Porridge With Apples

I spent last week in Romania. Beautiful country, lovely people, but I must say I didn't much enjoy the breakfasts. Piles of processed meat do not sit well with me first thing in the morning, especially when they include the remains of yesterday's breakfast, refried! I suppose we shouldn't blame them for being economical. I longed to get back to my favourite autumn breakfast: a bowl of simple, warming porridge.

The best thing about porridge (apart from being healthy, filling, and cheap) is that it is a completely blank canvas. It could carry literally any flavour that took your fancy. To merely sprinkle a little bit of white sugar on top is such a waste! (If you must, crunchy demerara is best.) Beliefs about the perfect porridge method are as strongly held and passionately preached as those about making the perfect cuppa. There are the microwavers, the overnight soakers, the fancy grain users, those who swear by a pinch of salt. There is even an annual porridge-making competition held in Carrbridge in the Scottish Highlands, in which porridge-lovers compete for a golden "spurtle", the traditional Scottish porridge-stirring tool. The organisers of the event have instigated World Porridge Day, held on the 10th of October each year.

I prefer my trusty pink spatula to a golden spurtle, but if I were to enter the competition, this is the porridge I would make. The start of porridge season happens to coincide with the start of apple season, and the two work wonderfully together. Forget the milk/water argument - apple juice gives the porridge a lovely silky consistency, and negates the need for a further topping of sugar.

To my mind, porridge is a warming breakfast soup. If you can stand a spoon up in it, something has gone horribly wrong. Like baked beans, it's best taken from a huge pot which has been simmering away for some time, rather than quickly zapped in the microwave. The extra effort is worth it - and if, like me, you feel a little delicate in the mornings, the gentle putter of porridge on the hob is a far more agreeable soundtrack than the roar of the microwave.

Apple porridge for one

 

1/2 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup apple juice
3/4 cup water
1/2 cup milk
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Add to a small saucepan the oats, apple juice and water. Heat gently, stirring when it starts to thicken. When it comes together and starts to look like porridge, add the milk (if you add it at the start, it could curdle) and stir in the cinammon. If you are lazy about washing up, you could eat from the pan - but I prefer to use a bowl!

I like to top mine with stewed apple, which conveniently takes the same amount of time to prepare as the porridge takes to cook. It's a rare occasion where the microwave does the best job - the pieces of apple cook through but still hold their shape. One peeled, sliced apple needs about 3 minutes of zapping.

Gypsy Tart

I'm really into "old school" puddings at the moment - dishes that my generation seems to have missed out on, but which make our parents and (especially) our grandparents glassy-eyed with nostalgia. Gypsy tart definitely falls into this category. I have several times tried to pass this off as a refined dessert, but I should note that it is more usually associated with school dinners circa 1950-1980. My granddad was thrilled to be made one on his birthday, perhaps not because he was a boy who loved his school dinners, but because of the power of a flavour to make us children again.

I have two people to thank for this - Sandy Aylen for introducing me to it (if you want to be seriously well fed in Exmoor, look no further than Sandy's B&B), and my mother-in-law Lynne for gifting the equipment necessary to make it. I did once attempt this with my stick blender's whisk attachment. Half an hour later it had got so hot that I had to hold it in a tea-towel, and I still hadn't done sufficient whisking.

For a recipe with only 4 ingredients, it's surprisingly easy to get this wrong. What you want to avoid is the filling liquifying again and shrinking away from the pastry - it makes it look rather less appealing. You can make the pastry in whatever way you like, and even use a shop-bought one if you prefer (yes, I'm talking to you, "ready-rolled" lady). Since the filling is sweetness itself, it's better to use an unsweetened pastry. Serve with a generous dollop of creme fraiche to cut through the dulcitude.

Gypsy Tart

100g unsalted butter, chilled
200g plain flour
410g tin evaporated milk
350g dark muscavado sugar (it must be brown sugar - this is the only thing with flavour!)

Set the oven to 180 degrees.

Make the pastry. Cut the butter into small cubes with a cold knife. Rub it into the flour until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs - they don't actually need to be too fine, it's better not too handle it too much. Add (little by little) just enough cold water to bring together into a dough. Pat into a flat disc (this makes it chill faster) and rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Using an electric whisk, combine the evaporated milk and sugar until it is light and pale, with an almost mousse-like consistency.

Roll out the pastry to the thickness of a £1 coin, and with it line a greased tart tin. Cover with greaseproof paper and fill with ceramic baking beans (or use rice). Bake for 10-15 minutes until the edges start to turn golden. Remove the baking beans and paper and return to the oven for another 10 minutes, until fully cooked.

Pour in the filling. It will rise up a bit, so don't fill the tart too high! Bake for 10-15 minutes until set - it should have very little wobble.

