From fiction to Focaccia

Despite a range of tasty dishes that I have cooked, and had cooked for me, this week I have been somewhat un-inspired. Recipe highlights include an attempt at my Mum's fish pie, which turned out ok but I felt was still a poor imitation, and Andrew's impressive-sounding Duck in Port and Berry Sauce, a good but not astounding recipe found in Good Housekeeping. The lowlight, I'm ashamed to say, would be the loaf of reduced-to-clear cheap white bread that I demolished over the course of just a few days.

By Saturday I was thoroughly foodie-dejected and took myself out to the shops to find some comfort in buying clothes for my fast-approaching South Africa trip. A few hours of retail therapy soon had me back on my game and I decided to treat myself to lunch at an independent cafe on Belmont Street called Kilau http://www.kilaucoffee.wordpress.com/ I have been quite cynical of this place in the past - accusing their staff of spending more time on their hairstyles than on the coffee. I'm glad I settled on here for my late Saturday lunch, though, as they do a very fine Chorizo and Goats Cheese Salad to which I was allowed to add a side of bread for no extra charge. I take back everything negative I've ever said, Kilau is a good-food place and not just a 'cool-dude' place.

All this is an aside, though, to my main point that this week my real foodie delights have been literary ones. Prior to lunch at Kilau I popped into the Oxfam shop to, as Carrie Bradshaw said, acquire some 'dining-alone armour' in the form of a 2nd hand book. I chose a novel sweetly titled 'Recipes for Cherubs' by Babs Horton. Ten minutes later, happily snuggled in one of Kilau's giant armchairs, I discovered that this choice was the panacea to all my food-woes. A literary great it is not, but it is a fine tale inter-weaving stories of love and food between a small, hilltop village in eighteenth century Italy and a 1960s delapidated, rural Welsh hotel.

Italy. Food. Love. Three themes that, when combined, have inspired a veritable genre of their own in fiction and travel writing, and for good reason. I bet I'm not the only one who has read and re-read Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love but couldn't care less what she gets up to in India or Indonesia. I'm only interested in her adventures in Italy with cream-puff eating football fans, perfect pizza in Naples and the strength of her belief that food cures all ills. In an equally compelling fictional tale Anthony Capella's The Food of Love has been making my stomach rumble since Yasmin gave me it for Christmas a few years back. Here the lead character helps his best friend woo an American girl by cooking the most exquisite dishes. Capella describes these in such detail that it is almost unfair on a greedy reader like me.

Yet, despite all this, I have never been to Italy. Shame on me - what have I been thinking? Until I get round to righting this wrong, Italy will just have to come to me and Recipes for Cherubs had me excited about one recipe in particular: Focaccia. This Italian bread-wonder was exactly the sort of food I had been craving all week. Simple and comforting, a recipe that would fill me up but also fill the house with that happy, homely fragrance in the manner that only bread (and the best of coffees...) can. True, focaccia may not have your lover in raptures like some of the recipes in The Food of Love but it does have some romantic connatations. I read somewhere once, I think it was Fred Plotkin's Recipes from Paradise, that fish-wives would eat large portions of onion focaccia before their husbands and partners went off to sea. They would plant giant, oniony kisses on their lovers to ensure their fidelity in the next port - after all, who wants to kiss onion breath? I think that is a great love story.

Here is my recipe for your own focaccia, adapted from Tessa Kiros' Apples for Jam. I have added rosemary sprigs and rock-salt to reflect the description in Recipes for Cherubs. Do not worry if your dough seems far too sticky or elastic. Just use flour on your finger-tips to add the dimples and have faith. Enjoy this in any fashion that you see fit. I adulterated mine with very cheap, orange cheddar and the last of my christmas chutney and, you know what, it made me very happy.

FOCACCIA

435ml warm water

20g fresh yeast, or 10g (around a heaped teaspoon) active dry yeast.

1 teaspoon honey

1 tablespoon olive oil

600g plain flour

1 and a half teaspoons salt

For the topping:

125ml hot water

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 teaspoon salt (table)

a generous sprinkle, rock salt

fresh rosemary sprigs

Place the water, yeast, honey, olive oil and around 100g of the plain flour into a large bowl. Mix this up until very smooth, preferably with electric mixers, although I used a balloon whisk. Set aside, covered in a tea-towel for 20-30 minutes until it looks foamy and frothy on top. Mix in the rest of the flour with the salt. Tessa suggests this should be mixed with a dough-hook. Failing that, I simply mixed well with my hands. A very messy job with this elasticated dough. Cover the bowl with a couple of cloths and leave in a warm place for about an hour and a half, or until it has puffed up.

