Valentines Day might be one of the few occasions that I push myself to make a 3 course meal. If I was cooking I would want it to be simple, sexy and relatively stress free, so would look to have a starter like a cauliflower soup with scallops, and these poached apples for desert. Both the soup and the poached apples can be prepared in advance, leaving me to concentrate on the main course.

This year I’m going to spend Valentines night at the United Arts Club at a Speaking Suppers evening – the thoughts of which fills me with more trepidation and fear than tackling a monstrously technical recipe. Saying that – it does look a lot of fun and a good friendly crowd.  The theme of the evening is love, and if I decide to speak, I’ll need all the love in the room with me. Think I might end up talking about food….

Poached Apple in syrup with Vanilla Bean Yoghurt

Peel and core 2 apples (you can leave the stalk on for decoration).

In a saucepan combine 250ml of red wine, 100g of sugar, 50ml of fresh orange juice, 2 long strips each of orange and lemon peel (no white pith), cinnamon stick, a whole star anise. Bring to the boil until the sugar dissolves.

Add the apples and reduce the heat to a simmer. Rotate the apples and cook until they’re tender and deep red in colour (30-40mins).

Remove the apples and strain the cooking liquid removing the aromatics and peel. Add back to the pan bring the remaining cooking liquid to the boil, reduce down to a syrup (10-15mins).

Meanwhile mix 250ml of thick Greek yoghurt with a tablespoon of honey.

Split a vanilla bean lengthwise and scrape out the seeds and add to the yoghurt. Add a little yoghurt to the plate, put on the apple and pour over the syrup.

I was lucky enough to spend a week in New York last year. During the day I was left to my own devices so took to the streets to eat my way across Manhattan. On a strict budget I targeted brunches and prix fixe lunches. I had drawn up a hit list of places I wanted to visit including Shopsins, somewhere I had to visit after reading his book Eat Me. A tiny 20 seat restaurant, and home of the legendary 900 item menu. I knew for sure what I wanted to eat, the sliders and ebelskivers. Ebelskivers are little doughnut sized pancake dumplings. Light, buttery, stuffed with apple sauce, coated with cinnamon sugar and served with whipped cream. Soft, gooey, warm and sugary. I wanted to know how to make them so I could never forget them. You do need a piece of specialist equipment, an ebleskiver pan. At the time these weren’t available on Amazon UK, so I ordered one from the American site and brought it home in my luggage.

They’re really simple to make, just pour the batter into the pan, drop in the stuffing, and a little more batter, and turn them using a chopstick. They cook quickly and are perfect for a lazy Saturday morning. All you need is a large mug of coffee and the newspaper.

Ingredients

For the batter:

• 100g all purpose flour
• 1 1/2 tsp. sugar
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 2 large eggs, separated
• 250ml of full fat milk
• 2 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
• 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

For the filling:

• 500g butter
• 3 tbsp. sugar
• 1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
• Pinch of salt
• 3 apples, peeled, cored, and diced into small cubes

For finishing:

• Powdered sugar
• Ground Cinnamon

Instructions

To make the batter:

1. Mix together the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl.
2. Crack the eggs and separate the yolks and whites. Lightly whisk the egg yolks and whisk in the milk, melted butter and vanilla extract.
3. Stir together the mixed yolks and butter with the flour, combining with a wooden spoon.
4. Beat the egg whites until stiff with firm peaks.
5. Fold in the egg whites with the batter.

To make the filling:

1. Melt the butter in a saucepan
2. Add the apples
3. Add the sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt.
4. Stir to cook and dissolve the sugar, reduce the heat to medium.
5. Cut out some parchment paper and cover.
6. Cook the apples until tender; about 10 minutes. Set aside.

