The afternoon of the dinner party

It is a small affair, with good friends, so why should I get nervous? It’s always the way. I won’t say I become a quivering wreck, but certainly appreciate a few stiff gins as I potter around the kitchen. What would I be like if I ever got to a master-chef type cook-off? I got to work early to minimise the work and kitchen time while guests were in attendance. Pudding is always a good place to start;

Tiramisu
24 lady’s fingers sponges (savoiardi)
2 cups very strong coffee
50ml of Tia Maria
25ml of Godiva chocolate liquor
3 egg yolks
½ cup of sugar
2 cups mascarpone
1 cup of double cream
½ cup marsala
Dark chocolate for dusting

In a simmering bain-marie add the egg yolks, marsala and sugar and beat / whisk for 5 minutes or so until the volume has increased by double. Remove from the head and thoroughly mix in the mascarpone. In a separate bowl, beat the cream until it forms stiff peaks and fold into the mascarpone mixture.

Right now we’re ready to construct, you will need a dish that is about 3 or 4 inches deep and preferably straight sided. Ideally it would be square or rectangular based. Mine was oval and worked ok though.

Being in Jamaica I used very strong Blue Mountain coffee, but you can use something inferior so long as its strong. In a shallow bowl, mix in the Tia Maria and the Godiva liquor. Obviously Kaluha works just as well as Tia Maria, but does have the same 8o’s vibe about it. Dip the savioardi (both sides) in the coffee mixture one at time and arrange in a layer on the base of the serving dish. Quick dipping avoids the saviordi getting too soft, though, if you are using an unusual shaped dish, an extra second or two allows you to squish the fingers into awkward spots if you haven’t snapped them down to the right size.

Once the layer is completely cover with the mascarpone mixture and then repeat. It might be an idea to change the direction of the fingers, though it doesn’t give any additional structure and by the time it is served no one will notice anyway.

Dusting is traditionally done with cocoa powder, but I always think it just tastes dusty rather than chocolatey and I am quite sure cocoa wasn’t around when tiramisu were first being made. I finely grated some Green and Blacks over the top. Just enough to pick up the hint of the chocolate I put in the savioardi. Bang in the fridge to set for about 5 hours or more. Take out to de chill slightly about 20 minutes before serving.


Continuing to work backwards, the Wellington came next

2 large sheets of puff pastry (preferably frozen for handiness)
Pre-made mushroom duxelle (see previous posts)
Beef from the centre of the tenderloin, about (1.5 inches per serving plus a bit just in case)
4 or 5 slices of prosciutto or other dry cured ham.
50mls of Brandy
English mustard powder
2 egg yolks

Before I start, can I just point out that the prosciutto is optional. It does help give a richness to the flavor that is wonderful, but you need to be careful of the ham that you use. Too salty can easily ruin the beef. This recipe is based on one of Gordon Ramsay’s and while he asks for 12 slices of prosciutto to completely wrap the meat, this is overkill in my opinion. 4 or 5 good slices will mostly get around the meat and give ample flavor.
Take the duxelle out of the fridge and the pastry out of the freezer. A little olive oil on a roasting tin and over the beef. Salt, pepper and bung it in a pre-heated oven at 220°C for about 20 minutes (I’m working on a serving for 6 here). Timing of Beef Wellington can be tricky and will depend on the accuracy of your oven. For me it is a very nervous moment cutting a Wellington first time. The timings here should give you a medium rare wellington, which is adequate. The carnivore can take the more rare bits in the middle and old folks can have the medium bits from the edges, with bonus extra pastry.
Let the meat cool and use about ¾ of the brandy to deglaze the roasting pan, lifting the meat juices. These will be used later in the sauce to accompany the meat. Stretch out some cling film on the work surface. This will help roll up the wellington filling to keep its shape in the pastry. On this cling film lay the prosciutto slightly over lapping, than spread the duxelle as thick as desired (or possibly slightly thicker as helps to squish it around later to even it out). Use the remainder of the brandy to mix with the English mustard powder (Coleman’s of course) and brush liberally over all sides of the meat. Place in the centre of the spread duxelle and start to roll up the cling film twisting the ends to keep everything inside and the correct shape. Form into a cylinder as best you can and pop it in the freezer to set the shape.
Meanwhile roll out the pastry, or if you are like me, unravel the pre-rolled stuff. Once the meat has set in its shape after about 10 minutes, take out and remove the cling film (that bit is really quite important). Place on the centre of the pastry which should be flat on the work surface. Take the second sheet of pastry, which ideally is a good bit bigger than the first, and fold over the meat, pressing to the sides and top to make sure there is no trapped air. Fold in the ends. Seal the pastry sheets with egg wash and trim the pastry to about an inch rim round the meat. Use the handle of a fork to seal tightly and roll back to neaten everything up. Brush the Wellington with Egg wash and score gently with a knife. This can sit under a damp tea towel until you are to cook. It will take about 25 minutes in a pre-heated oven at 220°C for medium rare.

