Culture Through Cookery: Best of British

British cookery is often looked down upon, but I wanted to present a recipe that showcased our good local produce, and our other great talent- integration with other cultures.

Salmon with new potatoes is a typical British summer dish. But this version integrates newer flavours. What could be more British than Chicken Tikka Masala, Coronation Chicken, or Spag Bol? None of these dishes would have been recognised by our Victorian forebears, but now they grace our tables regularly, each one tweeked for the British palate.

Crumble is equally delicious, and much more traditional. Bramley apples are one of the UK's best known varieties, and are favoured for their depth of flavour in puddings.

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These Salmon parcels are quick and easy, and easily adapted. They take a short amount of time to prepare and only need about 20 minutes in the oven.

Serves 8

Ingredients:
Small pot sour cream (250ml)
Sunblush tomatoes (8)
Small pot of green pesto (100ml)
8 Salmon fillets
Filo pastry (16 sheets)

Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C.
Skin the salmon fillets and half widthways.
Place two sheets of filo pastry at right angles to each other (i.e. in the shape of a cross).
Dab a teaspoonful of sour cream in the centre.
Place half a salmon fillet on top of the sour cream.
On top add a teaspoonful of pesto and one sunblush tomato.
Place the other halved salmon fillet on top.

Making the Salmon Parcels

Twist the filo pastry together so that the parcel is sealed and place in a baking tray that is large enough for all 8 parcels.
Repeat for the remaining parcels.
Put in the oven for 20 minutes. Check one of the parcels in the centre of the tray to see whether they are cooked. The one in the centre will take longest to cook so if it is done, the others should be also.

Other ideas:
For a more traditional take, add sour cream mixed with finely chopped fresh dill in the middle instead of pesto and the tomato. 

We served this with simple boiled new potatoes and sugar snap peas. 
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Cold Watercress Sauce
This is more of a taste-and-see than a recipe.

Ingredients:
Remainder of the sour cream from the Salmon (or one small pot)
100ml cream
Milk (one pint)
Fresh black pepper to grind.
200g watercress.
zest of one large lemon

If you have a blender, blitz the watercress, with the sour cream and lemon zest (if you don't have a blender, dice by hand with a large knife until very small and add to a mixing bowl with the sour cream and lemon zest).
Mix the ingredients together (either in the blender or bowl).
Add the cream.
Add the fresh black pepper (you will want a lot - say 10 good grinds to start - add more after tasting).
You can serve it like this, if you want a thicker sauce, or add milk until you have the consistency and the texture that you want.

This is excellent served with salmon. If you wanted to simply grill the salmon rather than do something more fancy it would be delicious served as a thick  watercress cream. You could even use this (the thick version again) to replace the other ingredients within the salmon parcel.
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Adding the crumble mixture to the top of the crumble - just about to go in the oven

Apple and Raspberry Crumble
You need:
3 cups plain flour
half-2/3 pat softened butter
half a cup golden demerara sugar (up to a whole cup)
21b/ 1kg Bramley apples, peeled, cored and chopped into about 8 pieces per apple.
350g frozen raspberries

Put the oven on to preheat at 350/170 degrees.
To make the crumble:
Chop the softened butter into small pieces in a large mixing bowl.
Add the flour and rub in with your (clean) hands
Add the half cup of sugar. Add more if you have a sweet tooth.

In a large overproof dish add the apples and raspberries, mixing them together as much as you can without making a mess. Sprinkle the remaining half cup of demerara over them. (n.b. if you want to use less sugar, you could use eating apples rather than Bramleys. Bramleys are bitter but have more depth of flavour.
Add the crumble on top, covering the fruit and patting down the crumble.

Cook for around an hour, until the apples are soft.
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Reactions:
"I couldn't believe that this was British food. My view of British food is that it is boring and tasteless." Nadia
"I couldn't believe how simple the parcels were to make." Katie
"I've always wanted to make a British crumble! Now I know how!" Perrine

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Sort-of Cassoulet

As I sat down to my delicious lunch at work today, I felt chuffed with myself. With half an hour to spare yesterday afternoon I flung together what I had to make my lunch for the week - much cheaper than anything I could buy.

