Recipe CXVII - The Old English Trifle

When people look back at the achievements of modern British cooking and its immense progress in the last decade especially, few will deny that a lot of those accomplishments owe themselves to the times before the Great War. British cuisine was quite well-known and just as celebrated as a lot of other nationalities'. If it were not for the period of great austerity of the middle of the 20th century, and the bad publicity generated by various continental European authors, especially French ones (Alexandre Dumas, Goscinny & Uderzo spring to mind), the reputation of its cooking would not have been so shattered. But now, you can find British cookery shows on numerous TV channels the world over, and not just that perennial turncoat Jamie Oliver or that foul-mouthed bloke with his kitchen disasters, however he's called...

Anyhow, a vast amount of these dishes are not new - they are old, old, old, but just brought to life again through love and attention to detail. And the trifle is no exception. Back in the bad old days, I remember it as being a sad, wobbly gelatinous mess either doused far too heavily in the cheapest of alcohols or filled with the most tasteless ingredients. But rewind to the 17th and 18th century, and English puddings, including the sumptuous English trifle were copied and adapted by the Italians, where they were highly fashionable. The trifle was given the name Zuppa Inglese or "English soup". The word zuppa refers to inzuppare, which means "to dunk", a reference to the sponge in it. The tiramisù is actually an indirect derivation of the English trifle.

Anyhow, I digress. I made this trifle for our neighbour's 59th birthday. It requires little hard work, but a lot of time and a bit of imagination. There are many variations, but I stuck with the classic ingredients, as we shall see below...

Beforehand:

Get a large glass bowl ready for filling up, and turn on the oven to 160°C.

I would recommend doing the jelly (level 2) first, as it requires time in the fridge when you can do all the other layers.

Bottom layer, sponge -

Ingredients:

120g self-raising flour + 1 tsp baking powder

120g soft butter

120g fine sugar

2 eggs

Whatever flavours you wish to adapt your sponge with: I used crushed hazelnuts

Alcohol: I used amaretto, but feel free to use whatever takes your fancy

Instructions for the sponge:

Put all the ingredients into a bowl and stir until the mixture is slightly shiny and fairly consistent.

Pour it into a shallow cake tin or the like. I used a flan base because I wanted to cut the sponge up into pieces and put it at the bottom of the glass bowl.

Put it in the oven for between 30 and 40 minutes, or until the point you can put a thin knife or skewer in it and it comes out clean. Break it into pieces and put it at the bottom of the glass bowl.

Push it into the bottom of the bowl and slightly up the sides, then pour your alcohol over. Put the bowl in the fridge until you need it again for the next layer.

Second layer, jelly -

Ingredients:

300g fruit (I used fruits of the forest, but use any flavour you want)

1 packet of gelatine (usually about 25-30g)

500ml apple juice or water

An appropriate amount of sugar (50g-100g, depending on your taste

Heat the fruit and sugar in the water / apple juice and simmer until the sugar dissolves, but don't let it boil. Pour three tablespoons of cold water over the gelatine in a large bowl, and stir. It should become hard. Then pour the hot sugary fruit over the hardened gelatine. Put this in the fridge for a maximum of 3 hours to set. The jelly should not be fully set as you need to pour it into your trifle. So once it has almost set, but only enough not to run, pour it over the sponge and put it back in the fridge to continue setting.

Third layer, crème pâtissière (or cold custard to you and me) -

Ingredients:

4 eggs (yolks only)

500ml milk

50-60ml cream

1 vanilla pod, cut open and the contents dispersed in the milk and cream

30-50g fine sugar

1 to 3 tablespoons of cornflour

Instructions:

Put the egg yolk, sugar and cornflour together in a bowl and mix together. Put the milk, cream and vanilla in a saucepan and heat until simmering but not boiling. Pour the hot milk over the yellow mixture and stir vigorously until all the ingredients are properly mixed in. Then put it back on the heat and stir constantly until it gets stiffer in consistency. Place the contents in a bowl and put a clingfilm lid on it to stop a skin forming. Place it in the fridge until cooled.

Top layer, whipped cream -

Ingredients:

1 litre of whipping cream

3 to 5 spoonfuls of fine sugar

Instructions:

Whisk for as long as it takes the cream to thicken up. You'll know, because it stays on an overturned spoon.

Finishing instructions:

Take the glass bowl out of the fridge, pour the layer of crème pâtissière over the jelly.

Then pour the whipped cream over the top.

Finally, add your own touch to the top of your trifle - almond slices, fruit slices, whatever. I put some frozen fruits of the forest on top in a topical design for my neighbour's birthday!

Recipe CXIV - The Pudding 2: Sultana, Hazelnut and Cinnamon (Sweet)

This is by no means the B-side of the pudding. The sweet pudding is utterly delicious and adorns any after-dinner table. Puddings are some of the most varied and satisfying dishes there are. This one broadly follows Recipe CXIII, but when the ingredients are added, it diverges greatly. I am once again giving you the basics; it's up to you what else you do with it.

