Posts Tagged ‘sea salt’

« Older Entries

Recipe for Simnel Cake

Sunday, March 14th, 2010

Today is Mother’s Day and what a glorious sunny, Spring day it has been.  We gave Sophie a gorgeous bouquet of flowers – white roses, lilies and greenery – and went to church for a Mothers’ Day Service, a bit of a rarity for me.  I liked the sentiment which was that mother’s always have time for a smile for their children however exasperating, painful and annoying we can all be.  So thank you Mothers and Mums everywhere for being so tolerant, caring and loving.

Traditionally in Britain, today the fourth Sunday on Lent was the first day that girls in service at the big, posh houses of the gentry were allowed to go home and see their Mothers – this is back in the 17th and 18th centuries.  As such, they would bring home a demonstration of their skills learnt at their place of work – a rich and delicious fruit cake that became known as Simnel Cake. 

So today used to be called Simnel Sunday and then morphed into Mothering Sunday.  Originally, the cakes were decorated with 11 small paste balls, symbolising the 11 faithful disciples of Jesus Christ.  These cakes improved with eating and were best enjoyed at the end of the Lenten Fast or Lent and so they became associated with Easter to become the traditional Easter Cake.  Simnel Cakes are less often baked than a Christmas Cake but I feel they should be made as much of a tradition as the classic Christmas Cake.

Here’s how we made ours today:

Ingredients For Simnel Cake

Ingredients For Simnel Cake

Ingredients for the cake:

125g / 4oz butter
125g/ 4oz  dark brown muscovado sugar
3 free range organic eggs, beaten (they were discounted in Spar – bargain at 50p a half dozen)
150g / 5oz organic plain flour
¼ tsp salt
½ tsp organic Fairtarde mixed spice
350g / 12oz mixed organic raisins and sultanas (about 200g: 150g respectively)
50g / 2oz mixed chopped peel
Grated rind of lemon (I used orange today as I had no lemon and I am sure it will be fine)

For the marzipan or almond paste:

225g / 80z Fairtrade organic caster sugar
225g / 8oz organic ground almonds
2 eggs beaten
1 teaspoon Steenbergs Natural Almond Extract

To glaze the cake

A little apricot jam
A little beaten egg (just cadge some from making the marzipan as you don’t need much)

Prepare an 18cm (7 inch) deep circular cake tin by greasing and lining the base and the sides. 

To make the marzipan, mix together the caster sugar, ground almonds, Steenbergs natural almond essence and beaten egg and knead with your hands to a smooth pliable mix.  If it feels too gooey, just add a bit more almond and knead some more.  Roll out a third of the marzipan  – almond paste - into a circle and set aside.  Reserve the remainder for topping the cooked cake.

Mixing Up The Marzipan Or Almond Paste

Mixing Up The Marzipan Or Almond Paste

Now put the oven on and preheat to 140oC / 275oF.

To make the cake, cream the butter and muscovado sugar until light and fluffy.  Beat in the eggs a little at a time.  Sieve together the plain flour, sea salt and Steenbergs mixed spice together and add to the mixture alternately with the dried fruit, mixed peel and grated rind, mixing all the ingredients together.

Put half the mixture into the cake tin, then smooth the top and cover with the circle of almond paste.  Add the rest of the cake mixture and smooth the top, hollowing out a small hole in the centre.  Bake in the oven for 1½ hours.

When the cake has cooled, brush the top with apricot jam.  Now put the oven on and preheat to 180oC / 350oF.  Then with the reserved marzipan, roll 11 small balls (for the good disciples and definitely smaller than the massive balls that I made) and then roll out the rest of the almond paste over the top of the cake.  Now place the almond paste balls evenly around the edge of the cake.  Return the cake to the oven and bake for 10 minutes until the paste has gone slightly brown.

