Sorry guys - I forgot this. Still, there is next Christmas.

I have just realised that I didn't post up the three awesome Christmas drinks I knocked together just before the big day. To be honest they are not season specific so you can always give them a go. On top of which, if you don't have a sous vide and a ziplock bag or chamber vacuum sealer then it's going to take a few months to get the same result so here goes for next Christmas.

I had been into our local Costco and picked up some dried cherries, blueberries and cranberries. The primary reason was a little more healthy than these recipes and that was to mix them with nuts for some healthy snacks. I just happened to be reading up on recipes for bitters and decided I fancied trying to create a Cherry bitters so I popped a bottle of blended whiskey, 4 vanilla beans split in two, a teaspoons of fennel seeds, two star anise and a crushed stalk of lemongrass into a bag along with a cup of dried cherries. Vac sealed and into the sous vide for 2 hours at 70C and on to the next recipe.

My wife is a sucker for a Cosmopolitan cocktail and I thought that something along those lines would make a great gift. A litre of vodka, a cup of dried cranberries and the rind of an orange were popped into a vac pack bag and joined the cherry bitters in the sous vide.

Now the question was what to do with the dried blueberries ? A little research on flavours and recipes led me to another litre of vodka, a cup of dried blueberries and the rind of a lemon heading in to a vacuum bag and joining the other two bags in the sous vide.

Two hours passed and the contents of each of the bags were strained. I retained the now spirit plumped fruit for use in a Christmas cake ( that turned out to be a good decision ). The only variation was the blueberry vodka that I poured over a bunch of fresh bruised basil while it cooled.

Once the items were cool enough to try I discovered that they needed no more sweetening for our taste but you can always add a simple sugar syrup to sweeten to taste.

The cherry bitters makes a great addition to a simple gin and tonic. A few drops can add a great edge to such a simple drink. I also enjoy a few dashes in tonic water if I want a low alcohol drink.

The cranberry and orange vodka was put in the freezer for 24 hours. This thickened it up and created a great frozen shot but it was best served as two measures of the vodka to 1 measure of bitter lemon or lemonade and squeeze fresh lime juice to create a great alternative to a Cosmo.

As for the blueberry vodka. I tasted this and found the rich flavour delicious. It has yet to be drunk but I think this will be another frozen shot that will be perfect on a summers day.

If you don't have the luxury of a sous vide then the same recipes put into a sealed storage jar and left in a dark cupboard for 3 to 6 months should produce similar if not richer results.

As for the Christmas cake. That will be for another post .....

New Year - New recipes. Updated

I've been out of the loop for a while after a major operation. Although there has been a little creativity in the kitchen it has taken a while for me to get back in my stride. Now the Near Year has arrived and my health is back it is time to get back to the kitchen and this blog.

Over Christmas I tried to make a maple cured bacon but the result was a little too salty. Having reviewed my recipe and carried out a little more research I am trying again. I managed to pick up a nice 2 kg loin of pork in my shopping today at an excellent price  so I decided to use this.

Firstly, I mixed the cure, making it very simple and lower in salt than the last attempt.

The cure.
4 tbsp of caster sugar
4 tbsp of fine sea salt
4 tbsp of maple syrup

Having mixed the ingredients together I washed the pork joint with vinegar. I then coated the joint in the cure and placed it in a vacuum bag. I put the remaining cure into the bag and sealed it. I then placed this in the fridge where it will live for the next 8 days. I will rub and turn the bag each day to ensure the cure coats the joint evenly. I'll wash it off next week and let you know how it tastes.

Well, 7 days have passed so I thought I'd wash the bacon off and have a little taste for lunch. The result, scrummy. A perfect sweet cured bacon. It is currently hanging in the conservatory drying before I slice and pack it. Next time I may add a little nutmeg to the cure just for a little something extra in the taste but it is still my best bacon yet.

Back in the kitchen

I've been away from the kitchen for a few weeks after major surgery. I'm fine now but get tired easily at present so the kitchen has been for tea and soup. Today I ventured up to town and realised I was ready to get back in the kitchen. It was about lunchtime and my local Waitrose had put out some discounted meats. I spotted a favorite at a silly price, four pigs cheeks for £1.49 (reduced from £2.49). These are cheap at the best of times but these were a bargain. Three packs later I hunted down a bottle of Heston's mulled cider and headed home.

