Recipe CXXXV - Fish Pie

Another staple of Christmas in various parts of Europe is the fish. In central Europe, the carp is the most common type, as it's a freshwater species and can be sourced in large quantities and bought a few days in advance. It's quite common in Czechia or Slovakia to see huge tubs of carp on market squares with customers queuing up to select their own. As they are alive, they are transported home very carefully and usually kept in the bath until its big appearance on Christmas Eve. 

It is served then because 24 December is known as Štědrý Den (Generous Day), and the last day of Advent fasting. So it was considered to be a good way of kicking off the feast, as it is a rather tasteless and boring fish, but also a more substantial meal than what they would have previously had. 

So we're not going to make our fish pie with carp; we need something with a little flavour and maybe some character. I went for cod and sea bass. For anyone who knows me, they will be astonished that I actually made a fish dish at all, let alone a salt water fish dish. 

I actually despise fish - for me the word "poisson" has one too many Ss. But every now and again I get the urge to dig into a bit of briny sauce and yesterday was one of those days. 

Ingredients:

450g-500g mixed deboned fish, e.g. haddock, cod, sea bass 

300ml-400ml milk

4 or 5 carrots, sliced

A large red onion, cut into small pieces 

20 fresh ground peppercorns 

A bunch of fresh parsley, cut up small

A couple of tablespoons of flour

As many peas as you want, and some green beans if you want 

Some white wine (optional)

8 to 10 medium-large potatoes

300g butter

200g grated cheese, e.g. Cheddar or Gruyère

Instructions:

Cut up and roll the fish in some pepper and flour; check for bones. Put the oven on 200°C. Peel the potatoes and boil them gently in salted water until soft. Mash them up with some butter and pepper. While the potatoes are boiling, put some butter in a fairly large high-sided frying pan and while it's gently heating up, add the onions, carrots, and a little flour, followed by the white wine, peas, fish and parsley. When the white wine has reduced but before the pan dries out, add the milk and cook with lid on for about 15 to 25 minutes to let the flavours run.

Take a large, high-sided baking dish and pour the fish mix in there. 

Take the mashed potato and spread evenly on the top. Some like to make little dollops with an ice cream scoop but it's not important. Put the grated cheese on top and place in the middle of the oven for 25 to 30 minutes. 

Serve immediately and enjoy!

Recipe CXXXIV - Caramelised Brussels Sprouts and sauteed Wild Boar Medallions

It's that grey week between Christmas and New Year's Eve when very little happens except finishing up all the food you didn't gluttonously consume during the main feast days and hanging around for that great anticlimactic moment when the numbers on the clock signify that it's 1st January of the following year. But this year is different - the last week of the year of cancelled invitations and postponed bookings due to the great pestilence of 2020 will tick by more slowly than the rest of the year with the tortuous effect of a dripping tap and those leftover vegetables will have no other mouths to enter than your own, so what better way to spend a miserable December night than to make something different with your remaining food? Here's a simple but delightful take on the humble Brussels sprout, the most underestimated Christmas ingredient of them all, plus a splendid little side dish of wild boar.

Ingredients for the sprouts:

500g Brussels sprouts 

Minimum 20 fresh ground peppercorns 

100g butter 

Spoonful of nutmeg 

Some salt

Instructions:

Heat the oven to 200°C. Do the usual removal of the outer leaves, then slice the sprouts in half. Melt the butter on a low flame and pour into a wide baking dish - this is to leave plenty of room so they can sit with the insides on the base. Pour the butter into the baking dish, then cover the sprouts in salt, nutmeg and pepper before placing them flat in the butter.

Cook in the oven for 25 minutes or until soft.

Ingredients for the wild boar medallions:

350g to 500g wild boar fillet cut into slices 

Plenty of ground black peppercorns 

6 mushrooms of your choice 

1 red onion

3 cloves of garlic

A glass of brandy

150ml to 200ml fresh cream

Instructions:

Roll the boar in the pepper and some salt, cut up the mushrooms, onions and garlic. Put some butter in a wide frying pan on a medium-high temperature, fry the medallions until they are sealed, add the garlic, onions and mushrooms, pour over some brandy, let it reduce. Then add the cream and let it thicken.

Done!

I also caramelised some carrots with sugar using the same recipe as the sprouts and they went down very well. 

Recipe CXXXIII - Latticed Apple, Sultana and Cinnamon Pie

As the days of confinement go by, I find myself more and more returning to the food of my mother and grandmother; perhaps this is a kind of subliminal act of reassurance to my family. Or maybe it is because I have a newly-found sense of nostalgia. Either way, this one is a lot more elaborate than my mother's apple pie, mainly because she was a fifties housewife: only the staple ingredients and no embellishments. She would never have found things like cinnamon or dark brown sugar back then, due to rationing. 