Ingredients:

280g plain flour

80g vegetable suet, chilled and grated

50g frozen butter (but refrigerated enough so it is very hard is fine), also grated

1 egg, beaten

Some butter for greasing

Some cold water on standby, if necessary

Some whisky, rum or cognac

Cinnamon, five-spice, hazelnuts (roughly crushed as well as powdered), nutmeg, brown sugar, even honey - whatever takes your fancy

Instructions:

Put a large cauldron of water on a medium heat. Never forget to put something in the bottom so the pudding does not have direct contact with the fiery heat of the cooker. I use an upturned rice cooker base. 

Grate the butter and the suet as in the last recipe. Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl, with your own proportions.

Knead it all together well. Add some alcohol if you want. Butter the inside of a bowl and spoon in the ingredients.

By now your water should be boiling away, so put the bowl carefully into the pan so that it is no lower than half-way inside the water. Steam for three hours.

Turn the bowl upside down onto a plate. If it is properly cooked, it should fall out immediately.

Serve with custard (here is a good recipe:http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/how_to_make_custard_82327)

Recipe CIV - Rocket Salad

A few days ago, I read something from a Mr Lobstermuncher of Beckenham, Kent, along the lines of "Rocket Salad is rubbish", or words to that effect. Anyhow, I beg to disagree, Mr Lobstermuncher. Rocket salad is really tasty, but that means doing something with it. I have often wondered why kids don't want to eat veggies and salad - if they're so dull and lifeless, I wouldn't want to eat them either. I mean, you wouldn't have ever drunk tonic on its own unless you had spent some time convalescing in the 19th century, so that's why people add vodka or gin. The same goes for salads. Most leaf salads are quite bitter if you do nothing to them. Here's a little suggestion using ingredients nearly everyone has in their kitchens, or are easy to obtain.

Ingredients:

Some rocket salad

Some olive oil

Some balsamic vinegar

(Oil : Balsamic ratio = 3 : 2)

1-2 tsp brown sugar in a bowl

20-30 raisins or sultanas

4-5 hazelnuts

Some ground black pepper

2 cloves of garlic (cut into pieces)

Some grated slices of hard cheese like Cheddar, Parmesan, Manchego, Leicester, etc...

Instructions:

Take the olive oil, the balsamic vinegar, the pepper and garlic, and pour them in the bowl with the sugar. Give them a gentle swirl with a spoon until it's all mixed up.

Take your hazelnuts and crush them with your finger, sprinkling half into the bowl with the salad, and half into the oil and vinegar mix. Cut up half of the sultanas and put them in the oil and the whole ones in the salad. Mix up the salad, then taste the oil mixture and add more of what you think (maybe sugar, maybe oil or vinegar), then pour it all over the rocket salad and toss until all the leaves are saturated.

Finally, add the cheese on top and serve with your main course!

Cherry tomatoes go very well with this dish, as do Mozzarella, basil, chives and a lot of other ingredients. If someone says, "But I don't like .....," just remember that when it's mixed up with other ingredients, it probably tastes fine. But you're going to put people off for life if you serve certain things on their own!

Recipe LXIII - Apple and Bacon Salad

As I haven't done a salad for a while, I thought the sunny period we had a few days ago was the ideal opportunity to make one. Salads are, for me, pretty unappetising, for two reasons. Firstly, they contain stuff that makes my lazy, feckless digestion system spring into action as if it had to catch up with lost time (a lot of which I am still owed by it), and secondly because it doesn't really fill me up. If I served a salad as main course, I would not be surprised if my guests then went to get some chips or a kebab... So if I were to make a salad, I would at least make sure it had something solid in it, otherwise what's the point of eating for enjoyment?!


Ingredients for the salad:
250g-400g bacon, >1cm thick
2 cloves of garlic
1-2 apples
A bunch of seedless grapes (I didn't use all the grapes in the photo)
A handful of field salad (lamb's lettuce)
Some hazelnuts
Ground black pepper

Ingredients for the vinaigrette:
2-5 tsps of mayonnaise
Some olive oil *
Some red wine vinegar *
Some cream *
5 stalks of chives
2-3 cloves of garlic (crushed)
Some ground black pepper and salt
* Equal amounts of olive oil and vinegar, triple the amount of cream

Instructions:
Cut up the bacon into long, thin slices, and fry them in a frying pan in olive oil or butter, put in the garlic just before the end, and set aside to cool. Alternatively, you can heat it up again just before serving.



Cut up your apples, slice the grapes in half, crush your pepper, scissor your chives. In a bowl, put the liquid ingredients (*) together with the mayonnaise and stir until it is a consistent mix.



Add the apples, chives, grapes, pepper, hazelnuts, the garlic, some pepper, and a very little salt. stir it all in, to make sure everything is saturated.



To prepare your salad bowl(s) for presentation, put in the field salad first. Then, pour the fruity vinaigrette over the top.



Then add the bacon.
You can either spread the bacon over the dish:



Or you can put it in the centre, like a kind of thin inner layer:



In any case, serve with something like boiled potatoes and eat al fresco!