To assemble the ebelskivers:

1. Heat ebelskiver pan over a medium heat.
2. Drop a 1/2 tsp of butter into each well.
3. When the butter starts to bubble, add about 1 tbsp. of batter
4. Working quickly and add 1 tsp. of the apple filling into the center of each pancake.
5. Top each with another 1 tbsp. of batter.
6. Cook until the bottoms of the pancakes are lightly browned and crisp
7. Use 2 chopsticks to turn all the pancakes and cook until lightly brown on the second side, about 3 minutes longer.
8. Prior to serving, dust the ebelskivers with sugar and cinnamon and serve right away

It’s a lot of work… said the butcher as he handed me the pigs head. I smiled, shrugged and took the plastic bag. I needed a weekend project to beat the January blues, and this seemed ideal. The plan was (1) Friday night – clean and brine the head for 24 hours (2) Saturday – boil it, strip the skull down and leave to set (3) Sunday – eat like a pig…

Lets be honest here, it’s intimidating. Sitting there on the kitchen counter, seeping a little blood. I pulled on the kitchen gloves and started to shave the head, little piggy black bristles falling away. Got an old toothbrush and brushed out the ears, snout and teeth. Shudder.  The practicality of it all just about overcoming the oddness. The head, once cleaned, was put in a large plastic bucket, covered with a salty brine and left to soak overnight.

Saturday lunchtime, after rinsing off the brine, I put the pig into a large stockpot filled with water and some cloves, star anise, and peppercorns. For the next 6 hours, the pot was kept at barely a simmer. Impurities floated to the top and were skimmed off. The brains liquefied into the stock along with all the bone headed goodness which when reduced would be the jelly to hold the terrine together.

After about 6 or 7 hours, the head was removed and the stock brought to rolling boil to reduce down.

Back on with the rubber kitchen gloves to strip the meat from the head, which was no trouble, as the meat easily fell away from the bone. You can pretty much figure out what’s edible and what’s not as you go along.  When the meat was stripped I mixed in a bunch of roughly shredded parsley leaves and spooned the head meat into a cling film lined dish. Poured over the gelatinous reduced stock which when cooled would set the terrine, and put it in the fridge overnight.

…and on the 3rd day, the terrine was set. I ate this over the course of about 4 or 5 days. Slices served at room temperature – to smush into toasted sourdough bread for breakfast. Thick slices cut and served with fried egg, roasted chicory and a pickle water vinaigrette for lunch. I even boiled a slice in a pint of water until it fell apart and became the stock base for a ramen noodle dish.

My personal favourite was when nuggets were carved out of the terrine, floured, egged, crumbed and shallow fried until crisp. The heat from the frying melts the terrine a little. So when you bite into it, the hot slightly liquid jelly and head meat bursts in your mouth. These were simply served with quick pickled red cabbage and steamed kale leaves.

Can’t really say I scored myself some ‘man points’ for tackling a pigs head because the abiding memory is of me mincing around the kitchen in bright yellow marigold gloves trying not to be squeamish while putting on a <brave face>. Job done.  The butcher was right though, it was a lot of work, but strangely satisfying…. and very tasty.

The deep wintery colours of this seasonal salad are amazing, serve this as a side dish or with a veggie soup. Let food be thy medicine and this is about as healthy as can be. The veg is all raw, but cut and sliced so finely that it is light, crisp, textural and not heavy going. A mandolin is a useful kitchen tool and never more helpful when it comes to finely slicing with minimum effort.

Finely cut 1/4 of a red cabbage into paper thin slices.
Peel and chop a fresh beetroot into matchstick sized pieces and add to a large bowl with the red cabbage.
Remove the seeds from a fresh pomegranate (by cutting in half and smacking the skin with a wooden spoon until they all fall out).
Take 1/2 a cup of pumpkin seeds and dry fry on a frying pan, until the pumpkin seeds are lightly toasted and add to the bowl. Finely slice some spinach leaves and mix in to the bowl.
Dress the salad with an apple cider vinaigrette (5 tablespoons of olive oil to 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar – whisked or shook together).

I was very kindly asked by Kerrygold (link) to consider a quick buttery Christmas recipe. So it got me thinking about Christmas dinner in our house, and that fact that there is always a bit of a battle between the adventurists and the traditionalists. There are those that want to celebrate Christmas dinner by leaving the menu unchanged. Every element sacrosanct, the same menu as last year, and all the years before that. Then there’s me, a lone voice, bored of the traditional turkey and ham, suggesting duck as opposed to turkey, or maybe a smooth celeriac puree instead of gloopy bread sauce….

