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A Feast of Puddings in Five Parts

7/10/2018

4 Comments

 
Inspired by The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss
There are quite a few snippets in The Kingkiller Chronicle that make me think we have licence to imagine all manner of delicious goings on at the Waystone. We know that Kvothe has supplies:
Chronicler raised an eyebrow. “Chocolate would be wonderful, if you have it. I wouldn’t expect to find that sort of thing this far from . . .” He cleared his throat politely. “Well, anywhere.”
“We have everything here at the Waystone,” Kvothe said, making an offhand gesture to the empty room. “Excepting any customers, of course.”
Old Cob also tells us that he has skill:
“You’re a fine cook, Kote, and you’ve got the best beer in twenty miles. All folk need is a bit of an excuse to stop by.”
Even though his other skills have seemingly abandoned him, our 'innkeeper' still musters self-confidence (and perhaps a smidgen of pride) in his food. 
He rubbed his hands together eagerly. “Right then. Dinner. What would you like? Hot or cold? Soup or stew? I’m a dab hand at pudding too.”
And, crucially, Kvothe has lots of flavour-filled experiences to draw on for inspiration. Throughout the story he tells, he never takes a meal for granted and he pays attention to what he's eating. While a sizeable chunk of his early life was spent 'Too hungry to worry about tomorrow', the Kvothe we're with in the frame story appears to have plenty of time on his hands to recall his yesterdays. I like to think some of the puddings he's such a dab hand at are  informed by these recollections. 

With that in mind, here are five speculative Waystone puddings. Click on the pictures to jump to the respective recipes and rationale. 
A Terrifying Piece of Alchemy: Plum Bob Pudding
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When Luck Smiles: Warm Apple Tart
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Something Wonderful Happened in My Mouth: 'Metheglin' Poached Pears
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​Sweet Relief: Peach Bread and Butter Pudding
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Abenthy's Insult: Lemon Custard
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I'll be taking on another big Kingkiller Cook later this year – perhaps pies, soups or food for the road.  If you can't wait until then for something savoury, here's some beef stew and some potato and bacon soup from The Name of the Wind.
4 Comments

Spiced Kabobs and Nan's Apricot Jam

7/2/2018

5 Comments

 
Recreated from An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir
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[Laia] My mouth waters, and I long for Nan’s food. We never had much, but whatever we did have was made with love, which I now know transforms simple fare into a feast. Here, we eat the Commandant’s scraps, and no matter how hungry I am, they taste like sawdust.
 . . .
​[Elias] Someone shoves a plate of spiced kabobs into my hand. Someone else, a drink.
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There's little room for love in the food at Blackcliff. The students in Sabaa Tahir's An Ember in the Ashes are commonly served 'swill' and 'slop' that plops unappetizingly on the plate. Even celebratory kabobs are 'shoved' not shared. It's a cruel place bereft of kindness, especially when compared with Nan's kitchen which is fragrant with sweetness and spice and familial affection. Because I think I can avoid the eye of the Commandant, I've had Nan's apricot jam infiltrate the kabob recipe to help transform this fare into a feast.
Ingredients (makes 12 kabobs)
  • 500g lamb mince
  • juice of 1/2 lemon
  • 1/2 white onion, finely diced
  • 2 cloves garlic, finely diced
  • 10g fresh mint, chopped finely
  • 10g coriander, chopped finely
  • 4 tsp Lebanese spice blend*
  • 1 tbsp honey
  • 1 large egg (appr. 60g)
  • breadcrumbs (same weight as the egg) 
  • salt and pepper
*This is a pre-blended mix of black pepper, cumin, paprika, coriander, clove, nutmeg, cinnamon and cardamom. 