Simnel Cake

Simnel Cake

We then put some coloured speckled Easter eggs in the centre.  leave for a couple of weeks to mature and then eat and enjoy.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Recipes and cooking | 1 Comment »

Recipe: Chicken Nuggets and Chips

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

The roads yesterday were like an ice rink – there was a thin layer of black ice outside our house that made the road treacherous.  No gritting of minor roads or housing areas seems to be being done.  We’re not that good in England at cold weather – our houses don’t keep in the heat and we cannot keep transport going in a cold snap.  What would happen if climate change resulted in a much colder Britain in the winter?

It set my mind wandering to simple warmer, summery food.  So I gave our children what they always think they want - chicken nuggets and chips – only because they have seen the toys advertised on telly by McDonalds or whichever other fast food chain.  The secret is never go to McDonalds but get the free toys in bulk for £1 from Oxfam and so avoid having to go to McDonalds and also to help a good charity.  No, Steenberg children get a homemade version.

250ml               Fine breadcrumbs
125ml               Steenberg organic dukkah
3                      Chicken breasts
1                      Egg, lightly beaten
6                      Decent sized potatoes, peeled
Some               Steenbergs organic perfect salt
Some               Mild paprika or smoked paprika

Preheat the oven to 180oC.  Lightly oil a baking tray/ roasting tin with some sunflower oil.

Boil the potatoes until just turning soft, or use some uneaten cooked potatoes that you have kept in the fridge.  Drain and cool a bit, then slice into thinnish slices of about ½ cm.

I mixed the dukkah with the breadcrumbs, then cut the chicken breast into small cubes and slithers of a nugget-size.  Next, you dip the chicken into the beaten egg and coat each of these in the dukkah-breadcrumb mix and place them onto the baking tray.  When finished, put them in the oven and cook for about 20 minutes until lightly brown at the edges; I turned them once after about 10 minutes.

While the chicken was cooking, I added a bit of sunflower oil and olive oil into a heavy bottomed frying pan.  I like to use a few oils mixed together as it creates a richer flavour when you’re frying something or roasting your potatoes; it’s one of those imperceptible twists that makes all the difference that I call “flavour layering”.

When the oil is really hot, turn the heat down and add the sliced potatoes and shallow fry.  I keep close by the frying pan while this is happening and using 2 forks, I carefully check the potatoes as they are frying to ensure that they are not burning and are cooking evenly; don’t worry about the quantity of frying potatoes as I always seem to have more potatoes that pan area so you need to jiggle them about and make space as you cook away.

I sprinkle a good finger scoop or ½ teaspoon of Steenbergs Perfect Salt onto the top of the potatoes while frying to give a delicious coating.  Then at the end I added a twist of paprika (you could use a smoked paprika or a very mild chilli powder) and it was ready to serve.

With luck the chicken dukkah nuggets and homemade chips should be ready simultaneously.  I served them with some fried garlic mushrooms and broccoli, which can be done as the potatoes are being fried.

It went down really well.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Recipes and cooking | No Comments »

Recipe For Oxtail Casserole

Wednesday, December 9th, 2009

I made a delicious oxtail casserole the other day.  Sophie brought a pack of oxtails – there were about 5 decent sized ones and 4 smallish ones. 

I made it Sunday and we ate it Monday – it’s one of those meals that’s best slow-cooked and then eaten the day after.  It matures nicely and by the time we ate it 24 hours later the meat just slid off the bones; everyone loved it, even the kids.

I am not 100% sure how I made it; it was just one of those meals that happened and I didn’t really pay much attention to how I did it, but it came out good.  Here’s a crack at the recipe.

Ingredients

Pack of 5 – 8 oxtails
2 lamb’s livers, or 1 calf’s liver
1 medium onion, roughly chopped
2 garlic cloves, halved
1 leek, topped and tailed and roughly cut
1 carrot, peeled then diced
1 glass of red wine
1 tin haricot beans
1tsp  Steenbergs Perfect Salt
1tsp Steenbergs Vegetable Bouillon Powder
1 organic bay leaf
Some butter, olive oil and sunflower oil

1.  Put the onions, garlic and leek in a food processor and pulse a couple of times until smallish pieces, but not completely minced.  Gently sweat in a mix of butter and sunflower oil for 8 or so minutes until translucent.  This triumvirate of oniony flavours is the perfect base for any stock-based meal; gently fry them up then add a carrot and some seasoning and it can be the base for almost anything.