It consisted of -

• two large courgettes, halved and sliced (90p)
• half cup of mixed frozen peppers (20p)
• cup of diced frozen onions (20p)
• frozen brick of garlic (equivalent of one clove) (5p)
• one cup of frozen, pre-cooked chickpeas (last bag in the freezer) (15p)
• half cup of green lentils (15p)
• two chicken stock cubes  (20p)
• two bay leaves (from my mother's garden - only two left but luckily I can stock up over Easter!)
• 4 diced pork loin steaks (on special offer) (£3)
• half a bottle of white wine (undrinkable, left over from our party two weeks ago)
• 500g of mushrooms (50p)
• one teaspoon smoked paprika (pimenton) (5p)
• 500ml water
• Olive oil (5p)

I added the veg and pork to the pan with a little olive oil and with the stock cubes, pimenton and bay leaves and stirred whilst it defrosted and cooked. I then added the wine and water and left to cook for ages, so that the lentils would cook. I cooked it until there was basically no water left (it is the consistency of dal). And it is healthy and tastes fab. 

So I am feeling pretty pleased with myself. 

But then I read about this amazing woman, Jack, who has been blogging about her recipes - she feeds herself and her son on £10 a week. I may have made myself 4 large lunches for about £5.50 (my pricing is much more approximate than hers) and that is much cheaper than buying sarnies, but I am looking at her in awe. Honestly, it is so tasty that I think I could do it without the meat, or with much less of it. 

Anyway, look at her awesome blog:

A GIRL CALLED JACK

Vegan Onion and Carrot Soda Bread with Rosemary

Following my last post, I still had lots of peeled carrots leftover. Lots. I could've made one of the other million recipes that called for carrots, but I'm enjoying this vegan/dairy free baking lark. And actually I find that (although this may have lots to do with my rubbish oven) using leftover white/rose wine actually gives me bread with a better texture than the thinned yoghurt I've had to use in the absence of buttermilk in London. Strangely, I bought it in Belgium often by mistake- it's easy to get buttermilk there- fresh milk, less so. Still struggling to understand that... But back to the subject at hand. This bread is definitely savoury but not pungent in flavour. It would be brilliant, thinly sliced, with cheese.  

You need:
Two cups whole wheat flour
1/4 cup ground flax
Half cup white/ rose wine (great way to use up leftovers a little past their prime). 
1/2 cup hulled sunflower seeds, soaked in water
Baking soda (I teaspoon)
Salt (I teaspoon)
2 inch sprig of rosemary, chopped finely (or 1/2 teaspoon dried)
One cup finely grated carrot, loosely packed (approx three small carrots)
One onion, finely grated.

1. Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl, making sure you add in the bits too big to go through the sieve.
2. Add the carrot and onion and stir through well
3. Make a well in the middle and add the wine (this will evaporate off and I used up some old wine here). If you need more than the half cup and water until you have a dough where all flour is absorbed but not any stickier.
4. Place in a tray or bowl in the bottom of the oven on greaseproof paper and let it bake until when a life goes in and comes out clean.

In light of the uselessness of my oven, I cooked this at the bottom, in a tray sitting in a tray of water, so that it wouldn't just dry out and burn. I also had to cover the top. I just want a new oven! It would take about 40 mins at 220 in a normal oven. Shove in a spike or sharp knife and if it comes out clean the bread is done :)

Makes one small but action-packed loaf which feeds many more than you'd expect!

Carrot and Orange Nutty Soda Bread

Vegan wholewheat carrot and orange soda bread with sunflower seeds and cinnamon. Like a cake but not. Simpler than a cake, less fatty and jam-packed with stuff that's good for you! A hint of sweetness, but not sugary. I've been experimenting with soda bread for a couple of months and this one is a winner! It's easy, it doesn't need time to rise (great when you are living in shared accommodation and cannot just leave things around for hours!). Vegan because it uses wine instead of buttermilk. No alcohol (and surprisingly no wine flavour) is there at the end...

You need:
Two cups whole wheat flour
1/4 cup ground flax (v healthy)
Half cup white/ rose wine (great way to use up leftovers a little past their prime). 
1/2 cup hulled sunflower seeds, soaked in water
Baking soda (I teaspoon)
Salt (I teaspoon)
Zest of two oranges
Level teaspoon cinnamon
One cup finely grated carrot, loosely packed (approx three small carrots)

1. Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl, making sure you add in the bits too big to go through the sieve.
2. Add the carrot and orange zest and stir through well
3. Make a well in the middle and add the wine (this will evaporate off and I used up some old wine here). If you need more than the half cup and water until you have a dough where all flour is absorbed but not any stickier.
4. Place in a tray or bowl in the bottom of the oven on greaseproof paper and let it bake until when a life goes in and comes out clean.

