Scrambled Soya

The snow over the last few days has thwarted some of the plans I have had over the Christmas period and meant that I have needed to stay closer to home than first thought. Today was no exception as I was able to get out a short walk however although the main roads near my house had improved, traversing the side roads nearly resulted in a number of slips that would have seen me end up flat on my back if I had been less lucky.

After I got home I stuck my new Christmas Present on the playlist; it was Genesis' last studio release 1997's Calling All Stations which features vocalist Ray Wilson and lots of languid songs like "Shipwrecked", "If that's what you need", "Uncertain Weather," and "There must be some other way" that matched my tired midwinter mood. The album is a little bleak but very atmospheric and despite being disliked by many I think it is a key part of the band's often brilliant and multifaceted catalogue.

As I watched the weak winter sun caress the crisp snow covering the back garden I realised that I needed to make something quick and easy that was comfort food so as to make me feel a bit more motivated. The inspiration for this recipe came from a trip to Verdo Lounge Café in Sutton Coldfield in the summer. This café has a wonderfully innovative approach to its recipes and often puts interesting twists on traditional dishes using spices and sauces as is evidenced in their excellent 'Dirty Beans on Toast' dish that is found on their breakfast menu.

I followed Verdo's example by making some scrambled eggs with my beans on toast that included soya milk and paprika in the ingredients. I did this by first beating together two eggs in a bowl with a whisk and then in a saucepan melting twenty five grams of margarine while also adding half a tablespoon of paprika to the melting margarine. Once the margarine was melted I added the beaten eggs and two tablespoons of unsweetened soya milk. I turned up the heat on the saucepan and stirred the mixture vigorously with a wooden spoon.

I saw that despite the extra heat the mixture was not thickening, probably because there was not enough egg in the pan. This said I poured the yolk and white of another egg into the mixture and slowly but surely it began to thicken and the eggs and paprika absorbed the melted margarine and soya milk. Once this happened I served the scrambled eggs by putting them on top of some baked beans, that I had laced with paprika, and toast.

The use of the paprika gave this traditional dish a really distinct flavour and adding a much needed warmth to it. The meal was made healthier through the use of the soya milk, as opposed to full fat dairy milk or cream, and the melted margarine also added a richness to the eggs that helped make this snack into more of a main meal.

Above: the scrambled egg was nearly ready to serve when it had absorbed all the soya milk and melted margarine.

Perfect food for a winter's day with some beans on toast.

Festive Foccacia

The weekend before last I was starting to feel in a festive mood as we had put the Christmas decorations up and to match the upsurge in festive cheer that had started to seep through my body I decided to make some Focaccia Bread with a particularly seasonal twist.

There was more Jethro Tull on the playlist while making this bread; this time it was 1987's "Crest of a Knave" which beat Metallica to a Grammy Award for best heavy metal album around the time it was released.

Focaccia Bread is something that reminds me of my childhood as my parents would often buy it from the supermarket to have as a side dish to a salad. The key to making decent Focaccia is to make the dough soft and give it plenty of flavour and with this in mind I mixed together fifteen ounces of wholemeal bread flour, a tablespoon and a half of yeast and two teaspoons of dried sage. As with all the best breads it is important to get some flavouring into the mix early on by mixing it with the dry ingredients and this was the reason why I added in the sage at this time.

I next added in six teaspoons of olive oil with nine fluid ounces of cold water and stirred the whole mixture until the dry ingredients had become part of the wet ingredients and there were no loose parts of the dry ingredients left in the mixing bowl. 

I then kneaded the dough heavily for about five minutes until I had a soft piece of dough that was as easy to shape as Plastecine.  I placed the dough on a greased baking tray and made an indent in the middle of it that was around five centimetres deep and two or three centimetres wide. Either side of the indent I used the other end of a wooden spoon to poke holes in the bread that I filled with dried sage. I also added raw red onion to the indent in the dough and then glazed the bread with Olive Oil using a brush.