Apricot jam sauce (to go with 12 kabobs)
  • 150g apricot jam
  • 1 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1/2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
  • 1/2 tsp cinammon 
  • 1/4 tsp dried chilli flakes (or more if you can handle heat)

Special equipment:
Grill pan with a wire rack, 12 skewers

Instructions
  1. Preheat your grill to 170°C (325°F) fan assisted or equivalent. Have a grill pan with wire rack at the ready.
  2. Put all the kabob ingredients together in a large bowl. Mix and mash them all together using a fork. Don't be gentle. 
  3. Divide the mixture into twelve and press onto the skewers using your hands. As each kabob is prepared, place it onto the wire rack of your grill pan. 
  4. Grill the kabobs for 12 minutes, turning once halfway through. Meanwhile make the apricot jam sauce. 
  5. Add all the apricot jam sauce ingredients to a pan and heat on medium-high. 
  6. Remove the jam sauce from the heat as soon as it starts to bubble. Stir before serving. 
To bring some love to this meal, serve on flatbreads with salad of your choice. I went for watercress and tzatziki. 

Bonus tzatziki recipe – Ingredients (to accompany 12 kabobs)
  • 1 cucumber – peeled, deseeded and finely diced
  • 200g Greek yoghurt 
  • 2 tbsp dried mint
  • 1 garlic clove, finely diced
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • Salt (according to your taste)
Instructions
  1. Mix everything together.
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For another take on lamb with apricot, try my Spellslinger roast. 
5 Comments

Chocolate Pie Served With an Uncomfortable Silence

6/14/2018

7 Comments

 
Recreated from 'Kings of the Wyld' by Nicholas Eames
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Poor Gabe looked as though he’d been stabbed. Clay half-expected that disbelief to boil over into anger, but Gabriel just shook his head and returned his attention to the untouched plate before him. Kallorek called for a servant to take Valery to her room. The three of them ate dessert (a chocolate pie topped with chopped almonds and whipped cream) and sipped sweet red beer in mildly uncomfortable silence.
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For a moment, let’s pretend I have an enchanted hat that will give me food on demand (a delightful fantasy). As appealing as the many dishes of Nicholas Eames’ ‘Kings of the Wyld’ sound – rabbit and mushroom stew, breakfast banquets at the table of a king, thick slabs of salted pork belly, crispy-skinned chicken, a staggering variety of jams – this chocolate pie would have to be my first choice out of the hat, even accompanied by the most uncomfortable of silences. I put a strawberry ‘Rose’ at the centre of mine just to make sure I didn’t lose sight of what’s important beyond my favourite brother-in-arms, chocolate. ​
Ingredients (serves 5 very hungry bandmates or 8 regular people)
For the pastry:
  • ​110g butter, melted and cooled
  • 50g sugar
  • 150g plain flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence
  • a pinch of salt

For the chocolate filling:
  • 360ml double cream
  • 400g good quality chocolate (at least 50% cocoa)
  • 2 medium eggs, whisked
  • a handful of sliced almonds
  • 1 large strawberry shaped into a rose (optional)

To serve:
  • Whipped cream

Special equipment:
  • a 23cm fluted tart tin with a loose bottom plus a bit of butter for greasing it

Instructions
  1. ​Preheat oven to 170°C (325°F) fan assisted. Grease the tart tin with butter, making sure to get into all the nooks and crannies, and set aside. 
  2. Using a wooden spoon, combine all the pastry ingredients in a large mixing bowl to form a dough.  
  3. Press the dough into the tart tin to form a pastry case (base and fluted sides) a few millimetres thick. You'll probably have some dough left over but it's better than being caught short. 
  4. Bake for 15 minutes in the preheated oven until the crust starts going golden brown. 
  5. While the case is baking, heat the double cream and sugar together in a pan until they're boiling, then remove from the heat. Add the chocolate and stir until fully melted and combined. 
  6. Right before the pastry case has finished baking, add the whisked egg to the chocolate mix and stir to combine. This filling is now ready to be baked (see step 8).
  7. Remove the baked pastry from the oven when 15 minutes are up (see step 4) and turn the oven off. Reshape the case (the sides will have slumped a little but it's easy enough to fix). 
  8. Pour the filling into the baked pastry case. Sprinkle with sliced almonds and add the strawberry 'Rose' if using. Put the assembled pie into the (switched off) oven for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave to cool completely before removing from the tin. 
This pie is best eaten the day after a night in the fridge. Remove from the fridge an hour before eating and serve with whipped cream. Or any cream. 
If having to chew your chocolate just seems like too much effort, try my chocolatl from Philip Pullman's 'The Book of Dust'. 
7 Comments

