Pine nut ice cream

Rose Prince via Albino Barberis. Toast 4tbsp pine nuts in a dry pan until they change colour slightly. Set aside. Whisk 3 egg yolks with 2tbsp golden caster sugar until frothy.

In another bowl, wishk 10.5fl oz/300ml whipping cream until thickened. Fold in the egg yolks then stir in the cooled pine nuts.

In a third bowl, whisk the three egg whites until thick and foamy, then fold carefully into the egg and cream mixture, using a knife or metal spoon so as not to knock the air out.

Pour into an 8in/20cm loaf tin lined with cling film an freeze until solid. There is no need to churn or stir. It will set to a lightweight ice cream to serve with thin, crisp sweet biscuits. Barberis wouuld pour over a little syrupy, aged balsamic vinegar.

Can also be done with hazelnuts or cobnuts.

Leek and tarragon tart

This is a muckabout of a couple of Tamasin Day Lewis’s lovely tart recipes, plus a bit of tinkering about. It’s good warm or cold, but not absolutely boiling hot.

Pastry made with 60g plain white flour, 60g rolled oats, 60g unsalted butter, a pinch of salt and 2 tablespoons of water (usual method – blast flour, oats, salt and diced cold butter in blender until like damp sand, then drizzle over the iced water and whizz again until it starts to come together. Put in the fridge for 30 mins – not longer as this pastry is a bit crumbly and rather a pain to work with).
5 big leeks (about 1.3kg), green and tough outer leaves and ends removed and sliced
90g unsalted butter
3 egg yolks
150ml double cream
small handful of chopped tarragon leaves
Salt, black pepper, nutmeg

Roll out the pastry into a 22cm/9inch shallow tart tin and put this back into the fridge. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees/150 fan.
Sweat the leeks in the butter until they’re soft. Stir in the tarragon leaves. Let this mixture cool.
Whisk the cream and the egg yolks and season with salt, pepper and a small grating of nutmeg. Pour this into the cooled leeks and give it a good stir. Spread this mixture over the pastry case. Bake in the oven for 35-40 mins.

Koulibiac / coulibiac / koubiliac / coubiliac

I find it very strange that there seem to be four different ways to spell this fish pie. The c/k muddle I can understand, but the b and l rearranging seems very peculiar. Hey ho. This is great for feeding about 8. The first time I made it, the girls scoffed it, but the second time were more suspicious. There’s a bit of faffing, but it’s incredibly easy and looks good at the end. We had it on Boxing Day with a lot of green salad, a couple of sorts of slaw and a few boiled potatoes. I did two puds – some poached plums as I thought everyone must surely be stuffed to the gills by this point, and a Nigella Bakewell Tart. No one ate the plums! They were good for breakfast over the next few days though.

The recipe is a Sophie Grigson / Sarah Raven combo.

500-700g puff pastry (you’ll use about 500g, but have to buy it usually in 350g blocks unhelpfully. You can use extra bits for silly patterns – I couldn’t help myself on Boxing Day and covered it with stars – one day I’ll resist the urge to uber-bling Christmas)
1 egg beaten
30g butter, melted

Filling:
700g salmon
200g smoked haddock or cod
60g basmati rice
1 large onion, chopped
200g(ish) mushrooms – I used mixed dried porcini and button mushrooms – what I had
1/4 teaspoons turmeric
2 tablespoons each chopped parsley and dill
2 hard-boiled eggs, chopped

Cook the fish – poach it or cook the salmon in a foil parcel with a few slices of lemon. When it’s just cooked, let it cool, then flake it.

Soak the dried mushrooms if you’re using them.

Cook the rice with the turmeric until just al dente then drain it well.

Cook the onion in the butter, then add the mushrooms and porcini and cook until all the water thrown out by the mushrooms has evaporated.

Mix the flaked salmon, onion/mushrooms, rice, herbs and hard-boiled eggs and season well.

