Having a moment

I’ve just been musing on what ingredients are “having a moment” on menus. It seems salt-baked vegetables are the only way to go. The first time I had salt-baked anything was “lomo a la sal” in Soria, Spain. I was teaching English in this small northern Spanish city for a year and it was there I learned to truly adore the pig. That cliche that they use “everything but the squeal is so true. Pig’s ears fried in a strawberry and pineapple salad, scored pig cheek’s and the “lomo” or loin covered in sea salt and baked until a crust formed was truly moist and curiously not salty at all. The trout I had in Bilbao a few years later was the same. I was sure protein worked being cooked in this way, but turnip or carrots? Turns out they’re delicious too! I had salt-baked heritage (is there any other type these days?) carrots at Ox, Belfast and salt-baked beetroot at the Galway Bay Hotel. This method is age-old but I love that it’s being revived. I wonder if root vegetables are the best option? Can’t see it working with courgettes or asparagus, but Heston or Simon Rogan may work out a way to do it.
Another ingredient which is achingly hip is milk. Chefs are breaking the white stuff down and building it up again. Little Miss Muffet’s curds are all over the place. They’re in salads with cripsy chicken skin and onion galette and milk jellies are quite the thing. I heard of the whey from goats milk being fed to suckling pigs in Cavan. Gearoid Lynch from the Olde Post Inn serves the cheese in a salad and then roasts the pig (which has been compressed with a cast-iron radiator).
Wonder if salt-baked cheese would work?

Talking turkey

 

If you’re like me, you probably only roast a turkey once a year. I’m a big fan of the Kelly Bronze, as it happens. Thank you Delia, but have you found that when you order a decent free-range bird, it’s always MASSIVE. Why can’t they rear eight-pounders for sale? Ten pounds at most. My oven and fridge would be much happier.

A friend of my husband’s sold us one four years ago, but neglected to tell us that it would be 15lbs! So, we spent Christmas Eve trying to saw the thing in two. We were too embarrassed to ask a butcher we hadn’t purchased from, and ended up prising open a knife set in a briefcase looking for something that might do the job.

We roasted half of it and froze the other half. We ended up throwing it out two years later. What a waste!

Anyway, I digress. The thing is, you have to be really careful about how you store and cook turkey.

Every year around 4,500 people in the UK suffer food poisoning in December as a result of campylobacter bacteria in turkey.

To avoid spending Christmas Day feeling very sicky bad, make sure you

1. Store it in a properly chilled fridge, on the bottom shelf, with enough cold air to circulate.

2. Don’t mix raw and cooked foods.

3. Wash your hands and utensils, not the bird.

4. Check the juices are running clear in the thickest part of the thigh to see that it is cooked.

5. Use leftovers within two days. (Much easier when the turkey is a reasonable size in the first place.)

 

Check out the Food Standards Agency Advent Calendar for more

Live tweet chats this week, too

 

 

 

 

World Cheese Awards dispatch

I’m just back from Birmingham. This cheese judge virgin has now been initiated into the world of lactic length, mushroomy brie (it’s the good stuff) and ammonia on the back of the throat. Who knew there could be SO many dimensions to artisan cheese? I was starting to sound like Jilly Goulding by the end of it. A particularly earthy brie tasted like a country pathway on a dry summer’s day. The less said about the cowshed goats cheese the better! And who on earth entered the jar of orange baby sick???

Magic muffins

On Saturdays I like to bake. But I’m impatient, and I don’t like having to wait around for dough to prove or pastry to chill, so I’ve found the answer to my prayers in the muffin.

You can knock them up in a matter of minutes and they really lend themselves to seasonal variations. Today,  I went out to get the last of the blackberries (the vodka for Christmas is doing nicely, thank you), and I returned with about 500g.

I adapted Nigella’s blueberry recipe…300g of blackberries instead…then I added some lemon zest and a little grated apple…a spoonful of demerera on top and they were ready to go. Nigella puts sour cream and vegetable oil into hers…pear and ginger, apple and cinnamon….you name it, and it’s a great tip. They stay moist for days.

Twenty-five minutes later and the brambly mega muffins were ready to cool.  They were so good with a cup of Marks and Spencers Extra Strong tea.

What did I do with the other 200g? A mini kilner of more blackberry vodka, of course! I have a darling little empty bottle that will be just right to hold a quarter litre come December!

What’s next on my foraging list? Well, the elderberries are out soon and I have some new jam jars from Carraig Donn, so I’m going to make Paula McIntyre’s elderberry and port jelly from her fantastic cookbook A Kitchen Year

Rib-eye rules

I love my steak, but there’s only one cut I’ll entertain. It’s always beautifully marbled with fat, full of beefy flavour and responds so well to my preferred method of cooking it.