Wolf It Down: White Rice, Yellow Curry, Scrambled Egg

5/10/2018

4 Comments

 
Recreated from The Wolf of Oren-yaro by K.S. Villoso 
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He returned with two steaming bowls. They were filled to the brim with white rice, topped with scrambled eggs and thick, yellow curry sauce. It was sprinkled with chopped green onions. My first real meal in two days was heavenly. I couldn’t even tell if Khine was a decent cook or not—I was just that hungry. It was a good thing he had included the chopsticks when he gave me my bowl, or I would’ve just dug in with my fingers and made a fool out of myself. I found myself asking for seconds, which Khine readily obliged. I washed it all down with the promised milk tea, which had since grown cold. It tasted faintly of jasmine and toasted rice.
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I like to think of rice in K.S. Villoso’s The Wolf of Oren-yaro as a character in its own right; it has quite a story to tell. Affected by seasonal storms, it becomes a subject of debate for ambitious warlords and a thorn in Bitch Queen Talyien’s backside. It has regional characteristics with something to say about diversity in Talyien’s world (‘Oren-yaro rice is grainier than the sought-after fragrant variety grown in the Sougen region’). Served well, it shows how very magnanimous Talyien can be (“If you continue to serve these rice balls for breakfast, you may keep [your head].”) And for a bonus, it comes in several intriguing guises – rice balls, steamed rice buns, rice coffee, herbed rice porridge and as a purple rice cake. Rather graciously, it also lays itself down as a bed on which other food can shine, variously appearing in cahoots with barbecued eels and pickles, soured white fish with leeks and pig’s-ear mushrooms, a hot and sour soup made of beef leg bones, and fish in a black bean sauce. Yum! My favourite, though, is the meal quoted above because it brings uncomplicated delight in the plot and in real life – like Talyien, we all went back for seconds too (and I got to keep my head).
Ingredients 
For the curry sauce (serves 3-4):
  • 2 tbsp vegetable oil
  • 1 onion, finely diced
  • 4-6 garlic cloves depending on size, finely diced
  • ginger, finely diced – same amount as the garlic
  • 3 tsp medium curry powder
  • 3 tsp turmeric
  • 400ml coconut milk
  • 3 heaped tsp cornflour (add a little more for a thicker sauce)
  • 3 tsp soy sauce (add a little more for a saltier sauce)
  • 4 tsp rice wine vinegar (add a little more for a more vinegary sauce)

For the rice (per person):
  • 100g jasmine rice
  • 250ml boiling water
  • a pinch of salt (optional)

For the scrambled egg (per person):
  • 1 large egg
  • 5g butter
  • a pinch of salt

To serve (per person):
  • 1  spring onion, chopped

Instructions
For the curry sauce:
  1. On a medium heat, fry the onion in oil until it's translucent (around 5 minutes). Stir to prevent browning. 
  2. Add the ginger and garlic and fry for a further 3 minutes, stirring. 
  3. Remove from the heat and add the curry powder and turmeric. Mix until the onions, ginger and garlic are coated in spice. 
  4. Add the coconut milk and return to the heat. Bring the mix to a simmer but don't let it boil. 
  5. Add the cornflour and whisk thoroughly to avoid cornflour lumps. The curry sauce will thicken. 
  6. Add the soy sauce and the rice wine vinegar. Set aside until ready to serve. Reheat before serving. 

For the rice:
  1. Bring the water to the boil. Add salt to the water if desired. 
  2. Add the jasmine rice to the water. Bring it back to boiling point, then turn it down to a low simmer. 
  3. Leave to simmer for 9-10 minutes without stirring. The water should be fully absorbed and the rice fully cooked. Set aside until your eggs are scrambled. 

For the scrambled egg:
Note: My hob has heat settings from 1-6, I cook scrambled eggs on 4. 
  1. Crack the egg(s) into a bowl and beat. 
  2. Heat the butter in a non-stick frying pan until it's melted and starting to bubble.  Add the beaten egg(s). 
  3. Leave until the bottom solidifies but the top is still liquid (around 30 seconds). Scramble the eggs so the cooked 'bottom' is broken and coated in the uncooked 'top'. Add a pinch of salt.
  4. Scramble and toss for about another 30 seconds until it looks mostly cooked. Remove from the heat a moment before you think you need to. 

