Rice Pudding Cake

As things start to get a little chilly here, and we are about to start the olive harvest too, I always feel the need for food a little more on the substantial side.

This is a recipe from Two Greedy Italians aka Antonio Carluccio (my hero) and Gennaro Contaldo.  I loved this programme, of course because of both their personalities but also because so much of the food was just so very honest and simple and tasty.

This recipe uses a lot of eggs - at the moment I am getting near enough 6 a day so I love recipes that are heavy on eggs.

Ingredients:  3 pints of milk (1.7 litres); 1 vanilla pod (I used a teaspoonful of vanilla paste); 1/2 lemon, zest only cut into large pieces (I used a zester and did not remove the lemon zest later); 7oz (200g) sugar; 10 1/2 oz arborio rice (300g); 5 large free range eggs, separated; 2floz (50ml) orange liqueur; 1 1/2 oz raisins (40g) I used double the amount and made half moscatel sultanas and half pre soaked dried figs (from Finca La Reina of course); 1 orange, zest only grated.

Dried figs chunks soaking

Method:  Preheat the oven to 180C and grease and line a 24cm (10 inch) loose bottomed cake tin with greaseproof paper.  I actually forgot to grease the sides but I did cover the base with paper.  It stuck to one tiny bit of the side of the tin, it could have been a lot worse... you should try not to forget to grease the tin.

Place the milk, vanilla pod (if using paste like me add it later when the mixture has cooled and you add the egg yolks), lemon zest and sugar into a large saucepan and bring to the boil.  Add the rice and then lower the heat and simmer gently for about half an hour or until it resembles a nice thick creamy rice pudding.  The original recipe says the rice should be al dente - or still have a little bite to it.  Mine was well and truly cooked but it hasn't affected the finished cake.

Remove from the heat and leave to cool.  At this point you should remove the vanilla pod (if using) and also the lemon zest chunks - unless they are nice and thin strips like mine were in which case I think its a matter of choice.  I transferred the rice pudding to a bowl to help it cool and added the fruit.

The original recipe says to whisk the egg yolks and liqueur until creamy.  I simply added them to the cool rice pudding along with the orange zest and orange liqueur and then stirred really well.

In another bowl, whisk the egg whites until stiff.

 Then fold in the egg white and put into the tin.

This is simply a HUGE cake but don't worry if it comes right up to the top of your cake tin, it doesn't rise very much at all and shouldn't spill over.

Bake in the oven for one hour.  When it first comes out of the oven you will see that it has risen quite a bit.

But it starts to collapse as soon as it begins to cool.  That's what its supposed to do.

It can be served warm or cold sprinkled with a little orange zest (although it is already very rich I might add a dollop of cream too!)

 

 Enjoy Enjoy Enjoy!

Baked Apples in the Estufa

You don't need an old fashioned oven to make these, but I associate them with encroaching winter, and evenings in front of the wood burning stove.  Having an oven on top of the wood burner is just a fabulous way to make an evening snack without too much effort and certainly without using any more energy.

First get your baking apples.  Here in Spain I have not been able to find anything other than these...

My fruit man says they are called Reineta (Little Queen) and they are for baking.

Score them around the middle and then take out the core.

Put them into an oven proof container and fill the core space with a little brown sugar (I used demerara) and in fact it doesn't have to be brown sugar, it could be white.  Add some dried fruit and a few little blobs of butter.

Bake in the oven until you can see the skin of the apples start to pull away exposing the soft fleshy midriff.  Insert a sharp knife to make sure the apples are cooked all the way through.

You need to remember that there is a very fine line between perfectly cooked and exploding apple.

 I don't always manage to catch it before it explodes but of course because I was taking photo's this time I watched them very carefully.  All you need now is a dollop of cream or even custard if you are feeling like making it.  Enjoy!  We did!

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.

Mulled wine and Spiced apple warmer!

I cannot lay claim to inventing the mulled wine recipe.  This one is based on a Jamie Oliver recipe and is made by infusing a syrup with the spices first before mixing with the red wine.  This means that you aren't boiling all the alcohol out of the wine before serving it.  So....

