix well, then repeat until all oil / flour mixture is used up.
5. Sprinkle the raisins with a little flour (this should stop them sinking in the cake) and then distribute into the cake mix along with the clementine juice and zest.
6. Pour the cake mix out into your tin and put into the oven for approximately 35 minutes; check with a cake tester (a wooden kebab stick did the job for us) to make sure the centre is dry before removing.

The image below, by the way, is our attempt at following one of the recipes in the book – the sharp tasting Lemon Trickle Cake.  After all, what better way to review a book than to test one of the recipes in practice?  More about that later…

Lemon Trickle Cake

For those of you who, like me, follow Hugh’s escapades with interest, this book is a logical progression for the River Cottage brand.  Gone are the days of the naive city boy trying to find, grow and rear his own food – River Cottage is now 10 years in, and this experience shows.  Hot on the tails of Nigella Express and How to Cheat at Cooking, this is Hugh’s take on good food made quickly and easily.

Perhaps the most successful part of the book is how despite jumping on the “easy food” bandwagon, the River Cottage trademarks of home grown, organic and seasonal food are still in effect.  So now, not only are we making cheap food, we’re making it ethically, too – and all the better for it.

Anyway, on to the recipe test.  I picked out the Lemon Trickle Cake for no reason other than a lady at work bakes and brings in her own delicious version (Lemon Drizzle Cake), and I’ve never tried baking it myself.  This, and it would be a great excuse to practise using my KitchenAid for cake mixing.

The version you see in the picture is the second attempt at baking this cake; one attempt was mine, and one was Gosia’s (my Wife’s) .  Better not to ask what happened to mine; it’s a sore subject, and the word “sink” comes into the explanation.  Still, both versions tasted delicious – even if one did look better than the other, and it after all it was a great excuse to fill myself with cake for a few days running!

I’m not going to go into detail on the recipe here (for fear of Hugh striking me down) – for that, buy the book.  Basically, you take 175g of butter and caster sugar, beat until pale, then add the zest of 3 lemons, 3 eggs and 175g of flour.  The eggs are added 1 at a time, each with a bit of flour.  This goes into a greased tin and into the oven at 170 degrees c until cooked.

The magic comes in when the cake is stabbed liberally with a skewer and drizzled with lemon icing (200g icing sugar with the juice of 2 lemons); the icing soaks through the cake creating an intense and sharp tasting cake which is so addictive.

I’ve also tried out the “Chocolate and Beetroot Brownies” recipe; if there’s any left by the time I take out my camera, I might post a few pictures of those, too.  Right now, the chances are looking slim…

Pomegranate and Feta Salad

This recipe is part of my new found love of pomegranates; a leafy salad with pomegranates and feta cheese. It’s surprisingly good, and a great festive alternative to all the turkey you’re likely to be eating.  We cheated and used a bag of ready bought salad leaves for this (hey, Delia gets away with it), but it would be even better if you made up your own.

Christmas Salad of Feta and Pomegranate – Ingredients & Method

• 1 Bag of leafy salad OR a selection of your own salad leaves, including Radicchio and Lambs’ Lettuce.
• A handful of chopped feta
• 1 Pomegranate
• Black pepper, to taste

Start out by preparing your salad; equal portions of any leafy types will work well together, but try and include some bitter varieties in there.  Next add a handful of chopped feta, the seeds from 1 pomegranate, and about 1/2 the juice.  Toss lightly then finish with a twist of black pepper.

Enjoy!

Pomegranate, Onion and Coriander Salad

The ingredients might sound weird, but what you end up with is a sweet and sour flavoured salad which doesn’t taste onioney.

This has got to be worth a try, hasn’t it?

Pomegranate, Onion and Coriander Salad

(ingredients are in bold below)

1. Finely slice 2 red onions.
2. Cover with the juice of 2 limes and 1 pomegranate, eave for 30 minutes then drain the juice.Leave for 30 minutes then drain and dispose the juice (this is what takes away the onion flavour).
3. Add the pomegranate seeds and a handful of chopped coriander and you’re done!

Beef Tagine

The reason for the tweaking isn’t because I think I can improve her recipe; far from it.  In fact, this version was born out of an evening’s dinner with a Brother-In-Law who doesn’t like lamb, coupled with my urge to haul out last year’s Christmas present – a clay tagine pot from my Wife.

Give this version (or Nigella’s original) a go and your house will be full of the smells of Christmas while it cooks.  You won’t regret it!

