Chicken and leek pie

I haven't been able to post much on this blog in a while, mainly because of work commitments at the very start of this new year. As many people tend to, I came up with a few New Year's Resolutions on the 31st December. One of these resolutions, perhaps the one I intend to keep the most, is to bake something every week for a calendar year. This might not sound like too much of a challenge for many people, but with an increasing workload and the need to finish a PhD by the end of September, it is perhaps more challenging than it first appears. I'm also fairly new to baking in general, since I've steered clear of 'proper baking' from the time of Year 9 food technology, during which I experienced a combination of exploding minced pies and a Swiss Roll which simply refused to roll. I'm determined, therefore, to go beyond fairly easy all-in-one sponge recipes and push myself a bit further during the course of the year.

For my first baking experience of 2013, I decided to bake a pie. Now I copped out a little in that I bought the shortcrust pastry for the pie (and therefore took out some of the effort involved) but I cooked everything else and devised a recipe which I think works really well.

I used one block of ready-made shortcrust pastry and divided it into two pieces; the larger piece for the base and sides of the pie, the smaller piece for the lid. I pre-heated the oven at 180 degrees, roughly chopped up some leeks and added them to a saucepan with a little olive oil. Having browned the leeks, I added three chicken thighs, each cut into two large pieces. I fried the leeks and the chicken until brown, then added just enough milk (around a quarter of a pint) to cover the chicken and leeks. Having brought the milk to boil, I then turned the sauce down and left it to simmer for about 15 minutes, before seasoning with salt and pepper.
 
On a lightly floured surface, I then rolled out the bigger pastry block until it was the thickness of a pound coin and big enough to line the bottom and sides of my small (20cm x 10cm max) pie dish. Rolling one edge of the pastry around the rolling pin allows you to pick the pastry up without breaking it up. Lower the pastry into the dish (greased lightly with butter) and ensure that the pastry fits snugly to the bottom and sides of the dish. I then spooned the filling into the pie, and having rolled out the smaller portion of the pastry so that it was the same length and width as the pie dish (and the same, pound coin thickness), I placed this pastry portion over the top of the pie. To seal, I crimped along the edges of the dish, making sure that the 'base' of the pie was joined neatly to the lid. I placed a small hole in the very centre of the lid to allow steam to escape, and then baked the pie in the oven for 25 minutes, until the pastry was golden brown. 

I served the pie with mashed potato and green beans, but really it would go nicely with chips, potato wedges and any green veg.
 

Lemon tray bake

This week, I decided to build on the sponge tray bake recipe that I tried out a few weeks ago by adding a lemon twist. This is another Mary Berry classic (same book as the sponge tray bake, p.76) and one which looks fantastic in her book. The whole thing was very simple to make and I enjoyed it immensely. The only addition to the sponge tray bake recipe was (in my case) a squeeze of lemon juice (approx. 1 tablespoon) in the sponge mixture and then 3 tablespoons of lemon juice in the icing which tops the tray bake. You will need 175g of icing sugar, which gives a good thick consistency.

I left the cake in the oven at 180 degrees centigrade for 35 minutes, gave it about 15 minutes to cool, then spread the thick icing over the cake with a knife. I then left the cake for another 15 minutes before cutting it into around 24 small slices. My tip would be to leave this for as long as possible (as tempting as it might be to take the cakes out of the tin) as the icing was still slightly sticky around the edges when I moved the pieces from the tin, which smudged the icing somewhat. 

The icing does, though, add a lovely sweetness to the cake which the plain sponge recipe lacks. I'll hopefully experiment more with tray bakes in the future as they seem to be a brilliant way of creating lots of cake very quickly! I found that I needed two separate cake tins for this recipe, as the icing prevents the possibility of piling the cakes on top of each other.

Et voici les résultats:

Easily the two best slices!