To assemble: 
  1. Put the eggs into a rice bowl. Pack the cooked rice in on top. 
  2. Turn the egg and rice bowl out onto a regular bowl. It'll form a neat dome. 
  3. Add the reheated curry sauce around the rice. 
  4. Sprinkle spring onions on top.    
4 Comments

Quite Good: Bacon and Potato Soup

4/29/2018

3 Comments

 
Recreated from The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
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     The third day was much the same. We passed the time pleasantly, not in long conversation, but more often watching the scenery, saying whatever happened to come to our minds. That night we stopped at a wayside inn where Reta bought fodder for the horses and a few other supplies. 
     Reta retired early with her husband, telling each of us that she'd arranged for our dinners and beds with the innkeeper. The former was quite good, bacon and potato soup with fresh bread and butter. The latter was in the stables, but it was still a long sight better than what I was used to ...

I share Kvothe’s fondness for taverns (‘a safe place, a refuge of sorts’), especially at this moment in time with a bellyful of slow-roasted pork and crackling from our local inn. The inn food served up in Patrick Rothfuss’s The Name of the Wind seems a bit hit-or-miss though, ranging from the ‘quite good’ to the unequivocally ‘lovely’. Here’s what some of the Chronicle's establishments are serving:

At a ‘little dockside inn’
Eggs with sausages and fried potatoes
 
At a ‘slightly grubby in Waterside’
A ‘real breakfast’ of eggs, ham, bread, honey, butter and milk.

From the Laughing Man Inn
‘A whole flask of spiced wine and a loaf of fresh bread nestled next to a turkey breast bigger than both my balled fists.’

At the Horse and Four
A ‘lovely dinner of venison steak with a leaf salad and a bowl of delicately spiced tomato soup. There were fresh peaches and plums and white bread with sweet cream butter’, served with ‘an excellent dark Vintish wine’.  

At a ‘wayside inn’
Horse fodder. Also some ‘quite good’ bacon and potato soup with fresh bread and butter.

At the Waystone Inn
‘Everything’.

Naturally, with such high praise, I felt compelled to make the bacon and potato soup. My father-in-law was the one to introduce me to the idea of lightly mashing the potatoes and, had the wayside inn known his trick, Kvothe’s verdict may have been elevated to a ‘lovely’ there too.  
Ingredients (serves 4)
  • 25g butter
  • 1 large onion, diced
  • 3 cloves garlic, chopped
  • 1 leek, chopped 
  • 150g lardons (or diced pancetta) 
  • 1 litre chicken stock
  • 500g potato, peeled and roughly chopped
  • salt (optional, to taste)
  • pepper, to taste
  • 40g parmesan* cheese, finely grated
*or similar hard, granular cheese

Instructions
  1. In a non-stick pan, fry the onion, garlic and leek in the butter until they begin to soften. 
  2. Add the lardons and fry until they start to brown. Move the ingredients around to make sure nothing sticks and burns. 
  3. Add the chicken stock and potatoes. Bring to the boil, then simmer until the potatoes are soft (around 15 minutes). 
  4. Remove from the heat, season and serve. Lightly mash the potatoes with a potato masher. The soup will thicken slightly. Add the parmesan. 

Serve with fresh bread and butter.
3 Comments

Selkie's Curd Cakes

3/12/2018

4 Comments

 
Recreated from The Court of Broken Knives by Anna Smith Spark
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'We'd buy bread, if you have some,' he said simply. 'Milk, if you have that. Or just water.'
'Sweet water or salt?' she said in response, and laughed a harsh laugh. 'You're in luck, for I have milk, and bread, and curd cakes hot from the oven. If you've money for it.' 
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​Food in Anna Smith Spark’s The Court of Broken Knives is an emblem of the book’s wider preoccupations; where there’s food, there’s death, disgust, desire, decadence and a modest dose of pleasure.
  • Food and death, it turns out, can make playful bedfellows. A bad meal – goat intestines served on porridge – makes Alxine cheerfully proclaim, ‘At least we’ve got violent death to look forward to,’ and the smell of roasting flesh in the aftermath of battle gives us, ‘whichever fucker thought roast pork was a good idea right now should be disemboweled.’ When not on the menu of battlefield banter, food (lifegiving, sustaining, nourishing food) can be subverted into something more murderous, most pointedly with the tale of an emperor’s barbed feast.

