Anyone for Cormorant?

The Times Online has an article (November 14, 2006) about a fascinating amateur cook and author. Including a dandy recipe for rabbit pie, one of the primary ingredients of which is a bit of slap and tickle.

[Edit - article doesn't seem to be available any longer]

The No-one Knows Taco

I cooked my Taco recipe the other night for neighbours and friends. There were quite a few people; 11 or 12 in all; so I divided the mix up into two bowls to put on the table. At the end of the meal, I found out that each end of the table was convinced that they were eating the meat version and that the other bowl contained the vegetarian mix. Everyone thought they were getting the 'real' meat!

Lasagne to fool the carnivores

I'm doing this one totally from memory so don't follow it too closely. Some recipes, and a good tomato sauce is one of these, really should be a matter of doing what feels right anyway. Keep taste testing. 

Ingredients 

Green Grocer 

Herbs - A few sprigs of oregano is the go if you can get it fresh and a big handful of chopped parsley. 

2 large onions 

1 small onion 

2-3 carrots 

3 celery stalks 

1 head of garlic 

1 lemon 

Dry Store 

2 big tins of tomato (next size up from the 400g ones, I can't remember how big they are right now) 

2x75g packets of TVP (Textured Vegetable Protein) 

4 bay leaves 

1 teaspoon cloves 

6 tablespoons milk powder 

100g flour 

6 tbsp olive oil 

1 LARGE glass of dry red wine (it'll get smaller before you use it) 

Fridge 

Cheese and plenty of it. 

300g of good melting cheese like mozzarella or a lightly flavoured cheddar. 

100g of parmesan. (These quantities sound a bit light-on to me now that I think about it) 

100g unsalted butter 

Method 

You need to prepare a bechamel sauce (cheese sauce) and a tomato sauce. If you're not sure of the timing, then do the bechamel last because it's easier to handle when its still hot. For the tomato sauce/bolognaise:

• When making a large amount like this, I usually chop the vegetables in a food processor. Just wash and peel the onion, carrot and celery and whizz them up together. This combination of veges is known as mirepoix (meer-eh-pwar).
• Cook the veges in a large pot in the olive oil. Seasoning with salt at this stage gives a better result than just adding salt afterwards.
• Peel and chop the garlic finely and add it to the pot once the mirepoix has softened a bit. Don't add it with the other veges as it will burn.
• Keep the heat high. A bit of caramelisation is good as it will result in a more richly flavoured sauce with a deeper colour.
• When everything is softened nicely and a bit brown, pour in the wine (it should sizzle resoundingly) and scrape any good bits off the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon. This is known as 'de-glazing' the pan.
• Cook the wine until it is almost all evaporated. This ensures that the alcohol is all burned off. It can result in a bitter sauce if this doesn't occur.
• Add in the tomatoes. I buy whole peeled tomatoes and crush them in a mouli. If you don't have one of these wonderful machines, either buy chopped tomatoes or crush the whole ones in your hand as they go in (it feels magnificent but can get messy).
• Add oregano and 2 bay leaves. For the more adventurous, add a little lemon zest as well.
• You may need to add a little water as well depending on how juicy the tomatoes are.
• Put a lid on the pot, bring it to the boil and then simmer gently for at least an hour, stirring every 10-15 minutes. No more than a simmer or you will burn the sauce. There should be a noticeable bubble every second or so rising to the surface and bursting aromatically.
• Add your prepared TVP for the last five minutes.
• Finally, taste the sauce. If it is bitter, then add a teaspoon or two of sugar and some lemon juice (yes, this helps eliminate bitterness). It may also need a little more salt.

For the TVP

• Follow the directions on the packet 

[Edit Jan 2021: I've found a better method for using TVP. Look out for a new TVP Bolognaise recipe on this blog]

For the bechamel sauce:

• Make an onion clouté by peeling the small onion and 'nailing' several bay leaves to it with cloves.
• Bring to the boil 1 litre of water with the clouté in it.
• Let the clouté steep in the water for 10 minutes and then remove and discard.
• Melt the butter in another pot and stir in the flour. This is called a roux (roo)
• Cook the roux a little bit and then start slowly adding some of the cloutè stock a ladle at a time while stirring. In fact, you'll need to give it a beating sometimes. Don't add any more liquid until the last addition is fully incorporated without any lumps.
• Keep stirring and adding more. Each time, the sauce should thicken up suddenly into a paste when it hits the boiling point. Keep adding until the sauce reaches a nice consistency. This may not require all of the stock and may require more - get in touch with your sauce. If it needs more, you can just add hot water.
• When the consistency is right, remove the pot from the heat, add the milk powder and about two thirds of the grated cheeses. Stir this in well.

