Friday 28 April 2017

The grand Greek finale: a sticky sweet baklava

Nothing is more appropriate to complete a Greek feast than another dish with at least one 'k' in its name: baklava.

According to Joyce M. Stubbs, author of The Home Book of Greek Cookery, baklava is best made a day or two ahead to give the syrup time tostadas into all the layers and make it super sticky. I thought pistachios were the nut of choice, but the recipe in this book contains walnuts (see also the lamb - moussaka misunderstanding). While walnuts are popular, pistachios are apparently considered the "grandest" (and are still the most expensive of nuts), so I went with a mix of both - always trying to please everyone.

I expected these to be tricky to make, as the displays on stalls at farmers' markets look so delicate. They weren't - the most difficult bit was chopping the nuts. One slight addition I might make if I were to do these again (I'm doing them again) would be a drop or two of rose water in the syrup to balance the sweetness.

Here's the money shot:

More foodporn available on Instagram (@fourhobsinarow)

Ingredients
(Makes 8-10 servings)

100g unsalted butter
100g sugar
100ml hot water
150g pistachios and/or walnuts, chopped
3 sheets ready made filo pastry
Ground cinnamon

For the syrup:
100g sugar
100ml honey
100ml water
Juice from half a lemon




Method

1. To make the filling, melt half the butter with the sugar and hot water then add the chopped nuts. Melt the rest of the butter in a separate pan for brushing pastry layers.


 2. Line a baking tin with 4 layers of filo pastry, cut to size (I used a 26cm x 20cm dish), brushing each layer liberally with melted butter


3. Add a layer of nut filling, sprinkle with cinnamon, and cover with 2 more sheets of buttered pastry. Repeat until all the filling is used up (I made four layers).


4. Finish with another four sheets of buttered pastry and brush the top with butter. Score into diamonds with a sharp knife and bake at 180C for 15 minutes until golden and crisp.


  5. While the baklava is baking, make the syrup by boiling the sugar with the honey, water and lemon juice 


6. While the baklava is still hot, slowly pour over syrup, letting it seep into the layers - you probably won't need all of it but keep any leftovers to serve cold. Leave at room temperature overnight. 


Serve with a dollop of Greek yoghurt and a drizzle of leftover syrup (not the fake rose petals / actually inedible geraniums used in the money shot...) - a perfect ending to a delicious culinary adventure.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, completes this Greek tragedy, with a total absence of leftovers and some rather sticky pans to wash up. I hope your guests enjoy it as much as ours did!




Greek tragedy act two: a meaty moussaka

As Felicity Cloake points out in her Perfect Moussaka article, this is one of those dishes that simultaneously manages to taste of sunshine and boast warming qualities sufficient to see you through a spring shower. Or arctic blast in our case. At the risk of inviting outrage, to me a moussaka is basically a greek lasagne, with aubergine instead of pasta. Which makes it a health food, right?


I used the same recipe book for the whole Greek feast menu / tragedy: The Home Book of Greek Cookery. For the moussaka, Joyce uses minced veal whereas I had always associated the dish with lamb. I'm relieved to report that Felicity thought the same, and although apparently veal is the more traditional ingredient (and my local Waitrose had minced veal but not minced lamb so I had to go to M&S #middleclasscommentoftheday) I stuck with lamb as I prefer the flavour with the cinnamon and nutmeg spices. And it's what Felicity did and she's much better at this than me...

The wobbly white sauce that tops the moussaka is a classic béchamel enriched with egg and flavoured with some parmesan and a bit more nutmeg. For some reason, my sauce went a bit lumpy, but it doesn't matter for the final dish. You could also use ricotta if you can't be doing with making the sauce from scratch.

The whole dish does take some time to prepare, perfect for a miserable afternoon, but can be made ahead and baked while your guests are devouring feta parcels and / recounting ouzo stories...

Ingredients
(Serves 4 - 6)

3 aubergines
1 onion, finely chopped
500g minced lamb
1 glass red wine
1 400g tin chopped tomatoes or passata
1 tsp ground cinnamon
A grating of nutmeg
1 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped

For the béchamel sauce:
50g butter
50g plain flour
500ml milk
2 eggs
1 tbsp grated parmesan
A grating of nutmeg




Method

1. Slice the aubergines, sprinkle liberally with salt and drain in a colander for at least half an hour - this removes the bitterness from the vegetable.


2. While the aubergines are draining, make the béchamel sauce. Melt the butter then add the flour and cook for one minute. Gradually add the milk, stirring constantly, and continue to heat gently and stir until the sauce thickens. Add a grating of nutmeg and the cheese and keep warm.


3. To make the sauce, sauté the onion in olive oil until soft then add the mince and brown. Add the red wine and, when that's sizzled away, add the chopped tomatoes or passata, the herbs and spices. Taste and season, then cook on a low heat for about 20 minutes. Add in a couple of spoonfuls of the béchamel sauce and turn off the heat.


 4. Rinse the aubergine slices, pat dry on kitchen towel the griddle in batches using a little olive oil.


5. Assemble the moussaka by starting with a layer of aubergine then a layer of mince and a sprinkle of parmesan. I had 20 slices of aubergine so I used 5 slices in 4 layers. Finish with an aubergine layer.



 6. Add the beaten eggs to the warm béchamel sauce, mix thoroughly then add the sauce to the top of the moussaka. Sprinkle with parmesan, and breadcrumbs if you like a crunchy topping, then bake at 180C for 30-40 minutes until golden brown on top.



Serve with simple green beans or a lightly dressed salad. And don't expect to have any leftovers... 


Room for dessert? The final part (clue: also has a 'k' in its name) coming soon...