Lightly oil a baking tray and empty your dough on to this. Spread the dough out gently, it will be more like stretching it to fill the space as it will be very soft. Make sure it does not break anywhere. Put this baking tray somewhere warm for a further 45 minutes, covering it again with a cloth - this may require a few well-placed glasses and the construction of a tea-towel tent so as not to stick your cloth to the dough!

Towards the end of this 45 minutes, heat your oven to the highest temperature and prepare the topping. I had my oven up at 250 degrees C. In a small-bowl mix the warm water, oil and table salt until the salt is dissolved. When your dough is ready, use your finger-tips to make the distinctive focaccia dimples across the surface of the dough. Then brush on your water/oil mixture. There is no need to use all of it, simply get a good covering. Then sprinkle over your rock salt and place a few sprigs or rosemary in each dimple. Your focaccia is ready to bake for 20-30 minutes or until it is golden, crusty and sounds hollow when tapped. Eat this warm, cold, re-heated, anyway you like but make sure you have a smile on your face.

One last word...

Before I say Arrivederci, if you are looking for a simply sumptious Italian cookbook you could do a lot worse than Mary Contini's Valvona and Crolla: A Year at an Italian Table. Although sadly lacking in a focaccia recipe, this book is a great addition to any groaning cookery bookshelf - full of stories about the Edinburgh based Italian deli of the same name. It is coming to bed with me tonight and will be the only Italian I'll ever sleep with if Andrew has his way. For more information check out http://www.valvonacrolla.co.uk/

Herb-crusted Rack of Lamb

There is something very special about Sundays. Sometimes I forget this as my lifestyle doesn't really separate weekends from weekdays in the way a normal 9-5 working life does. Today I had that real Sunday feeling though. I was slightly hungover this morning, after the pizza express outing and the subsequent jagaer-bombs and dancing. This meant a very lazy start to the day for me. Andrew, on the other hand, was straight into the kitchen to start preparing us a Sunday lunch of Herb-crusted Rack of Lamb and roast veg, a recipe he took from the Good Housekeeping Cookery Book. I am a very lucky girl! This superb lunch was followed by a long Sunday walk with Julia - down the beach, along the river and through Seaton park. My evening has been spent on the sofa with a cup of tea and James Bond in the World is Not Enough. Now that is a proper Sunday! Book-mark this recipe for next Sunday and create your own perfect day - James Bond is entirely optional.

Ingredients:

French trimmed RACK OF LAMB, 8 cutlets
1.5 TABLESPOONS GRAINY MUSTARD
BREADCRUMBS - from one slice of bread
teaspoon chopped ROSEMARY
tablespoon chopped SAGE
3 tablespoons OLIVE OIL

1. Season the lamb with salt and pepper and spread the mustard over the meaty side.
2. Put the breadcrumbs in a bowl, add the chopped herbs, seasoning and 3 tablespoons of olive oil; mix well.
3. Press this breadcrumb mixture onto the lamb, the mustard will act as a glue.
4. This rack will need around 40 minutes in the oven at 220 degrees for rare, and around 50 for medium-rare. When it is done, remove from the oven and leave to rest, covered with foil, for ten minutes.

Serve this up with your favourite roast veg - for me it has to be roast potatoes, parsnips and carrots. I am reluctant to say that this recipe is easy because I didn't make it and I don't want to offend my boy, but it hardly looks hard does it? This recipe is enough to make two people feel very full so stuff yourself silly and then put your feet up. After-all, it's Sunday and you deserve it.

Little Pigger in Magic Knickers

A few years ago, while sitting down, I ripped the seam of my favourite jeans. I had to walk home with a jumper tied round my waist so as not to expose my bottom to the world. When I told my friend Sandra she laughed and said 'well, Bronia, it is true what they say: little piggers really do need bigger knickers!' I was reminded of this today as I squeezed myself into my skinny jeans and headed into town to meet Becca for coffee. I have been a little pigger this weekend and it is set to continue tonight.

Last night's pig out of choice was at The Foyer restaurant http://www.foyerrestaurant.com/. This is a charity run venture in Aberdeen and they have one restaurant on Crown Street and another inside His Majesty's Theatre. The menu is seasonal and changes often, although the choice can be quite limited. After some rather amusing mis-ordering (where both my main and the wine we had chosen were sold out) I landed with the goats cheese on a golden beetroot salad to start -salty and creamy, with a tang from the pickled golden beetroot - and the special of venison as a main. The venison itself was tender and juicy, but my favourite part of the dish was the pureed turnip, which was surprisingly smooth and sweet. I tend only to roughly mash turnip - as in chappit neeps and carrots - but I think I might give puree-ing a go instead.