2.  While the onions etc are gently cooking, brown the oxtail in a saucepan with olive oil until the meat has sealed all around the pieces of oxtail.  Do the same for the liver.

3.  Add the diced carrots, Steenbergs Perfect Salt, vegetable bouillon powder and bay leaf and sweat for a couple more minutes.

4.  Add a generous slug of red wine and simmer for maybe 2 minutes.  Add the tin of drained haricot beans.

5.  Add the oxtail and liver to the pot and cover with water.  Stir it together and bring to the boil.  Boil vigorously for 10 minutes, then turn the heat down low and cook slowly for 2 – 5 hours.  I actually forgot about it and we cooked it for 5 hours on Sunday, then reheated it on Monday, which seemed to do the trick.

6.  Serve with boiled rice and carrots, then mop up the delicious gravy with bread.  Wonderful.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Recipes and cooking | No Comments »

Recipe – Making Your Own Christmas Pudding

Sunday, November 8th, 2009

We have had a brief hiatus from Christmas preparations with Halloween and Bonfire Night, but this weekend I’ve got back to the task of preparing for Christmas.  This weekend was the turn of the pudding.

I started making my own Christmas puddings several years ago as an experiment and you know what – it’s way better than the things that you get from the shops.   It also gives you a great sense of achievement.  It does takes ages to steam though.  Also, the recipe does make masses of Christmas pudding, but then we usually make two and give one away to great friends of ours, the McMurrays.

I like to be a bit nerdy with the stout or beer that I use.  I like to find something a bit special, slightly quirky.  This year I have used Titanic Stout from the Potteries, brewed at the Titanic Micro-brewery run by Dave and Keith Bott in Burslem Stoke-on-Trent.  It is the CAMRA Champion Bottled Beer of Britain for 2009.  Titanic Stout is full-tasting and full of character, with a roasted grain, coffee, licquorice and tangy hop resin aromas.

Some of the ingredients for Christmas pudding

Some of the ingredients for Christmas pudding

Another great thing about using beer rather than the brandy that most chefs use is that (and anyone who’s done the maths will see where I’m going) you’ve bought a 500ml bottle of gorgeous beer but only need 150ml, so in the best “waste not want not” attitude I think I better enjoy the rest of the beer myself!

This year I am also reviving an old tradition and have stuck some Christmas favours into the Christmas pudding.  Silver charms were popular in the past, with the traditional shapes like a boot (for travel), ring (for marriage), a button (lucky for men) or silver sixpences for general good fortune.  To stop them tainting the pudding, I have wrapped the coin tightly in baking paper.

The recipe I’ve got down below is an evolving recipe.  I think that my original recipe came from  a Keith Floyd book, but I’ve looked back at his books and I must have changed it a heck of a lot over the years as it bears no relation to his recipes anymore.

That’s one of the things I love about real cooking – you start with the germ of an idea (either from a book, something your mum does or just something that seems to fit with the ingredients you’ve got in front of you) and then you play with it, changing ingredients for those that you’ve actually got in the cupboard or just because they seem to have the right taste, then (when it works) you’ve got your own recipe.  I guess what I mean is don’t be beholden to a recipe book, you’re your own best cook – experiment and play and the more enjoyment you have in doing the experimentation the more happiness will flow into your food.

Ingredients

This recipe does 2 x 1.2 litre puddings, so if you want only the one pudding, simply halve the quantities.

