Mincemeat

Last time I made mince pies I vowed I was going to make my own mince meat & here it is (sort of)
I used Delia's recipe but I left out the almonds and used mixed fruits (a pre-mix of currants, sultanas & citrus peel) with some spare windfall apples from the orchard. I may also have used more booze than Delia does because I like my mince pies boozy.

 

There it all is in the bowl, absorbing the fluids, before it goes into the oven for the suet to melt.

Whilst making this batch I realised that the smoker runs at about the temperature required, so I whipped up another batch adjusting the mixed spice to be a bit more BBQish by adding a pinch of 5 spice & a tiny pinch of cayenne pepper. I swapped the brandy for Bourbon too and smoked it over maple for sweetness.

Right now both batches are in large jars in the cellar, in another couple of weeks I'll put them in smaller jars (with another splash of booze) and then give some as gifts & turn the rest into delicious mince pies. Watch this space  

The Seelbach cocktail

A good champagne cocktail is a thing of beauty.This is both good & not all that well known, which is a shame.
Its a slightly odd beast as it uses a lot of bitters, calling for anywhere between 7 dashes & a barspoon of both Angastoura & Peychaud's, which is responsible for the awesome colour.

Bourbon is used as a base rather than the more usual (in champagne circles) cognac. That & Cointreau provide sweetness, the Champagne brings dryness and the bitters depth & complexity. There are a couple of ways of making it, this is my preferred method.

25ml Bourbon
15ml Cointreau
7 dashes Angastoura bitters
7 dashes Peychaud's bitters

Stir down over ice & then strain into a champagne flute, top with good Champagne.

As you can see we tried a cherry garnish, which works well enough.

Mulled cider

Traditionally cider is mulled by plunging a redhot poker into the mug. So why not ? Well it turns out I don't have quite the right shape of poker, we can work round that though.

You'll need mulling spices:- Nutmeg,Ginger,Cloves,Cinnamon,Allspice & maybe a little Star Anise. Adjust them to your taste and put them in half a pint of good (hard) cider. A couple of spoonfuls of dark sugar, a measure of rum (or maybe brandy) and some citrus (hey it's Christmas so use some tangerine segments). Stir it well together and pour into a fireproof mug, then plunge in a redhot poker.
The cider will foam up, with a great hissing sound and the room should fill with the scent of christmasy loveliness.

If you aren't blessed with a real fire, then heat the mixture through gently on the stove till warm & then pour out.

Lamb lid pie

I am against "liddy pie" this is the thing usually served as a pie. A Lid or top normally made of puff pastry is floated on top of pie filling in and individual bowl. The one allowable savoury exception in my book is a hot pot pie. So I made one, having combined it with an idea I had whilst writing another post...

I mentioned lighter ales & lamb when I was talking about steak & ale pie and got to thinking about fruit beers. Being on a touch of an economy drive after Sat Bains I spotted lamb neck at the butchers & decided I'd give the idea a go. I added Liefman's Kriek to my basket.

First I melted & seasoned a bit of butter in my pan, tossed in garden herbs (mainly rosemary & bay) and half an onion and let it all sweat on a gentle heat.
I took most of the meat off the neck chops, cubed it & reserved one bone portion. The meat got dredged in flour  and then tossed into the pan to brown. That job done in went the beer and the bone, the whole lot was brought up to the boil. This is great fun as suddenly everything smells of cherries and your stew gains an excitable pink frothy head. Crank the heat back to a simmer, pop on the lid & go and enjoy yourself. Stews & pies are one of the best things about Autumn & Winter, they fill the house with a comforting cooking smell, the promise of filling food and allow you to loaf about reading whilst they simmer & burble away.

After an hour or two everything should be reduced down and cooked to tender. About 3/4 of the way through Chuck in a handful of chopped potato, you can do this at the start, but you need serious chunks unless you want the potato to just thicken the stew & not be a separate presence on the fork.
Turn the oven on to preheat, about gas 4 and break out the pastry. Roll it out to about 10-20mm larger than the top of your pot. Unfortunately the rim on my otherwise marvellous Le Creuset  pan is to thin to support the pastry so I had to transplant everything into a pyrex dish. Put the pastry over the stew and crimp to the rim of your dish, make a couple of knife slashes in the top to let the steam out and pop in the oven for 30 minutes or so.

I have to apologise for a couple of the recent photographs, they've been taken under less than ideal conditions, usually snatched with a phone cam in low light. Still they should give a reasonable idea of what I'm wittering about.

