Makin' Bacon

I don't cook many meat dishes these days but when I do I like to use bacon. For the recipe I made during my recent week off I decided to take on an old classic and made a spicy bacon roll.

I went back to where it all began with my choice of music to cook to as I listened to Dire Straits' final studio album On Every Street which was one of the first CD's I ever purchased towards the end of my G.C.S.E studies. As the slight but likeable country rock shuffle of the opening song 'Calling Elvis' gave way to the opening bars of the reflective title track I removed the fat from eight slices of unsmoked back bacon before slicing it into small squares.

In a shallow frying pan I fried the bacon and one diced white onion for around three minutes with two sprigs of parsley. I made sure I did not fry the contents of the pan for too long as I knew they would be baked for some time in the oven later on.

I then rolled out a ball of pastry which I had previously prepared using four ounces of margarine and eight ounces of plain flour. Once I had rolled the pastry into a large oblong I poured the contents of the frying pan onto it and spread them out until they were within two centimetres of the edge of the pastry.

I next dampened the four corners of the pastry with a small amount of water and joined them up so as the bacon, onions and parsley were encased totally.

I placed the roll on a greased baking tray and baked it in the oven at 190 degrees, 200 for non-fan ovens, for forty five minutes.

The results were highly enjoyable; the fact I had taken all the fat from the bacon left nothing but the unique taste than can only be obtained from eating quality bacon while the onions and parsley added the necessary extra flavour to the roll. The heavy pastry was complimented by having plenty of brown sauce with the roll as well as some steamed slices of carrot.

The roll immediately after cooking.

A cross section of the roll.

Delicious when served with steamed carrots. 

Coffee Break

It was the first Monday in October, the sun was shining, I was off work all week and it was a perfect opportunity to try out a new recipe. On this occasion I decided to cook something a little bit retro in the shape of some coffee sandwich biscuits.

The soundtrack for the cooking was Van Morrison's under-appreciated 1986 offering No Guru, No Method , No Teacher the album's laid back vibes, carefully delivered vocals, swirling string arrangements and Mexican horns made it perfect chill out material for a man on holiday.

I took six ounces of self-raising flour and mixed them with three ounces of caster sugar. Once the flour and sugar were suitably mixed I added three ounces of margarine and rubbed it into the flour and sugar with a tablespoon until the outside of the pieces of margarine were made as dry as dust by the flour.

I emptied the contents of an egg, having first brought it to room temperature, into a separate bowl and beat it vigorously. In a mug I dissolved two tablespoons of instant coffee in one tablespoon of hot water. I then poured the egg and the liquid coffee into bowl with the margarine, sugar and flour and stirred everything together until the contents of the bowl had turned into a hazel-coloured soft cookie dough.

The next step was to separate the dough into cherry sized balls making sure that I had an even number of them so that each pair would form two parts of one sandwich.

I baked the pieces of dough on a greased baking tray in the oven at 180 degrees (170 for fan ovens) for fifteen minutes and then left them on the side to cool after they had cooked for the allotted time.

In the meantime I made some coffee butter cream icing by taking four ounces of icing sugar, two ounces of margarine and a tablespoon of instant coffee granules and stirring them together with a wooden spoon in a bowl until I had a filling thick enough to hold together the biscuit part of the recipe.

When the biscuit pieces were cooled I took the flat side, which was attached to the baking tray whilst it was cooking, and spread icing on it. I then joined it with the flat side of another of the biscuit pieces to make a sandwich. I repeated the process for the other pieces of biscuit until I had around sixteen which I then piled up on a convenient plate.

The biscuits are certainly suitable for those who like their trips to Costa Coffee and Starbucks as the whole coffee granules in the icing have the strong and raw taste of fresh coffee while the coffee flavouring in the biscuits is a little more subtle but no less distinctive in its taste.

Currying Your Mussels

It was Friday, I had not only finished work for the weekend but also for the next week as well. As it was the end of the week I had a little more time to cook than usual and I hit upon making something that was rich and substantial as well as being fairly easy to prepare.

I dusted down my Le Cresceut dish and added enough olive oil to it to cover the bottom. I put Van Morrison's mellow masterpiece Poetic Champions Compose on the CD player and set about dicing two red onions, two cloves of garlic and one celery stick as stately strings and saxophone from the stereo permeated the kitchen.

I turned the heat on the hob and warmed the oil before adding the freshly prepared vegetables to the Le Cresceut dish and cooking them on a medium heat for around five minutes until they began to a hazel brown colour. I then added two bay leafs and the leaves of two fresh thyme sprigs together with half a tablespoon of curry powder which I made sure was stirred into the vegetables.

I had not been able to acquire fresh mussels as there were no local fishmongers available so I instead used a pack of precooked mussels in white wine sauce I had acquired from the Co-Op and dumped them into the dish. I turned up the heat further and put the lid on the Le Cresceut dish; this stopped excess heat escaping the dish and allowed the mussels to cook fully.

