Wild Mushroom Ragu

I use large mushrooms for this recipe, I find something appealing about the need to cut up food while I am eating it, all too often an activity denied those who don't eat meat. I use a mixture of cultivated large mushrooms, shitake mushrooms and dried porcini mushrooms. If you have access to edible wild mushrooms then of course that's even better. I serve this dish with creamy herb polenta, chargrilled shallots and trufle oil. It's a wonderful autumn dish but is comforting even now when the days are sunny and the evenings very chilly, here in the UK.

Bringing the number up to 126, Cuba - welcome!

For this recipe you will need; (serves 4)
400g of mixed mushrooms, (see above)
30g of dried porcini mushrooms
2 large cloves of garlic, chopped
400g of chopped tomatoes or passata
100ml of Noilly Prat
3 pickled walnuts, sliced
1 tablespoon of olive oil
Seasoning, I use marigold bouillon powder in place of salt, and ground black pepper.

Pickled Walnuts

For the polenta;
500ml of vegetable stock
100g of polenta
2 tablespoons of creme fraiche
100g of parmesan cheese, grated.
1 tablespoon of chopped parsley and chives.
salt and white pepper.

For the char grilled shallots;
4 Banana shallots cut in half, lengthways.

Begin by soaking the dried porcini mushrooms in 100ml of boiling water. Cut up the fresh mushrooms into large chunks and fry in the olive oil on a gentle heat until they have taken on colour. Add the garlic and continue to cook for a minute or two before adding the Noilly Prat. When the vermouth has cooked off almost completely, add the rehydrated dried mushrooms along with the soaking liquid. Be careful not to add the last few drops, there is sometimes a small amount of grit in the bottom of the bowl. Add the chopped tomatoes or passata and cook on a low heat for 15 to 20 minutes. Sufficient time to make the polenta.

Rub the cut surface of the shallots with a little olive oil and place them cut side down on a medium heat griddle for 4 to 5 minutes, or until they have taken on a little colour, turn the shallots over and switch the heat off, the shallots will finish cooking in the residual heat.

Chop up the parsley and chives. Bring the vegetable stock up to a simmer and gradually sprinkle on the polenta, whisking in with each addition. The polenta will thicken gradually as the mix comes back up to the boil.  Continue stirring as the polenta cooks and thickens, I find using a whisk to do this produces a smoother, lump free result. add the creme fraiche which will slacken it back down again and a couple of minutes before serving, add the herbs (keep a little parsley back to garnish) and the grated parmesan, this will also slacken off the polenta, but if you like it even wetter than this, add a little more creme fraiche. Adjust the seasoning, with salt and white pepper.

Gently stir the sliced pickled walnuts into the ragu just before serving. Serve with a portion of the polenta, topped with the ragu, the grilled shallots on the side and a drizzle of truffle oil and parsley.

Vanilla Extract

It looks like really stewed tea!

A month or two ago, I watched a programme where a scientist analysed vanilla flavouring and extract available to the public. This included the synthetic version, which of course contains no vanillin whatsoever, to the most expensive vanilla extract which to his amazement contained so little vanillin, it was impossible to measure. I use vanilla regularly and although I use the seeds themselves often, I rely on a bottle of what Ina Garten, bless her, calls good vanilla. Keep the jar on the kitchen table and you'll find as I do, your visitors will do the shaking for you.
I set about making my own vanilla extract and here is my recipe.

Crystals of vanillin on vanilla beans

Take 40 vanilla beans and cut them up into 2 centimetre lengths. Now I know the idea of buying 40 vanilla beans is daunting, I thought so too, but then I looked on eBay and to my amazement there are suppliers of what turned out to be excellent, plump, moist beans and for an incredibly low price. Place the cut up beans in a kilner jar and pour on a 75 centilitre bottle of vodka. Screw down the lid well and shake the jar every day, for a week or two, then whenever you think about it for another 10 weeks before decanting the vanilla scented liquer into a clean bottle. Now here is the good bit, pour another 75 centilitre bottle of vodka onto the beans, they have in the first flush given up barely half of their treasure. This time shake the jar every day for a couple of weeks then occasionally over the next 8 months, before decanting another brew of the best vanilla extract.
It doesn't stop there; I plan to put the contents of the jar along with a third bottle of vodka into a blender and blend for a minute before returning the mix to the jar and leaving for a few weeks. This should produce a third and last batch of intense vanilla extract.

Notes:
This vanilla keeps indefinitely so if like me, you use it regularly, having a litre and a half of it in the store cupboard will not be unwelcome. However, you may well choose to do this with a friend or two and share the results or give it away to friends who bake, as gifts. Either way you'll find that the overall cost ends up being a fraction of the cost of flavouring commercially available and of course it will deliver a far better flavour.
Since the flavour of the vanillla is so strong the vodka can be the cheaper variety
Ive just read the ingredients on the (expensive) bottle of vanilla extract in my cupboard, it reads, Water, Alcohol (36%) bourbon-madagascar vanilla bean extractives. What exactly are extractives? it sounds very much to me like a customised word that allows for some sort of practice that is best hidden.

