This is Cauliflower Soup

In this strange period between Christmas and New Year the mind wanders. Mine has wandered to soup. I'm going to post a soup a week for a while. This week's soup is made from cauliflower. I'm recycling it from an earlier post... 

Cauliflower Soup

I like soup all year round, and in the winter I like it even more. The variety of consistencies of soup is also a delight, minestrone types - mixed finely chopped veg is great, but sometimes what is wanted is a smooth soup. Thanks to hand blenders these soups are very easy to make. When I can't lay my hands on a blender I have been known to scoop out some of the cooked vegetables so that I can mash them with a fork. The mashed veg then lend variety to the texture of the soup, and act as a thickener as well.

This recipe for cauliflower soup is very easy. I use leftover cooked cauliflower, but it would be worth cooking it especially for the purpose. Pureed cauliflower is very smooth indeed, velvety, like chocolate. Ok, I know that chocolate afficionados out there may be outraged, but it really does give the same pleasure when you eat it, at least from the point of view of texture. Mouth feel as it is called by some.

I am not oblivious to the fact that some people don't like cauliflower. Obviously, they are nuts. The low, slightly rooty and a little bit cabbagey flavour is wonderful, as far as I am concerned. I have converted people to cauliflower by cooking it in pieces (steam or boil) and then sauteeing in butter with plenty of black pepper and a pinch of salt. The sound as it rolls around the frying pan is great, the smell is terrific, it looks so tasty, with the little browned patches and when it comes to the taste, it is glorious. Rooty, nutty, peppery, buttery and sweet - and it hardly needs chewing. 

Recipe

Ingredients

 

a large bowlful of cooked cauliflower

1 onion

1 potato

1 clove garlic

large handful of parsley, chopped

three mugfuls of water/stock

pepper and salt

nutmeg

Method

• Prepare the onion, potato and garlic - peel and chop up quite small - and cook in the water until soft
• Add the cauliflower and chopped parsley, pepper and salt (to taste, but make sure there is lots of pepper) and a pinch of nutmeg, simmer for a couple of minutes
• Blend the lot and serve

If you're greedy and organised you could accompany your soup with a nice samosa and pea fritter, or similar.

Double dark chocolate sorbet

If you want an intensely chocolate experience, then this is the recipe for you. And it's dairy free. I don't know about low calorie since it's got sugar in it, however, the flavour is so good you might be able to just eat a little of it.

There's a debate what to call it, sorbet or granita, sorbet being smoother and having finer crystals. It's a matter of how much you smoosh it up I suppose. I like it with finer crystals. I use the bowl on a stick blender.

If you have any left over, it does keep in the freezer, getting harder and harder the longer it's there, so you will need to break it up again.

The main thing is that this is easy to make and it tastes good. If you want a hit of cold and of chocolate give this a go.

500ml/2 cups/16fl oz dark coffee
65g/2/3 cup/3 oz cocoa powder
150g /2/3 cup/30z granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
85g/3oz of dark chocolate (thats around 4/5 of a 100g bar)

• take a medium sized saucepan, put in the coffee, sugar and cocoa and whisk over a low heat until everything is combined and smooth and the sugar has completely melted.
• add the chocolate broken into pieces along with the vanilla essence and keep stirring until mixture is smooth
• allow it to cool, then pour into a plastic container and put into the freezer, stirring the mixture every hour for around five hours. Then leave the mixture to freeze completely
• take the frozen mixture shortly before you plan to eat it and beat it with a fork to break it up - it will melt quickly
• serve with cream or coffee or vanilla ice cream, it's also good with chocolate sauce

Beetroot leaf soup

We love beetroot, especially when it's been freshly cooked at home.