25og/ 9oz vegetarian suet (you can use Atora if you want)
350g/ 12oz sultanas
350g/ 12oz raisins
250g/ 8oz currants
50g/ 2oz almonds
100g/ 4oz mixed peel (I use Crazy Jacks)
75g/ 3oz glace cherries, snipped with scissors (use Crazy Jacks as it includes no horrible added colours)
75g/ 3oz crystallised or stem ginger, snipped with scissors
350g/ 12oz Fairtrade dark Barbados sugar, such as Traidcraft Muscovado
2 grated eating apples
250g/ 9oz fresh white breadcrumbs
175g/ 6oz plain flour, sieved (we use Sunflours who are a fab local hand miller of flours)
1tsp Steenbergs organic Fairtrade mixed spice
1tsp Steenbergs nutmeg powder
½tsp fleur de sel
6 free-range organic eggs
Grated rind and juice of 1 lemon
Grated rind and juice of 1 orange
1tsp Steenbergs natural almond extract
150ml/ ¼ pint pint stout

DSC_0719_edited-1Toast the almonds in an oven for 5 minutes or so. Mix all dry ingredients together. Beat the eggs; add lemon, orange, Steenbergs almond extract and stout. Make a well in the dry ingredients, pour in all other ingredients and stir thoroughly.

Now make a wish! Cover and leave somewhere cool overnight.

Turn into greased basins, cover with butter papers and a double layer of cloth.   Sneak a silver coin into the mixture; I wrapped a cleaned 20p or 50p piece in some baking paper and push it into the mix.  Tie securely with string going right round the bottom of the bowl to make a strong handle to lift the bowl.

The Christmas pudding all wrapped and ready for 7 hours of steaming!

The Christmas pudding all wrapped and ready for 7 hours of steaming!

Steam for about 7 hours.

On Christmas Day, steam again for about 1½ hours or until heated right through.

To flame the Christmas pudding, place the cooked pudding on a plate with a decent curve.  Then warm 2 – 3 tablespooons of brandy or whisky (I use whisky) without boiling.  Pour over the Christmas pudding then set alight with a match, being very careful not to set yourself alight!  I am sure there was a useful purpose for the flaming ritual but nowadays it’s just for the flamboyant show.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Recipes and cooking | 2 Comments »

Recipe for Roast Pork With Apple Sauce

Sunday, October 11th, 2009

It’s that harvesting time of the year, with the trees turning a golden brown and the fruit fulsome on the trees.  I picked an armful of windfalls from our garden and took them inside to make apple sauce to have a with a delicious joint of pork that we had.  The joint was delicious – slow roasted with roast potatoes, home-made apple sauce and carrots with broad beans.  This is how I made it.

Ingredients

1.4kg free range pork with thick covering of skin & fat
6 decent sized cooking apples
1tbsp orange juice
2 Fairtrade cinnamon sticks
1tsp Fairtrade ground nutmeg
3 – 5tbsp Fairtrade caster sugar, to taste

To prepare the pork joint, score through the skin but not all the way through the fat, say about 0.5cm.  Then repeat this every 0.5cm across the skin.  Next rub 2 teaspoons of sunflower oil over the surface and liberally sprinkling it with sea salt; massage the sea salt into the skin and set aside.

I follow the method that Sophie Grigson used in her fabulous book “Meat” which says that you cook at 180oC for 30 minutes per 500g plus an extra 20-30 minutes at the end for safety.  This should cook the joint perfectly and give you a good crunchy crackling; it certainly works for us, but the key is the skin & fat on the outside and how you prepare it.

As for the apple sauce, I peeled, sliced & diced these and bunged all of the ingredients into a heavy pan with a lid on.  I cooked this at a low-medium heat for 20 minutes.  I took out the cinnamon quills, then pulsed the apples to a fine sauce and served this cold.

I served all of this with roast potatoes and the vegetables.

You should buy the best quality pork you can find, as the classic supermarket meat is tastless and full of water.  Free range or rare breed adds a lot of flavour that seems to be missing from the bland kit that the big shops sell.  Try your local farm shop or a mini-multiple like Booths.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Recipes and cooking | No Comments »

Photo ops at Steenbergs

Saturday, August 15th, 2009

I am slightly apprehensive about having had my photo taken this week.  We have been suppliers of spices and sea salt to Tanfield Food Company since they were established a few years back.  They make ambient convenience meals in a pouch under the brand-name “Look What I’ve Found” and for Marks & Spencer and a few others. 