Put a piece of baking paper onto a baking sheet. 2 options for building the thing, depending on whether you have one big block of pastry or 2 smaller ones:

1) 2 blocks: With one half of the pastry, roll out a rectangle about 35 x 25cm ish (but basically slightly smaller than the baking sheet). Gently with a knife, mark a border (ie don’t cut it, just give yourself a template for the filling, or if you want, ignore this bit entirely) about an inch and a half in from the edge all the way round, then pile in the filling on this inner rectangle. Pat in the filling to form a fat sausage. Pile it quite high and make it evenish. Roll out the second piece to the sameish size, though it will need to be wider to cover the sausage. Paint the border with egg wash, then place the top piece onto the bottom piece, pressing the edges down gently with the tines of a fork.

Option 2) 1 block – this is a bit tidier, but I can only find the posh pastry that comes in the right size v occasionally in Waitrose. Here, roll out one big rectangle, c35×45cm. Pile up the filling down the centre of the pastry again, patting it in the form a sausage. Lift the sides of the pastry up around it, brush the eggs with the beaten egg and press them together to join. Seal the ends too, using beaten egg and folding the joints towards the long central seam. Gentrly roll it over, so the joins are tucked away underneath.

Either way, make a few slashes in the top so the steam can escape. You can decorate it (if you’re a bit kitsch like me) with bits of pastry – criss-crosses, leaves, etc. Rest it for at least half an hour (but I “rested” it for 48 hours between Christmas Eve and Boxing Day and it was fine), brush the top with beaten egg, then bake in a pre-heated oven at 200/gas 6/fan 180 for 35-40 minutes until golden brown. Just before serving, pour melted butter through the slits in the top.

If you want this to be extra delicious, it’s wonderful served with Hollandaise sauce. Serve it hot or cold.

Nigel Slater’s Dark Christmas Pudding

This is bubbling away on the hob, so I don’t know yet whether it’s going to be a goodie or not. It smells great though. Must remember to update this on Boxing Day.

175g (6oz) sultanas
175g (6oz) raisins (I did this half raisins and half dried cranberries because I had some in)
125g (4.5oz) chopped candied peel
110g (4oz) soft dried figs
110g (4oz) dark glace cherries
150ml brandy
1 carrot, coarsely grated
juice and zest of 1 orange
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
125g (4.5oz) shredded suet
3 tablespoons black treacle
175g (6oz) dark muscavado sugar
125g (4.5oz) fresh breadcrumbs
110g (4oz) self-raising flour
scant teaspoon mixed spice

+ a 3 pint (1.75 litre) pudding basin – mine is plastic with it’s own lid, otherwise you need the muslin/string/baking parchment combo

Put the sultanas, raisins, peel in a large mixing bowl. Roughly chop the figs and halve the cherries then add to the bowl. Pour over the brandy and leave to soak overnight. Stir it from time to time.

The next day, lightly butter the pudding basin and put a large pan half-filled with water on to boil. Mix the carrot, orange juice and zest, eggs and suet. Stir in the treacle, sugar, breadcrumbs, flour and spice. Fold in the soaked fruit and pour the whole mixture into a buttered basin. Put the lid onto the basin. Lower it into the boiling water, cover and leave to steam on a fast simmer for three and a half hours, topping up the water with boiling water from the kettle when it gets low.

You can keep the pudding for three months in a cool, dark place, once it’s cooked. Reheat it for 3 hours in the same way as it was cooked.

Lemon meringue ice cream

This is the quickest-to-make smart pudding I know. It’s basically a River Cafe Easy recipe but I added meringues to make a more interesting texture.

3 lemons
200g caster sugar
450ml double cream
1/2 teaspoon salt
About 8 mini-meringues or 2-3 meringue nests (or home made equiv but it’s not worth making meringues especially for this recipe – shop taste fine)

Zest one of the lemons and squeeze all three of them and mix the zest and juice with the caster sugar. Slowly add the cream and salt, mixing carefully. Pour into a shallow container and freeze for about 45 minutes. Smash up the meringues into smallish chunks. Take out the icecream and fork it up, then add the meringue bits and smooth out again. Freeze it until it’s firm. Take it out of the freezer a few minutes before you want to serve it to soften it up a bit.

Lucy’s mum’s chocolate birthday cake

This is the most delectable birthday cake – moist and sticky. Lueen did it in heart-shaped tins for Lara’s fourth birthday and covered the outside with vertical chocolate fingers. I might try it for Iris’s birthday next year – I’m bored of doing Barbies.