Not so long ago I was standing on a platform at Liverpool Street station, metropolitan line. On my way home from a little jaunt. Something was nagging at me, but then that's what tube travel used to be like - right now it seems a far off dream of course. I got to Dollis Hill and it came to me. An hour or so before I'd run out of the house leaving a pot of beetroot cooking on the stove, in our newly built kitchen. I called a neighbour friend who keeps our key for emergencies and went around straight away to check and turn it off. Everything was fine, although the house smelled like I'd been smoking food. Which I had. The beetroot were charred shrivelled remains, having been left to boil dry on a very low heat with a lid on the pan. They were a also inedible, although another slightly less charred edition tasted great, kinda chipotle style, smoke dried ripe beetroot. 

Undaunted I am still cooking beetroot, and admiring the pan in question. It was an inherited pentole pan, you can see it in the pictures below. It's the best pan I have for beetroot. Like many things of value it has a heavy bottom.

Time was you bought beetroot fresh cooked off a market stall, the stall holder had a gas burner and was cooking it in large batches on the spot. I suppose in the cold weather it kept them warm. Now beetroot are often sold with all their greenery, and loath to bin it, I've been cooking it. I've made beet leaf tarts and lately beet leaf soup.



I took the tops off the fresh beetroot, gave them a wash and popped them into a pot with water, veg stock. I boiled them for about 20 minutes, then I got the stick blender out and pureed the lot.

Beetroot top soup, very tasty.

Voila. A little bit of greek yoghurt and some pepper to stir through

Sesame salt - store cupboard essential - Gomasio

Gomasio is ground and toasted sesame condiment that makes plain vegetables and plain rice a delicious meal. You can use it alongside soy sauce or instead of it. I can't recommend it enough. I make it by toasting the sesame seeds and adding a pinch of salt. Some people use more salt, but I find it overwhelming.

I use a suribachi but you can use
a pestle and mortar or a food processor

you can see the grooves that help grind the seeds

I made some cottage pies too..

Gluten free chocolate joy - Queen of Sheba cake, Reine de Saba

So chocolate lovers, this cake is for you.
Intense chocolate flavour
in a gluten free cake and a brilliant name. Give it a go

You may have noticed that there isn't a lot of flour on the shelves in many supermarkets. Is everyone baking? Since I'm not walking around the whole area I can't smell the results, and there's no biscuits baking smell wafting over from the McVities factory at the moment either.

I finally got some flour actually, at the Co-op in Cricklewood, thank you Co-op. And I got a bar of basic dark chocolate (43% for those who want detail). And it's my lovely daughter's birthday.. and she loves chocolate. At the same time I found a recipe in Elizabeth David was being shared by a BBC London Radio listener on facebook and since it's called the Queen of Sheba and my daughter is a special person, definitely got some regal stuff going on, I decided to give it a go.

Queen of Sheba cake

Ingredients

the cake dusted
with icing sugar

125g butter

125g sugar

125g dark chocolate

100 g ground almonds 

3 eggs, separated
1 tbsp coffee and spirit if you like

Set your oven to 160C

Method

• separate the eggs, into yolks and whites 
• melt chocolate (in bain marie, microwave or oven)
• add butter to melted chocolate, beating it until smooth
• add in the egg yolks one by one, beating to combine, following with the sugar and ground almonds, beating until everything is properly combined
• whip the egg whites until they form soft peaks
• fold the fluffy egg whites through the chocolate mixture, in cutting motions to keep as much air as possible
• pour mixture into prepared 8"/20cm lined tin
• bake for 45m

allow to cool before removing from the tin - be careful, it's fragile cake, dust with cocoa or icing sugar to servev.

You need a strong arm or an electric whisk or equivalent. I use an old fashioned hand held electric whisk. I don't have a big machine, just a lot of bowls. I realised that I would need a gadget garage to fit one in the kitchen, or it would have to sit on the side and I don't find it very attractive, so I got the hand held whisk. There's no flour or baking powder, the raising agent is beaten egg whites. 

