Happy Mother's Day / Happy Birthday Dad!

Dad's birthday was on Saturday. Mother's Day is today. Dinner tonight just had to be special.

360. Sole with Chanterelles (Fast Food)
361. Apple Butterscotch Tart (Weekend Lunch)

The justification behind putting these 2 recipes together is that Dad loves apple pie, and Mum loves mushrooms. The sole only takes about 20 minutes in total, so I started by making the tart.
This tart has pastry on the bottom, then a layer of thinly sliced apples (I used granny smith), then a butterscotch paste on top. Nigella stipulates ordinary unsweetened shortcrust pastry, which is a doddle to make. The butterscotch paste contains light muscovado sugar, flour, eggs and cream, and looks like this...


walnut-coloured paste

Given the occasion, I went for dinky presentation and used these super-cute heart-shaped pie tins that my aunt gave me for my birthday.


pastry with apples


w paste

They need to be baked for about 30 minutes in total, which gave me just enough time to make the fish.

Now, even though the recipe is called "sole with chanterelles", I could find neither sole nor chanterelles. When I went to Prahran market on Friday, I went to Damien Pike's wonderful mushroom stall, and got these pine mushrooms, which are yellow like chanterelles. The lovely guy running the stall (which I'm pretty sure was Mr. Pike himself) said they'd intensify in colour when cooked and be lovely with fish. FYI, chanterelles are only available in Australia in August, imported from Scotland. Mr. Pike at the stall says they're his favourite kind of mushrooms in the whole world.

But back to the pine mushrooms.


ooh mushrooms!

You have to cook the mushrooms down in a lot of butter, remove them to a plate, and cook the fish fillets in the mushroomy butter. Another substitution, I used flake instead of sole because I couldn't find sole at Box Hill at 5:45 on a Sunday afternoon. I figured it didn't matter as long as the fish was white, to contrast with the mushrooms.

So, when the fish is cooked, you remove it to a plate, and return the mushrooms to the pan, sizzling it down with white wine and a squeeze of lemon. The mushrooms and their delicious thick yellow sauce go on top of the fish, with parsley to garnish.


Flake with pine mushrooms

This dish was delicious! I really can't fault the mixture of flavourful mushrooms, a buttery brown and yellow sauce and fish. It requires a bit of specialised shopping, but it's just so easy and fast to make! It simply must be tried.

Here are the little tartlets, fresh out of the oven. One thing I noticed was that even though the filling was cooked, the pastry wasn't completely cooked. I had to cover them with foil and put them back in the oven until the pastry was ready. I'm not sure if this is because of the individual tins, but at any rate, I'd definitely blind-bake them next time.


baked pies


apple pies - this was Dad's idea for presentation. Cute, huh?


One heart, with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream

These pies were delightfully cute, adorable even. Despite the name, they weren't sweet at all. Add more sugar if you want it to be properly sweet and butterscotch-like, although I found that vanilla ice-cream added sufficient sweetness.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Birthday Dad!

Autumn Lunch for 3

A quick note: on Friday morning last week, my brother Daniel left on a trip to Japan. It's going to be very quiet around my house for the next 9 weeks. Not to mention the mountains of leftovers that are inevitably going to pile up. Aaah...

Anyway, today for lunch my parents and I had Nigella's AUTUMN LUNCH FOR 6, in halved quantities.

323. Ragoût of wild mushrooms
324. Oven-cooked polenta
325. Cheeses with bitter salad
326. Stewed apples with cinnamon crème fraîche

In my most recent progress report, I mentioned that unusual ingredients will be featuring strongly in the next couple of months. For today's lunch, we needed a few: crème fraîche, gorgonzola, assorted mushrooms and chicory. I had initially planned to get up early on Saturday morning and go to Prahran Market with my dad, but I kinda stayed out late on Friday night and ended up sleeping in… whoops. (In retrospect, I have no idea what part of my brain thought it would be conceivable for me to get up early on a Saturday morning).

So Dad, with all his quick-thinking intelligence and endless patience, suggested we go to Leo’s supermarket, a mere 5 minute drive away from home. We used to go there quite a bit when I was younger, but not so much recently for some reason.

And oh my god, Leo’s was awesome! They had all the best ingredients, in the one convenient supermarket. They’re a bit pricier than Coles or Safeway, but so much better!