I've used a sous vide to cook this but because the temperature is so high then a standard slow cooker can be used. The sous vide lets me cook this at 82.5C but anything around 80C will be fine.

Firstly I put a heavy pan on the heat and, after seasoning the cheeks, browned them off. I took the cheeks off the heat and added 6 crushed cloves of garlic to the pan and 50ml of olive oil. After about 30 seconds I added 350ml of the spiced cider to deglaze the pan. Now it is time for the long wait. I bagged the cheeks into three bags along with a sprig of rosemary and a bay leaf. The bags were then cooked in the sous vide for eight hours. If using a slow cooker I would be tempted to ziplock bag the cheeks into three bags and cook them in water in a slow cooker. Remember, you could equally cook just 4 cheeks with 2 cloves of garlic and 110ml of spiced cider for this part of the recipe.

After cooking over night, chill the bagged cheeks in iced water and then leave in the fridge for up to 48 hours (or freeze for later) before finishing the dish off for serving.


Serving (for the contents of one bag):

Place a heavy casserole pan on a stove and add a tablespoons of olive oil. Fry off 100g of lardons and 150g of slice shallots. Add 300 ml of spiced cider to de-glaze the pan and add two sliced, large carrots and a chopped celery stick. Add tbsp of balsamic vinegar, 1 tbsp of soy sauce, and 1 tbsp of maple syrup ( or sugar/honey). Lower the heat, place a lid on the pan and simmer for 20 minutes making sure that the pan does not catch. Add more mulled cider (or water) if necessary. Next add the cheeks and the juices from the pouch and bring back to a simmer. Simmer for a further 20 minutes so that the cheeks are warmed through. Remove the cheeks and place in foil to rest. Turn the heat up under the remaining sauce and reduce until it coats the carrots. Serve with a puree of butter beans (a little cream and butter to taste).

This is a delicious way to use a very cheap cut of meat. Serve it to the most discerning guest and watch them wax lyrical about the flavours and textures.

The benefits of a warm Autumn

We have had a great Summer here in the UK with just about the right amount of rain and sunshine. This was then augmented by a blissfully warm beginning to the Autumn with the weather only finally cooling off in the last few days. This has resulted in a bumper crop of ripe 'Brown Turkey' figs from the garden.

Most years I have to resort to pickling the unripe figs so the efforts of the tree do not go to waste but this year we have a sudden glut of ripe and sweet figs. As much as we enjoy eating these raw with a little prosciutto ham, thin parmigiana slices and a green salad, the quantities we have this year might be a little much for this simple salad.

With Christmas on the way, I thought a nice warming fig jam might be in order. Perfect on toast or with a good strong cheese. I collected 1.2 Kg of figs from the tree.

These were then chopped and mixed with 1.2 Kg of preserving sugar and 1.5 tbsp of ground ginger.

This was left in a covered non metallic bowl for six hours to draw the moisture out of the figs. The resulting mixture was then transferred to a preserving pan with a peeled and diced cooking apple, 50 grams of chopped preserved ginger (in syrup), 90 ml of white wine vinegar, 280 ml of water and the juice of three lemons (as usual the rind goes into a jar with some vodka to be turned into Limoncello when I have enough rind).

Stir over a low heat until the sugar is dissolved then increase the heat and boil for around 20 minutes until the setting point is reached and the fruit is soft (220C). Leave to cool for a further 20 minutes before bottling in clean dry jars. Seal the jars and place in a dark cupboard for a month or so for the flavours to develop. A perfect reminder of the balmy days of 2014 during the potentially cold winter months.

Now in the jar, this rich brown jam tastes great (should be even better in a month or so). Thank you Summer :)

The first Autumn storm - Something warming needed

After a Summer that felt like it would never end it was only fitting that as November approaches, an Autumn storm crashed the party. After a week of warnings about the remnants of hurricane Gonzalo hitting the UK with high winds and rain it turned out to be a bit of a damp squib in the South East of England. Nevertheless, the temperature fell from its balmy 20C to a much more Autumnal level and thoughts turned to a warming supper.