However, dessert was the real event for me last night as I plumped (pun absolutely intended) for the Sticky Toffee Pudding with Gingerbread Ice-cream. I would argue that the pudding itself was average but, wow, gingerbread ice-cream! I need to get me a recipe for that. It was all kinds of awesome. As, in fact, was Andrew's dessert of chocolate tart that was sticky in the middle and crispy on top. See what I mean about me being a little pigger though?! And I neglected to tell you about the popcorn I ate at the cinema before this somewhat excessive dinner.

And...it is only set to continue tonight. Oliver's brother is having a 25th birthday thing at pizza express and I'm all signed-up to stuff my face. I'm at a point of in-decision though - should I go sexy and wear skinny jeans (with the increasingly necessary magic pants underneath)? Or, accept that I'm a pig and wear a tunic dress to allow for maximum pizza-stomach expansion? Ok, don't answer that....

Spicy Squash Soup with a twist...

Wednesday nights are the equivalent of Sunday nights for Andrew. Last night he roasted a Guinea Fowl with a lemon, bay, and thyme marinade. I was happily ensconced on the sofa watching the TV so I'm rather sketchy on the details! He served it up with roasted sweet potatos and parsnips. Andrew is a real star when it comes to roast vegetables. His roast potatoes are, without a doubt, the best roast potatoes in the world. The real star of last night's meal, though, was the gravy. This he made in the roasting tin while the Guinea Fowl rested. By this point, the most amazing aroma had wafted through the house and I was up off the sofa and through into the kitchen, my nose twitching like a cartoon character. I proceeded to make myself a real nuisance until he let me stir the gravy. It was perfect: gamey and savoury from the bird and the thyme, sharp from the lemon and sweet from a tablespoon of redcurrant jelly.

After the meal, when Andrew had stripped the carcass, I had a thought. Why waste it? So, I threw the carcass and the left over marinade spices into a pot with an onion, a carrot and a kettle full of water. This boiled away merrily while we watched Batman Begins and, happily, two hours later I had a pan of Guinea Fowl stock. This forethought proved to be a winner today. I met Katie for a cup of tea across town this afternoon and by the time I had trudged back home it was 8pm and I was cold and hungry and there was only one thing to do....Soup! The fridge yielded a small Butternut Squash and a carrot so I threw together this, a variation on my favourite soup:

Spicy Butternut Squash Soup:

1 BUTTERNUT SQUASH

1 CARROT

1 ONION

2 CLOVES GARLIC

2 TEASPOONS CORIANDER

2 TEASPOONS CUMIN

1 TEASPOON DRIED CHILLI FLAKES

1 TEASPOON CINNAMON

2 TABLESPOONS OLIVE OIL

GUINEA FOWL STOCK (although I actually prefer CHICKEN or VEGETABLE...)

WATER (as an after-thought)

WHITE WINE (as an even further after-thought)

I began by quartering the squash and scooping out the seeds (keep these to toast in hot oil and paprika and add to your soup at the end). Don't bother taking the skin off the squash - more trouble than it is worth! I also cut up the carrot, quite small. I pulled out my pestle and mortar and used this to mix the spices and then bash up the garlic cloves. This will create a crumbly paste. I decanted this into a bowl and added a tablespoon of olive oil. My squash and carrot were then tossed in this paste, seasoned, and loaded onto a roasting tin.

I put this into the oven at 200 degrees for around 40 minutes until they began to caramalise. Meanwhile, I finely chopped the onion and let it slowly sweat in the remaining tablespoon of olive oil. To this onion I added the Guinea Fowl stock and brought it to the boil. I was beginning to worry about the stock - would it be too over-powering? When my squash and carrot were done I cut them up smaller (still retaining the squash skins - although removing them now would be much easier so do so if you must) and threw them in the pot. This was left for around ten minutes to simmer. A quick blast with a hand-held-processor-thingy-ma-boab (I call it the 'ZZiZZer', as in: "Andrew, Andrew where is the ZzizZzer?") and the soup was done.

When I make this soup with chicken or vegetable stock I would always be happy to stop at this point - tasting for seasoning, of course. A quick taste of this, though, revealed that Guinea Fowl stock is seriously strong. I upped the water content, re-tasted...but it still wasn't quite there. I had a quick root in the fridge for inspiration which came in the form of white wine - leftover from the night before. A dash of this and I was happy - a deep, strong, spicy soup with a gamey after-taste that was as warm and filling as I had hoped. I ladled myself up a bowl, decorated with my toasted seeds and some coriander and ate a large bowl with some cheap supermarket-bought white bread and a glass of the self-same white wine. There is plenty left-over for Andrew when he gets home at midnight and even for lunch tomorrow. I wonder if it will get even stronger? Although it is unique, I think I prefer this recipe with chicken stock, guinea fowl stock is not for the faint hearted.