The tricks:

• Pastry - it is essential that you cook the pastry fully before adding the filling. If it is undercooked it will be a) not very nice and b) its soggyness will cause the filling to split when it cools.
• Whisking - this really does require electronic whisking apparatus. I give it 15 minutes on top speed, which requires me to leave the house, such is the racket. It must be completely smooth with no grains of sugar remaining.
• Cook the filling for long enough, but gently.

Quantity is restricted by the evaporated milk, which usually comes in one size only. I find this makes enough filling for two pies, each serving 4 people - but that's also to do with the size of my tart tin (about 22cm). If you have filling left over, don't worry - it will keep in the fridge for a couple of weeks, just whisk it up a bit before you use it again. If your tart tin is bigger or smaller, you can adjust the amount of pastry - use a 2:1 ratio of flour to butter.

How to Cook Aubergine

You may by now have gathered that I am partial to the odd aubergine. I like them best beefing up a curry, where they lend a buttery texture and subtle yet meaty flavour.

The problem is that if you just chuck them in, raw, they absorb all the liquid from your sauce and and end up watery and soggy. They need a good frying off first. Most recipes will tell you put 'fry the aubergine slices in a little oil, in batches'. This is OK, but you'll find that you get through A LOT of oil, because they'll soak it up like a sponge. My method ensures that they fry properly without becoming greasy.

Don't bother faffing around with salt - it's a waste of time and precious sodium chloride. First, chop up your fruits. I like wedgy sticks, but discs also work fine. You are aiming for about 1/2 cm thickness, if you want to be picky (which generally I don't). Try to make sure that every piece includes some lovely purple skin - this will help to hold it together. Decant a little oil into small bowl or plate. Using a pastry brush, daub each piece with some oil. It doesn't need to be thick or exact, and the skin will be fine without.

Now fry the coated morsels over a medium-high heat, in batches if necessary to avoid overcrowding the pan. You won't need to add oil. You're looking for a decent bit of colour on each large surface - as when you cook a steak, it's the blackened, almost caramelised bits which taste really good. When they're done, the flesh will be almost translucent, the purple skins wrinkled. It doesn't matter if they're not quite cooked through if they're going to cook further in your sauce.

They are now ready to add a sauce, where they will happily simmmer away for ten minutes of so without disintegrating.

Salmon and Tamarind Curry - My Favourite Nigel Slater Recipe

For the first time, my food writing has been published in a national newspaper! OK, it's only one sentence, but it's a start. This month the highly respected Observer Food Monthly celebrates 20 years of its favourite columnist, Nigel Slater. Readers of the magazine, yours truly amongst them, have picked out their favourite of Nigel's recipes for the delectation of the masses.

My favourite recipe is 'a mild and fruity curry of salmon'. By way of a recipe headnote they have included my words "tamarind doesn't taste quite like anything else, so this recipe is an easy route to an unusual flavour". Harsh editing. But the tamarind thing is basically the crux of it. Here's the rest of what I had to say:

Thoroughly absorbed into our everyday repertoire! Most of the ingredients are items I keep stocked in the cupboard and freezer. Tamarind doesn't taste quite like anything else; it is a very easy route to an unusual flavour (fruity is the perfect word, well done Nigel). And no offence to Nigel, but I do think the roasted squash makes an excellent addition. Its texture perfectly complements that of the salmon.

Tamarind is a large, pod-like fruit with edible flesh. Though the tamarind tree is native to tropical Africa, the flavour can be found in cuisines all over the world, including Indian, South-East Asian, Mexican and the Caribbean. You may recognise it as the kick in Worcestershire sauce. Over here you can find tamarind in the shops (including supermarkets) as a little pot of thick, black, sour paste, which goes a long way and keeps for ever.

So, to the store cupboard! I buy cumin and coriander seeds in huge bags from my Asian grocer - if you like curry then this is much better value than those fiddly little jars. At Christmas last year I bought a whole salmon (on seasonal offer) and stored it as steaks in my freezer* - again, buying in bulk is cheaper, and they're in the freezer when you fancy them. Tinned tomatoes work just as well as fresh here (just omit the water). A dollop of natural yoghurt sets it all off nicely, especially if you got over-enthusiastic with the chillies.

Nigel Slater's opinion is that recipes should be used as inspiration, not a set of rigid rules (which is probably why I like his writing so much), and so I think he would approve of my additions. As I mentioned, roasted squash is excellent here. Chunk it, slather it in oil and salt and roast until tender (20 mins or so), then add with the coconut milk. Aubergine also makes a wonderful addition - ideas on cooking methods to follow shortly... However you make it, this is a recipe you'll really want in your repertoire.

* An aside, which I do need to get off my chest. I used the head and tail bits to make a stock. Apparently, fish eyes make a stock bitter. I have never squirmed so much as when I had to gauge out those eyes - you really have to rip them out - I had to hold it down in the sink such that I couldn't see. I thought I was fine with bits of dead animal, but this really was my limit.