20cm tin prepped
with butter and cocoa

melt the chocolate

stir the butter into the melted chocolate
 then stir in the yolks, sugar and ground almonds

beat together and leave to cool

whisk the egg whites
until they make soft peaks

stir the whites through the chocolate
mixture until combined

you can see a bit of unstirred
egg white

reverse crumble chocolate dessert

Raymond Blanc’s reverse crumble chocolate dessert is something I've come across while cruising the interweb for chocolate cake recipes, because who doesn't? It looks pretty good. Overnight chill needed, and not much flour, so the current shortage of the stuff might not put you off, so long as you can get cream, butter, milk and eggs.

If you substitute gluten free flour in the crumble, you have a gluten free dessert. 

Method

Grease an 8”/20cm cake ring, line a baking tray with greaseproof paper and sit the ring on it

Set the oven to 160 fan oven 170 normal oven

For crumble

35g butter unsalted, cold

35g sugar demerera

pinch of salt

30g flour (gf if you like)

1/5 tsp cocoa powder

Combine to a breadcrumb texture to make a crumble and bake in oven 170 for 10-12m

for choc cream

90ml whipping cream

150ml full fat milk

155g 70% choc broken into pieces

1 egg

• heat the milk and cream together to almost boiling
• start beating the egg gently then slowly pour hot milk into the beaten egg continue beating to combine.
• add the chocolate to the hot egg/milk mixture and keep beating slowly until the chocolate has melted completely, which may take a few minutes.
• allow the mixture to cool then pour over the crumble base and leave to chill in the fridge overnight

Just before serving

• slip the cake onto a plate
• loosen the edge of the cake with a hot knife and remove the ring before serving

Lively coleslaw to add colour, vitamins and flavour

Make this fresh coleslaw to give a boost to a grey day, or to top up on vitamin C and fibre, or just to have something delicious on its own, with rice or as a side dish with a more substantial main course.

Recipe - enough for four as a side dish. Or for one greedy person.



Ingredients

SALAD

• 1/2 small white or red cabbage
• 2 large carrots
• 1/2 onion
• 1 fresh red chilli (or substitute/combine with sweet chilli sauce
• big handful fresh coriander
• small handful fresh mint
• 1 clove garlic
• 2 tbsp thai fish sauce (replace with soy if vegan)
• juice of 1 lime (enough for at least 5 tbsp)
• 1 tsp sugar

METHOD

• finely shred the cabbage
• peel and grate the carrots
• finely dice the onion
• crush and peel the garlic and chop finely
• deseed the chilli and chop finely
• finely chop the stems of the washed coriander and shred the leaves
• take the mint leaves off the stems and shred finely
• put everything in a bowl and add the fish sauce, lime juice and tsp of sugar
• stir, mixing thoroughly

shredded lettuce is added to this version

Update on jam fail, marmalade fail, kitchen sorrow

Having intended to make marmalade, with a bag of Seville oranges at the ready, I wasn't and I didn't. Cooking does need attention, and I failed to give it the time and space required for jam. 

Note to self: get on with it, don't just let everything sit and imagine you're cooking.

Apart from my lack of follow-through, I don't think the Seville oranges I got were very good. In previous years I've bought them from the local grocer and they were a lot bigger, juicier and more perfumed. I did get to the first stage of marmalade, squeezing the fruit and cutting the peel, which in itself is very therapeutic and makes your hands smell wonderful. I'd like to blame the quality of the oranges, but it was the quality of the cook that was the clincher. 

So, as my husband pithily puts it, the oranges ended up being expensive compost. The shame.