Exposed: the Pasta Sauce that is truly easy!

I found a folder under my desk yesterday that was labelled ‘Methodology Chapter’. In it are pages of neatly typed notes, photo-copies and journal articles; work that I did two years ago and then forgot all about. I decided to reward myself for being so organised and ahead of the game and took Andrew out for lunch at the Sand Dollar. Andrew read in the Evening Express this week that the cafes and restaurants at the beach have been suffering. Bad weather, and the opening of Union Square, has caused a veritable desertion of the beach boulevard. I reckon the Sand Dollar will be ok though. It’s a destination in itself: www.sanddollarcafe.com/

Before Andrew’s parents left for South Africa last week they gave us a bag of bits and pieces that needed using up. In it was a small plastic tub of tomato pasta sauce. We never usually buy pre-made sauce as it is so easy to make. It made me think about why others buy pre-made. In the name of research I had a quick scout in Sainsburys. I counted 76 different tomato based pasta sauces in jars. I’m sure the shelf-stackers thought I was nuts so I didn’t hang around to check ingredient lists. Handily, Oliver had a jar of Gordon Ramsey’s pasta sauce in the cupboard at home and I was pleasantly surprised that all the ingredients were real – things that you could find in your own cupboard.

I never use a recipe to make tomato sauce. I’m all about invention. I use whatever combination of herbs, fresh or tinned tomatoes, garlic, onion, chilli and vinegars come to hand. Sometimes I add lemon; sometimes sugar. Sometimes I roast the garlic; sometimes I roast the tomatoes. More often than not I don’t bother doing either. There are no rules in my world for tomato sauce. Actually, I feel a bit sorry for my tomato sauce, I suppose it is rather cruel of me to treat it with such disrespect. I decided it was about time to give my sauce the attention it deserves so I dug out some recipe books. The result? More basic tomato sauce recipes than I could possibly have imagined. Turns out that tomato sauce is the gigilo of the recipe world and everyone has had a go. Ingredients range from 3 to 20. I even have an 1892 recipe from Mrs Wilkinson’s Cookery Book that calls for Turnip as a vital ingredient!

Of course people use pre-made sauce because it is convenient, and it is guaranteed to be more consistent than my concoctions! Still, I found two recipes – one from Nigel Slater’s “Real Fast Food” and one from Jamie Oliver “Jamie’s Dinners” – that are quick, unbelievably simple and would work out much cheaper than buying a jar of sauce. Nigel chops an onion and simmers it in a generous knob of butter, he then throws in a tin of chopped tomatoes, seasons with sea-salt and simmers for ten minutes. After that it is a case of grinding over some black pepper and adding a little more butter to taste. Now that is one easy recipe.

Jamie's saucey little number requires a little more time – but hardly any more fore-play. Fry chopped garlic in olive oil with a pinch of dried oregano and a whole red chilli (pierce the skin once to stop it from exploding). Add a tin of peeled plum tomatoes, season and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove the chilli, mash the sauce and add a tiny swig of red wine vinegar. It makes you wonder – when Jamie has recipes as simple and tasty as that why does anyone ever buy his jarred sauces? It certainly beats me. As for my sauce, who am I kidding? I'll never stick to a recipe. I'll continue to treat it with disrespect whenever, and in whatever way, I please. Dirty little sauce that it is, I bet it loves every minute.

Everyone loves Banana Bread!

Now that I'm actively thinking about it I realise how often I have conversations about food. I went to see Julia today. She is back from her skiing holiday in Switzerland and had one last day of dossing before going back to work tomorrow. As is our routine on cold days we curled up on the sofa with a duvet and cups of tea and talked about....food! Then, when Vikki came home we had a blow-by-blow account of her day from weetabix to little pots of hummous. I just had time for a bit of hazlenut swiss chocolate before I had to scoot off to yoga. Yes, I am persistent in my pursuit of a love for yoga. This is 2010's attempt - 'fitness yoga' at the sports village. Actually, not so bad. Anyway, before I left Julia's she made a comment about banana bread which kept me distracted from the pain of an extended warrior pose. I haven't had banana bread in ages and everyone loves Banana Bread!