Although this ended by the sixties, the general trend remained firmly in the camp of vegetables and potatoes boiled to within an inch of their lives, and meat cooked in the oven with no decadent additions like herbs or garlic. So my mother's apple pie was generally a treat for us all. She peeled the apples and sometimes boiled them too, but I tend to err on the side of adventure when it comes to pie baking.

Ingredients: 

For the pâte brisée (shortcrust) pastry:
300g flour
150g cold butter, diced into cubes
Half a teaspoon of salt
2 large dessertspoonfuls of sugar
A tiny drop of milk (or water, depending on taste)
1 egg
Some extra brown sugar for the topping

For the filling:
3 apples, cored and sliced into C-shaped pieces (leave on the peel for extra flavour)
A handful of sultanas
A good two dessertspoonfuls of dark brown sugar (otherwise just ordinary brown sugar)
A teaspoonful of cinnamon
Some five spice
Some lemon juice
Some white sugar if necessary
Clear honey (optional)

Instructions for the pastry:
Put the flour, salt, and sugar into a bowl. Add the butter and begin to massage it into the flour until it looks like rough breadcrumbs. Add a few drops of milk or water - you don't need much to get a good ball of dough. Put it in the fridge for a minimum of half an hour, then break it into two pieces (size ratio - 70% to 30%). Roll out the larger ball until it fits the entirety of your round baking tray.
Keep the last part for later.

Instructions for the filling:
Put the oven on to 180°C. While your pastry is in the fridge, put the apples into a bowl, squirt your lemon juice over them to keep their freshness. Throw in the cinnamon, brown sugar, five spice and sultanas. Give the whole thing a very good mixing-in so that it becomes consistent throughout.

Then put it into the baking tray and flatten it out. Put some honey on top if you want.

Take the smaller ball of pastry, roll it out, and cut into strips. Put them on top in a criss-cross pattern. It is not important if they are uneven or unequal in size or width, as after some time in the oven, they will find their own shape.

Glaze the top with egg, and put on a final dashing of sugar, then put it in the oven for 45 to 50 minutes, and serve immediately with cream, ice cream or custard.

Recipe CXXXII - Traditional Baked Rice Pudding

One of the abiding memories of my youth was the Sunday roast dinner and my father's party piece was his rice pudding, which he would nail week after week, and there would still be some to nibble on as late as Thursday. His recipe used evaporated milk, which gave it a creamy tang, but I make it with a few other ingredients. Every traditionally made rice pudding has that dark brown layer on top, which is ground nutmeg, and is essential to the authenticity of this most British of desserts.

Ingredients (* = optional) to make enough to fill a baking tray: 

250 g dessert (short grain) rice

1 l whole milk (3.4% fat)

250 ml full cream

1 vanilla pod

25 g to 75 g brown sugar

25 g to 75 g white sugar

1 nutmeg plus grater

* Cinnamon

* Five spice

* Some sultanas, diced apples or pears

* Some saffron

Some butter to grease the baking tray

Instructions:

Put the oven on to 150°C max, and butter a baking tray with minimum 7cm-high sides. Put the milk and cream into a saucepan and gently heat it up, making sure it doesn't boil.

Cut open the vanilla pod and scrape the contents into the pan, then throw in the pod. Once it is about to boil, remove it from the heat and let it settle for a few minutes.

While you are waiting for the mink and cream to heat up, put the rice and both sugars into the baking tray. At this point, you can also add any other of the optional ingredients. Then pour the milk and cream over the top, and give it a good stir so that it doesn't end in overcooked clumps of rice.

Grate or sprinkle as much nutmeg on the top as you want. Really, it's the most essential thing - the rice pudding without the nutmeg layer is like pasta without sauce.

Finally, put the baking tray in the oven for two hours or so (possibly half an hour longer), when the rice pudding should be soft and creamy with a splendid nutmeg roof. 

It is great both just out of the oven or cooled in the fridge. If it is done right, when it is cold, you should be able to cut slices with it, which you can serve to children in portions like sweetie bars. They love it with some jam.

Put a layer of tin foil over it, if you want to keep it in the fridge.

Apart from that, enjoy changing the ingredients slightly each time. I love the pure creaminess of a plain rice pudding, but I find cinnamon and five spice really do it for me. I also love to cover mine in brown sugar to eat.

Recipe CXXXI - Slow-Cooked Corona Chicken plus Meatballs in Ratatouille

These times of isolation have brought out the imaginative spirit in me. Yesterday, I broke open the fridge to use up any vegetables that seemed to be going soft, and to create something that would last a day or two. So I came up with this very tasty slow cooker that I've named after this epoch of segregation.