The Night before the Dinner Party

I’m hosting a bit of a dinner party tomorrow night, a small affair. Originally inviting 2 couples, work commitments mean that that only 3 people are coming. There is a bit of an old fashioned theme going on, think early 80’s; courses are asparagus soup, prawn cocktail, beef wellington and finally a tiramisu..
Now I will try to bring these up to date but the retro feel is important. Lots of Soft Cell and Human League as ambient music.
Shakira has shopped for me and so tonight I thought I could prepare a few things to get them out of the way for tomorrow, namely the soup and the duxelle for the wellington.

Asparagus Soup

1kg of asparagus stalks including woody bits
900ml of chicken stock
150 g of water cress
1 medium onion
75g butter
2 cloves garlic

Melt the butter in a v large pan and chop onion and garlic. In a separate pan bring the chicken stock to a simmer. I have to admit here, given the paucity of chicken wings / thighs in the supermarket here in Jamaica, I bought the stock ready made. This is fine particularly as it was unsalted stock, do not use a stock cube as it will overpower everything else in the soup.
After the onion and garlic have fried for about 3 minutes, so softened rather than browned, add the asparagus. To make life easier, you should chop this into chunks, but not necessary. After about 10 minutes, cover the asparagus with the simmering chicken stoc. Put a lid on the pan and simmer for abot15 minutes. After 5 minutes add the watercress, chopped.
Separate the veg from the broth with a colander and whizz up the veg in a blender. Put the pureed veg and about ¾ of the broth in a pan and brong back to a simmer for 5 minutes. This is when you season, and don’t be afraid of the salt.
Now the hard part. Not difficult, just strenuous. Because we used the full stalks of the asparagus, we need to sieve out the woody bits. Pour the soup into a sieve and press through with the back of a wooden spoon. Because I am serving this tomorrow, and I want to protect the delicate flavours, I sieved this into a metal bowl, which was in an ice bath of a bigger metal bowl. This is a very good idea as it would be a pain in the arse to do all this contemporaneously with guests and preparing all the other stuff would render the effort / effect ratio too much on the effort side.
Chilled now, I will be microwaving tomorrow night and serving with a truffle cream. I think this might need livening up with a shot or two of cinzano bianco, or possibly a pastisse, but we’ll wait for the reaction tomorrow before we decide.
The more well read recipe heads wil have spotted thia as a slight bastardisation of Gordon Ramsay recipe. Gordon if you chance upon this blog, sorry, but good ideas are good ideas.

Mushroom duxelle.

For me the duxelle is the difference between a dry beef pie and a good wellington. The wellington is coming tomorrow but the duxelle can be made tonight and chilled.

500g mushrooms (brown caps would be nice but I’ll take anything available in Jamaica)
50g butter
1 large shallot
2 cloves garlic
1 cup marsala
1 cup Armagnac
1 fois gras entitier

Poach the fois gras in the Armagnac. After 5 to 6 minutes or so, remove the fois gras, add the marsala and turn up the heat, reducing the liquid.
In a separate skillet melt the butter, and add the garlic and after a minute add the mushrooms. For a really rich flavor some black truffles could be added, but I felt this would be overkill. When the mushrooms have cooked in the butter, transfer to the reduced brandy and marsala mixture. Mash the fois gras through the mixture. Simmer the mixture until the liquid has evaporated. You will need to keep stirring this. This can be stored in the fridge overnight. The butter will harden in the fridge, so the mixture has to be removed for a hour or so to be allowed to soften for spreading around the beef.

