What to float on Squash Soup

Early this week I found myself thinking about the Onion Squash I had at home, plotting my return home to roast, puree and doctor it up into a nice soup. Well, I did, but I put too much salt in and true to my trade called it an opportunity rather than a failure. The addition of cream and water and a couple of cooked potatoes and the squash flavor re-emerged from hiding under the thick layer of salt. And it was scrumpy. But having this much soup to eat with not a lick of space in my freezer meant a lot of repetition.
I decided to take a page from a fashionable gal in NY who is doing what is called The Uniform Project, and to use the soup as a base for many other things I would make and float on top.
Day 1 was the original meal I had planned. A dear old friend, Anne, was coming to dinner and I needed something easy that I could assemble while I bounced the toddler on my knee (well, practically). So I slow roasted some pork belly slices in apple cider and then cooked up some kale and chard in the juices. Ramekin formed bed of greens, pork belly slices on top and soup as a moat. Voila! Impressive meal. And easy.
Day 2 A semi impromptu lunch with brand new expat Kelly. And it was conveniently on the day our fishmonger comes. One a tiny amount of chopping and a dirty mixing bowl later and we had crab cakes on top of the squash soup. The only repetition was the soup and only for me, so what did I care? I love seconds, even if they are 16 hours apart.
Day 3 A pre-planned lunch with neighbor Yuriko who is also a fish lover so I made Hot Smoked Salmon cakes abundant with herbs and did a little fine oil drizzle. This was by far the best presentation.

Who says a girl can't get clever with her soup? Truth be told, I'm glad I'm not having the soup again tonight or tomorrow or for a while. It's all been used up. But I'm terribly proud of my craftiness at making all three dishes. I may not be cooking for a living anymore, but I think I haven't yet lost my chops.

Mehlspeisen Küchen

Several years back I started reading a book called "The Fig Eater" which is set in Vienna in 1910 and under the guise of being a murder mystery is really just a means of sharing all sorts of facts about Vienna in Freud's era, there is some writing about psychoanalysis, much about forensics, some about culture, some about feminism (or it's precursors) and some about food. I of course focused in on the food aspects...
In the book there is a character who travels from house to house cooking, very much like today's personal chefs but with one great distinction. The mehlspeisen küche only bakes delicious sweets. She pulls sheets of pastry as thin as gossamer to fill and roll into strudels, she kneads sweet doughs to make into tiny cakes, fills layers with creams and custards and mixes batters to bake into warm, sweet and comforting cakes.
Of course, upon reading this I thought what a wonderful idea to recreate this old custom- to travel form house to house filling it with delicious nibbles and desserts, to warm the hearth and, well, let's be honest, fatten everyone up. We did live in health conscious Berkeley, CA at the time and I imagine I was a bit fed up with granola and raw food. So with only the Atkins Diet as an obstacle I set about organizing myself as a Mehlspeiser. (Pardon my Germlish). I put together brochures that listed pastry after pastry, all stamped up with my running bitters bottle logo and my fancy new mobile number and email address. I distributed these at the local fancy food stores, shops and such and I waited. I waited patiently to start a new trend- the traveling baker.
Well, the phone never rang. Oh, well, it did but it was to cook for a lovely family in Napa who I had the pleasure of spending many years with. They liked desserts, but they preferred barbecue and bread. They longed to be leaner, so a daily addition of sweets and cakes wasn't in their plans.
Which left me with the occasional dream of rolling and pulling and throwing out sheets of pastry, ready for a life as a strudel filled with fruits and drenched in glaze. The perfect friend to a piping hot cup of coffee.
But maybe I was in the wrong city? Maybe London needs some fattening up?

Cuisine Economique

These days I've been looking for ways to streamline my cooking. Between having a toddler and now a European sized fridge and pantry (one cabinet with three narrow shelves) I have to make the best use of my limited space and time. After years of cheffing in the sprawling kitchens of the rich and famous as well as some nice sized kitchens of my own, it's been a bit of a shock to the system. But I find myself doing more of what I'd call junk cooking or "cuisine economique" as a hat tip to one of my kitchen heroes, Jacques Pépin.