Assembly

• Preheat the oven to 200°C
• Start with a thin layer of the bolognaise sauce in the base of the tray.
• Place lasagne sheet over the sauce. It doesn't have to be perfect. Some gaps and overlaps are fine.
• Now put a layer of bechamel down over the pasta. If you intend to use it all (you won't really be able to tell until you've made this recipe a few times) then you should put down about a third of the sauce.
• Then another layer of bolognaise.
• Pasta.
• Another third of the bechamel.
• Bolognaise.
• Pasta.
• Finish with the rest of the bechamel and sprinkle with the remaining cheese.
• Bake in the oven for about an hour or until the cheese is nice and brown and you can poke a skewer into it easily.

Notes Slice it up in the tray. If you have an egg flip handy, cut the lasagne into squares the same size as the egg flip's edge. This makes it easy to use the egg flip to get out of the tray. Serve with a crisp salad and a glass of the wine you used in the cooking. Wrap individual serves in plastic wrap and freeze for an easy meal. Use left over bolognaise as stuffing for pies or reheated and tipped over spaghetti.

Ish's Birthday Party

Barbecue (spelt BBQ by most), comes from neither the Texans nor the Australians but from the French barbe a queue, meaning 'chin to tail'. It referred to the practice of spitting a whole animal; skewering it from chin to tail with a stick; and roasting it over coals. Not a delectable idea for even a semi-vegetarian. I love barbequeues, though and have developed a number of recipes to suit my eating preferences. Just a quick note, however, the barbie must be made from wood or, at worst, charcoal. A gas barbecue loses one of the greatest things about this cooking method; the smoky flavour imparted to the food.

Adams makes his barbecues with scavenged wood in the drum of an old washing machine. This has plenty of little holes in the surface to let the fire breath. He's mounted it on a little trolley so he can wheel it around, easily removing it from the centre of attention once the food is cooked or moving a little closer to this or that guest who is feeling a chill. He has an old cake rack for a flame grill, which I cook skewers on, the fire leaping up to scorch the food; and a flat grill made from the blade of a plough which I cook fish cakes or marinated tofu on. He wraps vegetables and fish in foil and puts them amongst the coals once the fire dies down a little.

Adams' place has a big open area under the house, and just as well, too since a light drizzle set in about 5pm and people were texting me to see if we were going to cancel. I'd spent my previous two lunch breaks shopping and my evenings preparing food. On Tuesday night, I made the babaganoush, the Love Bite cocktail, mixed the cake batter and baked some bread in Lulu's bread maker. I baked the cake and some muffins with the left over mix. Ish and I went jogging on Wednesday morning and I invited him in for coffee. Little did he know, he was eating some of his birthday cake with his morning coffee.

On Wednesday, I bought fish for the fish cakes and put it in the fridge at work. I got all the way to the bus stop before I realised I'd left it there and had to go back for it in the pouring rain. I finally got home at about 6, iced the cake and made the fish cake mix. My neighbours came over and we gathered all the food and plates and things we needed and borrowed Lulu's car to drive over to Adams'.

My mood was nervous excitement – perfect for cooking since I had so many things to think about. Its always better to be a bit scattered and open to the unexpected in the kitchen, otherwise you have to be aware of too many things at once. Food gives off cues to the senses that have an uncanny ability to trigger the right thoughts at the right moment. A smell that wafts into the consciousness suddenly reminds me that the octopus have boiled are ready to be drained, or the remains of the eggplant on the chopping board remind me to put out some crackers for the babaganoush.

Adams cooked some chicken and pork in a big pot on the stove (which I'm told was delicious, and, in fact had people coming back for seconds and thirds later in the night). He also made a noodle dish and a delicious punch with vodka and papaya (yum). People started to arrive and sip at their Love Bite and punch and other drinks and there were about 15 there before Ish arrived. Alvaro called me just before they arrived and I passed out some party poppers to everyone. Ish walked in, happy but blissfully unaware. I greeted him at the door and walked in behind him waving frantically to everyone to set off their poppers and let mine rip right behind him. Everyone cheered him and shook his stunned hand and kissed his bewildered cheek.

Pavel had got some of us around to paint a big canvas for the blank walls of Ish's apartment and it was hanging in plain view. We directed him to it and let him admire our handiwork. I ran around making sure everyone had drinks and then turned back to the food. A few extra hands made quick work of the skewers while Adams wheeled the now blazing brazier in under the awning.

The coolness brought by the rain mixed with the latin rhythms on the stereo and the smell of wood smoke and the general joyous atmosphere all worked to bring smiles to faces and a sway to hips. The food was consumed as fast as I could cook it and I worried that we'd under catered but it turned out to be just right for the twenty or so people crowded into that space.