  • Running through the book like a good municipal sewer system, the recurrence of food-close-to-filth helps to heighten feelings of disgust: water is tainted by ‘goat shit’; stew is ‘heavily spiced to disguise the rotten meat’; and worms occupy the hard tack. I like it best, though, when the two sit side-by-side on a busy Sorlost street: ‘Shouts in every language, birdsong and music, dogs barking, bray of asses, buzz of flies, bleating of goats. Sweat and incense, spice and honey, wood smoke and rot and shit and vomit and piss.’ Were I more intrepid in the kitchen, there’d be an easy ‘Honey and Piss. Piss and Honey’ recipe in the pot.

  • There are two characters for whom food, desire and decadence all seem deliciously intertwined: they make love, drink honeyed wine, eat fat candied dates and dip their sticky fingers in the affairs of empire; they fill their mouths with meat while plotting (because it makes lip-reading harder); they ‘eat sweets and drink wine and plan murder in the dark’. Their extravagance is intoxicating.  

  • Even in the depths of grimdark, there’s refuge in food as a source of pleasure amidst pain: an ensnared wife sharing milk, warm bread, yellow butter and a side of cured fish; an errant husband joining you for roasted lamb dressed with honey; an enemy offering pastries, fruit, cold meat and hot, spiced wine. Food can soften the edges of suffering – ‘the act of eating made what had gone before seem less real’ – where other indulgences fail. It can bring ‘simple pleasure’ to the damned, healing to the wounded and comfort to those with blood on their hands. ​

​If that's not an invitation to eat cake, I don't know what is. 
If I can be loose with sugar varieties, all the ingredients can be found in the book itself. 

​Ingredients (makes 6 tartlets but can be scaled easily to multiples of 3)
For the cakes:
  • butter for greasing tartlet tins
  • 75g butter, melted and cooled
  • 350g firm curd cheese / quark (I used twarog from the local Polish food shop) 
  • 75g golden caster sugar (regular caster or granulated sugar would also be fine)
  • 150g ground almonds
  • grated lemon zest from half a lemon
  • 2 eggs
For the drizzle: 
  • juice of 2 lemons
  • 2 level tbsp runny honey
For the toppings (optional):
  • 3 tbsp flaked almonds, lightly toasted
  • 1 tbsp icing sugar
​
Special equipment
  • six 10cm loose-bottomed tartlet tins
  • baking tray
  • sieve 

Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 150°C (300°F) fan assisted. Grease the tartlet tins with butter and set aside on a baking tray. 
  2. In a mixing bowl, add the curd cheese to the butter and mash with the back of a fork. Add the sugar, ground almonds and grated lemon zest, then mix to evenly combine all the ingredients.
  3. Beat the eggs in a separate bowl and then add to the rest of the ingredients in the mixing bowl. Mix to combine all the ingredients again – it will be wet but thick.
  4. Evenly distribute the mix amongst the six tartlet tins. Keeping them on the baking tray, bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes – the cakes should be set when tested with the pointy end of a knife and the tops should be golden. 
  5. While the cakes are baking, add the lemon juice and honey to a saucepan and heat until they're fully combined. 
  6. When the cakes are baked, gently poke 6-10 holes in the top of each one (using a sharp knife or skewer) ready for the honey and lemon drizzle – it should be able to seep through the cakes without you bringing the wrath of Amrath to them.  Add a tablespoon or two of drizzle to each cake. Sprinkle the almonds on top and sieve a small amount of icing sugar over each cake (both optional). Remove carefully from the tins and serve warm. 