We got chicory, gorgonzola dolce, proper French crème fraîche, interesting mushrooms (photo below), quinces, chicory, radicchio, marinated octopus, dolmades, and a whole bunch of other cool stuff. Leo’s rocks! And because it’s so conveniently located, we managed to get back home in time for me to cook lunch.

This recipe for polenta doesn’t involve much work at all. All you have to do is heat up some stock, gradually whisk in the polenta, then stir it over heat until it boils and thickens.


Polenta

Then you spread it into a buttered dish, cover with foil, and shunt it in the oven for an hour.


Polenta

Now, the mushrooms. These are the ones I got from Leo's - button mushrooms, swiss brown, and a "3-in-1 gourmet pack" with enoki, shiitake and pink oyster mushrooms.


Mushrooms


Chopped Mushrooms

To transform these mushrooms into ragoût you need to cook onion, garlic and celery until softened, then add red wine, marsala, a bay leaf and some thyme. In a separate pan, you cook the mushrooms in lots of butter and oil until softened, before adding more wine and marsala and letting it simmer. Once the wine in both pans has simmered away, you add the onions to the mushrooms. Then you add flour and hot stock to the now empty onion-pan, cook it until it's a bit thicker, and then pour that into the mushrooms before letting the whole thing simmer for 10 minutes.

And if you think that sounds confusing - it was. I was extremely glad when I got to the "simmer for 10 minutes" stage, after having used at least half my pots, pans and utensils.

While it was simmering, I made the salad. Very simple and delicious it was too. It's just chicory leaves tossed with gorgonzola cheese, and a strong dressing (oil, vinegar and a couple of anchovy fillets). Actually, Nigella says to use lemon juice, but I had none, so white wine vinegar it was.


Chicory - not available at all supermarkets, but conveniently packaged and sold at Leo's!


Gorgonzola dolce - Oh my god DROOL.

I have to admit, all the time I was making lunch, I kept picking at that gorgonzola - cutting off little pieces, putting them on a chicory leaf and eating it. Amazing. Actually, it was so compulsive that I think it's amazing we had any left for the actual lunch.


mushroom ragout


Polenta


chicory salad


Plate

Mmm'hmm... this was an absolutely gorgeous lunch! I never really liked polenta before, but this version, strongly flavoured with vegetable stock, was delicious. I'm always a big fan of mushrooms, and I loved the different textures and mushroom flavours in it. Obviously, I adored the salad, but not my parents - they get spooked by blue cheese and don't like the strong flavour. Such a shame, I had to eat most of the salad by myself. Sigh.

We cleaned up the kitchen while I prepared the dessert. This one's very quick and simple. The apples are peeled, cored and cut into pieces, and then stewed with sugar, a cinnamon stick and orange juice. You only need to cook them for a couple of minutes until slightly softened. As for the crème fraîche, all you need to do is stir in some calvados and cinnamon.


apples and crème fraîche

It was a very light, non-stodgy dessert. The perfect way to finish off a lovely lunch.

Good Crumble

I spent the last 2 days up in St. Leonards at my friend Sandy’s holiday house with some workmates. I wanted to cook something up there, something universally pleasing, but not too difficult. You see, there were 11 of us up there, including some guys with very cutting senses of humour, one of whom is a qualified chef (!), and the idea of slaving in a foreign kitchen all night, only to be derided (even jokingly) by them simply did not appeal. Plus, I wanted to make something cheap.

268. Apple Crumble (Basics etc.)

Apple crumble is delicious, easy, and seems to be something that everyone will eat. I have previously made the rhubarb crumble and the apple and walnut crumble, and loved them, but in this instance, I thought that the basic, ur-recipe would be the best. Also, this is the easiest crumble in How to Eat, and making it enabled me to cross yet another recipe off my list.

I aired the idea to the gang on the first day of our holiday, and they all seemed up for it. I bought some apples and butter at the supermarket on our way up there, and made the crumble in the afternoon, while the others were playing Uno, drinking, and watching TV. There were no scales up there, or a food processor, so I had to do it by eye and hand.

I got 1 block of butter, cut it into cubes, and piled on an appropriate-looking amount of flour, before rubbing it in with my fingers, and adding a bit more flour as I went along. Then I stirred in some white sugar (Sandy had no brown sugar at her house), and popped it in the fridge.