Look What I’ve Found is the brainchild of Roger McKechnie and Keith Gill who founded Phileas Fogg in the 1980s and so creating the premium adult snacks marketplace.   They came up with the idea of Phileas Fogg after being made redundant by one of the large crisp companies, just like Sophie and I started Steenbergs after being made redundant – there’s hope after failure, or at least nothing more to lose!

They wanted a photograph of me for the front label of a new mixed peppercorns sauce that they are doing based on a blend of our finest peppercorns from India and Africa.  Having your photo taken is one of those weirdly artificial times when your face freezes up and even humour makes it impossible to relax and it becomes hardly possible to catch that elusive smile, and this photo was taken while leaning on a fence beside a reed bed system for cleaning the sewerage. 

I suppose I should be flattered that they think our spices are great and that my mugshot won’t detract from the product, but I am still a bit nervous about having my face staring down at me from a supermarket shelf.  But let’s hope that in the future they will be able to say that Axel Steenberg’s face was the face that sold more than a thousand packets of peppercorn sauce!

For more on the products by Tanfield Food Company, visit http://www.lookwhatwefound.co.uk/.

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Steenbergs | No Comments »

Recipe For Meatloaf – Ideal for a Cold Summer’s evening!

Friday, July 31st, 2009

The weather has been truly awful over the last few days – rain, rain and more rain.  It’s turned my mind towards thinking about terrines.  Terrines are really versatile – you can have the cold on a warm summers day served with new potatoes and salad, or warm them up for a meatloaf style supper indoors when it is tipping it down outside.

This is one of our mainstays – it is a meatloaf and is best served warm.  I’ll do another recipe for a cold terrine over the weekend.

3tbsp    olive oil
2          celery sticks, chopped into 1cm long pieces
2          onions, finely chopped
675g     minced organic beef (the best you can find)
2          free range eggs, lightly whisked
200ml   double cream
3tbsp    tomato ketchup (we like Meridian as Heinz is too sweet)
1tbsp    dark beer, such as a Sam Smith’s Yorkshire (optional)
30g       Parmesan, finely grated
Dash of red Tabasco sauce (not the green one)
½tsp     Steenbergs Terrine Spices (optional)
Salt & pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 200oC.

Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and then add the celery and onions.  Fry over a low heat until softened and the onions are translucent.  Leave the cool.

Put the eggs, double cream, ketchup, Parmesan and Tabasco into a mixing bowl.  Add the spices, salt & pepper and mix together.  Add the onions and celery and mix together.  Now add the beef mince and mix together thoroughly.

Spoon into a terrine, cover and place into a roasting tin.  Pour boiling water into the roasting tin until it’s about halfway up the terrine pot and bake in the oven for 1 hour.

Serve warm with new potatoes and freshly picked beans or broad beans.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Recipes and cooking | No Comments »

Recipe – Fennel Braised In Milk

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

This is an unusual, but great, Italian style way of making fennel as a vegetable.  It’s really great with a traditional English roast chicken.

Ingredients

900g fennel bulbs
1tsp sea salt – more or less to taste
½ tsp organic cinnamon
½ tsp organic nutmeg, freshly grated
½ tsp organic black pepper, freshly ground
200ml full fat milk
120ml double cream
1tsp sugar

Clean fennel, remove bruised parts and the stalks.  Blanch in boiling salted water for 3 minutes, then drain and cut into 2.5cm segments.

Put the spices and 150ml milk in a pan and add the fennel.  Cover and cook over a gentle heat for 20 minutes, or until tender.  Add more milk if the fennel looks dry and turn it around to ensure that it is cooked all over.  At the end of the cooking there should be no liquid left.

Pour over the cream and add the sugar.  Stir gently and cook for 5 minutes.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Recipes and cooking | No Comments »

Recipe for Yellow Sunny Quiche Lorraine

Tuesday, July 14th, 2009

 

It was a beautifully, sunny morning today.  The sun infused the morning with a wonderfully warm light.  I gave me the urge to make quiche (or qwich as some people I know want to call it).  This is an earthy lunch to make that can be eaten over a few days cold or reheated; it’s ideal to take to work for a nutritious packed lunch togther with a simple green salad or a tomato & basil salad.