The cake was cut and Happy Birthday was sung in no less than four languages – English, Spanish, German and Japanese (who, it turns out, sing Happy Birthday in English). We jumped up and down and sang and ate and played pool well into the night but eventually this got too much for the neighbours and the people who lived upstairs. So, with the drink dwindling and a party mood still saturating every limb, we headed out into the night...

Love Bite

Ingredients Green Grocer 1Kg Strawberries Thyme 1Tablespoon Lemon Juice Dry Store 300ml Jack Daniels 100g Sugar Equipment Food Processor Method

• Crush the strawberries a little with the sugar, lemon juice and the thyme. They don't have to be pulped here, just enough to get some bruising happening. I think this is what the pros call 'muddled'.
• Leave them sit for about an hour at room temperature.
• Put the strawberries in a shallow baking dish and into the freezer.
• Once they are properly frozen, feed them a little at a time into the food processor, adding the JD as you do each batch.
• Put the resulting mix back in the freezer. The alcohol should stop it from freezing but I like to check it every couple of hours and give it a stir to make sure.

Notes Serve in whisky glasses with a teaspoon. Serve a blob in a wine glass with just enough wine to cover it (Actually, I had sangria handy so make that wine and lemonade or it could get a little dangerous). The amount of sugar depends heavily on the sweetness of the fruit. Mine were quite sweet, so if yours aren't then add more sugar but remember that the alcohol is quite sweet.

Fish Cakes

Simple, elegant and familiar. This is cocktail food de rigeur in my part of the world. A word of caution: they will go a bit rubbery when they cool so waft them in front of your guests when they are hot off the grill. Serve with something hot and sour like cucumber relish. Fish Monger 1Kg Flake or any other cheap white-fleshed fish (NOT Nile Perch) Green Grocer 300g Snake Beans Lime Juice Dry Store 300g Red Curry Paste 3-4 Eggs Equipment Food processor Method

• Finely slice the beans
• Make the fish into a paste. You may need to add some of the liquid ingredients to help the food processor out a bit. Oh, and don't fill up the processor to much or you'll have a nightmare on your hands. Do the fish in 4 or 5 batches and tip it into a bowl.
• Mix in the rest of the ingredients well.
• Add lime juice and fish sauce to taste (oooh gross). No, don't taste it raw, drop a spoonful into a pot of boiling water to cook it.
• Cook on a barbecue grill

Notes This stuff is really sticky. The best way to deal with it is to have wet hands. When cooking, have a bowl of water and the bowl of mixture beside each other. Dip your hands into the water and then grab some mixture, shape it roughly and slap it onto the sizzling hot grill. Repeat.

Octopus and Prawn Skewers

These are so simple and a big hit at parties. Putting the two on the same skewer spreads the cost around a bit and also adds interest. I have nothing against frozen prawns and the only baby octopus I can ever find is frozen in bricks. Read the notes for instructions on defrosting. Ingredients Fish Monger 1Kg Shelled Green Prawns, Tail On 1Kg Baby Octopus, Cleaned, Fresh or Frozen Green Grocer 100ml Lime Juice 1/2 bunch Coriander Stalks, Finely Chopped Dry Store 100ml Fish Sauce 200ml Peanut Oil Bay Leaf Salt Bamboo skewers Method

• Soak the skewers in cold water for several hours - this will stop them from burning too badly.
• Put the octopus in a pot with salted water (taste it, it shouldn't be sea water salty, just pleasantly salty).
• Starting from cold water (this is important), bring the water up to the boil and turn it off.
• Let the octopus sit in the water for 5-10 minutes before draining.
• Put the peeled prawns and octopus is a dish with the rest of the ingredients. Note that the marinade ingredient quantities were totally made up on the spot and forgotten soon after. These are the approximate proportions but you can mix these together before adding the seafood and taste it. It should be quite salty and quite sour.
• Leave to marinate in the fridge for a couple of hours.
• Skewer the meat.
• Cook it on a really hot char grill for just about a minute on each side.

Notes The best way to defrost anything is in the fridge. Put it in a deeper dish than necessary and be sure to drain any liquid that forms as it defrosts. This has a number of advantages over other methods: In a warmer environment, the outside of the food gets warm quickly and is exposed to bacterial growth. Soaking in water can cause flavour loss as will soaking anything in water. Microwaves tend to cook random bits of the food and will eventually give you cancer ;-) And, I've never tried those wonder defrost plates but it seems to me that it must make the bottom of the food heaven for bacteria before the top is defrosted. In an emergency, seafood can be defrosted quickly in really salty water. In this case it should be as salty as sea water. The reason for this is osmosis, kids. If you don't know what that is, go to wikipedia - this is a recipe not a science lesson.