When I was a teenager aspiring to have an important first job- as a baker; so serious was I that I agreeably started my days at 4 am- I learned a lot about the economy of re-using foods that were still good but that everyone was less than charmed with on the 2rd or third round. I know this sounds horrible, like chicken becoming a tetrazzini in it's final incarnation but it's much more tasty and practical than that. It started with a cookie and a brownie and the cut ends of cake... we would chuck all of these things into the mixer with loads of spices and some oil and a bit of molasses, mixing in sugar and other things to correct the dough, roll it into logs the length of a sheet pan, bake and glaze. The final product was called a spice bar and it was always a hit. Joggers (it was the 80s) would come our way on their runs to get a few- for energy- always saying how healthful they were. Many asked for the recipe, which my boss would always retain with a wink- old family recipe, guarded for generations.

So now in honor of all who have taught me, I am making bread puddings from the endless bits of puddings that keep finding their way into our kitchen. I buy a chicken now not just with the intention of making a stock from the carcass after the bird has been roasted and consumed, but with the menu worked out for the next few and final days of that chicken's existence as anything resembling fowl. You see, my freezer is the size of a shoebox, I have no space to make and save endless bits, stocks, demi glaces or other delectables.

The toddler helps me stay honest in my cooking and grocery shopping because I have to always keep space on his buggy for toys, nappies, books and extra clothes in case the weather turns. So when I shop I can only bring home what will fit. Sometimes I'm amazed at what I can fit, but I no longer buy things in bulk and let them sit for years while I figure out how I will cook them.

An oversized batch of de Puy lentils became patties for the babe, a pilaf for us (with cumin seeds and cilantro) and was ground up to thicken a soup. I have always known how to cook like this, I just got lazy with my american sized fridge, freezer and a whole room dedicated to the saving and cataloguing of foods of every ethnic persuasion imaginable.

I have no pictures of these junk dishes I'm been making, part of the economy of preparing them is lacking the time for glamour shots, but I shall fit some in here soon. That or I'll just make up some recipes like this.

Bread Box Pudding
2 cups of stale breads, preferably with some fruit or nuts
1-2 cups milk
1/2 a homemade granola bar, 1/2 a bran muffin, odds and ends
a handful of dried fruit
2 eggs
tiniest pinch of salt
1 T sugar
1 T ground almonds
2 four ounce ramekins oiled with 1 T butter

Cut or tear the stale bread into 1/2" pieces and soak for 40 minutes in milk (you may need a little more than 1 cup).
Preheat oven to 200º C.
Gently squeeze the milk out of the bread and put into a second bowl. Add the granola bar/muffin/etc and lightly toss to incorporate the bits evenly. Measure out the milk and add a bit more to total 1 cup, beat in eggs, salt and sugar.
Put 1/2 of the bread mixture into each ramekin, sprinkle with 1/2 of the almond and then pour the milk/egg mixture over the top slowly letting it soak in.
Bake for 30 minutes in the middle rack.

Let cool for 10 minutes before eating, although this will be hard!

Delicious things from Abel & Cole

Among the many delectable treats we have been getting from our organic produce and grocery delivery peeps is perfection in a slice of toast- 100% rye sourdough bread from Long Crichel Bakery. They hand form the loaves after a long ferment and then fire them up in a wood oven. This with a little butter and jam in the morning and I'm set for the day.

Also among the notable box items this and every week- Eccles Cakes! I swear, these British sweet treats will be the end of me. And if they can get to me, who has never had a sweet tooth even when I was 8 and trick or treating only to give the candy away at the end of the night, they can get to anyone!

Of course, the food research is the driving force behind all of this new nibbling. How can you move to a new country and not sample the foods that are the backbone of their history. And it's not all just mobray pork pies and jellied eels, my friend. No no, there's Victoria Sponge, Puds (puddings, abbreviated in a way I can't get used to), Hot Cross Buns and the list goes on.

