Custard for that crumble

Custard – the way to a man’s heart

You want custard with that?  No problem, give me a minute…..  Homemade custard is so easy and quick, as quick a boiling up a pint of milk, and just perfect with some stewed fruit or crumble

This makes a pint, and there is no point making less than that, trust me!

One pint of milk, whatever type you fancy

2 eggs

1 level tablespoon of cornflour

2 tablespoons of sugar.

Put the milk on to boil.  Whisk up the eggs, cornflour and sugar together in a bowl big enough to take the milk too.

When the milk is just below boiling, pour it over the egg mixture, whisking all the time. 

Return this mixture to the saucepan and bring it to the boil, stirring constantly.  Yes, a custard you can boil.  The cornflour stabalised the mixture, so it does not turn into scrambled eggs.

A bit of crumble for dessert?

A BIT OF CRUMBLE

I do like a bit of crumble and custard, and  Hubby definitely does; he positively glows when handed a bowl of it.  But it has to be a bit better than plain old crumble.  Spoilt, he is, his favourite has to be rhubarb and ginger crumble with homemade custard.  I never make less than a pint of custard and he swears he will love me forever when I do.  I can’t tell him it is this easy, a failsafe recipe, custard you can boil without curdling! No way….. its true.  Lets start with the crumble topping……….

Equal quantities of

Wholemeal flour

Plain flour

Sugar (granulated or brown)

Butter

I find 3oz or 100g of each is enough for our needs, but at work, we make this up in kilo/2lb batches, as it stores well and we can make fresh crumbles every day.  Neat, huh? 

 

Just rub the butter into the flours and add the sugar, and mix to make a ‘ahem’, crumble, or put everything into the food processor and whizz for a minute or so until it looks like, well….., crumble!  Different sugars will make the crumble different, granulated make it biscuity, brown makes it more caramel and dark brown will make it fudgy.  Don’t go mad the first time and try to make a kilo batch in a small food processor and then come crying to me – not listening.  It helps if your butter is not straight out of the fridge too. 

Technical bit here, I use both wholemeal and plain flour as it makes a better, looser crumble and it is slightly healthier, only slightly.  All plain flour makes a more biscuity crumble, and that can be nice too, but all wholemeal is a little much.

FRUIT BIT

Underneath the topping my favourite fruit combinations are

Rhubarb and pieces of crystalized ginger

Rhubarb and Raspberry

Rhubarb and Strawberry

Apple and Date

Apple and dried figs

Banana, dried apricot and orange juice (emergency crumble when you have to produce a quick dessert!)

You need to sprinkle some sugar over the fruit first before adding the topping. 

It is also nice to add nuts to the topping, flaked almonds are good with rhubarb and walnuts are lovely with apple.  Yeah!  This is almost health food! 

Ready for the oven   And thirty minutes or so later.....ta dah!

Rich Brown Bread.

Again today I was asked for the recipe for this brown bread.  I wonder if the people who ask for this are just being polite or will they actually make it.  I dunno, I doubt it.  If everybody who asked me for recipes baked them, then we would be awash in bread makers!  This recipe has been passed around the town, with additions from half the good bakers here.   It was  a little too heavy for me, so I changed it again.  I guess it is now my recipe!!  It is easy to half the recipe, but it freezes well so I always make lots.  My daughter complains that all my recipes are too big and hard to mix, but build up those muscles and get baking.  I can't be doing with all that effort for tiny amounts of produce.

Rich Brown Bread

Preheat your oven to 190c


400g Plain Flour
8 teaspoons of bread soda
1 kg Wholemeal Flour
200 g Flake meal (porridge)
200g Pinhead oatmeal
200 Bran
200g Wheatgerm
100ml Sunflower oil
6 eggs
2 litres Buttermilk

Sieve the white flour and the bread soda together into a bowl.  


Add the rest of the dry ingredients and mix well.  Add the oil.  


Beat the eggs together and add to the rest of the ingredients.  


Add the buttermilk and mix firmly but gently until everthing is combined.  


Scrape it into 4 x 2lb greased loaf tins and bake for 45 -50 minutes until it is well browned and sounds hollow when tapped.



(I bake it in 8 x 1lb tins at home for 35 mins,  or at work, it makes 3 x  long, catering sized loaves)(We don't like crusts at work, wasteful!)  

Here is a selection of breads, squares to the front, this recipe behind and Health bread to the left.  Take your pick!  All recipes are on the blog now.

London part 2

And so we headed to Mishkins, a non kosher Jewish Deli, a strange choice maybe, given the relationship between the Lebanon and Israel.  But hey ho, it’s only food!