Save-My-Bananas Loaf, and Sugar Chemistry

Everybody needs a go-to banana cake recipe. As soon as black-spotted squidgyness has compromised its eating appeal, a use must be found for the over-ripe banana which doesn't involve slicing it onto breakfast cereal. It's rare for me to ever throw away food, and the poor old banana has had quite a journey before it reaches my kitchen! Happily, it can languish in the fruit bowl getting blacker and blacker until I get around to making this cake. If fact, the blacker the better. If little bits of mould have started to appear, your banana has reached the pinnacle of cake-ready ripeness.

This is not one of those banana cakes of the dense, fruity kind. It has more of an open texture, albeit with a sturdy, satisfying crumb.  It's the kind of the banana cake which it was de-rigueur to eat with one's coffee when I lived in Sydney (maybe it still is?); it keeps well but after a few days it is a treat to heat a slice in the toaster and spread it with salty butter or even jam.

I have adapted it over time from a Hummingbird Bakery recipe. The original was a bit too sweet, and I always reduced the sugar (as well as substituting in a rich dark muscavado). Then recently I had something of a revelation. I was learning to make caramel. This turned out to be harder than I had imagined; my first attempts produced watery, burned disasters. On the excellent blog of David Lebovitz, I learned an interesting fact. I will quote it here:

"Because sugar is partially water, heat liquefies it. ... Sugar makes things moist. Remember that next time you're thinking about reducing sugar in a recipe."

Not all of this is true. Sugar is not partially water, though it does contain plenty of H and O. So why does it make cakes moist?

Aside: sugar chemistry

Is it to do with the heating process? There has been an interesting debate in the literature recently over the “melting” of sugar, that tricky caramel-making process. Normal kitchen sugar is mainly sucrose - a largish organic molecule. The sucrose molecule actually comprises two smaller, simpler sugar molecules: fructose and glucose. In 2011, researchers at the University of Illinois¹ reported that sucrose doesn't actually “melt” - instead it degrades into other substances (including fructose and glucose, but not water). They dubbed this process 'apparent melting' for obvious reasons. It makes sense when you think about it: if you cool caramel down again it doesn't turn back into white sugar; the actual melting point is dependent on the rate at which you heat it. Other scientists have taken issue with some technicalities, but the basic consensus is this: some actual melting does go on as well as the decomposition, but the decomposition products interfere, making it all a bit flukey. It goes some way to explaining the fickleness of that caramel process.

So heating sugar doesn't release water. But it turns out that sugar is a hygroscopic substance, which means it attracts water molecules. It is a humectant (opposite of a desiccant), which absorbs water molecules (desiccants adsorb them). The absorbed water still contributes to the cake's moisture but is unavailable for the businesses of evaporation and microbial action. My conclusion is that sugar doesn't “make” the cake moist, it just stops it from drying out  – while it’s cooking and afterwards. So in the case of my banana loaf, I have compensated for the reduced sugar by adding more moist, black bananas.

Save-My-Banana Loaf

180g sugar (I use half light and half dark muscavado)
2 eggs
280g very ripe banana (usually 3 bananas)
280g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
140g unsalted butter

1. Preheat the oven to 170°C. Grease a loaf tin. The cooking time is quite long - if your tin is thin you can line it with baking parchment to protect the cake.
2. Mash the bananas thoroughly with a fork. In a mixing bowl, beat together the sugar and the eggs, then stir in the bananas.
3. Mix in the flour, baking powder, bicarb and spices. Melt the butter (microwave is fine, and you can use the now-empty banana bowl to save washing up), and stir it into the mixture. Mix it until fully combined, no more.
4. Tip the whole lot into your prepared tin, and place in the oven. It will take about an hour; test by inserting a clean knife or skewer, which should emerge still shining.

¹Joo Won Lee, Leonard C. Thomas, Shelly J. Schmidt. Can the Thermodynamic Melting Temperature of Sucrose, Glucose, and Fructose Be Measured Using Rapid-Scanning Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC)? Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 2011; 59 (7): 3306 DOI: 10.1021/jf104852u

Review: “Bocca Cookbook” by Jacob Kenedy

I’ve only been to Italy once. I was Interrailing with my friend Nicola; we were students on a shoe-string budget. We boarded an overnight train to Rome with Parisian baguettes strapped to our rucksacks, determined to eke out of our meagre budget entry fees to all of Rome’s major attractions. For actual sustenance we mostly cooked pasta in our hostel kitchen; we balked at the price of coffees and spent out treat money on extravagant late-night gelato. I dream of this gelato still, but it wasn’t much of an introduction to the scope of Italian or even Roman food.