Fun with flapjacks

For quite a while now, I've wanted to try out a flapjack recipe which I came across in Mary Berry's cookbook (the complete reference is the same as that for the sponge traybake recipe, pp.152-153). My baking grandmother (the Mary Berry of the North) has always made flapjacks and so I decided to have a go myself. How hard could they be...?

Well quite difficult actually, at least much more difficult to get right than I had thought.

The recipe went as follows:

• 225g Margarine (I used butter)
• 225g Demerara Sugar
• 275g Rolled Oats
• Two table spoons of golden syrup

I melted the butter over a low heat, then added the sugar and the golden syrup. I then threw in around 150g (less than the recipe, since at this stage the mixture looked like the right consistency- in retrospect I think I might have added up to 200g, since the flapjacks are rather chewy and sticky without the extra oats). I stirred them all together and then took the pan off the low heat. I spooned the mixture into a greased baking tray (Mary Berry recommends only lightly greasing the tray). I then put the mixture in the oven at 160 degrees centigrade for 35 minutes.

I think I may have greased it too much; in the oven the butter seemed to bubble violently away from under the mixture- although I took the tray out of the oven after the allocated time, the edges were much browner than the middle of the mixture, which still seemed quite moist. Anyway, I left the tray to cool for around 15 minutes (as specified) and then cut the mixture up into twenty five different flapjacks. The most difficult stage involved taking the flapjacks out of the tray. I would recommend leaving the whole mixture to cool for longer (say half an hour) before you try to move the flapjacks, as they become much easier to manoeuvre when cold. Some of the flapjacks actually fell apart while I was transporting them- I found that since they were still relatively warm, I could group the pieces together and reform the flapjack shapes. When left to cool, they more-or-less resembled the original flapjack square.

The mixture before it went in the oven.

So my advice to anyone attempting this recipe is to leave the mixture in the oven for the allocated time BUT do only add a tiny bit of grease to the tray and leave the whole mixture for at least half an hour before you attempt to cut out the flapjacks. I'd also suggest using a pallet knife or similar, since I found the spatula I used was too thick.

The finished product...they lost their shape a little when I tried to lift them out of the tray.

 

Winter crumble

Everyone loves a crumble, especially when the winter nights draw in and the temperature plummets. To celebrate a cold, crisp winter's day yesterday, I decided to make a good crumble. I'm a big fan of Nigel Slater, and his current TV programme, Dish of the Day. In one recipe, Slater used bananas in his crumble, which I found rather intriguing so decided to use bananas in one part of the crumble just in case they proved too sweet (they didn't, thankfully).

I have an old crumble recipe from a student cookbook I first started using nearly a decade ago, so used that for the crumble topping and adapted Nigel Slater's recipe using only 1 banana, two apples (Royal Gala, from Newark market) and some sultanas. 

The crumble topping needs:

• 200g plain flour
• 125g caster sugar
• 75g butter
• 75g rolled oats

Rub the butter into the flour using your fingers, then stir in the caster sugar and the rolled oats. Meanwhile, slice the apples (up to three) length-ways and stick them in a baking tray (around 30cm x 20cm x 10cm is ideal). Slice the banana into discs, then add around 50g of sultanas. Add a squeeze of lemon juice and 25g of caster sugar over the fruit. Then pour on the crumble topping, put in the oven for 25mins at 180 degrees centigrade and watch the topping become brown and crispy.

Some crumble-making photos:

You don't need to peel the apples, just core them and cut them into segments.

Stir in the sugar and rolled oats to the breadcrumb-like flour and butter mixture.

Cover the fruit in 25g of caster sugar and a squeeze of lemon juice. I placed the bananas in one small part of the crumble--if you're not sure of the taste then I'd recommend this tactic.

Crumble mixture covers the fruit.

And the finished product!

Sponge tray bake

This blog post has been a long time coming...I've been rather busy lately, including a trip to Paris in which I found some brilliant ways of serving couscous and boeuf bourguignon-- the former is great with fried merguez and harissa separate to the stew/couscous, and the latter is brilliant with tagliatelle/spaghetti!