Christmas starters need to be simple, easy to prepare in advance, not too heavy and still retain a feeling of luxury. That’s why the prawn cocktail is so popular, its not so much cooked as it is assembled (or thrown together) in Martini glasses, or heaped on a plate . The mixture of lettuce, prawns and Marie Rose sauce can be tinkered with (I add finely chopped smoked salmon and a splash of cognac to the sauce) but when well made, with good quality juicy prawns it is a tasty, but traditional way to start a Christmas lunch.

The crab hollandaise cocktail has a gentle nod to the retro stylings of the traditional prawn cocktail – but is wonderfully light and refreshing. The crab salad is made using crisp finely diced apple, mixed with creamy avocado and asparagus. Generously doused in a luxurious lemony buttery hollandaise that is so simple to make.

The recipe (serves 4)

Shred some baby spinach leaves and pile them into a couple of chilled glasses. Peel and finely dice a green apple (keep the dice no thicker than a matchstick) and put in a bowl with the juice of half a lemon to stop the apple turning brown. Mix in 200g of fresh crab meat, and a peeled and diced avocado. Chop about 10 asparagus stalks and tips into rounds, and cook in a saucepan with a little water for about 4 minutes. Drain and add to the bowl with the crab. Toss with a squirt of lemon juice and a pinch of paprika.

The sauce

The rich yellow hollandaise sauce has a reputation for being tricky, but once you follow these simple steps you will be making this sauce at every opportunity. No need to wait until Christmas… get your saucing skills up to speed by practising over brunch with eggs Benedict.

Hollandaise is simply a hot egg and butter sauce and doesn’t deserve the fearsome reputation as notorious curdler. The trick to keeping the sauce silky smooth is that the heat should never be too hot. I have made this lots of ways (with a bain marie or a blender) but the following method is the simplest and the tidiest.

Take 3 large free range egg yolks and put in a cold saucepan (off the heat). Add to the yolks – five tablespoons of water, the juice of a half a lemon, a pinch of salt and half a teaspoon of cayenne pepper. Whisk these ingredients together well (still off the heat) until the yolks lighten in colour. Take a 250g pack of cold butter out from the fridge and cut into large cubes (about finger width). Put the pan on a low heat and add 4 or 5 cubes of butter and whisk in the butter as it gently melts. The sauce will start to thicken and as the last set of the butter cubes is emulsified into the sauce add some more butter cubes and keep whisking. The cold butter cubes added to warmed sauce over a low heat all help prevent the sauce from curdling.

If your sauce looks like it is about to separate, quickly remove it from the heat and dunk the base of the saucepan into a little water and whisk very hard, and the sauce will come back together.  Keep adding the cubes little by little and whisking until all the butter is used. You can keep the sauce somewhere warm for a couple of hours. Just before serving, loosen it by whisking in a drop of water.

If you would like a lighter sauce, reduce the quantity of the yolks, butter and lemon by a half and mix the made hollandaise with an equal amount of fromage frais.

Add the crab salad to the spinach leaves in the glass and pour over the hollandaise…

It’s difficult to know what to do with turnip, for years I never did more than chop it, boil it and mash it. This is turnip with a twist, pan fried cubes of turnip, with wilted spring onions on a bed of raw shredded kale leaves (or spinach if you prefer), served with toasted ginger and honey rye bread crumbs which both compliment the earthy turnip and adds a sweetness.

Peel and cut the turnip into discs about a finger width deep, then cut the discs lengthways into batons, and then cut across the batons to make turnip dice. In a heated frying pan melt a little butter and cook the turnip dice for about 5 minutes, allowing them to take on a little colour. Take off the heat and let cool.

Pumpernickel bread is a very heavy, slightly sweet rye bread, also known as rye bread or black bread and not surprisingly given its Germanic origins you can easily find it in your local Aldi or Lidl. Grate two slices of bread or use a blender to make rye bread crumbs. To the breadcrumbs add teaspoon of freshly grated ginger and a teaspoon of honey. Pour the crumbs onto a clean baking tray and pop in the oven on a medium heat (180 degrees) for 5 minutes until the crumbs are toasted. Keep an eye on them and remove from the oven when crisp and not burnt.