The food here is what your mother would make if she was Jewish, all time classics that most people are familiar with, meatballs, reubens sandwiches, salt beef, pickles, chicken soup etc.

http://mishkins.co.uk/?referrer=true

It was half empty when we arrived and just as well, as the service was quite show, I don’t think they could have coped with too many more.  We were not in a hurry, but I could imagine how annoying a twenty minute wait would be if you have a short lunchtime.  You would not get away with it where I work is all I am saying!

I had three meatballs, lamb and pistachio, with two sides of salad and cauliflower slaw.  It was all really flavourfull, but the slaw was the star.  I must get more inventive with slaws.  The Americans do such a great variety of them, and I constantly get asked to make boring old coleslaw.  Time to stop giving the customer what they ask for, lobbing mayonnaise onto cabbage and carrots.  This one had a light vinaigrette, cauliflower and red cabbage, crunchy and light, yummy.  OH had the duck hash, fried egg and liquor, another good plate of food.  The liquor was a small jug of duck gravy, very nice indeed.  The coffees were terrible, a see through glass of dishwater, so I sent them back even though the waitress said that’s what they always serve!  A nice room though and I could hang around at that cocktail bar if I did not have lots to do and so little time!

A word on coffee in London – it is universally terrible, too big in amount, too small in flavor.  Each time I get handed a half pint of liquid when I ask for a coffee I groan quite loudly.  Is this just coffee made by a tea loving nation?  I always order an Americano, which to me is one shot of espresso with some extra hot water added, which should add up to just under an old fashioned tea cup full, about 6 fluid oz.  And please, clean you equipment regularly so we get some crema!  And when I order it to have inside, I want it in a proper cup, not  cardboard.  I should run courses. 

The following day we were invited to Coq d’Argent by my nephew in the city.  Everyone should have a nephew in the city to take the old Aunt to lunch, and by now most of Ireland does!  He was suitably suited and booted to make Aunty proud, and I had to stop short of pinching his cheeks and telling him what a nice boy he is.  

http://www.coqdargent.co.uk/

Tablecloths, lots of waiters, nice glasses, the surrounding were a step up, how good would the food be?  We had the three course set lunch, with no wine as I hate drinking in the middle of the day.  It just sends me to sleep.  The wine list looked impressive though, and I would love to have another look at it. 

Goat cheese starter followed by the pork cheeks, then crème caramel for me, a mushroom parfait, the cheeks and a beautiful rhubarb cake for OH.  It was all really beautiful to look at, tasty and flavourful.  The cheeks were soft and tender, lightly covered in sauce and served with a truffle mash and roasted root vegetables, (well three pieces of veg placed artistically on the plate).  Service was light, no constant running back to the table and allowing us time to chat.  The place was heaving when we arrived and cleared out by the time we had our excellent coffees, admirable that they can happily feed a full restaurant in so short a time.  Nephew picked up the bill, swished us through the door way, showed us the magnificent views of London  and disappeared in a doorway back to work.  I have wiped from my mind all those hours of babysitting  him, worth it all!

A quick visit to the site for the Olympics, then it was time to meet a friend , have a light dinner and  go to Wicked the show.  Kavey had recommended Hunam which looked good when we checked it out but events conspired against us, (really it was the drink after work that turned into 2 or 3 ), so we grabbed a quick burger at the Sports Bar and Grill at Victoria Station (very good) and headed in to the Apollo for the show. 

Thanks to everyone for their recommendations and here is a link to that discussion for anyone interested in trying out other suggestions.

http://www.wildfood.info/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=6311

Restaurants in London

It is good to be home again after a rather extended time away for me involving two separate trips with only a quick night at home to change suitcases!  Thanks to everyone for all the wonderful advice about where to eat in London.  In fact OH was complaining each day was only a trip between restaurants for lunch and dinner, but that sounds like the perfect holiday to me!

We were staying in Beckingham and ate at Pierluigis

http://www.pierluigis.com/

which had wonderful homemade pasta with creamy non diet sauces.  A decent bottle of wine and suddenly we relaxed and were on holidays.  It is a lovely neighbourhood restaurant and would love one like it in my town.

On Easter Monday, all our plans were changed as we found a 4 hour queue in the rain for the David Hockney exhibition which we were not prepared to do.  The exhibition of European Model Railways  supposed to be happening in the Royal Horticultural Society , was news to the door man.  Our guide book must have been wrong.  Nothing achieved and now time for lunch!  We were half expecting Beruit Express to be closed too, but it was open and buzzing

http://www.maroush.com/beirut-express-edgware

We ordered a Mezza plate of cold starters, some mixed kebabs and the chicken livers in garlic sauce, too much food I know, but I wanted to taste everything!  When the waiter started to make rapid repeat journeys to our table, I knew we had over ordered!  But it was all so good, the Mezza plate had a bit of everything loaded up on one giant plate.  Indeed, with the lovely flat breads that came with it, would have made a decent lunch for two.  Hommos, two types, one hot and peppery, some tabboulet, vine leaves, pickles, salad, the plate was overflowing with good things to eat.  The chicken livers were divine, lemony, charred on the outside, soft and pink in the middle, creamy and utterly moreish.  For me they were the highlight in a packed feast. 