Steak & Ale plate pie

Ahh autumn, I know Keats was fond of you, I am too, for different reasons though. Autumn means that the oven can be used with impunity & that stews are back on the menu, Steak & ale pie means both.

You'll need some shortcrust pastry, which you can make or buy. Steak (one of the cheaper cuts, its is about to be cooked for several hours) onions, mushrooms and Beer. Beer is an important ingredient in this dish, in fact it's almost all the stock/gravy so choose well. Ideally it'll be a fairly dark strong beer to go with the deep flavour of the beef (you could use lamb and a lighter ale if you like). I went with Theakstons "Old Peculiar" which I've always been fond of. So get you best stewing/casseroling pan out and melt some butter, season it as you like. Chop some onion and sweat it in the butter. Add a mushroom or 3 (these will probably melt into the stock, they are there to add body). Toss your steak in flour and brown it in the oniony shroom butter. Pour in the beer (500ml/pint) add some herbs and simmer. You have an hour or 3 to amuse yourself, stop simmering when the stock, gravy is just a touch less thick than you'd like.

Line a greased pie plate with pastry, and slice a couple more mushrooms. Stir the mushrooms into the steak stew & then ladle the lot into the pastry lined plate. Make a pastry lid, attach it & brush with milk. Into the oven on gas 4 for 30-40 mins. Enjoy.

If you can't eat the pie in one sitting, you can either eat it cold later or like the one above put it in a low oven to heat through whilst you cook some spuds & some veg.

Make this, if nothing else it'll make your kitchen smell awesome. Cheat & buy the pastry. Cheat more and use an ovenproof pan & just lay the pastry over the top of it. Just make the pie, its the thing now the nights are drawing in.

Death in the Afternoon

Well that was a longer pause than I meant, but let us get on with the booze.

Death in the afternoon is possibly the best known absinthe cocktail, it's credited to Ernest Hemingway, and this is how he tells you to make it :-

"pour 1 jigger of absinthe into a Champagne flute, top with Champagne until the correct opacity is reached."

 I've found that this tends to make a bit of a something & nothing drink, where the anise just dominates all the other flavours. There is a second method though. Soak a sugar cube in absinthe, place in the bottom of a Champagne flute & fill with champagne as normal.
This tends to clean the Champagne flavour profile and although the anise flavour is there its doesn't dominate.

The picture to the right is using Dom Perignon 2000 as the Champagne & la fee Parisian as the absinthe. Its a combination I quite like as it deals with the odd sweetness I find in Moet et Chandon's house style. There isn't really any need to go to these lengths, and I did make this because I could. Any dry champagne will work, and Prosecco can be used as a reasonable substitute (I find that Cava is far too sweet).

So next time you have a hot thirsty afternoon and some absinthe & Champagne indulge in one of these, or maybe 2 but take care, the mixture of the green fairy & bubbles is a heady one, and your evening might end up finishing earlier than you'd planned .

BBQ Dinner

I don't believe the BBQ is for burning burgers on bank holiday Mondays. There is much more to it than that, so I decided I attempt a full dinner from the grill.

 That's a beercan chicken (aka beer butt chicken, chicken on the throne, etc.). For those of you who know your British beer that is a Carling black label can, it doesn't contain Carling though. I subscribe to the school of thought which holds "If you wouldn't drink it don't cook with it" as a truism. Inside the can is a nice local summer ale and some of my fresh garden herbs (sage, a little rosemary & a couple of bay leaves) and a pinch of salt and pepper.

Those of you who have never beer canned a chicken before will want to read this bit as its the how to. Get a can of beer, if you can find one you are happy to drink, rather than one you'll swill back because its there so much the better. You need the can 2/3rds full of your chosen beer, so you can drink of the top 1/3rd or dispose of it some other way. Then remove the top of the can with a can opener. Add in any extra flavourings (I must do this with a wheat beer & lemon at some point). The eye watering bit comes now, insert the can into the chicken, your aim is a stable chicken, so push the can in until the bird's legs form a tripod with the can. The cooking takes about 2 hours, so make sure your BBQ will be at a good cooking temperature for that long. You can lift the whole lot out, but its a real hassle. (I had to do this as I forgot to put some foil under the bird to prevent fat flare ups). In the back I've got 3 good sized potatoes, rubbed with oil & then wrapped in foil, after 2 hours they should be baked to perfection.
If you have a meat thermometer, the chicken wants to be at 70° C. If not the juices need to be running clear. Once that is the case the chicken is done.

