Sad but True

Related to the Madeira, which is still work in progress, is this Lemon and Thyme cake from the Hummingbird Bakery book Cake Days. Very delicious too, at the edges ...

For I made two errors in baking this, the first of which was having run out of plain flour I used self-raising but still added baking powder. That said, I would have expected it to have collapsed on top rather than in the middle. The second error, evident at the edges of the hole, is that the cake is undercooked ('sad').

Worth another try, if only because the book contains a number of variations on the basic method. It is always worth reading around recipes to see what can be changed as the mood takes you.

M'dear Madeira

A first attempt at Madeira cake using Mary Berry's Baking Bible (BBC, 2009). I don't want this to turn into Julie and Julia, making every recipe in the book and charting it. What I do want to do is to bring together the best of the recipes in the books I own and having decided on the underlying principles, see what I can do next.

Given that this is my first post in a long while, don't hold your breath for the next instalment of this search!

Stock Questions

Dealing with a recent glut of brown onions from the veg box scheme, I decided to make some French Onion Soup. That led me to re-consider the humble chicken stock.

One of the recipes for chicken stock I’ve been using includes in the recipe a stock cube (Knorr, says Nick Nairn in his book ‘Cook School’). That strikes me as oddly like saying that home-brewed beer would be helped by mixing it with Wadworth 6X or similar – you get the idea. So I began to wonder if I could get the same effect by simply making up a Knorr stock cube twice as concentrated as directed. That in itself led me to wonder if I could tell different stock cubes apart.

This is work in progress, but here is an observation. In the Channel4 series ‘ºCookery School’ it was suggested that an ideal level of seasoning equates to 1g salt dissolved in 100ml of water. That’s quite a lot, and not far off tasting of sea-water. I found that a Knorr stock cube (made as directed) tasted much the same, which is to say quite brackish. However, a Kallo organic chicken stock cube was much smoother on the palate: far more pleasing to my taste.

I’m off to make some more of my own stock now, having used the last of it in the onion soup. I’m tempted to make a cube-less version as per Joanna Farrow’s ‘Chef School’: I wonder how it’ll taste compared to the Kallo?

Batterie de Cuisine

I have too many kitchen gadgets: do they get in the way of my cooking?

My food heroes have wide-ranging attitudes to gizmos. Old Scrote professes to need little more than a knife – a table knife will do if sharpened – and a cast-iron casserole to cook everything in. Elizabeth David banned garlic presses and suchlike from her kitchen supplies shop, whereas Delia Smith has only to mention a favourite device for it to sell out in kitchenware stores.

My kitchen is too small for ephemera, but certainly contains things that I’ve either forgotten what they are for, are broken, need more effort to clean than they save, and/or simply cause clutter. Which is for baking, for example: my Roule ’Pat or the near identical Silpat? It is a shame I had to look that up (it’s the Silpat). The dishwasher is broken, but then my hand-operated whisk would probably seize up if put in it, and I’m sure my balloon whisk is just as easy to use anyway. Further, the unit drawers catch on each other because they’re so full of items I scarcely use: surely I don’t need four slices? Finally, when I was making French Onion Soup recently, I struggled to see the caramel film forming on the bottom of a pan because it had black insides: some items simply don’t work at a basic level.

I need to look again at each item and its use, researching if necessary. Anything broken I need to fix; I suspect many things will also benefit from a good clean. It is then time for a cull; I’ve bought a large storage box for the purpose.

What will survive; what will vanish only for me to remember it wistfully at a crucial moment in a recipe; and what - like the toasted-sandwich maker – will I revive more for nostalgia’s sake than gustatory pleasure? And when I know what I’ve got, what it’s for, trust it to work, can reach it easily, and believe it fit for purpose … will I be a better cook?

In the Bleak Midwinter

from Sky News

I didn't find it easy to select seasonal produce between Christmas and New Year, which is hardly surprising given few food deliveries or traders open for business. Marlborough Market was a shadow of its usual self, and the butcher had only limited prepared goods.

But seasonal means appropriate as much as available. So I decided on some braising steak in order to make a Steak and Stout pie.

The starting point is a basic casserole, but I ignored one recipe's advice to mix the stout 50:50 with water, and another's suggestion that dry-tasting stout needs something sweet like dried prunes to balance it. The crust was unashamedly out of a packet, but it is some years since I last made pastry, and I don't feel guilty about making things a little easier.

I used Guinness, but within 15km there are at least 5 breweries, so it strikes me that if my Steak and Stout pie is to become a staple recipe in my repertoire, I ought to source more locally. I recall when I was in the pub trade that one customer often brought along a jug so as to return home with beer for the pot. So perhaps I'll follow suit when taking myself off for a drink. To quote Vernon Amor of Wye Valley Brewery: "Drink your local beer. [...] Wherever I go, whenever I travel, I always drink the local brewer's beer." Sounds good to me ...

On the Menu

One of the head teachers at a local primary school liked to start governors' meetings with 'something positive about the school' from each person present. Never a big fan of 1960s group dynamics theory, I insisted on at least being able to add something negative and something perhaps missing, so as to preserve balance.

For myself, I am somewhat partial to self-criticism so I guess I should remember to preserve balance in that area. Here goes.

I tend to be quite good at following recipes. I particularly succeed when following Delia Smith and Gordon Ramsay, for example. On the other hand, I can often be too hung up on recipes, which means I can be largely unable to think on my feet and thus come up with new meals. Finally, what I don't do but could be better at is to make full use of seasonal and local produce.

These observations aren't set in concrete. I can take something like Sausage Toad in the Hole and create many variations on the basic recipe. That ability comes after a focused effort on my part to learn the recipe by heart, including the niceties of what makes for success (e.g. too much salt can prevent the batter rising). Such focus doesn't come easily to me, but I've proved I can do it.

In essence, then, my wish is to improve my food knowledge and kitchen techniques so that I make better use of what's in the shops when I get there, particularly the plethora of local markets and farm shops.

That is the thinking behind this blog: that in 2011 I will improve in these areas.