Ingredients:
10 tomatoes
2 spring onions
1 red onion
1 ordinary onion
1 red pepper
3 diced carrots
Worcestershire sauce
10 leaves of sage, cut finely
Garlic is optional
Red wine (you choose the amount)
1 whole chicken - slit the breasts and leg open to allow the flavour in
Ground black pepper and salt rubbed into the chicken
1 baking tray with lid or aluminium foil
Food blender
Butter
Lashings of olive oil

Accompaniment: sautéed potatoes

Instructions:

Turn your oven on to 180°C and peel and cut into 2cm-sized pieces.

Take out your food blender, and put in the tomatoes, three sorts of onions, red pepper, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, sage, some salt and pepper. Blend everything to a fine pulp and leave to settle before blending again.

Take out your chicken, cover it in oil, salt and more pepper, place it and the diced carrots in the baking tray then pour over the blended sauce, making sure your chicken is entirely saturated. Spoon more on top if necessary.

Cover it and place in the oven. Cook on 180°C for 30 minutes, then turn down to 120°C and go off to do something constructive while your house starts to smell appetising.

About 45 minutes before you want to eat, parboil the potatoes, then fry them in butter and olive oil on a medium heat until they are nice and brown. Remove the chicken, cut into the appropriate number of pieces and put on the plate with the potatoes. Spoon some of the sauce onto the food and save the rest for tomorrow.

With the rest of the sauce:
The day after, I made a ratatouille with meatballs and rice using the rest of the sauce. Needless to say, it was the heaviest rata I've ever had, but it gave me a nice warm full stomach.

Ingredients:
Aubergine
Red or green pepper
Onion
Courgette
5 large tomatoes, roughly chopped into large chunks
Whole cherry tomatoes
Green beans
Olive oil
500g minced beef
Herbes de Provence
More red wine
Salt and pepper
Rice
The rest of the sauce

Instructions:

Put some pepper, herbes de Provence, salt and minced beef into a pot and mix in well. Make small balls from them. Take a tray and put them in the fridge for half an hour or so.

In a casserole dish, fry the vegetables except the tomatoes on a medium heat until they are soft, then add the meatballs and seal them on all sides.

Add the tomatoes and some red wine, put a lid on, cooking at a medium-low heat allowing the juices to run but not evaporate.

Then add the remaining sauce from yesterday, and simmer for 30 minutes to an hour. Cook your rice in the meantime and add it to the mix at the end, so as not to absorb all the juices while they are cooking.

Recipe CXXX - Dorset Apple Cake

One of the advantages of being holed up in a health crisis is the opportunity to do all of those things we haven't had time to do in recent times. It's been a while since I posted a recipe; this is due to a number of things: firstly, I was gravely ill a couple of years ago, then I got a huge amount of work to do, and finally I had three kids in as many years. So please excuse the lack of posts. I hope this recipe will be the first in a revival of my blog, and I would like to thank a lady with the initials AK for the inspiration.

This one is a simple but delicious recipe; Dorset, Somerset and Devon are very well known in Britain as being the home of the apple. It's where most cider makers are based, and as there are so many apples down there (there is even the town of Appledore in Devon, just to reinforce the concept), they make this lovely cake with the local produce. 

This cake is best served warm, but when cold, tastes different but no less intense.

Ingredients:
2 cooking apples, cored, peeled and chopped, then doused in the juice of half a lemon
250g of plain flour
8ml baking powder
130g cold butter, cubed
180g light brown sugar
1 beaten egg
50ml milk, possibly a little more needed later
As much cinnamon as you dare

I also added five spice, but it's not in the original recipe.

Instructions:
Preheat the oven to 180°C and grease a round cake tin with butter

Once you have dealt with the apple and lemon juice, put it aside for a few minutes while you do the rest.

Mix and sift the flour and baking powder, then throw in the butter. Mix well with your fingers until it has the consistency of breadcrumbs.

Add about four-fifths of the sugar, plus most of the cinnamon (and five spice if you like), plus the apples, then dump the egg on top, mixing thoroughly until it reaches a good homogeneous light-brown colour.

Then pour in the milk until it has a soft texture that falls slowly off a spoon.

Transfer everything to the cake tin and flatten it out. If the dough is of the right consistency, this should work almost without the aid of a utensil.

Sprinkle the rest of the sugar and some more cinnamon over the top, and put it in the oven for about 45 minutes.

When it's done, let it set in the cake tin for five to ten minutes, but not too much longer, because as I mentioned earlier, it's fantastic to eat when still warm.

It goes splendidly well with a cup of coffee - enjoy!