Tritordeum Flour Biscuits with Lemon Curd

Well it's not a very sexy title is it?  Be that as it may, the Tritordeum flour is a bit of a Spanish success story, it is made from a  wheat which has been crossed (naturally bred not GM and took thirty years to develop) between a durum wheat and a wild barley species native to Chile.  It has great nutritive values and is drought resistant and highly tolerant to stress.  Qualities that will become increasingly important as our planet's climate and weather changes.

But is it tasty?  Well I think so.  And where can you buy it?  As far as I can see ... not in Britain or the USA... it is available online though and many of the suppliers will post worldwide.  Even though it is grown here in Spain I bought it online since there are no specialist bakeries or 'flour shops' near my home.  It was a fairly painless operation and took only two days to arrive.  If you are interested I would recommend http://www.elamasadero.com/ the site is also available in English.

Now to the recipe:

Ingredients:
175g Tritordeum flour; 75g oatflakes whizzed briefly with a spoonful of sugar in the food processor and then toasted on the stovetop until they only just lose their pale colour; 125g softened butter; 60g sugar; 1 tblsp lemon curd; pinch of salt; zest of half a lemon and sugar for dusting.

Toasting the oatflakes - you have to keep them moving constantly and watch they don't burn

Method
Beat the butter and sugar together until smooth and pale in colour.  Add the lemon curd and stir until combined.

Add the other ingredients and knead the dough lightly until it comes together.

Roll to 1/2 cm thick and then cut into rounds.

Put on parchment paper in the fridge for 15 minutes or until just chilled.  I actually chilled my dough before rolling it out because the kitchen was a little warm and the dough felt a bit soft.  Use your discretion.

Dust with sugar and bake at 160C for 15 to 20 minutes depending upon how dark you want them to be.

They turn out sort of a cross between a digestive and a shortbread... if such a thing is possible.  I might make them larger next time.  And you can taste the lemon curd in them too.

Lemon Marmalade!

Having been given a big bag of HUGE lemons by a friend with a lemon tree (wish mine would start producing) I thought I had better make good use of them.  Two lemons weighed 900 grams!!

So, lemon marmalade it is... the theory is as follows:

1.  Lemons (look at the difference in size from the ones I was given and the one I already had from the supermarket).

2.  Cut them and juice them and then remove some of the pith (but keep it along with the pips).

3.  Shred the rind finely or thickly to taste but keep the pieces even sized (if you are not sure if the lemons are organic then you need to clean them thoroughly first to remove any wax coating or pesticides).

4.  Put the pith and pips into a muslin bag - or use the gadget thingy you got from Lakeland years ago and have never used before.

5.  Boil the shredded lemon rind and bag of pith and pips along with the juice until the rind is soft.  This may take some time.  Test the rind to make sure that it is soft before proceeding.

6.  Add the sugar and bring up to jam setting point and then boil until the marmalade is set.

Test for this by putting a plate in the freezer and every so often put a teaspoonful of hot marmalade onto the cold plate and wait for it to go cold... you should be able to see the tell tale wrinkles as you push the marmalade, this is the sign that it is ready to be jarred up.  Let the marmalade cool a little.

7.  Marmalade loves alcohol.  Not too much but just a little brings out the flavour of the fruit.  I couldn't get the lid off the Disaronno bottle so I added a tablespoon of port.  Port and lemon goes doesn't it?

8.  Sterilise the jars with boiling water and then fill the jars with the marmalade while they are still hot.

9.  Do not disturb for 24 hours.

Now the reality.  After 24 hours the marmalade had not set.  Even though it wrinkled perfectly when put on the cold plate.  Ho hum, its not the end of the world with marmalade or jam because you just re boil it until it does set.

That didn't exactly work either.  It turned very dark, very quickly and I had to take it off the heat.  It is thicker but its still more syrup than set marmalade and then when I put it on toast, not all of the rind is soft!!!!!  So.  Important things I have learned from this exercise.  Always shred the rind evenly.  Test for pectin before adding the sugar.  You do this by taking a little of the solution out and adding a drop or two of methylated spirits or denatured alcohol... this should cause the pectin to ball up... and the consistency of the ball (really thick or not) should indicate whether you need to add pectin or not.

 

The pith and pips is where the pectin resides which is why I added them back into the mixture but obviously these lemons are not high in pectin - which is quite unusual.

So.... have I wasted my time?  Nope.  It's still edible apart from the odd bit of thick peel which can be removed as you come across them.  And I have learned loads.  Don't be put off by difficult stuff... give it a go.  There is no such thing as failure!  (Well almost no such thing).

The Christmas Goose and all the trimmings!

Christmas dinner (our first on our own for 30 years) was an opportunity to experiment a little, after all, if it doesn't turn out quite right, it was only us, so it didn't matter too much.