Whilst the chicken is resting do the veggies. It's the English asparagus season at the moment and grilling it over hot charcoal for a couple of minutes is a great way to cook it. The leeks were done on a sheet of foil with a nob of butter for about 10 minutes. Time to serve. Wrap each foiled potato in a tea towel and give it a smart sharp karate chop (seriously, this allows most of the steam to escape in an instant fluffing up the flesh) turn onto the plate with a generous nob of butter, add the veg and some of the nicely sliced chicken (and as the chef pick the "oysters" I'll leave it to your conscience who's plate they land on (if any)) and serve. One whole chicken dinner done entirely on the BBQ. Beer can chicken isn't a mere affectation, the beer imparts flavour to the chicken (this is why lighter ales are best, but some birds can stand Guinness) and keeps it incredibly moist. Try it, you've very little to lose.

Strawberry daiquiri syllabub

There were too many strawberries to make hounds of various kinds, plus there was an invite to dinner, so a dessert seemed the thing to do. Strawberries always suggest cream, these were a little elderly to have au naturel so a bit of thinking went on (only a very little bit). A fool was out Strawberries just cant cut it (raspberries on the other hand). Then a moment of inspiration.

Syllabub

This is another of those flexible recipes.
First off get your strawberries, enough for 4 (its going to be rich so about 300g ) and reserve 4 good whole berries for decoration. Quarter the rest slicing off any over ripe bits and put them in a blender along with enough sugar to taste (in my case this is about a teaspoon full) and then blitz. Once they are down to a compote kind of texture add a shot or two of good white rum (again to taste) and give another couple of seconds. Pour the whole lot into a sieve stood over a jug (it's going to take a while).

Whip 500ml of double cream with about 80g of sugar, some more rum and the juice that has come through the strainer(*) to soft peaks. Pour strawberry compote into a serving glass, pile the syllabub on top and decorate with a reserved strawberry.

You can adjust the amount of rum you use to make it all a bit more teatotaller friendly (but then its not so much of a daiquiri) and fiddle with the ratios of the ingredients to get it to a taste you are happy with.

(*) You should end up with 3 distinct parts from the straining, pure juice which will come through first, smooth purée which comes through next and a dense compote which remains behind, all 3 bits can be used, but the compote can be a bit heavy on the seeds.

Vodka

I have to admit I don't really get vodka. I have some good potato vodka in my drink cabinet, you can tell it apart from grain vodka by mouthfeel but generally I go for a low end triple or more filtered brand. It doesn't see a lot of cocktail action, getting used when fresh grapefruit is available in the salty dog. In high summer in cucumber Martinis or in Vespers.

One thing that vodka is good for though is creating cordials or liqueurs.
Do yourself a favour though & use reasonable ingredients.

1st Vanilla vodka.
1 Bottle of Smirnoff red or similar quality vodka
1 Vanilla pod.

Drop the pod in the bottle, let it sit for a couple of days and remove the pod. Don't leave it to long or the flavour will become bitter.

2 Generic fruit vodka

The trick with fruit vodka is balancing the sweetness, most soft fruits are quite acid and the result of just fruit is sometimes to dry to drink, so add a little sugar, if it's still too dry add a little more.

I'm currently trying a ginger vodka to replace Jamaica Ginger, I'll let you know how it goes and what drinks it ends up in.

Gin,Elderflower & dreams of summer

Gin & elderflower go well together, you can go the whole hog & get gin with elderflower in the botanical mix . You can make G&T with elderflower cordial (or ditch the tonic & go with elderflower pressé). There is St Germain which you can switch for the vermouth in a Martini or you can make some grown up "Jello shots".

Gin & Elderflower Jelly
Following last weeks experiments with tea jelly, I wanted something similar with a delicate taste to follow on from the Salmon. I did some reading about Gelatin & gelling to find out what the malic acid was for (it's a flavour enhancer) in the fact duck recipe and then I tweaked it to my own ends. First off I dropped the unrefined sugar as I wanted a clear end product. Then I made up a Gin & St Germain mixture & replaced the Lemon juice with that, adding an extra 5ml or so to account for an alcohol loss whilst the jelly was hot. More importantly I left myself more time. I think I can now conclusively say that I'm using water with too little calcium & I'll have to go hunting for something nearer the 200mg/L concentration.

I ended up with quite a loose set, but a good clarity & a very good taste. Hopefully with just a little more refinement this will become a great summer BBQ dessert.

Meanwhile that Martini in full

8pts Gin (drier the better)
1pt St Geramian
1pt Noilly Prat

Stir over ice, make sure its very very cold & serve.