An idea for Christmas update

The book club Christmas drinks is today and I only got around last night to trying out the duffles. Fort the test I bought ingredients rather than got to too much hassle only for it not to work. Not being able to buy a pudding I used a moist Jamaican Christmas cake, reformed into balls. Ambrosia Devon custard injected into the middle and then rolled in icing sugar.

The main problem I found were that the cake was a little dry and did not hold its shape well. Plum pudding, as it is much stickier may have been better. Also, I found that small balls did not hold custard very well. The needle I was using for filling wasn’t ideal, but it was more a problem of size. Larger ball could hold a decent amount of custard, but the balance is still not quite right as there is a exponentially more cake. They looked too big too.

Anyway, have to put this down as a current failure, though will be working on them at a future stage. In the meantime, I have a pressing issue with what to serve tomorrow night. I have a little pastry left over from the beef wellington I cooked on Saturday, so it will probably just be mince pies. These will still be well received as they are not at all common in Jamaica. A little bit boring though. You will have noticed that the Wellington recipe is included in a later blog entry about the dinner party. I’m playing fast and loose with time lines but it is my weblog.

With all the effort saved by simply knocking out a few mince pies, I have decided to do a bit of a savoury dish to do; Mini ham dinners. These consist of a roast potato slice topped with a good dollop of bread sauce with a hunk of roast ham and garnished with a teaspoon of a Christmas chutney.

As it is intended to be finger food, the potato slices should be only less than 1cm thick and about 3 or 4 cm in diameter. These can be made in advance, but it is better to do prepare these to be ready just before assembling so that they retain the crispiness and fluffiness of being straight out of the oven. Par boil the roast potato slices, and roast in a baking tray for 15 minutes each side. I use a mixture of half olive oil, have canola oil for roasting, and a generous sprinkling of Maldon sea salt. Pat dry with kitchen towels to remove the extraneous oil before assembly. Asbestos finger come in handy for this.

For the bread sauce, you will want it thicker than would normally be served for a turkey dinner. Making it the night before will get a good aromatic flavor and the sauce will naturally thicken. My bread sauce recipe is very straightforward. Peel and half an onion. Stud a hand full of cloves in this and add to a sauce pan of about 250ml of double cream and 250 ml of milk. Add a few bay leaves and 3 or 4 whole pimento corns. Bring to the boil and remove from the heat. Cover and let stand for 30 minutes. Crumb 8 to 10 slices of slightly stale while bread in a food processor or blender (I remove the crusts to keep a whiter sauce). Remove the onion, bay and pimento from the infused cream and begin to stir in breadcrumbs until a smooth slightly thick sauce is achieved. The consistency is a matter of choice. I like it to coat the back of a spoon and not much more. Add a stick of butter in chunks with will melt in the residual heat in the sauce. If making the night before, store in the fridge with 2 of the bay leaves, 2 of the pimento corns, and the outside layer of one of the onions with a few of the cloves removed all submerged.

For expediency the ham I used for the party was simply 2 chubs of pre-cooked ham. I brought these to the boil in cold water and then poured the water off, to remove some of the saltiness. I did this is in a large le Creuset pot, which means I don’t have to worry about roasting pans and tin foil, though if I was doing a large leg of ham this would not be possible. There was no rind on the chubs, nor much fat to form the sticky glaze, so the “roasting” was more like steaming. To the le Creuset add a generous glass of pale cream sherry or two, and a number of bay leaves, few pimento corns and stick the hams with a few cloves. Cover with the lid and bake in the oven on a high temperature for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven, ensure there is enough liquid remaining at the bottom of the pot, and pour 2 or 3 table spoons of honey over each ham. Don’t be afraid to add another splash of sherry. Put back in the oven and after a further 15 minutes. Remove the lid, add a further table spoon or two of honey to each ham and return to the oven for a final 5 minutes.