Serve with natural yoghurt to heighten the sourness; serve with vanilla ice cream to heighten the  sweetness. 
4 Comments

A Dip and a Dunk: Bathtime 'Butter Biscuits'

3/5/2018

7 Comments

 
Recreated from Shadowblack by Sebastien de Castell
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Not knowing what else to do, I picked up one of the butter biscuits. I was going to put it in his paw, but he'd already stuck it back under the water, and instead opened up his fuzzy little mouth. I deposited the biscuit there and was soon treated to the sound of a squirrel cat nibbling on a butter biscuit while moaning rapturously. 'Oh yeah,' he mumbled, the words sounding garbled on account of all the chewing noises. 'This is how I want to spend my life from now on.'
Confession: this is shortbread. I can only hope said squirrel cat would eat them anyway (they are very buttery), and not my eyeballs in retribution. Unlike my butter biscuits inspired by Nnedi Okorafor's Akata Witch, these will withstand a thoroughly good dunking. I'd suggest tea, not bathwater. 
These taste significantly better (more buttery) after an evening's rest, so make a day ahead. They'll last for up to a month in an airtight container. 

Ingredients (makes 12)
  • 180g plain flour, sifted
  • 120g butter, softened
  • 60g golden caster sugar
  • Extra flour for dusting
  • Extra sugar for sprinkling (optional)

Equipment: mixing bowl, wooden spoon for beating, rolling pin, biscuit cutter (appr. 6cm diameter), baking tray, fork

Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 150°C (300°F) fan assisted.
  2. Beat the butter and sugar together until smooth. 
  3. Mix the flour through thoroughly to form a dough.
  4. Dust your rolling pin and work surface with flour. Roll the dough out to 1cm thickness (I find it easier to roll smaller amounts out evenly, so I work in four batches). 
  5. Cut out the biscuit shapes with your cutter and place them on the baking tray, evenly spaced apart.  Prick four times with a fork. 
  6. Bake for 15 minutes until lightly golden. 
  7. Sprinkle with extra sugar if desired. Desire recommended. 
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7 Comments

Grim Speculations: Beef Stew

2/8/2018

10 Comments

 
Recreated from The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
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Dinner in the Mess was brown bread with butter, stew, and beans. Manet was there, his wild hair making him look like a great white wolf. Simmon and Sovoy groused idly about the food, making grim speculations as to what manner of meat was in the stew. To me, less that a span away from the streets of Tarbean, it was a marvellous meal indeed.
Stew is a Fantasy staple; you don't have to look far to find a pot of it simmering away on the pages somewhere. It's cheap, uncomplicated and evocative (think warm food on cold nights for peasants, soldiers and e'lir alike) which may account for its ubiquity. It's also absolutely delicious when cooked 'low and slow' – easily my favourite winter meal. So, Simmon and Sovoy, I don't care who your dads are; don't go grousing about my stew however lowly the manner of the meat!    
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Beef stew (serves 6-8)
  • 1kg fatty beef shin, in large chunks*
  • Salt and pepper for seasoning
  • 4 tbsp oil
  • 4 tbsp plain flour
  • 16 shallots (not echalions), skin removed but otherwise whole
  • 8 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 4 tbsp sugar
  • 4 tbsp balsamic vinegar
  • 400ml red wine
  • 2 large carrots, each one chopped into 3-4 big chunks
  • 2 leeks, sliced
  • 3 tbsp tomato paste
  • 3 tbsp dried herbs (I used parsley and thyme)
  • 1 litre beef stock**
*I’d suggest buying from a butcher and mentioning it’s for a slow-cooked stew. They’ll make sure you get a suitable cut of beef if shin isn’t available (you want it fatty and sinewy) and they’ll chop it into large chunks for you too. Don't be tempted to trim off the unsightly bits – they render down to give you the signature thick gravy of a proper stew. 

**This makes a thick stew – some of the liquid evaporates with cooking and what remains is thickened by the flour and fat. If you want a thinner but more abundant gravy, add more stock than I've recommended at Step 6.  

Dumplings (optional, makes 12-16)
  • 200g self-raising flour
  • 100g suet
  • 4 tbsp dried herbs (I used parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme à la Scarborough Fair)
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp ground pepper
  • 1 large egg
  • 2-3 tbsp water

Equipment: frying pan, tongs for turning the beef, casserole dish, wooden spoon, large mixing bowl for the dumplings

NB: This makes a thick stew – some of the liquid evaporates with cooking and what remains is thickened by the flour and the fat. If you want a thinner but more abundant gravy, add more stock than I've recommend at Step 6.  