We also had some skewers of minced lamb, marinated lamb and chicken cubes. In case this was not enough, we had also ordered some Lebanese rice.  It was all so good that we must have spent a good hour mixing and matching, a mouthful of hommus with lamb, some chicken with tabboulet, etc, until we felt we had done justice to this great spread of tastes and flavours.   There was no rush and the lovely waiter even encouraged us to take our time.  It was all so interesting for me as we could have been sitting at a table in Beruit, elderly fathers sitting at the top of a table of men, people reading Arabic newspapers, beautiful costumes.  Edgeware Road is definitely streets away from where I live!  I was soaking it all in while trying not to stick out too much .  When the waiter was clearing our plaates, I apologized for not being able to finish everything, even though it was all good.  He said the Chef hates it when everything is cleared as he thinks he has not cooked enough!  We ate nothing else for the day.  A stroll through the interesting shop fronts helped to work off at least 10 or 20 of those calories.  A great recommendation and thanks Kavey for the heads up.  We spent £40 on lunch, but honestly, you could eat well here for £10 a head.  The restaurant does not serve alcohol.

Another failed outing the following day as we went to Eat Street at King’s Cross station for what we thought would be an eating stroll through the traders at the street market there.  But we only found an empty street, as they only trade on Thursday and Friday.  Doh!

We went inside and ordered a Mamta curry from Leon inside the station, the vegetarian one.  I felt so delighted, I almost told the server “I know her!”  It was really good, full of squash and peas, and a light curry sauce, served with rice and slaw.  We shared one between us, but I had to fork fight OH to get any.  He really loved it.  Really, really good fast food, I must get back to Leon and try more dishes.

OH said he was still hungry and disappointed that Eat Street was not open, so he took out my list of places to eat and off we headed to the next one........

Best Brownies Ever

Well, sad to say to all you who have asked me for my recipe for the best, fudge-ist brownies ever, that this is not MY recipe.  I was given it by Sue L who has her own very good baking blog.

So here is a link to Sue L's rather excellent brownies.  She does not have a picture of them up, so next time I make a batch, I will put up a picture, but you all know that these are the ones that you say are so rich you will just have a small one and before long the fight starts over the last one.  Another upside is the fantastic rich chocolatey smell in the kitchen, nothing, no nothing smells better than this.

Sue L's best ever brownies

(Cool way to link, huh?  Cian taught me how to do that.  Thanks son!)

Irish Stew

IRISH STEW

Here in Ireland, Irish stew is a basic lamb and potatoes stew and after those two ingredients, anything else will cause an argument.  Well, yes to onions, agreed, but carrots and parsnips?  Hmmm, well, everyone has their own recipe and here is mine.  I like the sweetness of parsnips in it and I have been known to add a leek if it was hanging around the kitchen.  Definitely carrots for the colour , but no turnip, too strong a flavor.  And I end the debate about whether to thicken the broth, by adding some pearl barley to enrich the stew and to soak up some of the liquid.  I have heard of families where the new wife arrives and thickens the stew by adding corn flour, but these marriages are short lived, or so I hear!

Serves 4 on a good day (mine only served 3)

4 lamb gigot or shoulder chops, cut in two

2 onions, peeled and chopped into six pieces

4 or 5 carrots depending on size, peeled and chopped into large pieces

1 parsnip, prepared the same way

6 large potatoes, peeled and cut in half or 12 small ones peeled

1 pint lamb or chicken stock, (cube is fine)

A few springs of fresh or teaspoon of dried thyme

A few sprigs parsley

2 tablespoons of pearl barley

Salt and pepper

I like to take some of the fat off the chops and render this down over a low heat until the fat melts out of it and use this to brown the meat in batches.  Then remove the meat to a plate and add the chopped vegetables and turn them over in the pot to get a nice coating of lamb fat.

Add everything but the potatoes and give the pot a good stir.  The liquid should come above the vegetables a little, so add more if necessary.

Bring to a bare boil and turn down immediately, cover the pot and allow to simmer for half and hour before adding the potatoes on top, barely peeping out of the liquid.  Cook for another hour or until the meat is tender