(I'd recommend making the Martini with some "spare" and using that to make the jelly)

The Gilded Truffle

A bit of a tale here, Mum brought over some of her home grown blueberries and I didn't have time to get them into a recipe, so I chucked them in a kilner jar with some vodka. After sometime I'd got a nice blueberry vodka, it makes a great vesper, lightening the Lillet slightly. I also had a few vodka soaked blueberries, they might make a nice truffle I thought. What I really wanted was something similar to the Dutch Slagroom truffle (the best I've had are from michel in haarlem) which is pure whipped cream in a thing bitter chocolate shell. I was unable to find a recipe, so made do with a white chocolate ganache, using a 2:1 chocolate: cream ratio (hotel chocolat make a nice organic white).

The ganache came together with no trouble at all, unfortunately though it set far too solid to be workable, so I gave it 10s in the microwave, that turned out to be 5s too long and I now had a bowl that was far too liquid. I let it reset and then scooped out the truffle and melted it in my hands (hey cocoa butter is good for the skin right ?) until I could roll the blueberries in it. As you can see I wasn't completely successful,but I did have some mostly spherical, mostly covered blueberry balls, ready for coating.

I'd been given some very strong dark Ecuadorian chocolate, that looked just the job. I shaved some off and melted it. Realizing the ganache was quite temprature sensitive I stuck my thermometer in to the molten chocolate and let it cool down to 28c. Hoping that would be liquid enough to work with, but cool enough not to instantly melt the truffles.

As you can see it appeared to be working quite well, though sometimes we didn't have the best hold on the cocktail sticks, so some of the shapes we ended up with weren't going to win any beauty contests.

I had some pure gold leaf left over from a DIY project (involving neither food nor drink !) so I thought I'd put a dab on each truffle. If you are going to do this the truffles need to be set first, other wise you just end up with chocolate smeared gold leaf.

 

They taste really nice, the shell is rich & bitter, then the truffle is creamy with a fair hit of vanilla and then the tartness of the blueberry, with a solid hit of vodka.

So if you have a recipe for Dutch whipped cream truffles, let me know, otherwise I'll be using this one again once soft fruit season is upon us

Cocktailing for beginners Pt 1

A few people have asked me about getting started making cocktails, so here is a quick multi-part guide to getting going.

Equipment:- You don't really need anything. A cocktail shaker will make life easier later on but for now we can improvise.

Our first cocktail
The dry Martini.
Easy to make, tricky to perfect. Whole books have been written about the Martini, there is a whole lot of lore around it & it has a place in popular culture.

What you need
ICE
Gin
Vermouth (dry)
Garnish (lemon peel, olives, onions)

Ice :- all cocktails need ice, you'll probably find it easier to buy a bag of ice from a supermarket or similar. The most important thing is to have more ice than you think you'll need.

Gin:- Choose a good gin. Whilst its true cocktails in the prohibition era were made to disguise the awful home brewed spirits that's not the case any more. If you wouldn't drink it neat then don't put it in a cocktail. So which gin ? It's pretty much down to personal preference, but if you aren't sure get a half bottle of a recognized brand. (I tend to go for some of the big hitters, Bombay Sapphire, Tanquery et al).

Vermouth :- Get dry vermouth, Noilly prat is readily available and a good dry. In general French vermouths are dry and Italian ones sweeter. Some of the supermarket own label vermouths are fine for their price, again as with gin the quality is better.

If you have a shaker take off the top & put to one side, fill the tin with ice. If you don't have a shaker then a measuring jug will do just fine.
There is an awful lot of talk about making very dry Martinis using ever decreasing amounts of vermouth, but to start with we'll make something about standard. Normally I use proportions when giving cocktail recipes as that means you can match it to the number of drinks you are making, the size of your glasses and any other factors. In a dry Martini its 1 part (pt or p) of vermouth to 5 parts gin.

Measure it, or do it by eye, again what ever you are most comfortable with. Put the vermouth in first and then add the gin. Stir briskly for about 20-30s, the aim is to chill the drink & mix it, some of the ice will melt, taking the raw edge of the alcohol(*).
If you are using a shaker, put the strainer part of the lid back on, if you are using a jug a sieve or tea strainer will make pouring easier, but again you can improvise with a lid or a spoon. Pour into glasses (traditionally a v-shaped cocktail glass, but any glass with a wide rim will do) keeping the ice in the mixing vessel.
Time to garnish, the garnish adds to a Martini (and most other cocktails) you can use olives (green or black) or lemon peel to give a Martini or cocktail onions to make a Gibson. Drink it before it gets too warm (but don't just knock it back, you've spent some time making the drink, spend some enjoying it).

Try adjusting the proportions, the different garnishes, adding a bit more of the pickle juice or olive brine (this makes your Martini "dirty") until you get the taste you like.