6 oz Soft margarine (I use Sainsburys Sunflower Spread)
6 oz SR flour
6 oz caster sugar
3 eggs
Flavour with either 1oz cocoa or any other flavouring
I also use 1tsp baking powder to make it really rise up.
Beat all ingredients together well
Put into 2 sandwich tins and bake for 25 mins at 190 or gas mk 5.
Line tins with baking parchment.
Sandwich together with soft butter (I use Clover), icing sugar and 1 teaspoon of cocoa melted in a little hot water.

Sweet onion, tomato and ginger relish

For some reason (presumably copyright rather than muppetry), the Sainsbury’s website doesn’t contain all the recipes from their magazine. This is an Angela Hartnell one, although I’ve changed the instructions as by following them to the letter, my chutney was too solidly sticky. It was delicious though. Great with cheese.

450g demerara sugar
450ml white wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnnamon
3 pinches saffron
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
5 medium red onions, peeled, halved and thinly sliced
1 ;arge white onion, peeled and chopped
60g root ginger, peeled and finely chopped
185g sultanas
5 ripe tomatoes. skinned, seeded and choppped

Heat the sugar and vinegar over a low heat until the sugar has dissolved. Stir in the cinnamon, saffron and nutmeg and continue to cook uncovered until the mixture has reduced to a caramel – about 15 mins over a medium-high heat. Watch the mixture very carefully as it burns easily. Take the pan off the heat and stir in the onions and ginger, return to the heat and cook over a medium-high heat, again uncovered, until most of the liquid has evaporated – about 45 minutes. (Original instructions said until all the liquid had evaporated, but I like chutneys a little bit runnier). Finally stir in the sultanas and tomatoes and continue to cook over a low heat for an hour (again – or a bit less to keep it soft), stirring from time to time to stop the mixture sticking to the bottom of the pan. The mixture should have thickened considerably and the onions should be soft. Remove from the heat and leave to cool. Spoon into sterilised jars and seal.

This made 2 jars.

And while I’m on a damson mission – Delia’s damson chutney

We picked a good couple of kilos of damsons at the Funtingdon PYO yesterday. Everything else was finished – all the fruit has been so early this year, The blackberries are almost over here and some years there are still masses in mid September. I’ve been hunting around for damson recipes and Delia’s one for chutney sounds tasty:

http://www.deliaonline.com/recipes/spiced-damson-chutney,1652,RC.html

Nigel Slater’s damson ice cream

I think I’ll make this in the next couple of days too – God, the quantity of cream and sugar I’m buying this week is shaming…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2005/oct/09/foodanddrink.shopping4

2 days later – I’ve made it and it’s delicious but there’s a typo in lovely Nigel’s recipe  – it needs 500g damsons, not 50g.

Blackberry ice cream

I make this every year at the cottage. The girls helped today, dyeing themselves purple in the process. Iris’s hands are still stained three hours later despite scrubbing. The quantities below make two 1200ml tubs (the size of the white ones with coloured lids at the cottage). The ice cream machine can only do one at a time so you need to do one batch, then wash, dry and return the machine to the freezer overnight, then do the second batch the next morning (or obviously halve the quantities).

800g blackberries
200ml cold water
400g caster sugar
Juice of 4 lemons
6 tablespoons creme de mures or kirsch
600ml (1 pint) double cream, whipped to ribbons – but do this in two batches when you’re ready to churn the ice cream

Puree the blackberries with the water in the magimix for about a minute. Sieve this into a large bowl (the big plastic jigs at the cottage are best), pushing it all through until only the pippy mush is left in the sieve. Add the sugar, lemon juice and creme de mures to the pulpy juice in the large bowl. Divide this mixture into two (around 750/800ml each) and put one of these into the fridge until you can make the second batch. Fold in 300ml of the whipped cream, pour into the ice cream maker and churn the mixture for about 15 minutes until it’s half-frozen. Scrape this into a container and freeze immediately. Do the second batch in the same way.

The recipe for this (from Michel Roux in an old Master Chef cook book) is originally for raspberry ice cream. I did that once too and it was also good, but not as unusual as the blackberry one and there are so many at the cottage in August it seems like a good way of using them.