If you are doing the ham the night before, it should be sliced down in to hearty chunks and stored in the fridge in Tupperware. Deglaze the pan with water to form a liquid to add to the Tupperware to ensure the ham remains moist. Before assembly, this can be microwaved in the sauce to heat thoroughly without drying.

Top with a chrismas chutney, either a store bought, or home made. In this case because of the aromatics of the overnight infused breadsauce and ham, I have decided against a chutney wih more of the same, and gone for a simple sweet and tangy tomato chutney. Waitrose tomato chutney is a good store bought example.

An idea for Christmas

It appears that it is not necessity that is the mother of invention, it is the wife entertaining. I have to come up with something Christmassy, finger food and sweet. Mince pies are obvious, but I like to be different. I am a big fan of Christmas pudding (especially fried in bacon fat for breakfast) and fancied doing something with this.

I want a pretty moist pudding which I can scoop out and roll into little balls. These I will dust with icing sugar and then inject with a little crème anglaise (hope they hold). These are to serve with coffee like little Chrismassy truffles, or duffles as I have decided to call them.

Finding a pudding might be a little problematic in Jamaica, so I might be making my first pudding too!

Pulled Lamb Tagine

I was asked by the lady of the house to come up with a few ideas for a buffet lunch she was hosting. We decided to imagine the table as the Mediterranean Sea with dishes from all the countries, place on the table. Of course being me, none of the dishes were authentic in any way, but I think they conveyed the general feeling. Would Roast Capsicum with toasted flaked almonds be a Spanish dish? It was on my table. None of the guests picked up on, or really cared about the “theme”. It was simply food and this is Jamaica. Can’t really go wrong in the circumstances, and if it’s not grilled chicken with rice and peas, its fancy.

I am very fond of lamb and had been thinking of making a tagine for while, so working with that kind of flavor, I wanted lamb for the centre piece. Well obviously not centre piece as Morocco is not in the middle of the Med, that would be Sicily, but the main meat of the buffet. The other problem is that a tagine is a big pot of stew, and probably not great for a buffet, so I had a presentational issue. Final problem was the timing, buffet was for baby club, so early serving. I needed something I could cook in advance and heat up.

My idea was to cook a leg of lamb very slowly picking up the aromatic Moroccan flavours, and then shred this off the bone so that long string hunks of lamb can be picked up with the fingers.

Ingredients – all amounts are approximate;

For the rub
3 cloves of garlic.
1 cinnamon stick
2 teaspoon of ground ginger (the powder)
6 cloves
3 teaspoons of turmeric
1 teaspoon of ground fenugreek seeds
4 teaspoons of cumin seeds
1 teaspoon of mustard seeds

For the tagine
Leg of lamb (still on the bone)
Little bit of olive oil for browning
Large glass of apple juice
2 cinnamon sticks
4 Bay leaves
3 handfuls of dried apricots
3 large teaspoons of Harissa paste
1/3 cup of honey
Juice of 2 lemons
1 red onion
2 cloves of garlic
Water

Making the rub.

In a small dry skillet, separately toast the cumin seeds, cinnamon stick, cloves and mustard seed. Each should be toasted until you just start to hear them pop and then transferred to a pestle and mortar and ground. The seeds will toast at different rates, so unless you want the flavor of burnt mustard, you will want to do these separately. To the pestle an mortar, add the already ground spices (ginger, turmeric and fenugreek) and mix well . I know fenugreek is more associated with curries, but I think it compliments here being bitter and sweet.

Crush the garlic cloves and rub over the leg of lamb. Take the powered rub from the pestle and mortar and rub into and all over the now garlicky meat. Leave overnight to absorb the flavor.

While you are at it put the apple juice in a bowl and add one of the handfuls of dried apricots. Leave to soak overnight in the fridge.


Making the tagine

Normally I try to shatter the bone in the leg, even if it is just a few inches off the bottom, so that all the marrow can escape when cooking. It also helps fit the thing into a pot. I don’t own a proper tagine, but a large Oval Le Creuset works perfectly well.