I then cooked the bread in the oven for around twenty five minutes at 190 degrees (or 200 degrees if you don't have a fan oven). The bread had a real taste of Christmas Dinner about it with the sage and onion and the wholemeal bread flour provided it with a more savoury taste than it would have had if I had used white bread flour.

Above before putting in the oven the bread was strewn with onions and olive oil.

Sliced and ready to serve.

Kurly Kale

Friday night had been an evening of excitement and luxury; we had checked into a plush hotel, that incidentally fifty years earlier had been the venue where my late great aunt had held her wedding reception, and that evening I had night that involved a four course meal and lots of quality conversation with new colleagues all in the name of the work Christmas Party.

The next morning after a suitably fortifying breakfast and a walk round the picturesque grounds of the hotel we went our separate ways; variously to do Christmas shopping and have a haircut and much needed rest. When I returned home I had a short rest and then thoughts turned to a making a meal to revitalise me. As I my circumstances have changed recently I have begun to split my weekends between my hometown and the West Yorkshire town of Huddersfield. One of this town's many qualities is that it has a good number of curry  houses and therefore the evening's meal was one I wanted to remind me of those places. As those I was cooking for were vegetarians no meat was allowed and although the best curries in my opinion need to contain meat I found a decent compromise in a Kale and Green Lentil Curry.

As darkness began to fall and flocks of gulls wafted south over the house on the late afternoon breezes I began preparing the food. The album I listened to Jethro Tull's was underrated 1982 offering Broadsword and the Beast. It was unfairly criticised by reviewers on its release for its over reliance on synthesisers but this is unfair as the synth work is atmospheric and fits well into the band's overall sound. The album also shows a willingness for the band to evolve from earlier records; a hallmark of all the great bands. The version of the record I chose to listen contains the original album which includes the defiant title track, the frosty, claustrophobic "Clasp" and the hard-rocking "Seal Driver". It also has a number of excellent bonus tracks including the festive "Jack Frost and the Hooded Crow" and the bouncy, earnest "I am your gun".

There are really two parallel approaches to preparing curries that ultimately converge into one; the first is the cooking of the main ingredients, the second is making the curry paste and the final part is combining the main ingredients and the curry paste. I first placed around two hundred and fifty grams of green lentils in a pan of water with a teaspoon of powdered Turmeric. I put the pan on the hob, brought it to boil and let the lentils and Turmeric boil for twenty minutes.

While the lentils and Turmeric boiled I sliced up around twenty green beans into small pieces and topped and tailed a carrot before peeling it and dicing it. After the lentils had been boiling for the requisite time I added the carrots and green beans to the boiling pan with one hundred and twenty five grams of pre-washed Kale, half a teaspoon of cayenne pepper and two teaspoons of coriander. I left these items to boil with the rest of the contents of the pan for another twenty five minutes.

Next I prepared the other part of the curry; that is the curry paste. I took two shallots and three cloves of garlic and cut them up finely. I put them in a Le Cresceut on the hob and fried them with some olive oil on a medium heat for around five minutes with a teaspoon of cumin and one of coriander. I find that the tastiest curry pastes are those where the fresh ingredients are combined with the spices early on in preparation. Next I added two tablespoons of tomato passatta and stirred them hard into the garlic, shallots and herbs. I turned the hob down to the lowest light possible while I waited for the ingredients in the pan to boil for a sufficient time.

Once the contents had boiled enough I poured them into the Le Cresceut with the curry paste and then combined the ingredients. After it all had been heated through it was ready to serve with some white rice I had boiled up. Despite the lack of meat the curry still had plenty of strength and taste with the Kale adding a robustness to the dish the combined well with the varied spices.

All the ingredients in the Le Cresceut warming through

Ready to eat with a side order of rice

Spanish Omelette Incident

It wasn't just recipes for Mojos that I picked up when we went to Fuerteventura in October; there were plenty of other dishes that inspired me during our time out there and one of these was a Spanish Omelette. It was a regular meal of choice when we dined at the hotel in Fuerteventura.