So I found myself somewhat housebound the other day, recovering from a minor op, and decided to do some baking with what I had in the flat. Not a lot, but enough to make a very simple sponge tray bake. 

I've never tried baking a tray bake before, but the idea seemed (and is) simple enough. I've said previously that I dislike the chemical side to baking, and with a tray bake that more-or-less disappears. Indeed, you simply put everything into the mixing bowl at the same time and mix it all up, before spooning it into a tray.

I used a classic Mary Berry recipe (from her book Mary Berry's Ultimate Cookbook (London: BBC, 2003)), which was really simple:

• 225g butter
• 225g caster sugar
• 275g self-raising flour
• 4 eggs 
• 4 tablespoons of milk

Combine them all in a bowl, give them a good stir for about 2 minutes and then spoon them onto a greased roasting tin (Mary Berry recommends 30cm x 23cm, but mine was more like 30cmx 15cm and it fitted fine.)

Leave to cook at 180 degrees centigrade for about 35 minutes (in the fan oven it was cooked after 25). 

I found that dusting it with some icing sugar, as Mary Berry recommends, worked much better than with caster sugar--what I normally use to dust Victoria sponges.

I'd recommend only base-lining the tin with any greaseproof paper, as it can eat into the sponge otherwise (see the lemon drizzle post).

Cut into bitesize pieces- it's enough for 30 or so pieces.

Et voici les résultats:

Cut into nice bitesize chunks!

 

 

Lemon drizzle cake, lemon drizzle cake...

For my first baking post, what better cake to bake than the classic lemon drizzle cake? Using a recipe which I first found on the BBC website some time ago, very similar to this one from Fay Ripley and the Hairy Bikers, this is perhaps my favourite cake (and very easy to make.) I don't enjoy the scientific aspect to baking- the weighing of ingredients and precise oven settings- so a lemon drizzle cake is ideal because it involves very little science and a lot of artistic flavour.

 Grating the lemon is a messy job, but leaves the kitchen smelling of citrus...

I find that the cake works best when the butter has been taken out of the fridge around half an hour before baking. I also find that the drizzle can become quite heavy if it is prepared too long before the cake comes out of the oven (that's what happened to my cake today!) On a cold Autumn day, this cake gives a taste of the zestiness of summer! 

  'The lemon drizzle cake contains...no nuts'

Some tips which I think might come in handy:

• Don't overdo the greaseproof paper- if it flaps around in the fan then it can cut into the cake mixture  
• Use the whole lemon to leave a nice lemony drizzle

'Love Food, Love Lincolnshire'

I decided to embark on this blog, recording my food and drink experiences from a converted brewery building in Newark-on-Trent, in part because of my visit yesterday to the excellent Lincoln Sausage and Food Festival. The festival was a brilliant experience, not least because of the plentiful Lincolnshire sausages on offer! I tasted a Lincolnshire hot dog with onions from the Grasmere farm stand, from which I also bought some excellent Cumberland sausages and cured bacon...a real treat! 

I also met the brilliant Tom Wood, creator of the excellent Lincoln Gold real ale, which was well worth a try. Other purchases included some Lincolnshire Red, a red variety of the local Lincolnshire Poacher, created by Simon and Tim Jones, and a wonderful Southwell chutney from local producers A Little Luxury Ltd.The chutney features Southwell's finest bramley apples, mixed with spices to leave a spicy flavour.

A selection of local produce: cured unsmoked bacon from Grasmere farm, Southwell chutney from A Little Luxury Ltd. and Lincolnshire Red from the Jones brothers.

The slogan for the event was: 'Love Food, Love Lincolnshire'...indeed it is hard to think of any other county in the country, with the possible exception of my native Lancashire, that offers such brilliant variety of food and drink. The festival was a superb experience for any foodie, but the atmosphere around Lincoln's historic Cathedral and Castle was excellent. Congratulations to the organisers, Tastes of Lincolnshire Partnership, on a truly tasty event.