So most of what I have gleaned about Italian cooking comes from Masterchef. Whenever the contestants are made to cook in Italy (or in the kitchens of Italian restaurants), the chef divulges the secret elusive spirit of Italian food: simple, fresh ingredients cooked with passion and love. Passion! It’s all very well saying this – but just how do you tear a basil leaf with passion, as opposed to any other way of tearing a basil leaf? How do you stir love into tomato sauce, rather than just prodding it with a wooden spoon?

Jacob Kenedy is the chef-owner of popular Soho restaurant Bocca di Lupo. His cookbook is a riotous journey around the regions of Italy, loudly celebrating this Italian passion and zeal for all things food. This is a book about enjoying life. It is riotous, bolshy, and unashamedly greedy. He makes no pretences at “authenticity” (not being Italian himself) – and yet captures its spirit perfectly. There are quirky introductions and curious recipes; some entries are more instructions on how to eat something, or how to buy it. Everywhere we are encouraged to employ our senses, our cook’s intuition. A recipe for Jam tart notes that “perfection is not refinement, but the perfect expression of the cook’s heart”.

Bocca is not full of recipes I intend to recreate – and yet I have devoured every one, and it has left me hungry (like the wolf). I have learned in great detail the art of the sausage – did you know you have to knead the meat? I have considered marching down to the butcher and demanding “the head and feet of a pig” to make a soprassata; I have thought about whether my cupboard under the stairs is the right temperature for curing; I have vicariously met the challenge of the “extremely spicy ‘nduja salame, which is 30% chilli by weight “. And that was just the sausage chapter. Later, I lingered over a recipe for sanguinaccio, a pudding made with chocolate and pig’s blood (a dessert that “tends to meet expectations”, both for those to whom it “sounds weird and wonderful” and also “those who find the idea weird and repugnant. If you are of the latter persuasion, do not be tempted to try it.”).

The photography is beautiful – unfussy and informative, including windows to the country which make you ache to be there. A field of frost-bejewelled cabbages on a misty dawn made my nose tingle with the scent of a late autumn morning. It is peppered with photographs of Kenedy himself, usually stuffing something into his mouth. A cook after my own heart. I think I know now what the Masterchef contestants have missed (but those round Italian mamas have clearly not), which can’t really come across on the TV. To experience the real spirit of Italian food, it’s not just the cooking, but the eating itself which must be infused with joy and passion.

Bocca Cookbook is published by Bloomsbury, RRP £30

Australian Courgette Slice

It's that time of year again when we are overwhelmed by courgettes. I'm not even growing my own this year, but they regularly turn up in my veg box, and Mum has more than enough for her needs! Don't get me wrong, this is a marvellous glut. The courgette is a very versatile vegetable. It fries well and roasts better. When you're really stumped you can put it in a cake. But it's Courgette Slice I look forward to (and get sick of) ever year.

We are unsure of its origins but if there was ever a culinary tradition in our family, this is it. It certainly pre-dates the time I spent Down Under. It is possible that it once came from The Australian Women's Weekly; however, since this recipe probably bears almost no resemblance to the original, I will give it that most trustworthy of accreditations and call it "my Mum's ".

You could describe the mighty courgette slice as something between a pastry-less quiche, an omelette, and a savoury courgette cake. It works well with a salad, or indeed as a salad. Serve hot next to a buttery baked potato for tea. Enjoy cold on its own for lunch. It makes a fantastic veggie accompaniment at barbeques. It is endlessly adaptable - just use whatever goodies you happen to have lying around (or need to use up). Cold meats like sausages, roast leftovers or chicken work well but are not essential.

Makes dinner for 6, lunch for 8, or a side for 10.

400g courgette (about two)

120g cheddar cheese
3 eggs
100ml oil (vegetable, rapeseed, sunflower...)
100ml strong stock (about half a cube, or a heaped teaspoon of powder)
1 medium onion
130g self-raising flour (or plain with 1½ teaspoons baking powder)

Selection of extras, such as:
2 rashers bacon, cooked and chopped into small pieces
1 red pepper
1 mild chili pepper
Handful cherry tomatoes, halved
Bunch fresh herbs such as chives, thyme or oregano
A few chopped mushrooms

1. Heat the oven to 200°C. Grease and line a largish baking tray – mine is about 20cm x 30cm. You don’t have to line it, but it makes it much easier to lift out. Ready a large mixing bowl.
2. Grate the courgette and cheese. This is not too arduous to do by hand, but use a food processor if you prefer. Tip into your bowl.
3. Finely chop the onion, and do the same for all the extra ingredients you are using. Tip them all into the bowl with the courgette and cheese.
4. Add the other wet ingredients – the eggs, oil and stock. Season well with salt and black pepper. Give it a big stir.
5. Add the flour, and stir to combine.
6. Tip into the prepared tin and put in the oven. It is cooked when the edges start to turn golden brown, and is frothing pleasantly at the surface - it will take about 45 minutes. Leave to cool slightly in the tin before diving in.