This weekend was a good one; I caught up with some good friends on Friday after I had driven to their place straight from my new job, on Saturday I had some enjoyable frames of snooker with an old workmate who now is employed in a well-deserved role at a quality organisation and the weekend was topped off today by having a walk with my travelling companion to Fuerteventura. Even though we had an enjoyable walk the weather was cold and we were hungry by the time we had finished it. Therefore we decided that to buck us up we would have something to eat that reminded us of our holidays.

As I was cooking I decided what music we should listen to while I prepared the food and I chose Steely Dan's well-produced, highly polished and perfectly sung album " Can't Buy a Thrill," which includes the jazzy funk of "Do it again," and the ever popular "Reelin' in the years,"

Spanish omelettes differ from others in that potatoes are one of their primary ingredients. For this omelette I peeled three white potatoes and sliced them length ways into circular pieces that were about 5 centimetres wide and 1 centimetre thick. I then steamed them in a steamer so that they were subsequently soft enough to fry in a frying pan without them burning. The potatoes took about fifteen minutes' steaming to be soft enough to add to the frying pan. I checked they were soft enough by putting a fork through them.

While the potatoes were steaming I topped and tailed two white onions and then sliced them up into 1 centimetre by 1 centimetre pieces. I fried them lightly in olive oil and after they had started to become translucent, which was after about ten minutes, I added the potatoes to the frying pan that I had previously steamed them. I stirred the mixture regularly to stop it getting stuck to the pan or burnt. I also added a tablespoonful of dried basil to the mixture and a pinch of black pepper.

In the meantime I whisked five eggs together in a bowl and as soon as they were properly whisked together I added them to the onions and potatoes. I tilted the pan a little to be sure that egg mixture covered all parts of the pan and fried the mixture on a medium heat for five minutes while ensuring it did not stick to the bottom of the pan by regularly thrusting a wooden spatula underneath it.

After around five minutes I placed the frying pan containing the omelette under the grill checking it regularly; once the egg yolk atop it had dried and the omelette began to brown I knew it was ready.

I served the omlette with some baked beans, another Spanish Staple Food, and it certainly revitalised us after our walk. The potatoes gave the omelette both an unexpected sweetness and made it much more substantial than many omelettes are.

The omelette in a frying pan not long after its grilling

It was delicious with baked beans.

Finding my Mojo

October this year was a month of marking time for me; it was my last month working in a job that I had been in for the last four and a half years where I had worked in the company of some wonderful people. It had also been the first time I had taken a holiday abroad for over ten years.

The destination of choice was the island of Fuerteventura which is part of the Canary Islands which are situated off the coast of sub-Saharan Africa and belong to Spain. Apart from perfect weather and relaxing surroundings the island has some excellent cuisine which although bearing some similarity to Spanish cuisine also has a style of its own peculiar to the Canary Islands.

One of the dishes that was served at each evening meal we attended at the hotel was a sauce called mojo sauce which is both spicy and flavoursome. I enjoyed it so much I purchased while in Fuerteventura a recipe book that detailed many of the mojo sauces made in the Canaries. The sauces tend to fall into two categories; red sauces or green sauces and are made using sweet peppers and any number of spices.

The weekend after we landed back from Fuerteventura I was entertaining a number of guests and decided to test out my own variation on the mojo recipes on them. I took two sweet peppers, one red and one orange, topped and tailed them and sliced them lengthways. I removed all the seeds and proceeded to cut the peppers into squares. Sweet peppers are similar in texture to the peppers that are usually found in the supermarket except that in shape they are longer and more pointed.

Next I topped and tailed five cloves of garlic and then cut them into fine pieces. I put the garlic and pepper into a bowl and mixed them with a tablespoon of cumin, two tablespoons of red wine vinegar and a tablespoon of olive oil. I then added this mixture to a blender and blended it on a medium setting until the mixture transformed into a orange paste. I removed it from the blender and served it in a bowl.