After about four minutes I checked the mussels and was pleased to see that all of them had opened, this meant they were all edible as those mussels that do not open during cooking cannot be eaten unless you want to make yourself ill.

I plucked four sprigs of fresh coriander from the plant growing on the kitchen window sill, cut the sprigs up into small pieces and added them to the mussels together with a tin of coconut milk obtained from Waitrose. After lowering the temperature and then cooking the dish for another two minutes it was ready to serve the dish.

The fresh coriander and thyme made all the difference to this recipe and gave the rich tasting mussels a distinct taste. The coconut milk also added well to the richness but on balance I think next time I will only use about half a tin to stop the dish becoming too runny. Despite this however if you like your seafood this is a dish you must try.

Cooking them fiercely in the dish meant the mussels all opened and could be eaten. 

Ready to eat- a little bit too much coconut milk however still a very tasty meal

Rocket Ride

After a very enjoyable Friday evening in mid-September entertaining two friends at their house, I spent the Saturday getting out into the country for some peace and quiet with the new puppy during the morning and in the afternoon I re-visited a risotto recipe I'd not cooked for around two years.

The risotto of choice was lemon and rocket risotto. The album I listened to matched my state of mind; it was Van Morrison's underrated 1983 masterpiece 'Inarticulate Speech of the Heart' which contains a sizable helping of meditative instrumentals and mellow songs dominated by crisp guitar lines and frosty synthesisers.

I covered the bottom of my Le Cresceut dish with olive oil, turned on the heat and added an ounce of margarine to the pan. Whilst the margarine was melting I diced three onions and four cloves of garlic on the chopping board.

Once the butter was melted I added the onions and garlic to the dish and then grated the zest of two lemons over them as they began to cook. I stirred the zest of the lemon into the onion and garlic and after about five minutes when the ingredients had softened sufficiently it was time to carry out the next stage of preparation. I added 300 grams of risotto rice and then leaned over the Le Cresceut dish stirring the mixture constantly for two minutes. It is important you do this as otherwise the rice becomes stuck to the bottom of the dish which will consequently ruin the whole meal.

After two minutes was up I took half a pint of white wine and poured it into the dish. I turned up the heat on the hob and boiled the ingredients for two minutes, always remembering to stir it constantly, until the wine had boiled away and the rice had become a little bloated.

I laid my hands on 750 millelitres of chicken stock and added it gradually to the dish, again stirring the ingredients constantly to avoid them sticking to the bottom of the dish, until all the stock was gone. I kept stirring the contents of the dish until I was sure the rice was cooked; a good test as to whether it is cooked is how bloated it is. If the rice is very bloated it indicates it has absorbed enough wine and stock to be soft enough to eat.

I then added two bags of rocket, I find Sainsbury's Rocket the best, and an ounce of grated Parmesan Cheese and mixed then in until the rocket was soft and the cheese had melted.

The results were top drawer; the distinctive and sour taste of the lemon zest was complemented by the rich Parmesan Cheese while the gritty rocket was counterbalanced by the large amount of wine in the recipe. The risotto rice, garlic and onions meanwhile gave the meal enough body not to need the presence of any meat in the recipe.

In the dish just after the Parmesan had melted 

Ready to eat- hopefully the taste matches that of some risottos made in professional kitchens

Rocket Love

On the second Saturday in September I had been given the responsibility of hosting and writing a quiz for the cricket team and as I had spent a large amount of the afternoon preparing for the evening I needed to cook something quick that would give me enough energy for entertaining club members that evening.

The meal of choice was a Rocket and Potato Frittata. The album of choice while cooking was U2's 1984 effort the Unforgettable Fire; U2 are a band that baffle me in that they are probably the most unoriginal band I have ever heard yet there is something about their passion that keeps you coming back for more. It is fair to say their music is reasonable to get you in the mood if you are having an action-packed night out.

I washed and then dried three large new potatoes, peeled them and cut them into thin slices. I next filled the bottom of frying pan with olive oil and placed the potato slices evenly on the oil. I fried them on a medium heat for twenty minutes and turned them periodically. I knew they had been fried for long enough as I could cut them in half with one hand using a butter knife.

The potatoes were then joined in the pan by an ounce of sliced rocket straight from the greenhouse. The trick in this part of the cooking was to continually pat the rocket down as it has a habit of expanding and floating on top of the potatoes and oil.

I mixed together in a separate bowl three beaten eggs, four diced stems of chives from my garden, a hint of black pepper and an ounce of grated Parmesan Cheese. I then poured the mixture into the frying pan and made sure it was spread evenly throughout as well as burying the Rocket leaves low in the pan. I found the best way of making the Rocket stay down was to push it with a metal tablespoon.

Before grilling- the surface was a little more runny than was acceptable.

While the mixture was cooking on the hob I preheated the grill and over the course of five minutes periodically shook the frying pan from side to side. After five minutes I placed the pan, with the Frittata still inside it, under the grill until the surface of it began the dry and the edges started to turn a chestnut brown.