Monday's are great days because Andrew and I have a routine (or, at least he does!). He always works from 2pm till midnight on a Monday, meaning that he cooks himself a packed-dinner at lunchtime. Today he threw together a stir-fry with chicken thighs and the various vegetables that were lurking in the fridge. A packed dinner for Andrew means an easy tea for Bronia! A wee bowl of stir-fry and rice. Job done! Thus freeing up the rest of the evening for baking a batch of banana bread (oooh look she does alliteration now).

Into the kitchen, on and then off with radio 4 (as a rather disturbing programme on child sacrafice in Ugana failed to set the right scene for Banana Bread creation) and out with the cook books. I made a bee-line straight for Tessa Kiros' Apples for Jam and happily found what I was looking for. Mary Berry was also given her turn and she suggested a Banana and Honey Teabread. Armed with these two possibilities I braved a look in my baking cupboard.

Now this probably deserves some explanation. I live with boys so having a 'baking cupboard' is not a high priority in our space-limited kitchen. To keep me happy (and bribed with promises of lovely baked goodies) they cleared one shelf in a cupboard. This means that my baking cupboard is over-stuffed causing dis-organistion and a high risk of contents tumbling onto my head - I was coshed rather nicely with a jar of cinnamon before christmas. Tonight, however, success. I decided that. with a little imagination, I could manage a close-approximation of Tessa's recipe which is more cake-like than Mary Berry's tea-bread:

3 mashed BANANAS
125g BUTTER
125g LIGHT BROWN SUGAR (Tessa says 180g of dark brown but I'm limited by the contents of my cupboard)
2 EGGS, beaten
1 teaspoon VANILLA EXTRACT
1 teaspoon CINNAMON
Tiny pinch of GROUND CLOVES (my addition)
pinch salt
225g of PLAIN FLOUR (literally, all the flour I have in the cupboard!) and a tablespoon of COCOA POWDER which brings me up to the 250g that Tessa calls for.
teaspoon of BAKING POWDER
teaspoon of BICARB OF SODA
3 tablespoons of WARM MILK

The method is simple - at least I'm sure it is in Tessa's kitchen. I had to begin, rather disgustingly, by picking toast crumbs out of my butter. Andrew and Oliver clearly failing, again, to distinguish between 'stork' and 'I can't believe it's not butter'. Anyway, that task accomplished I proceeded to cream the butter and the sugar until dark and fluffy. Then, I stirred in the mashed banana. I love banana bread because there are none of the worries about curdling that accompany usual cake baking. I then mixed in the eggs, vanilla extract, cinammon and cloves. Once thoroughly mixed (and looking particularly lumpy and disgusting) I seived in the flour, baking powder, cocoa powder and salt and stirred vigorously. The horrid, lumpy, curdly mix then turned a gorgeous caramel brown and became much smoother. One last addition of the bicarb mixed into the warm milk and I was done. Then, however, I was faced with a problem - I don't have a big enough loaf tin! Muffin tray to the rescue to turn my left-over banana bread mix into banana muffins.
These went into the oven at 180. Tessa suggests 50 minutes (and I guessed around half an hour or so for the muffins). After this time the top should be crispy, she claims, and a skewer should come out clean. Unfortunately, I have very little patience and may have jumped the gun ever so slightly. Still, my banana bread/cake looks pretty great, if slightly squishier than it should be and it smells wonderful. It tastes pretty fine too, and I should know seen as I ate all the muffins already. Oops. I think Oliver might be disappointed though as he wanted to have banana bread for breakfast and this is definitely more cake than bread. Still, who am I to judge? Banana cake for breakfast all round!

A proper beginning: Toast and Tea

Bronia gets grumpy when she is hungry. And as I am hungry a lot, I tend to be grumpy a lot. Of course, I had a very merry christmas and a happy New Year. The great grumpy Bronia appeased on these occassions by FOOD. Food, food, food! Christmas chutneys and cheeses, ginger-glazed hams, vats of roasted vegetables, wedges of fruit cake and puddings. I had a great time catering for the constant comings and goings at Lochfergus House. Ok, so I may have complained a little (I wouldn't want you to think I was going soft) but I loved it.

However, christmas is over and it is back to reality: I'm supposed to be working for my PhD, not pickling pears. But.....what if I could smuggle a little of my christmas good cheer through into January? Continue to feed my inner Grump Monster to keep him calm and mollified and under control? Possible? Maybe, just maybe.

So, for all of you, friends and family, who continue to endure my moaning and mumping, complaining and griping about all things PhD-related I offer this instead - recipes and photos and food-related antics where Grump monsters fear to tread. There is no hunger here!

Time to put the kettle on for tea and toast. I can't think of a better beginning than that.