It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make for the sake of knowledge.

Ginger & White, a delightful addition to Hampstead's Village

While out on errands today the family and I made a discovery that may be so good it's bad.
Walking down Perrins Court in search of non-food items we saw a new beautiful brown awning poking it's head out, sheltering a few trim tables and their occupants. The rain threatened to drizzle down, but no one seemed deterred. We quickly walked over to see what new cafe had sprung up overnight in our tiny berg.
Already from the outside you could see the people behind Ginger & White have excellent taste as evidenced by their teapots and china- hybrids of Heath heft and Victorian flare. Peeking inside there was a lovely cozy room at the entrance where coffee and tea were being prepared, sweet toothsome snacks were out out on display and things were bustling. To the right and nestled in was another room with beautiful modest furnishing that had obviously been painstakingly chosen to represent comfort, design and cafe style. All that and still the room felt uniquely cozy.
So even as we had satisfied bellies from our full English only a few hours prior, we thought it best to sample a little of what G&W had to offer. We had some lovely carrot cake made by a local and fresh brownies, the babe had a flapjack that I later noticed came wrapped in cellophane but was fresh and delicious as if it had been made on site. My husband had a flat white to drink and I had a perfectly prepared Silver Needle White tea. The coffee was apparently good enough to win allegiance as the new morning commute coffee even at a slightly higher price than the current choice of Gail's. High praise.
The sweets were just as I like them- full of flavor and then sugary only at the end. I was happily surprised by a very slight saltiness of the carrot cake, which stood out nicely against the flowery undertones of my white tea.
We had a lovely chat with Emma, one of the co-owners, who in spite of the crazy schedule she must have of late (opening the new cafe with her husband and a 3rd business partner AND being mommy to a 9 month old!) was charming, poised and friendly. She and her business partners have some great ideas of what Hampstead needs in a cafe- along with normal weekday hours, they are currently offering brunch from 8:30 into noon on weekends; of course they make a mean cuppa and they also seem to know how to make some great nibbles and how to source the rest. I hope that people discover their cafe and love it as we did, and from the looks of it, they already have. But as I said at the start, it may be a bad thing we found them so soon (they only opened 6 days ago!), just on the heels of a new ice cream shop opening on Flask Walk- my waistline may have regrets!

A first stab at Ddukbokkie and other things

I discovered two great Asian markets by the Finchley Road tube stop (ergo, near our flat) which I have now visited twice in as many days. When you are a white gal with a huge buggy and extroverted baby, they remember you; so I'm sure that the next time I go in they will greet us even more heartily. One is called Natural Natural and the other is creatively named SK Mart.
Now onto the food part of things. I was inspired to cook up some new Korean dishes. It's nice to experiment on "ethnic" dishes when your audience is not ethnic, so I didn't do any of this cooking for our son's Korean nanny or our dear friend Myong while we still lived in Seattle, nor have I tried making any bebimbap or the like for the bi-coastal Kwons. I can safely experiment and get my chops on the non Asians and then open myself for criticism later.
Here's what I made, assisted by a great website with recipes and video!
Yachaejeon- Omelette with prawn and sprouted beans (all kinds, adzuki, garbos, mungs... not totally authentic, but tasty)
Ddukbokkie- Rice Cake with hot pepper paste and scallion. A spicy soup which gets the song "Chewbacca! What a wookie!" stuck in my head...
Bolgogi- broiled skirt steak with sesame and kimchee sides
and then some not Korean things:
Tofu and Seaweed Salad
Roasted Butternut Squash with miso, lime and sesame dressing
Braised Eggplant with soy sauce, ginger and rice vinegar
Sunomono

I made one huge blunder when I shopped. I don't speak Japanese or Korean. Don't read them either, but I went to the sake area (or so I thought) found two bottles that looked good (how I assess good when something is covered in a language I don't read is purely aesthetic. I am a former book designer, so I gravitate toward nice typesetting) and bought those and later some beer. While setting the table, down went a bottles of beer and bottles of "sake". We opened up the sake, poured and out came some very very brown liquid. Soy Sauce! Serves me right. When in doubt, ask.
So I guess now I will be making lots of soy sauce based dishes. Perhaps it will be an asian summer...