Ingredients:  200g sugar, 2 oranges, ( plus the juice of one of the oranges), 1 lemon, 6 whole cloves, 2 cinnamon sticks, a good grating of nutmeg, 2 bay leaves, 2 star anise, 1 vanilla pod split lengthways (use only half keeping the other half for the spiced apple warmer).  2 bottles cheap red wine (Jamie calls for Italian wine of course but I live in Spain so a box of Mercadona's cheapest was the order of the day!)

Method:  Put the sugar and spices (except for the star anise) in a pan.  Cut one orange and the lemon in half and put into the pan.  Juice the other orange and add the juice to the pan.  Add just enough red wine to cover the sugar and pop the pan on the heat.  Warm until the sugar melts into the wine and then whack the heat up and boil the mixture until it reduces by about half and becomes syrupy.

Add the rest of the wine to the syrup mixture as well as the star anise and then warm it through on a very low heat.  Try not to boil it again or you will burn off the alcohol but if you do, don't worry, it still tastes very good.

Spiced Apple Warmer - This is perfect for the non drinkers, for children or the designated driver.
Ingredients: A box of apple juice and exactly the same ingredients as for the mulled wine above (except for the sugar, you don't need the sugar).

Method:  Place all the ingredients in a pan and heat to boiling.  Turn off the heat and leave it to steep overnight or for at least a couple of hours.  Serve warm.

Duck and Cabbage

Well that doesn't sound very exciting does it?  Actually it was delicious and different so I thought I would share.

Now I am not a fancy chef, I just enjoy cooking and I love food.  So.... who says the duck has to be red raw in the middle?  I suppose it might have tasted better if I had taken it off the heat a tad sooner but I am not a fan of underdone meat so my duck was perhaps a little overcooked for a real chef's taste but you can cook it for as long as you want.

For the duck breast.
Ingredients:  A large duck breast (this will serve two people in my house), a huge knob of butter.  How much is a knob?  Seriously guys... !  A little salt and pepper.

How To
Melt the butter and when it has stopped foaming pop in the duck breast skin side down.  Cook it quite fiercely on each side to start with and then turn down the heat and cook for about 8 - 10 mins (this should give you the classic red in the middle duck breast)  After cooking rest the breast under a little tin foil for about five minutes before slicing.  Nothing could be easier... oh yes... season with salt and pepper before pan frying.



Oh And I forgot!!!  Green pepper Sauce:
Ingredients:  1/4 pint red wine (I suspect you could do this with white wine, or even cider might be nice), splash of brandy, splash of port, two tablespoons of pickled green peppercorns, 1/2 pint cream, five tablespoons chicken stock (or water), teaspoonful of sugar.  Salt and Pepper.

How To:  Boil the red wine and brandy for five minutes - make sure it doesn't reduce away to nothing but it should shrink down by about a third.  Add the stock or water and boil again for five more minutes.  Add the peppercorns and the cream and once again boil for five minutes... it should reduce down by about half now.  Add the sugar and the port and stir until the sugar dissolves, taste and then season to suit.  Put in a jug and serve warm with the duck.

Cabbage - this is a spiced cabbage braised with apple and onion and needs to be prepared some hours before.
Ingredients:  Red cabbage (I used only half), Onion, one or two cloves of garlic depending upon size, two eating apples (the tarter the better), a couple spoonfuls of demerara sugar, a sprinkling of ground cinnamon, ground cloves, ground nutmeg.  Three tablespoons wine or cider vinegar.  A couple of knobs of butter.

How To
Shred the cabbage and the onion and then peel and grate the apple.  Layer these three in a casserole dish sprinkling the garlic, sugar and spices between the layers.  Drizzle on the vinegar.  Top with the knobs of butter.

Cover the casserole and pop into a slow oven (130C max) and cook for 2 - 3 hours or even longer if the oven is really slow.  I used the wood fire oven and the temperature gauge no longer seems to work but it still turned out.  Give it a stir every half hour or so to mix up the flavours.  This will keep warm and reheat without spoiling and goes really well with the pan fried duck.  Enjoy!

 And no, we didn't have potatoes or anything else with this... it just seemed to be enough on its own... mashed spuds would probably be nice to soak up the sauce... or you could just do what we did... slice of bread to mop the plate mmmm yum.