Dan Lepard's Marmalade

I'm going to try this recipe - just bought some Seville oranges. This Christmas I gave away the last of the marmalade I made three years ago. It was a bit runny and also the dark variety made with muscovado sugar, not so popular. That's why it took so long to find takers...

small Seville oranges big lemon

Ingredients

• 500g/1lb 2 oz Seville oranges
• 50ml/2 fl oz lemon juice
• 1kg/2lb 4 oz white sugar: regular, not with added pectin
• soft dark brown sugar, optional

Method

1. Weigh the oranges and make a note of the weight, as this will tell you how much of the other ingredients you’ll need, to ensure the marmalade sets well. My basic ratio is: both the sugar and the strained liquid from the sliced and simmered oranges should roughly equal twice the weight of the uncooked whole oranges. So if you start with 500g/1lb 2 oz whole oranges, after cooking you want to be left with a litre/1¾ pint of liquid once the peels have been strained out, and you need 1kg/2lb 4 oz of sugar.
2. Cut the oranges in half and squeeze out the juice, as this makes chopping the peel less messy. Remove any pips from the juice, spoon any remaining pips out of the peel, place them in a tea cup and cover with water. Then chop the peel into shreds about 0.25cm/⅛in across and place these in a bowl with the juice and cover with water. Leave both overnight, as this will help the marmalade set well.
3. The next day, place the peel and water in a saucepan. Sieve the pips, place their soaking water (which will have jellied slightly) into the saucepan, then tie the pips in muslin and drop this into the pot. Bring to the boil then simmer for 2-3 hours, topping up with water so that the fruit stays well covered, until the peel is soft when squished between your fingers. Alternatively, cook in a pressure cooker for about 30 minutes.
4. Strain the juice from the peel and measure it. Whatever the original weight of fruit was at the beginning, you want about double that in cooking liquid. So if you started with 500g/1lb 2 oz fruit, then try and have roughly a litre/1¾ pint (in other words 1000ml or 1000g) of cooking liquid left. If you have more, boil it down in a saucepan to intensify it. If you have less, top it up with water to dilute it.
5. Then add the sugar (double the weight of the oranges), plus 1-2 tbsp brown sugar if you like to make the colour darker. Add the strained peel, plus 50ml/2 fl oz of lemon juice for every 500g/1lb 2 oz uncooked whole oranges used. Bring to the boil, skim off any white froth and pips that rise to the surface, and then boil until the temperature reaches 105C/220F.
6. Meanwhile sterilise enough jars in the oven and have the lids washed and ready. When the marmalade reaches 105C/220F, turn the heat off and leave for 10 minutes. Ladle the marmalade into a jug then pour this carefully into the jars, leaving just a bare 0.5cm/¼in gap at the top. Screw the lid on tightly and leave undisturbed until completely cold.

Salad dressings - take your pick

Hot or cold salads are a standard go-to and sometimes you want to find a new twist or return to an old flavour. So I'm making a list of dressings. Slowly

Mustard vinaigrette

Large teaspoon Dijon mustard

Large pinch salt

Generous grindings of black pepper

I tbsp wine vinegar

2 tbsp light oil (sunflower or similar)

• mix salt, pepper and mustard
• stir in the vinegar until it is well combined
• stir in oil until dressing looks like a loose mayonnaise

Family vinaigrette

1 clove garlic (peeled)
salt (preferably maldon) hearty pinch
pepper several good grindings
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
3 to 4 tbsp best olive oil

method 1

with pestle and mortar
pound the garlic, pepper and salt together to make a fine puree, don't stint, really mash it up
add the vinegar
mix to a uniform paste
add olive oil and mix well

without pestle and mortar

finely chop the garlic (as small as you can, crushing it with the side of a knife first will release the delicious juices,and help get the skin off)

method 2
mix chopped garlic, pepper and salt together

add the vinegar
mix well
add olive oil and stir

Asian salad dressing

• 1 fresh red chilli
• big handful fresh coriander
• small handful fresh mint
• 1 clove garlic
• 2 tbsp thai fish sauce
• juice of 1 lime (enough for at least 5 tbsp)
• 1 tsp sugar

finely chop washed stems of coriander (making 1 heaped tbsp)

finely chop  chilli, mint and garlic

mix all the ingredients together