Vacherin like a cake.

A Vacherin is a strange animal. A mix between a cake and a bread, it uses yeast as the rising agent and is made with strong, bread-making flour rather than a softer cake flour. It has hardly any sugar in it (usually just enough to get the yeast all excited) and is traditionally soaked in a sugar syrup after it is cooked. I've tried it both sweetened a little and soaked and I prefer the soaked version. It seems a bit more moist that way. I give directions for both methods in the notes. Ingredients Pantry 500g Strong Plain Flour 8 Whole Eggs 100g Sugar 1 teasponn Yeast 2 tablespoons Milk Powder pinch Salt Fridge 250g Unsalted Butter Method

• Mix the yeast with a little warm water (about blood temperature) and the sugar and let stand.
• Cut the butter up into 1 inch cubes and let it soften.
• Place the flour, salt and milk powder in a bowl (I never sift but then I sometimes get lumpy results).
• Lightly wisk the eggs just to break up the whites a bit.
• Make a well in the flour and work the eggs a little bit at a time into the flour with a wooden spoon.
• By then, the yeast should be a bit frothy, add it to the paste.
• Beat the mixture well until you have a smooth and slightly elastic batter.
• Place the batter in a warm spot (I usually turn the oven on and leave it on top of the range).
• Put the softened butter on top of the batter.
• Cover the bowl with a cloth and allow it to double in size (About an hour). This is called 'prooving' the dough.
• Grease a cake tin generously with butter.
• Pour the batter into the cake tin but remember that it will almost double in size, so don't fill it right up (If you have any left over, grease some muffin trays and pour the rest in there).
• Place in a warm spot to rise.
• When the mixture reaches the top of the tin, put it in the oven at 200 degrees for 40 minutes.
• The cake is cooked when you can put a skewer in and it comes out clean.
• Remove from the tin immediately by running a small knife around the edges and upending the tin.
• Cool on a cake rack.

Notes Ish's birthday cake: Stew 3-4 Granny Smith Apples with some sultanas (Actually I decadently used goji berries for this) and about 200g of sugar. This should take about 15 minutes. Don't add any water. Before pouring the cake mixture into the tin, mix in the cooled fruit.

Ice the cake too; beat 300g Icing Sugar, 1 Egg White and a dribble of Lemon Juice together until it turns verry white and holds stiff peaks (this is called royal icing). Pour over the top of the cake making sure to coat the sides. For Ish's birthday, I also pushed some toasted sunflower seeds into the top and sides of the icing. It looked very exotic.

Adams' birthday cake: Make a sugar syrup by boiling 300g of sugar with about 100ml of water. Add in about 5-6 shots of Grand Marnier or your favourite liqueur. Cut the cake in half horizontally so you have two cakes. Tip the top half upside down and pour the syrup all over both of them. It will seem like a lot but trust me on this. Let them soak for a good half an hour before replacing the top. You could fill the middle with cream if you wanted to at this stage. For a glossy finish, melt some apricot jam and paint it over the top.

Bubaganoush

Pantry Extra Virgin Olive Oil Lemon Juice Salt Tahini Green Grocer Fresh Oregano 4 large Eggplant Special Equipment Oven Tray Food Processor

• Cut the eggplant in half but leave the stalk on.

• Press the cut side lightly into a plate of salt and let stand for a few minutes.

• Rinse well in fresh water.

• Pour oil onto an oven tray – be generous.

• Pierce the skin of the eggplant a few times with a small knife.

• Place the eggplant, cut side down, on the tray.

• Bake in the oven at 180-200 degrees for 2-3 hours until a skewer will pierce them like butter.

• Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

• If there are lots of mature seeds, remove most of them before the next step. Be aware that this may leave less eggplant than you counted on, so adjust the recipe as necessary.

• Puree the eggplant in a food processor with the tahini, oregano and lemon juice.

• Add the oil in a thin stream with the machine on. Only use enough oil to get the consistency you want.

• Taste the mixture.

• It may not need any salt if the eggplant have absorbed some in the salting, but if it does, season it now.

• Serve with unsalted crackers or fresh baguette.

Notes Young eggplant , and small varieties like Lebanese eggplant, don't really need the salt treatment. If your eggplant have fairly mature seeds in them, they will definitely need salting but even then, don't leave the salt on for more than 5 minutes or the eggplant will become too salty. Many people peel their eggplant before pureeing it, or rather, they scoop the flesh out of the skins but the skin is Perfectly edible and gives a darker color to the baba .