 

The basic quiche

 

Ingredients

 

350g     shortcrust pastry, thawed if frozen

250ml   milk

150ml   double cream

2          whole free range eggs

1          free range egg yolk

175g     grated cheddar cheese, or gruyere (I actually do a mix of cheddar and gruyere or Jarlsberg)

1          mild onion, finely chopped

175g     rindless bacon, chopped into 1-2cm dices

1tbsp    sunflower oil

Salt & Steenbergs black pepper, to taste

 

Preheat the oven to 200oC.  Roll out the pastry and line a 20cm flan tin.  Prick the pastry a few times, put some dry beans in the base to allow you to bake and bake for about 15 minutes.  The beans put some density into the pastry to prevent to pastry base from going out of shape while baking blind.

 

Reduce the heat of the oven to 160oC.

 

Heat sunflower oil in frying pan.  Fry the onions until translucent, then remove with slotted spoon.  Fry the bacon bits until crisp, then remove with a slotted spoon.

 

Put the milk, cream and eggs into a mixing bowl and lightly whisk.  Add half the cheese, the fried onions and bacon and lightly whisk. Then pour into the baked pastry.  Sprinkle the rest of the cheese over the filling.

 

Bake for 30 minutes or more until set.

 

Other ideas for quiche

 

The basic quiche above is a delicious simple piece of country fare that is great hot or eaten cold for a picnic or after harvesting (not that many of us harvest these days except perhaps in the allotment).

 

But you can use this underlying theme to create an infinite variety of flavours, so here are some additional ingredients you could use:

 

1          red pepper, seeded and very finely sliced; roasted in oven

5          asparagus tips, lightly fried in olive oil

2          large tomatoes, thinly sliced

2          courgettes, thinly sliced and lightly fried in olive oil

 

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Recipes and cooking | No Comments »

Recipes for Salt Baked Fish and Tomato Salad

Friday, June 5th, 2009

 

 

What to do on a miserable summer’s day in Northern England?  Well we made these 2 meals that let us dream that it was summery weather outside.  You could imagine that the you were on a glorious beach in the Bahamas and the red snapper had been roasted on a barbecue, rather than in the oven.  Perhaps you could even drink a can of Red Stripe to make it feel even more like the Caribbean and turn on the heating for a few minutes to complete the pretence.

 

 

Salt-baked fish

 

4                     400g red snapper, gutted

Pinch    Coarse ground black pepper (ideally Steenbergs)

12                 Sprigs fresh flat-leaf parsley

5kg       Traditional sea salt (not normal table salt)

 

Pre-heat the oven to 220oC.  Wash the fish and pat dry.  Sprinkle the inside cavities of the fish well with the Steenbergs black pepper and stuff with parsley.

 

Spread on 2 baking trays with half the sea salt.  Place the fish on the baking trays and cover with the remaining sea salt.  Press the salt firmly around the fish and sprinkle with a little water.  Bake for 15 minutes, then let the fish settle for 5 minutes.

 

To serve, remove the salt in large pieces and place the fish on plates.  Serve with lemon wedges and new potatoes, tomato salad with balsamic vinaigrette.

 

Just before serving the new potatoes, season with sea salt and black pepper and pour on 1tbsp of extra virgin olive oil.

 

Tomato salad with balsamic vinaigrette

 

4                     Fresh, ripe tomatoes

5                     Fresh basil leaves

2tsp      Balsamic vinegar

2tbsp    Extra virgin olive oil

Pinch    Coarse ground Steenbergs black pepper

Pinch    Fleur de sel

 

Slice the tomatoes and place into a shallow salad bowl.  Roughly chop the basil leaves (or tear with fingers) and place on top of the tomatoes.  Sprinkle with the fleur de sel (or Maldon Sea Salt) and some of Steenbergs organic black pepper, coarsely ground.  Mix the balsamic vinegar and olive oil in a jug and pour over the salad.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Recipes and cooking | No Comments »

« Older Entries