The fact I had not cooked the ingredients gave the mojo a strong taste and a lot more flavour to it. I chose to serve it with cheese and biscuits where it complimented well the range of types of cheese and the biscuits I offered to my guests.

Glowing bright; this mojo tastes as fiery as it looks.

Mock Mash

A couple of Wednesdays ago I needed some quick comfort food to perk me up after a long day at the coal face and I elected to cook a variation on the traditional sausage and mash dish that we all know and love. The reason for this variation was that I had four sage-flavoured vegetarian sausages that needed eating.

My spirits were lifted before I started cooking the meal by the arrival in the post of Demon Records' excellent reissue of Elvis Costello's 1979 album "Armed Forces". The original album is good enough on its own with tracks like "Accidents Will Happen" " Green Shirt" "Party Girl" and "Oliver's Army" but it is made even better by the bonus tracks including essential b-sides such as "Clean Money" and "Tiny Steps". Needless to say it went straight on the CD player while I cooked.

I first peeled and thinly sliced two white potatoes, which I steamed whilst I cooked the sausages in gravy. A steamer has the advantage over a traditional pan to boil vegetables on the hob as once the water is up to temperature the vegetables you cook get done more quickly than those that are boiled.

While the potatoes were steaming I peeled and then cut an onion in half lengthways. Next I cut into long thin slices and fried it in my Le Creseut dish in a small amount of olive oil with some white pepper until the onions turned a little translucent. When this occurred I knew it was time to add the sausages and I cooked them on a medium heat until the started to turn a dark brown. Once they had changed colour in this way I made half a pint of gravy using a vegetable stock cube and half a tablespoon full of plain flour. I was able to manage the risk of getting lumpy gravy by adding boiling water to the stock and flour a little at a time and stirring it gradually so as to get a thick gravy.

After adding the gravy to the onion and sausages I let them stew on the hob for around ten minutes so as the sausages and onion absorbed a reasonable amount of the gravy. Meanwhile the potatoes were soft enough to be mashed; the trick with getting good mashed potato in my opinion is to use no milk and instead mash the potatoes with two ounces of margarine. In this way you get mashed potato that is not too sloppy and also very rich and tasteful.

The rich gravy and mash combined with the substantial sausages made this some good quality comfort food to put me in the right frame of mind for the next working day.

The new ones are the best: a classic dish is given a new twist with the vegetarian sausages.

Treatloaf

Part two of Saturday's baking programme was to make a loaf to take to the barbecue that evening. The loaf I was to make turned out to be an orange and raisin loaf as the raisins in my cupboard needed eating more than the sultanas did. The key difference between the loaf and the cake in the previous entry on this blog is that the loaf uses slightly more drier ingredients and does not use any eggs.

I greased a loaf tin that was ten centimetres wide, sixteen long and around seven deep. Again the reason for the extensive greasing was to ensure that the loaf came out cleanly when cooked.

I first mixed eight ounces of flour with one ounce of margarine and then six ounces of raisins and four ounces of caster sugar into a bowl. The effect was to create a very dry mixture that looked colourful talcum powder. I added some further colour to the proceedings by grating an ounce of orange rind into the bowl.

I set the bowl to one side and in a measuring jug I squeezed the juice of half an orange and added enough milk to make the cocktail up to quarter of a pint. I added some much needed dampness to the to the mixture in the bowl by then adding the orange juice and milk and not stopping stirring it until all the dry ingredients had absorbed it. Once I had done this the mixture was ready and I poured it into the cake tin and cooked it for one hour on 170 degrees (180 if you don't have a fan oven). Again I used the skewer trick to be sure it was ready when I took it out of the oven.

The use of fresh orange was the key to this loaf as I find raisins a bit bland on their own when used in baking. Here the raisins provide enough texture while the oranges gave a tropical flavour to the loaf. Certainly the guests at the evening's barbecue must have agreed in some way as most of the loaf was consumed.

Glowing loaf- the loaf fresh out of the oven.