Jellied Eels, Pickled Wild Shallots, picnicking to the sounds of brass bands and BISCOTTI

There's a dearth of pictures on this post. And to be honest, I'm writing it out of guilt. Unabashed, full tilt guilt. Haven't posted in over 7 weeks. And it's not like I haven't been eating.

I finally tried jellied eels. And to put it mildly, I love them. Gross to some, mildly interesting to others and an obsession to a small niche group in London's East End, I was really amazed at how "like nothing else" they tasted. People compare to pickled herring but I would wholeheartedly disagree. No jellied eels taste like, well, jellied eels. Lovely with some toast heavily buttered with french butter, or english jersey butter.

There's a man at the Swiss Cottage Farmer's Market who hawks all things brined, pickled and salted from the middle eastern food lexicon. Every time I pass him he spikes these three things onto a toothpick: 1) his own pickled wild shallots 2) his own oven dried tomatoes in oil with wild oregano 3) his own young smooth cream cheese consistency feta. No barrel aging here, soft, smooth and mild as can be. I always yield. I always buy some and pore over it with rye crackers until my tummy can stand no more pickle.

We joined some friends this bank holiday weekend for a picnic in the Heath just by the Golders' Hill Bandstand where a brass band set up. We sipped gorgeous champagne, lovely chardonnay and some thick, chewy bordeaux while they played through the Disney song book. Nothing could sully our fun as we gorged our way though some lovely, lovely cheeses (my favorite was Stichelton, a very old, authentic recipe for Stilton that uses unpasteurized milk to gorgeous results) and smoked fishies and other delicious goodies like semolina cake.

And this brings me all the way back around to posting a recipe.
I made the biscotti I've been making for over a decade now, almost 2 decades (wow, that makes me feel OLD). And I decided for all the times I've typed it out, I should just post it here...
So here it is:
The best damned biscotti

2 cups sugar
1 cup melted sweet cream butter
1/4 cup pastis or anisette
3 T bourbon or brandy
2 T each: fennel seeds, anise seeds
6 large eggs
2 cups pistachios (filberts or almonds are nice, too)
Combine in large mixing bowl, then add in three batches:
5 1/2 cups unbleached white flour with 1 T baking powder

ASSEMBLY: 1 egg plus 1/4 water for egg wash

Transfer dough to another bowl lined with Saran wrap, cover and let chill at least 3 hours. I usually make the dough the night before, otherwise the baking goes late into the night.

Remove dough from bowl and divide into 6-8 pieces. Roll each piece out on a lightly dusted board into a log 2" in diameter. On an ungreased baking sheet, place two logs lengthwise several inches apart. Press the tops down just a bit and brush with a little egg wash. If you haven't enough sheet pans to assemble and bake all dough at once, return the unused dough to the fridge, as it works best chilled.

Bake for 20 minutes at 375. If baking more than one sheet pan at a time, place them in the top and bottom thirds of the oven and switch after the first 10 minutes. Do not let the logs bake beyond a pale golden brown. Remove from oven and cool (baked logs can be carefully removed from sheet pan and transferred to cooling rack if the pans are needed for the rest of the dough). Reduce temperature to 275. Cut each log at a 45 degree angle into cookies. Lay them flat on sheet pans. Bake again for 30 minutes, turn over and bake 25-30 minutes again. For a much drier cookie, leave sheet pans in oven overnight with the pilot light on.

This recipe yields 6-7 dozen cookies.
Enjoy!

I really should add some pics. I may do that soon...
Dine in, eat out, have fun.