Heat the oil in the pans and sear / brown / blacken the leg of lamb all over. It is going to cook for a tremendously long time so if the odd patch escapes browning, then no harm done.

To the pan add the apricots and apple juice that were soaking overnight. Peel and quarter the onion. Thrown the garlic cloves in with skins on. Add the 2 whole cinnamon sticks, bay, honey, lemon juice and top up with water so that the meant is just covered. Stir in the harissa paste. Depending on you capacity for chili, you might want to add a bit more or less, though I think it is important to have some . I also have a preference for rose harissa, which is beautifully aromatic with crushed rose petals in it.

It won’t look very attractive at this stage. Nevertheless, salt and pepper, put the lid on the casserole, bring to a simmer and leave. Check periodically and keep topping up with water. After about an hour or two you might find that the cinnamon becoming overpowering. Just lift the stick out and throw them in the bin.

You should be looking to cook the lamb for at least 3 hours, possible longer. Unlike a roast leg, you don’t really want pink meat here, and it has to shred off the bone easily.

After about 2 and a half hours, the flavours should be coming through as the fat, marrow and blood of the lamb have rendered down and mixed well in with the sauce. Now you will start to taste the sauce and adjust as necessary. More lemon, more harissa, more honey, more apple juice are easy to add. It is difficult to added powdered spices at this stage, they won’t have time to build flavor and there is a danger that they will form little balls of powder and ruin everything.

Lemon will help take out chili heat, the sweetness of the honey takes the edge off it without taking it out completely. If flavours need beefing up, don’t be afraid to use a jot or two of Worchester sauce (a staple in any kitchen), maybe a jot or two of soy. I would use a lamb stock cube in this recipe, but you might.

With an hour to go, stop topping up with water, so that the sauce can thicken. With 20 minutes an hour to go, chuck in the 2 remaining handfuls of dried apricots.

When cooked lift the leg out an rest on a chopping board. Remove the apricots that were added last (first ones will be complete mush or have dissolved away) and keep in a dish. Strain the liquid and chuck out all the solid crap that it was cooked with.

After the meat has rested for about 15 minutes, go at the leg with 2 forks, a bit like a Chinese waiter preparing a crispy duck. The rougher the better here and you should be left with chunky strings of lamb about the length of a finger, but about a third the width. If the meat is not falling apart, don’t be afraid to put it back in the pot with the now strained liquid.
Pull the stringy pulled lamb in a Tupperware box and pour over just enough liquid to keep these moist and to cover. Lit on the box and cover. Put the apricots in a separate Tupperware box and store. Finally keep the liquid as some of your guests might fancy some gravy.

To serve, microwave the meat in the Tupperware box. Don’t forget to unseal the lid. Microwaves vary a lot and the stuff is going to get cold on the buffet anyway so 5 minutes should do. The apricots, should be cold. Roughly slice these into strips. Throw the lamb on a (warm) serving dish, and it looks a bit better if it all points generally the same way. Scatter over the slices of apricot, and if you feel face a few leaves of coriander (cilantro). Heat the remaining liquid and sever in a gravy boat, so that people can use it to heat up their meat if desired.

I serve this with a couscous, the recipe for which will be for another day. For a buffet, flat breads, roast peppers, Greek yoghurt all go well.

Introduction

I have been asked for a recipe by a friend, and have been meaning to start a blog on the subject for a while, so here we are.

For me cooking is much more art than science. I rarely time or measure anything, and quite often tinker with dishes as they cook. Recipes will never be exactly the same twice. Just eating and tasting should give an appreciation of what flavours work well.

I believe food should be tasted as it is cooked. When things start going wrong, they can often be rescued. If things are not coming out as you expect, just chuck something else in there. Big splash of hot pepper sauce can cover most things!

If you are the type of person who slavishly follows Delia, you might have some difficulty making these recipes work. If you like experimenting in the kitchen, then you might have some success.

If the blog encourages one person to think, “You know what Jamie, that way too many squeezed lemons, I going to use half that” or “ Nice idea Delia, but it’s a bit bland, I fancy a scotch bonnet and honey would do it a power of good” then excellent. I doubt it though.