Next week we'll add another ingredient to our drinks cabinet and see what options that gives us.

(*) There are lots of thoughts about the role of ice in mixing drinks, over the coming weeks I'll touch on theory & equipment, usually down here in the footnotes

Samichlaus bier

Argggghhh gremlins. Let's try again shall we.

I'm fond of strong beers, I have been for many years, for me its about the taste.
Anyway when I saw Samichlaus on the menu at Pi  I had to have it, and fortunately they were happy to sell me a bottle.

Now this is a rare beer, the entire supply is brewed on the 6^th of December, Saint Nikolas's day (look him up its quite fun). Then its laagered for 10 months, in what I'm lead to believe is a complex & secretive way. Its then decanted into bottles & sent out into the world. The people at Guinness (thats the book, not the drink) list it as the strongest lager in the world at 14-15% abv. Enough talk here is the bottle.

Looks good doesn't it ?

On popping the top, you are met by a rich malty scent, this gives you a clue to whats coming. The pour confirms it. As an aside I looked round to find out the best serving temperature which seemed to be just below room temp, so I poured it in the kitchen & carried it through (this doesn't do it justice, but I was desperate for a taste)

So what does it taste like ? Well a good barley wine, or a powerful Trappist dobbel. It's a dark lager taste, pretty common on the continental mainland, but pretty rare over here. Its deep & rich and malty sweet with a sharp tangy finish.
Frankly you wouldn't want to drink more than a couple in an evening, its far to rich for that. If you like deep sweet treacley  beer or  a hefty winter  brew and you can find a bottle go for it,  if you like light sharp hoppy beer this really isn't for you.

I'm hoping I can get another bottle or two, and see if it improves being kept for 2-3 years

About mince pies

 Now its December we can get on with the serious business of troughing mince pies.

 It is of course much better to make your own rather than asking Mr Tesco or one of his confederates. It's one of the few parts where I don't mind following the
Delia get ingredients, assemble,  cook,  eat philosophy.  The mince meat really needs to be made months in advance and is a fiddly job, so I cheated and back in October bought a jar (co-op fairtrade) opened it & added a generous measure of damson brandy, gave it shake and left it till yesterday (actually I gave it a shake every week or two). Of course its a little late for that advice now, but you can easily boost any old mincemeat with some booze & extra spices, it might be a touch harsh, but it is adjustable to your own taste.

 Then comes the pastry, luckily I had leftover pie pastry from the apple pie and I like my minces with a shortcrust. If you are following along at home & don't fancy making pastry you can buy frozen, choosing your favourite style. What I don't have are a pie tray & a pastry cutter. Pastry cutters are easily improvised (pint glass) or if you are the kind of person who can manage a knife freehand, you can do that (which means you can make lidded pies of the fancy kind with a mostly open top & a pastry decoration. The pie tray is a bit more of an issue, but there are ways round it (a muffin tray this time, but the paper cases or the mincemeat pasty would work).

 once out of the oven, serve anyway you like, sprinkle icing sugar over the top, whip cream, make brandy butter or custard or just scoff  them.  My  preferred option is straight from the oven with whipped cream, luxury. (as an added bonus they smell great and make the kitchen a lovely winter warm spot) There is of course no need to tell the filling came from a jar & the pastry from the freezer, just enjoy your mince pies EXACTLY how you like them(*).


(*) There is apparently a mythical being who doesn't like mince pies, you are very unlikely to meet this creature, but if you do, extra mince pies

Odd things in the globe o booze

I have several quite odd concoctions on the liquor shelf. Several made by me (not in a distilled way as that is both illegal & dangerous) including Earl grey gin, Blueberry vodka, Blackberry gin & Damson brandy.

I also have several manufactured oddities too. St Germain elderflower  liqueur,  very handy in a number of gin & champagne confections. Creme de violette which makes the fabulous "Arsenic & old lace". Maraschino a bit part player in several very good drinks. Qi black tea liqueur a lovely smokey brew. Then there is the small bottle of celery bitters, which is why I'm writing this.

Fentimans  make lovely non-alcoholic drinks, their Curiosity Cola is a favourite. Today though my Fentimans supplier had a groovy little box of tonic waters. Now I fully expected this to be a really full on bitter tonic, I wasn't off the mark, the quinine note is right upfront, a great tonic. Which of course requires a great mix to fully appreciate. I give you the garden tonic.

Large measure of Gin (always a good start)
1/2 measure marschino
dashes of celery bitters (2-3 depending on taste)
top of with tonic

A strong bitter grown up drink, excellent long drink, I heartily recommend it.