For the spring onions, cut them lengthways into long strips and cook in a frying pan until wilted.  Kale leaves have a strong stalk running through the middle of each leaf. Cut this out with a knife and roll the remaining leaf into  a cigar shape and cut across it to finely shred the kale. Add all the components together and serve warm with some seasoning to taste. This dish has the colour of autumn and a deep satisfying robustness, serve with some grilled pork chops or chicken breasts.

My local Tesco is awful. Video game designers looking  for a post-apocalyptic set to have mindless zombies roam around some poorly stocked shelves could model my local Tesco’s in a heartbeat. Despite its awfulness, they do have fantastic wine promotions that keep me coming back.

Sucker for a bargain bottle of booze, I popped in on Friday and saw lamb belly for sale. Pre-packed, rolled lamb belly. Now I’ve cooked pork belly before, but had never seen lamb belly. Unsurprisingly for a ‘forgotten cut’, it was priced very cheaply, and I couldn’t resist picking some up. Think I paid about €4.65 for the rolled belly, enough to feed 3 people.

Lamb belly is basically a thin sheet of meat, with a layer of fat, that when rolled up the joint has fat rolled outside and through it. So like most cheaper cuts of meat, this was definitely a candidate for slow cooking.  My thoughts were to cook it on a low heat  (about 120 degrees) for 4 hours and then blast it at a high heat (220 degrees) for about 45 mins to crisp up the outside. So into an oven tray, I chopped 3 large onions (red and white onions) into large segments, and coated in some olive oil. On top of the onions I put the lamb belly, which I had rubbed with za’atar (a middle eastern spice rub with sesame seeds, sumac, oregano and thyme). I turned the lamb and tossed the onions every hour. If it looks like the onions are drying out too much add a little white wine, or some water. After about 4 hours, drain all the meat juices to make the gravy and turn up the heat.

Normally I’d pan fry kale, or lightly steam it. Today while I was making the gravy, before it thickened,  I thought to try and braise the kale in the gravy. Separating the stalks from the kale leaves, I seared them on a dry pan, then adding some gravy to the pan, and cooked them in the gravy until the stalks are softened. When softened I added the shredded kale leaf and a little more gravy until the kale had wilted.

Gravy fried kale sounds as good as it tastes…. .

I served the lamb belly on the gravy fried kale, with the slow roasted onions. On the side, some mashed potatoes, though was tempted to add a tin of chickpeas to the kale and heat through instead of the spuds… maybe next time.

Also, don’t forget the mint sauce… lots of mint sauce.

Indulge me, as I indulge myself. I have posted about my infatuation with Feta Salsa Verde here, here, and here.

Ah what a beautiful thing the feta salsa verde is, I could eat a stick of french bread and a jar of it. You can make the salsa verde in advance and it will keep in the fridge, but the vibrant green of the herbs dulls somewhat in storage. The photo is of fridge stored salsa verde, still tastes amazing though….

Can’t think a better dinner at this time of the year, flash fried lamb steaks, properly rested, served with a green salad of leaves from the garden.

22 crepe pancakes layered with a lemon curd mousse, topped with a final pancake with a sucre brûlée finish and bluberries.

I don’t enjoy baking, but once a month I am obliged to contribute to a bake-off in work. I don’t know what it is about baking that turns me off. Perhaps it’s the precison required and the strictness of the recipes. I know I have issues with being told what to do and this somehow morphs into difficulties with following recipes. I get anxious and find it stressful – take the simple instruction “whip into stiff peaks” - this can send me into a spiral of self-doubt – What do they mean? How stiff is stiff?  Is this good enough?

Anyway I am always looking for something a bit different to do – and hit google up and came across this recipe from the amazing EatBoutique site. Christine is a much better writer than me, so I won’t dare to regurgitate her recipe here, click through to her site for the steps. Amazingly simple to make. The inspiration for the addition of the brûlée top came from SmittenKitten blog here. I didn’t have a blowtorch, so I improvised and heavily sprinkled a cooked pancake with icing sugar and stuck it under the grill. This was topped with blueberries and some more icing sugar.

When I make this again (and I will make this again) I think I might make and add more layers of the brûlée pancakes throughout the cake, just to give it a bit more texture and bite, and hopefully a bit more structure to the cake.

As you can see from the photos it is a gooey, oozing delight and tastes as good as it looks.