I served it with steamed garden peas and it proved a filling meal what with the protein from the eggs while the Rocket gave it a strong, distinctive taste that was not overpowering. It only took a little over half an hour to prepare and set me up well to entertain members of the cricket club that evening.

Post grilling- the surface of the Frittata had dried up but there was still enough moisture in the dish to stop it tasting like rubber. 

Spice up your soup

It was the Tuesday after bank holiday, I'd taken a walk to the local park to relive scenes of my teenage years, reflect on my direction in life and think about the exciting and rewarding but (slightly) sad summer I'd had. It had comprised of entertaining nights out with my mates, weddings, a trip to Scotland, helping my great uncle get over his wife's death , a top drawer birthday meal, the illness and then loss of my dog to cancer, the arrival of a new puppy, visiting the Olympics and plenty of games of cricket at higher level than the season before.

There were some scraps of brown and rusty red creeping onto the leaves of the trees at the edge of the park and only two further fixtures in the cricket program. I knew that summer was on its way out and autumn was soon to be with me.

When I have a lot think about I like to disappear into the kitchen and on this occasion it was to make a spicy parsnip soup. This is a soup I've made many times and I promised a good mate of mine I'd put in the blog as it's one of his favourites and he wanted me to show him how to do it.

The album of choice for cooking was Talk Talk's first album the Party's Over which is a synthesizer-driven, written to order piece of work that is noteworthy for containing some strong singles and for the fact that it sold enough to contribute towards the funding of the production of later masterpieces Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock.

I first poured enough olive oil into my Le Cresceut dish to cover the bottom of it and heated the oil gently. I then diced a red onion, a garlic clove and four pieces of celery before adding them to the dish with half a tablespoon of ground ginger.

After these ingredients had cooked for a touch over five minutes I added dried cumin seeds and ginger root from the collection of spices, which I had received as part of my birthday present, together with half a tablespoon of curry powder. I mixed the curry powder and spices together and while they cooked I diced up around five hundred grams of parsnips and two hundred and fifty grams worth of carrots.

After another five minutes I added the carrots and parsnips to dish after first stirring the curry powder and spices into the onions, garlic, celery and ginger. I then poured a litre of vegetable stock into the mixture and left it to cook in the dish on a low light for about forty-five minutes. I always like to cook soups of this type for reasonable length of time to be sure the ingredients have all the time they need to fuse together prior to blending.

After the soup had cooked for the allotted forty-five minutes I took off the heat and let it cool for half an hour. I then blended it, returned it to the le cresceut dish and added a quarter of a pint of unsweetened soya milk to it. After reheating it through I poured it into bowls for serving.

The results were first rate and a taste of soups to come this autumn and winter. The soup was exceptionally thick and the use of small amounts of several different kinds of spices meant that it was thankfully not strong enough to make my eyes water. However it still retained a distinctive enough taste to stop it being too bland.

Warmed through with the addition of unsweetened soya milk and ready to eat

Rubbed in Cake

This recipe was part of my recent bank holiday cooking project which included two soups, a giant Yorkshire Pudding with Sage, Red Wine Lentils and peaches with cheese. Apart from the Yorkshire Pudding it was probably the most traditional of the recipes I made over the bank holiday weekend.

Yet more Neil Young was playing as work commenced on the cake; this time it was his 1980 record Hawks and Doves which is divided into a stunning acoustic side and a less convincing but mildly worthwhile country music side.

The first job was to put eight ounces of self-raising flour and four ounces of margarine into a mixing bowl and stir them together using what is popularly known as the rubbed in method. This contrasts to the more usual approach of making cakes which involves creaming sugar and margarine together and then adding flour to the mixture.

After the flour and margarine were properly mixed together I added four ounces of caster sugar, six ounces of raisins and a tablespoon of orange zest. In order to help these ingredients mix with the flour and margarine I gradually added to the mix two beaten eggs and two tablespoons of milk while stirring the sugar, raisins and orange zest into the flour and margarine.

The addition of the milk helped make the mixture a little lighter and help it rise when cooked in the oven. After I had stirred everything together I poured it into a cake tin that I had lined with greased baking paper. The cake tin was around 10centimetres deep and 25 centimetres wide.

The cake mix just prior to putting it in the oven

I baked the cake in the oven at 170 degrees (180 for non-fan ovens) for about 35 minutes until the sponge had begun to turn golden brown at the edges. I knew the cake was ready as I stuck a meat skewer through the middle of it and it came out clean. I also used the time honoured trick of pressing the sponge and watching it spring back at me; which is always another indication that it has been cooked for the right amount of time.

The results were first rate as the flavour of the orange and raisins combined with a sponge that was substantial but not overly rich made this a cake perfect with a spot of afternoon tea or as pudding after an evening meal.

Ready to serve as either a light pudding or with a cup of afternoon tea