Roast Goose - The goose was washed in vinegar and then stuffed with fresh rosemary and then left in the bottom of the fridge to rest until Christmas eve when I prepared the stuffing.  Alas I could find no chestnuts in the shops or on the market (even though they had plenty the week before) so I substituted with walnuts.  Bad idea.  The taste was fine but the stuffing turned an alarming purplish colour which was a little off putting.  So.... I would advise not using them in future.

The stuffing:  Sausagemeat - in my case this was sausages squeezed from their skins.  Chopped onion, celery, a little garlic, chopped apple, chopped goose liver, sprinkling of salt, pepper and mixed spice and then all mixed up by hand and the goose cavity filled.

A little salt sprinkled on the goose and covered with foil then roasted for nearly four hours... first at 180C and then after a couple of hours reduced to 160C.  We spent so much time on skype with our family while the goose was cooking that I neglected to baste the goose frequently... which I should have done, though very flavourful the breast was a little dry.  And as I said apart from the strange colour the stuffing was lovely.

The gravy was made the day before by roasting the goosewings with an onion, a carrot and half a celery stick, some salt and pepper and a couple of star anise.  After bashing the bones and then roasting until all the juices run out I moved it onto the top of the stove and added a spoonful of flour and cooked until everything was very thick.  Next I poured on some wine and then let it bubble and thicken up before adding about a litre of water.  It was then left on the stove to bubble gently until reduced by about a third.  The liquid was strained off and then seasoned and just before serving I added a good spoonful of grape jelly.  Any jelly would do.  The result was delicious.

Sussex Pond Pudding.
I have wanted to do this pudding for some years and now I thought was a good opportunity.  It is a boiled suet pudding, very old fashioned and takes three hours of boiling so when are you going to do it if not at Christmas?

The recipe came from a Jane Grigson cookery book I found second hand.  It is an excellent book and I have made many of the recipes from it without any issues.

The idea of the pond pudding is that you encase a whole lemon (speared all over to release its juice) along with butter and sugar in a suet pastry pudding and then boil.  When cooked you turn the pudding out into a deep basin and the lemon juice combined with sugar and butter leaks into the dish... creating a 'pond' coloured lemony sauce.

Sadly.  When turned out the sauce did not appear.  And it would seem that the suet pastry had soaked it all up!  Mmmmm.  the pastry tasted great, the lemon a little tart but with cream it was edible.  I am not entirely sure what went wrong.  Any suggestions very welcome!

The garden did not produce any brussels sprouts in time for the feast so we resorted to carrots, broccoli and cauliflower - which was absolutely fine.  We are not entrenched in any tradition that insists on specific food.  The main criteria for a feast day is a feast.  And that is what we had.

 The best discovery of the whole festive season was that Mascarpone mixed with a little icing sugar tasted like clotted cream and was brilliant with the mince pies.  Since cream is very hard to find here and the substitute Spanish stuff does not whip thick enough to use in Victoria sponge I have been looking for an alternative and though I suspect that I have forgotten exactly what clotted cream tastes like, the mascarpone would seem me to fit the bill.  At any rate it was delicious and shall be used again, and again, and again.  More festive food will no doubt appear come New Year, although we have been invited out so our Lamb shoulder will wait for another occasion.  Watch this space.

Chicken with Preserved Lemon and Olives

If you managed to make some preserved lemons either with salt or in oil, this chicken dish is a wonderful way to use them along with this seasons olives (we used our own olives, our first foray into pickling olives... you will have to wait for next season for the recipe!)

Ingredients:
A whole chicken cut up into bite sized joints, chicken liver chopped finely and reserved.
1 large onion chopped very finely or better still done in the food processor to almost a paste
4 crushed garlic cloves
100g butter
1 tbsp ground ginger
small piece of cinnamon stick
1/4tsp turmeric powder
3/4 teaspoon saffron strands
juice of one lemon
100g green or black olives
100g preserved lemons cut up into quarters - flesh discarded.
a handful of coriander and parsley leaves chopped
salt and pepper

Method
Put chicken into a casserole (yup... no browning it first!), Add the chopped onion, garlic, butter, ginger, cinnamon, tumeric, saffron, 1 tsp salt and a sprinkling of white pepper.  Pour in 700ml water, cover and bring to the boil.  Simmer for 40 minutes turning chicken and spooning sauce over it from time to time. After the 40 minutes lift the chicken onto a plate and cover with foil to keep warm.  Add lemon juice to the casserole and simmer rapidly until reduced by 2/3.  Return chicken to casserole with olives and preserved lemon and cover with the lid and simmer for 20 to 25 minutes.  Add the chopped chicken liver and simmer another 5 minutes.  Add coriander and parsley and taste for seasoning.  Serve with cous cous or rice!