Then I peeled the apples (with a knife!) and cut them into wedge-shaped chunks. Bizarrely, Wes & Brad, who were sitting at the kitchen bench playing Uno whilst I was doing this, really love eating apple peel, and kept taking pieces out of my detritus bowl.


raw apples, crumble mix

Then I cooked the apples in a pan with some butter and sugar and a bit of lime juice, (fresh oranges were sadly also lacking), and let them sit aside while we ate dinner.


stewed apples

For dinner, we ate some packet lasagne and delish roast potatoes that Sandy made, and after that, I put the crumble together.

Me: Is apple crumble ok with everyone?
Everyone: Yes… yeah… yup etc
Me: So Wes, you like apple crumble?
Wes: Yes. The crumble part is better. Can my piece have more crumble and less apple? In fact, just give me a bowl of crumble.

I myself much prefer the crumble, (as does everybody, apparently) and it seemed that the dimensions of the pans and quantities of fruit and crumble available to me meant that we were going to end up with a very high crumble-to-fruit ratio. It was basically one thin layer of apple pieces, with heaps of crumble dumped straight on top.


raw crumble

This took about 30 minutes to cook in the oven, and in the meantime I made the custard. (Just to prove that I wasn’t lying when I said in the Q&A with Sarah, that I can make custard without a recipe now). It thickened easily without any problems. However, I did feel the need to get the OK from Brad, (our resident qualified chef), before I was sure it was thick enough.

Me: Brad, check this custard out, is it thick enough?
Brad: ...peering into the pot… yeah that’s heaps thick! That’s perfect for an anglaise… how did you make it?
Me: I mixed eggs and sugar, then poured in hot cream and stirred the whole lot over the heat.
Brad: Good girl! But, it’s an anglaise, not a custard.
Me: It’s a custard.
Brad: It’s an anglaise… custard is made with custard powder.
Me: Whatever! Go back to Uno!

Then we divvied up the crumble and custard.


crumble, custard

I do realise that most people aren’t as obsessed with custard as I am, and only drizzled a sane amount onto their servings. But for my bowl, I totally drowned it in custard.


mmm custard

Thank goodness, everyone liked it! And they all said the same thing about it... "Good crumble, Sarah". People were also appreciative of the good smells while it was baking.

I went to bed relatively early, and it happened that yet more friends arrived while I was sleeping. You see, I got up the next morning, groggily walked to the kitchen, and found everyone milling about the living area/kitchen, including some new faces. At this point, my friend Michael grabbed me by the shoulders and pushed me in front of some dude I'd never met before (one of his friends who'd arrived during the night), and shouted, "Hey! This is Sarah! She's the one who made that crumble you devoured last night!". The mystery-friend then said to me,"That was good crumble". Awesome! He was hot, too. And he made me a pancake for breakfast, which I ate in addition to the very few remains of the crumble, drowned in cold and deliciously thick leftover custard.


breakfast

Oh hey! I just got a message from Sandy…

“thankyou sooo much for coming up hun! We must do this again! I’m craving your apple crumble BIG time xoxo”

Rocking.

How'd you like dem apples?

Ok, these apples! My family came home about 5 minutes after I finished that last post. To finish off the baked caramel apples, you have to put the sauce on the stove, and let it bubble away until reduced to a "gooey sticky syrup". Then you can optionally add some cream to make it a more fudge-like sauce. I went for the cream option.


sauce

Once the sauce is done, just pour it over the apples and Bob's your uncle.


Apples

Nigella says that these apples should be eaten as they are, with nothing spooned over or dolloped on top. I generally trust Nigella's serving suggestions, but put a tub of Sara Lee French Vanilla ice-cream on the table, just to be on the safe side.


Eating

Verdict: These apples totally rock! The sauce is what makes the dish. I remember making similar baked apples when I was younger, but without calvados. So it must be the calvados that transforms these apples from "nice" to "special". (And at $75 a bottle, you'd want it to be pretty damn special!). We were eating the apples by cutting off a chunk, pushing it around on our forks in the sauce, and then straight into our mouths. Perhaps this wasn't the most hygienic way to eat, but certainly the most delicious.

And as testament to the absolute loveliness of these apples and their sauce... the tub of vanilla ice-cream remained totally untouched. And in a family of ice-cream addicts, this is really saying something.