I leave it out at room temperature. Then as I heat up the frying pan to smoking hot, with a little olive oil..I season with rock salt and freshly ground pepper (Wynad if I’m feeling extra extravagant)..then straight onto the pan with a satisfying sizzle. It caramelises almost immediately. I give it no more than a minute before turning it over to get the same on the other side…then rest it in a warm place for 5 minutes and serve with dauphinoise and mashed turnip in winter or salad and twice cooked chips in summer.

It is perfect washed down with a young red, and so far superior to tasteless, over-priced fillet or tough-as-old-boots sirloin.

If you’re going to fry steak, it’s the only way to go!

Addictive Alicante

Most people head straight for Benidorm or another resort up the coast when they touch down at Alicante Airport, but they’re really missing out. Alicante city is definitely worth more than a perfunctory afternoon shopping at the Corte Ingles.

I went in late March when the weather was miserable in Ireland, but in sunny southern Spain, was balmy enough to go out in the evenings without a coat. Heaven!

Even more celestial was the place we stayed. The wonderful Hostal Les Monges Palace in the old town. The word hostal can only be applied to the price….a mere 54 euro per night for the two of us. The room was gorgeous, complete with four-poster, mini bar with wine and beer a mere euro each, tv, jacuzzi and shower and all set in a converted convent. A real find and a great location. We got off the airport bus at the last stop and it was 5 minutes’ walk away.

Nearby was a wealth of reasonably-priced cafes and restaurants where we ate our fill of tapas, lunches and dinners. Alicante is famous for its fish with rice or noodles, using fish bought stiff fresh from the quite brilliant city market. Red prawns were in season too…but the most memorable morsels came from piggy origins. Pata negra jamon serrano and pork scratchings from the Casa Iberico. The ham is not cheap but my goodness, it’s sublime. Sweet, salty and a little fatty..you just know these were happy piggies.

Another great place to eat is El Buen Comer…which means “good eating”.  As with most places in Spain, the menu del dia or menu of the day is low on choice but great on value. We had a salad each, grilled hake and crema catalana with bread, water and wine for a mere 10 euro each. Perfectly nice and all the better for being so reasonably priced.

The Santa Barbara castle overlooking the city is a great viewpoint, before you do the walk, have a browse around that market. It’s such a feast for the senses and you will see the freshest ingredients tantalisingly displayed.  If you want to bring some typical Spanish ingredients for a fraction of what you would pay in delis here, go to the supermarket at the Corte Ingles..there are two branches on the main drag. Stock up on pimenton, ortiz bonito del norte, calasparra rice, roasted peppers and giant white asparagus..they’re all tinned or dry goods so will keep well…oh and don’t forget some Orlando tomate frito…it’s the business!

Alicante is addictive. We will be back!

Guilty secret #1

I have a confession to make. It may shock those who know me. They probably imagine me in my kitchen, surrounded by gadgets and gizmos, all of them in regular use. The reality is, I am a kitchen luddite. There, I’ve said it!

I may spend my working day tweeting, facebooking, editing complex radio packages and studio producing two and a half hour programmes, but when it comes to the kitchen, I’m as low-tech as it gets.

I have a selection of knives, a whisk, a spatula, some pans, measuring spoons and a pestle and mortar and that, apart from a broken Delia-recommended mini-chopper, is pretty much it.

I have tried to get with the programme. I do want a Kitchen Aid in a funky colour and a blowtorch, but the one big piece of kit I do own is still in the box.

Yes, my Kenwood food processor has been sitting in my utility room for the past three years. It sits there on the worktop, greeting me with a mocking glance every time I open the back door.

It bears a delivery note from Debenhams wedding service complete with a note from the benefactors, Dace and Laima. It reads…”Barbara, marriage is a serious business which needs a serious present.” They’re right. When I put the aforementioned all-singing, all-dancing item on my wedding list, I was sure it would be in regular use, but every time I think about christening it, I get the fear.

How will I get it all to work?  What if a blade goes flying across the kitchen and stabs the baby? How will I clean it? What if I lose some of the parts? How will I get it all back in the box? The cupboard isn’t big enough for it.

You see. Excuses, excuses.  All that New Orleans coleslaw as yet unmade, all those cake and bread ingredients unmixed, all those smoothies unsmoothed. I really have to get to grips with it.

So, tomorrow, I’m going to try again. The Kenwood will not beat me.

I’ll keep you posted.