  1. Preheat oven to 150°C (300°F) fan assisted.
  2. With your frying pan on a high heat, sear the seasoned beef in four batches (with one tablespoon of oil per batch). Allow it to brown but don't let it char. Transfer the seared beef to a large casserole dish and mix in the flour.
  3. Without cleaning the frying pan, reduce the heat and add the shallots, garlic, two tablespoons of sugar and two tablespoons of balsamic vinegar. Gently fry for a couple of minutes until the mix becomes sticky.
  4. Add the red wine. Increase heat to boiling and then simmer for a minute. Transfer everything in the frying pan to the casserole dish with the beef. 
  5. Add the carrots, leeks, tomato paste and dried thyme to the casserole dish. Stir to help distribute all the chunky ingredients evenly.
  6. Add the beef stock to cover all the ingredients, topping up with extra water if necessary. Cover dish with a layer of foil and put the lid on.
  7. Bake in the oven for 4-4½ hours. Low and slow is what will make the meat tender, the gravy thick and the flavours strong.

    -- Stew is complete at this point if not making dumplings --

  8. If making dumplings, start 45 minutes before the stew is due to come out of the oven. Add the flour, suet, herbs, salt and pepper to a large mixing bowl. Rub between your fingers and thumbs until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
  9. Stir the egg into the dumpling mix. Add water a tablespoon at a time until the mix comes together to form a dough. Divide the dough and shape into small dumplings (I aim for two per person).
  10. Remove the stew from the oven and add the dumplings so they’re half submerged. Bake for thirty minutes with the lid off.
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If you like all your food hearty, you might enjoy these puddings recreated from Philip Pullman's 'La Belle Sauvage'. 
10 Comments

Have It: Pork Ribs and Sweet Parsnips

1/24/2018

3 Comments

 
Recreated from A Time of Dread by John Gwynne
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Riv sat in her barrack's feast-hall, picking at a plate of boar ribs and sweet parsnips. Jost and Vald were with her, sitting beside each other. At any other time the sight of them would have made her chuckle
...
'Don't want that? I'll finish it for you,' Vald said, eyeing up her plate
​...
'Have it,' Riv said, pushing her unfinished food towards Vald.
'I'd have had that!' Jost exclaimed, eyes bulging in his gaunt face. He ate almost as much as Vald, not that you'd know it to look at him, the two of them often arguing over food. 
'Too slow.' Vald winked at Jost.
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John Gwynne's feast-halls play host to some hearty fantasy staples. 'A Time of Dread' features steaming tea, warming porridge, tender meats, melting onions, sweet vegetables and thick gravies. There's even a dog's dinner – a well-earned restorative for the brave hound – that sounds fit for the table of any fantasy food fan. You'll find it listed here along with the rest of the book's victuals. 

Of the various meats mentioned, I've gone for the ribs (pork, from the butcher's rather than from a wild boar I've speared myself) and slathered them in a honey glaze. Honey is one of the book's recurring ingredients, eaten for medicinal purposes as well as pleasure. In light of that, let's raise a horn of mead to this healthy​ meal and argue over who gets to pick the bones clean for some extra goodness.
This is a dish best cooked 'low and slow' so leave time for up to four hours in the oven.

Ingredients (serves 2)

The ribs themselves:

Six ribs, appr. 700g
Salt and pepper to season

For the glaze:
3 tbsp honey
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp apple cider vinegar*
1 tsp paprika
*any vinegar will do as an alternative

Parsnips:
2 parsnips

2 tsp dried thyme
1 tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper to season

Instructions

           For the ribs:
  1. Preheat oven to 130°C (270°F) fan assisted. Line a baking tray with parchment paper. 
  2. Remove the membrane from the bone-side of the pork (see picture below). Season both sides. 
  3. Place the ribs meat-side down in your pre-prepared baking tray and cover loosely with foil. 
  4. Cook in your pre-heated oven for 3 hours 15 minutes (a little less or longer won't hurt it). 