Beef Tagine Recipe – Ingredients & Method

• 1kg Diced stewing beef
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 2 Onions, peeled and chopped
• 250g Dried dates (de-stoned)
• 200ml Red Wine
• 250ml Water
• 1 tsp of each of the following: Cinnamon, Turmeric, Ginger and Cumin
• 5 Cloves
• 2 Tomatoes, cut into 1/2 moon shapes (half down the middle, then half again, then once more)
• Salt & pepper, to taste

1. Start off by heating your oil in a wide pan or tagine pot.  Throw in your onions and stir for 10 minutes to soften.
2. Add in your spices and stir.
3. Turn up the heat, add the meat, and stir occasionally to brown.
4. Add the liquids and dates then reduce the heat to a minimum, pop the lid on, and leave for 1.5 hours.
5. Add the tomatoes, stir, then back on with the lid for another 30 minutes.

You’re done!  I hope you enjoy it – but don’t thank me, thank Nigella!

What better time is there in the year for me to become re-involved with this great recipe creation event, other than at Christmas?  I hope you can all join in with me, too.  It’ll be fun, I promise!

All you need to do to be included in my round-up article is to create a dish using the ingredients below and email the link across to me before the cut off date (04 January 2010).  Simple!

Bag Contents:

• Cranberries
• Clementines or Mandarins
• Nuts

Entry Details

Make a dish using the ingredients and blog about it, then send an email with “In the Bag” in the subject line to scott [at] realepicurean [dot] com by Monday 4th January 2010 with the following information:

• Your name
• A link to your post
• Your picture of the dish, if applicable

Rules

Here are the loose rules – but ultimately remember the objective is to have fun whilst highlighting seasonal food:

1. Participants should attempt to use all the ingredients “in the bag” for that particular month, but may leave one out if they prefer.

2. Participants can include any extra ingredients that they see fit.

3. Entries should include a link back to the host for that month, and the post should be tagged “In the Bag”.

4. Entries can be written any time during the month, as long as the URL is emailed to that month’s host before the closing date.

5. Particpants from outside of the UK are most welcome to join in and substitute an item from their own local seasonal produce if necessary.

Czarnina - Duck Blood Soup

Despite the fact that I didn’t take my camera with me on my recent trip to Poland (hence the less than flattering photo), and the fact that this is hardly festive (actually, in retrospect, the cloves and allspice give this a great Christmas smell), I couldn’t resist sharing with you this crazy sounding but delicious sweet and sour soup made from duck’s blood.

Czarnina is pretty much a traditional Polish dish, yet shows just how much we in the Western world (UK, in my case) have become detached from our food.  All meat has blood in it, but the mere mention of a soup where blood is the primary ingredient still never fails to raise an eyebrow (even, in my “testing”, with people who gladly eat black pudding).  Indeed, I bet that’s what grabbed your attention in the headline.

There seems to be a thousand variations on this soup all around Poland.  I’ve tweaked my Mother In Law’s recipe slightly here to simplify it a bit (she’ll probably kill me), but I promise you’ll love it.  Still, it may turn out to be more of a theoretical exercise, since the chance of getting hold of a bottle of fresh duck blood (sold at practically every farmers’ market in Poland) may be easier said than done.  Still, if you have your own duck, or access to a freshly killed duck…

Polish Czarnina Soup Recipe – Ingredients & Method

• Fresh ducks blood (about 450ml or 2 cups)
• 200ml (just less than 1 cup) white wine vinegar
• 4 tbsp plain flour
• Various duck parts (offal included)
• Marjoram
• 5 Allspice buds
• 5 Cloves
• 1 Pear
• Handful of dried fruits including cherries and prunes
• Salt & Pepper, to taste
• Sugar, to taste

1. If your duck blood is fresh, mix with the vinegar to prevent it clotting.  If you’re buying it, it’s probably already mixed with vinegar anyway.
2. Next step is to make a stock from the duck parts; throw them in a large pot with about 2.5 litres of water and the spices and slowly bring to the boil, taking any scum from the surface, before reducing the heat down to a simmer and leaving for 1 more hour or until the meat is tender.
3. This is how my mother in law did the next bit; remove all the duck pieces and remove from the heat.  Next, add in the fruit, blood, and flour (gradually) while stirring to thicken.
4. Remove the meat from the bones and add back into the soup.  Offal was served separately as a “chef’s perk”!
5. Taste and season with salt, pepper and sugar as required.

My Mother In Law served it with potato dumplings, but you could use pasta.  Let me know what you think to it!