Catalan Fish Stew

In 1983, I spent a few weeks in Barcelona in the home of a Spanish woman named Chenchi. She spoke virtually no English, I, little Spanish but somehow we got along. Several evenings a week we would go down to the market in the old part of the city where she lived to buy the where with all to make supper. Many times we would buy fish, often hake but occasionally halibut.
                          When I saw a splendid piece of halibut for sale at the fish monger's in King's Lynn the other day, memories of my time with Chenchi came back and planned a dish based on her's. Although this is not exactly as Chenchi made her dish, the elements are much the same.

Cherished though damaged, a bit like most of us!

Welcome Montenegro, bringing the number up to 125!

For this recipe to serve 4, you will need;
500g of firm white fish, I used halibut
500g of potatoes
1 large onion, chopped
5 cloves of garlic, finely sliced
2 peppers, sliced
200g of flat Spanish beans, sliced
1 tin of chopped tomatoes
100g of pitted black olives
100ml of dry sherry
1 teaspoon of salt
1 teaspoon of black pepper
1/2 teaspoon of chilli
A few strands of saffron
lots (I do mean lots - 150ml) of good olive oil.

Begin by peeling the potatoes and cutting them into chunky discs. Toss them in a little olive oil, the salt and pepper and roast them in a hot, 200C oven for 15 to 20 minutes until they have taken on a golden brown colour and are almost tender. Meanwhile fry the onion and the garlic gently in a tablespoon of olive oil until the onion is translucent and the garlic begins to turn a pale golden colour. Be careful not to over cook the garlic. Add the peppers and beans and continue cooking on a low heat for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are tender. Add the sherry and cook for a further 3 or 4 minutes until all the alcohol has cooked off. Add the chopped tomatoes, plus the empty tin filled up with water. Add the cooked potatoes, saffron, chilli and olives and cook for 10 minutes on a gentle heat, while you switch the oven back on to 200C
Finally place the fish cut up into large pieces on the surface of the stew, pour on the remaining olive oil and spoon a little of the mix over each piece to cover. Place the dish in the oven and cook for 4 to 5 minutes or only until the fish is cooked.

 Notes:
The olive oil in this dish is important not only for the taste (so use a good Spanish one if you can) but for the unctuous texture it gives the finished dish.
I use a favourite terracotta dish I brought back from Spain 30 years ago, it is designed to go on a gentle flame and also in the oven. Any flameproof cooking vessel that goes happily into a hot oven and can then be served from will be good.
Although the crisp texture of the roasted potatoes is lost once they have been cooked in the stew, the roasting imparts a delicious addition to the final flavour.

Peppers, Chickpea and Feta Tart

.....and of course there are potatoes. Yes another tart but by the time you will have made this and my earlier one click here for the recipe, you will be inventing all manner of delicious tarts yourselves. I rarely buy vegetables that are not in season, but when I find the supermarket has bagged together several different coloured peppers and for a bargain price, I weaken. When thinking about what other ingredients to put into this tart, chickpeas seemed a good idea and feta seemed the most appropriate cheese. No amount of oven heat is ever going to help feta to melt, so I used a little grated cheddar on the top to form a toasted crust.

For this recipe you will need;
400g of shortcrust pastry
500g of cooked potatoes
4 peppers, sliced (red or a mixture of colours)
250g of cooked chickpeas
6 or 7 spring onions, chopped
3 cloves of garlic, finely sliced
200g of feta cheese, crumbled
50g of cheddar
1 tablespoon of olive oil
Salt, black pepper and chilli powder

Begin by sweating the peppers in the olive oil on a gentle heat for 3 or 4 minutes. Add the garlic and continue to cook until the peppers are tender and any liquid which has been given off, has evaporated. You need a tender, relatively dry mix of peppers and garlic. Add the chickpeas, potatoes and chopped spring onions, feta cheese and season to taste with salt, pepper and chilli. The feta cheese is itself salty so it's best to test for your self how much additional salt you will need.
Roll out the pastry on a large sheet of baking parchment, use 2 sheets overlapping if you don't have the wide parchment. I use a tart Tatin dish  which is 28cm wide to cook the tart in and roll out the pastry to be around 35 to 36cm wide in order to form a wide edge.
Lifting the pastry up by the baking parchment, ease it into the baking tin, pile in the filling and spread out to the edges. Bring the excess pastry in to form a border, sprinkle the grated cheddar on to the exposed filling, bring the corners of the parchment over to for a makeshift cover (this helps prevent the top from colouring too quickly) bake in a moderate oven 180C for 1 hour. This allows the pastry to become wonderfully toasted and have a crisp top and bottom. There are photos on the earlier post mentioned above, which show the baking parchment cover.

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