    For the parsnips:
  5. Peel the parsnips and slice them in half. 
  6. Parboil the parsnips (appr. 8 minutes), then lay them on a baking tray with a drizzle of oil and the dried thyme. 
  7. Roast in the oven at the same time as the ribs for 1 hour 15 minutes (the oven temperature is low enough to warrant this). 

    For the glaze:
  8. A few minutes before removing the ribs from the oven, gently heat all of the glaze ingredients in a saucepan.
  9. Remove the ribs from the oven and flip them over so the meat-side is now facing up. Cover with the glaze and return to the oven uncovered for 20 minutes. 
  10. Leave to cool for a few minutes, then carve up and serve. 

To serve: I served with carrots roasted in the same way and at the same time as the parsnips, as well as some steamed Swiss chard. The best addition, however, was some blue cheese – perfect for breaking up the sweetness of the honey and parsnips.  
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3 Comments

HS8795-73: Peanut Brittle with Strawberry and Pistachio 'Rust'

1/5/2018

2 Comments

 
Inspired by C. Robert Cargill's Sea of Rust
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My name is Brittle. Factory designation HS8795-73. A Simulacrum Model Caregiver. But I like Brittle.
Robots don’t eat, but Sea of Rust is still peppered with the figurative food of everyday speech and memories of food from former times. It’s not a world where what we humans eat is significant, but there are still food-inspired verbs like ‘sandwiched’ and ‘pancaked’; there are food-based endearments like ‘honey’ and ‘peach’; you can still ‘have beef’ or ‘go nuts’; heavy things drop ‘like a sack of potatoes’ and sharp knives still cut like ‘a knife through warm butter’.
​

While none of these a meal make, our robot protagonist with the cracking name gave me a way in. My imitation cover art is peanut brittle with extra nuts, strawberry (jam) and peach – all flavours you’ll find mentioned in the book.

Once recreated, smash it up and devour the parts like your life depends on it.
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Ingredients
  • 100g golden caster sugar
  • 2 tbsp water
  • 1 heaped tbsp golden syrup (use the spoon like it's a spade)
  • 100g peanuts
  • 10g salted butter
  • 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
  • 1 tbsp strawberry jam
  • 25g pistachios, ground
  • 1 circular peach slice

Special equipment: foil-lined baking parchment for the mould, a book, a jam thermometer (optional), a wooden spoon for stirring, a pastry brush for decorating

Preparation: 
  • Use a book (appr. 20 x 12 cm) and foil-lined parchment paper to create a book-sized mould. The parchment paper should be on the inside of your mould for easy removal once the brittle is set. 
  • Weigh all the ingredients in advance and have them to hand. You'll need to work quickly once the sugar starts heating up because hot sugar burns very easily. 
  • Fill a bowl with cold water for testing when your brittle is ready. 

Cooking instructions
  1. Put the sugar, water and golden syrup into a wide-bottomed saucepan and cook on a high heat, stirring frequently until the sugar has dissolved.
    'high heat' – my hob goes up to 6; I stayed mostly on 5 but went as low as 4 while I checked progress or feared burning.
    'stirring frequently' – I was in there with a wooden spoon about every 30 seconds
    'until the sugar has dissolved' – around 8-10 minutes
  2. Add the peanuts, stirring frequently until the mixture reaches 150°C (300°F).
    '150°' – to test it's reached the right temperature,  drop a small amount of the liquid into your pre-prepared cold water then bite into your test piece. It's ready when it crunches like a hard-boiled sweet; it shouldn't be grainy (that means your sugar hasn't dissolved properly) or chewy (that means the mixture isn't hot enough yet).
  3. Remove from the heat. Add the butter and the bicarbonate of soda, stirring quickly until it's all mixed in. Pour into the pre-prepared mould, making sure it covers the entire space. Leave to set for around an hour before removing the parchment paper. 
    'covers the entire space' – use the spoon to spread it about if necessary but work with speed because it will force gaps into the surface of your brittle
  4. Decorate with strawberry jam, ground pistachios and the peach slice to look like the cover of Sea of Rust.  

If you enjoy working with sugar at speed, try my honeycomb inspired by John Gwynne's Malice.

If you want peanuts in a savoury dish, try the Kung Pao chicken recreated from Sylvain Neuvel's Sleeping Giants.
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