A trawl through the fridge revealed some chorizo that would  soon reach its best before date. This triggered an idea so I popped up to the shops for some chicken thighs. On my return I put a large cast iron casserole pot on the stove and put the heat up high. I added a little oil and then browned off  the thighs having cut some deep cuts into each to help them soak up the flavours of the dish. Once these were browned I removed them from the pan and finished them with a blowlamp to give them a little char grilled flavour to bring to the party.

I turned the heat down on the pan and added around 400 g of diced chorizo to brown. I then grabbed a bag of shallots from the vegetable rack. The smaller variety as these are
 what I happened to have.

I peeled and very coarsely chopped  8 of these and added them to the pan

Next I added two sticks of chopped cellery, 2 cloves of crushed garlic, 5 medium thickly cut carrots,  and 150 g of sliced mushrooms. I then added 350 ml of red wine and a litre of chicken stock along with a bouquet garni. Once this had come to the boil I popped it into the oven for 2.5 hours at 150C. The result was a warm, rich casserole that went perfectly with some butter beans in a light cream sauce. Eager to sample this comforting dish I clean forgot to take a photograph but trust me, it was a perfect meal for a blustery day. Bring on the winter.

Another gluten free baking experiment

After replacing the flour in my last cake with coconut flour and being resonably pleased with the results I decided it was time to try again. The new recipe:

100g of coconut flour
100g of rice flour
1tsp baking powder
175g of coconut oil
175g of caster sugar
6 large eggs
2 or 3 drops of vanilla extract
2 tbsp caraway seeds

Soften the coconut oil and cream with the sugar. Add the eggs one by one until you have a loose batter. Now add the rice flour, vanilla essence and caraway seeds and mix well. Next add the coconut flour and the batter will stiffen to a more usual consistency for a Madeira style loaf cake. I like to sprinkle caster sugar on the top before it goes into the oven to give a crisp, sugary crust.

Put into a greased large loaf tin and place in the oven at 170C for 1.25 to 1.5 hours. Check with a knife and when cooked allow to cool.

The result

A good textured cake. Other than a hint of coconut (thanks to the flour rather than the oil). I was pleased with the results. The rice and coconut flour mix made this a much lighter cake perfect for those with a gluten problem.

Monday - Memories

(Found this lurking in the drafts folder so it is a few weeks late :) )
I had a rather stressful day in the office not helped by a turned ankle which made me the proverbial 'Bear with a sore head'. I made my way home in need of something comfortable to eat. During what should have been a lunch hour, I wandered to the so called 'kitchen' on our floor (well, it has a dish washer and a microwave which in modern cuisine terms is 'fully equipped' ) and one of my bosses (we have a matrix organization which has none of the romance or the facility to use a machine pistol of those who try to stop you getting the job done of the film series of the same name) was  heating a pie in the microwave. I came home wanting comfort food with 'pie' shoehorned into my psyche. Luckily I got home in time to get to Waitrose and pick up some organic pork chops. Jersey potatoes and some chestnut mushrooms to help me stay away from a pie. A bottle of cider and some cream and we were about to cook on gas (literally! My hob is gas and the oven is electric. Who the hell wants a gas oven when the heat is governed by what your neighborhood  is cooking or heating on a Sunday\?)

I threw the pans on the heat and started to cook off a dish that has evolved from my first real cooking success. Back in the annuls of time, I realized Mum and Dad had a special wedding anniversary on the horizon. I couldn't afford to send them for a nice meal (tightwads when it came to pocket money :) ) so I cooked them pork chops in a white wine, garlic, mushroom and cream sauce I invented on the fly. Their expressions as they ate this set me on the path to enjoying cooking. Not being the most socially intelligent member of the community, hugs and cuddles are an anathema but the thrill exposed by the expression on peoples faces when I 'got the food right' gave me a love for cooking.

Tonight's dish was a throwback to that first cook off. Garlic, chili (a touch) cream, a hint of vanilla, black pepper, onion and, of course, the wine to de-glaze the pan having seared tprize of the spring, Jhe organic chops. I boiled the pretender to the thrown of the spring crops (Jersey Royal's) in a little slated water and some peas to accompany the meat and sauce. Why pretender? If you asked that then you have never had the pleasure of an early Pembroke Potato. Heaven...

A nice bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. The remnants of a day full of sunshine and a meal full of memories. A great way to sooth the troubled waters of a stressful Monday