In my rubbish, one temperature, oven that was about 2 hours, covered - in a normal oven on 220 it should be about 40 mins.

Makes one small loaf- delicious with honey, butter or marmalade or as an accompaniment to a bowl of carrot soup :)

Polka-dot beetroot and chickpea soup

Not really a soup, not really a stew, this gorgeous red bowlful of pinkish-orange chickpeas is sweet yet savoury and full of earthy, autumnal flavours.

This was a last minute lunchbox filler, and I think the girl did good! I ran out of the delicious kedgeree I made last weekend on Thursday, so Friday needed a no-effort lunch.

Cue: Beetroot and carrot soup in the fridge. Delicious, but not really filling enough. Aah! But I cooked up and batch- froze a huge quantity of chickpeas with garlic, diced carrot and celery (just enough to flavour). 30 seconds of running the chickpeas under the cold tap and they mixed nicely with my soup (which is almost a puree).

Lunchtime at work- chickpeas are defrosted, add a splash of hot water and microwave for three minutes. Not bad!

How to make the chickpeas.
I don't like the thought of tinned chickpeas-  I am sure cooking them from dry is much healthier as there are no preservatives to worry about.
I used 500g dried chickpeas (garbanzo beans) which I then soak with two cloves of crushed garlic for eight hours or overnight to plump back up.
Drain them and wash.
I cooked these with a diced carrot, and one diced stick of celery, 2 large bay leaves and some more crushed garlic, so that they would take on good flavours, and not just taste earthy and boring- something which is often labelled at these useful pulses.
I froze these in small batches.
Perfect to add to soups, stews, curries etc- food for thought!

Beetroot and Carrot energy boost soup

I was reading about the energy boosting properties of beetroot and though 'I could do with a bit of that!'.

I'd never cooked raw beetroot before but this soup was a doddle- and so good, hearty and warming. What you will get is more of a puree than a soup- dilute with hot water, chicken or vegetable soup, and to curries etc if you feel daring!

Beetroot and Carrot Soup- makes enough to eat for a week and freeze for another two! 
Two medium sized onions- chopped
Knob of butter/ olive oil
Two kg carrots, peeled and chopped into rounds
5 small beetroot (about  750 g) peeled and diced small (they will take longer to cook than the carrots)
Thumb sized piece of ginger (diced)
Two cloves of garlice
Pinch of salt
Black peppercorns
Bay leaves (two)

Put the oil or butter into your largest pan, on a low/medium heat and saute the onion under transparent. Add the other ingredients and braise, making sure that it doesn't burn- you may wish to add an inch of water to make sure.

Put the lid on and leave to cook for about an hour- 1 1/2 hours- until all of the vegetables are delicious and tender. Blitz the soup and you will have the most beautiful, ruby-red puree!

Rhubarb Recovery

In renouncing the twin pleasures and pains of refined sugar, I thought that I may never eat rhubarb again. It is bitter.

Well, I have managed so far with another compote recipe to add to the one I have already shared.

In fact, I may go as far as to say that I was a chicken and will bump up the rhubarb quantity next time- the less you have sugar, the sweeter things become. I have found the same with salt- my friends often find my food not salty enough, but I now find theirs, often, too salty.

When I made this, I used 28 small pears, peeled and quartered -I imagine that would be about 4kg- and 5 stalks of rhubarb. I think that I could easily have bumped this up to twice the amount of rhubarb, getting more of the rhubarb flavour without making the compote too bitter.

I shoved the rhubarb in a large pot with a thumb-sized piece of diced ginger, a heaped teaspoonful of cinnanom  (should have been more, but I finished the pot), the pears (I could have used apples) and an inch of water at the bottom.

After two or three hours of slow cooking the rhubarb had broken down, mixing completely into the pear juice around the larger pieces of pear. Verdict in my flat from everyone who had been queueing for it to become cool enough to eat (including from the one who didn't wait that long and burnt her tongue in the process)- delicious.

Happy :)