A Greek tragedy in three parts: #1 feta parcels or tiropitakia

*Spoiler alert* The only tragedy in this three parter is that there weren't any leftovers; in fact, each course was even better than the last, so keep your eyes peeled for dessert! If you follow me on Instagram, you'll have seen a sneak preview with one of my best ever food stylist-worthy shots, petals and all.

The Greek theme was an attempt to ignore this week's arctic blast by indulging in a feast to remind us of hot sunshine, summer holidays and maybe a sip of ouzo... It was also inspired by another donation from a local Barbican resident: The Home Book of Greek Cookery first published in 1963. This rather funky paperback edition was printed in 1976: 


Greek food is ideal for entertaining and many of the recipes in the book are for 8-10 people; we invited two. Everything on the menu can be made ahead, except for these little cheese parcels, or tiropitakia, which take minutes to prepare and are best eaten hot from the oven. So once these are done, you can sit back, relax and enjoy the ouzo stories (everybody has an ouzo story...).

Ingredients 
(Makes 8 parcels)

125g feta cheese
1 egg
1 tbsp fresh parsley, finely chopped
1 tbsp fresh mint, finely chopped
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 sheets ready made filo pastry
A large knob of butter, melted 


Method

1. Mash together the cheese, egg, herbs and pepper until well mixed


2. Cut the pastry sheets into four pieces: in half lengthways then in half widthways. Add a heaped teaspoon of filling to the top of a strip, about 2cm from the edge, then fold over the top left corner to meet the right edge forming a triangle (see pics below). Keep folding over, brushing the edge with melted butter to seal in the filling, until you reach the end of the sheet. Repeat for the remaining pastry and filling to make 8 parcels. 


3. Brush the parcels with melted butter and place on a baking sheet. Bake at 180C for 15 minutes until crisp and golden.




Serve warm from the oven with some Greek yoghurt pepped up with some lemon juice and more fresh herbs, alongside some stuffed vine leaves, olives and other Greek paraphernalia.


To vary the filling, you can mix spinach and spring onions with the feta (spanakopitakia) or make a meat filled version with minced lamb, passata and onion (kreatopitakia).

Tune in next time for the second act: a cheesy baked moussaka.

Monday 10 April 2017

Roast lamb: perfectly family Easter Sunday lunch

This is hands down my favourite roast dinner. I have so many fond memories: the house filled with the smell of slow roasting meat and garlic, hours of asking "how much longer?" before sitting down as a family to devour it, spilling half of it down my front (inevitable), maybe being allowed a drop of red wine...

A leg of lamb is a great choice for family gatherings on lazy Sundays: it takes only a few minutes to prepare, then you have hours to spend together while it roasts before you need to do the trimmings while it rests - or delegate to some little helpers. My first attempt at cooking this version was in Saundersfoot on the Welsh coast with a bunch of friends; we'd bought a large leg of lamb from the local butchers and I phoned my Mum to get instructions. We played Monopoly while the joint roasted. The blackened bits of paste worried them a little but once they'd tried it they were fighting over the sweet crunchy pieces and it was huge success. 

I highly recommend getting your joint from a butchers where you can discuss exactly what you want and can be assured of the quality of the meat. I'm embarrassed to say that although we live 3 minutes walk from Smithfield's market, I didn't get up early enough to buy direct (and save myself a small fortune) but instead walked 30 minutes further to Quality Chop House on Farringdon Road. On the plus side, QCH also sell my favourite peanut butter, but it did mean walking home with a 2.5 kg leg of lamb on the hottest day of the year so far (it's April so it wasn't that hot, but you get the picture).

Ingredients 
(Serves 6 with leftovers)

1 leg of lamb: 2-2.5kg, bone in, at room temperature 
3 sprigs of rosemary,  leaves picked
3 fat garlic cloves
5 tbsp tomato purée
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

Roast dinner "trimmings" to serve


Method

1. Score the skin and fat on the lamb with a sharp knife


2. Crush the rosemary leaves with the garlic in a pestle and mortar, then add the tomato purée and Worcestershire sauce to make a paste


3. Rub the paste all over the joint, squidging into the holes made with the knife


4. Roast at 180C for about 3 hours for a pink-in-the-middle joint (to calculate timings for your joint allow 25mins per 450g plus 25 mins). The paste will go black in places; if it starts smelling burnt cover with foil for the rest of the roasting time.


5. Rest under foil and a tea towel for at least 30 minutes before carving. Scrape the juices from the bottom of the roasting pan to add to the gravy.

Serve with your favourite roast dinner trimmings; for us that's garlic & rosemary roast potatoes, yorkshire pudding(s), obligatory vegetables and red wine gravy. Don't forget to share out the black bits.


Happy Easter!

Sunday 2 April 2017

Chocolate creme eggs: homemade to appropriate size

The Cadbury's brothers first produced filled eggs in 1923, but the Creme Egg in its current form wasn't produced until 1963 and it's only been called a Cadbury's Creme Egg since 1971 - perfect timing for this blog (and credit to chief research assistant Julie Hill for googling that!). And as we all suspected, they are getting smaller: in 1977 a Cadbury's Creme Egg weighed 39 grams; last year they weighed only 34 grams each. So it's not just my hands getting bigger then...


My homemade versions weigh in at a whopping 93 grams and will probably send most children super-hyper on sugar. The other advantage (?) is that you can use really good chocolate; another naughty change by manufacturers was swapping the Cadbury's milk chocolate shell to some cheaper chocolate a couple of years ago. Milk chocolate shells taste most like the original version, although dark chocolate shells are a delicious balance for the sweet fondant filling.

I used a silicon egg mould to make the shells, and I would really recommend this option rather than trying to roll chilled fondant into egg shapes by hand and dipping in molten chocolate.  I got pretty messy using the mould so I can only imagine the carnage without it. This version was £4.99 from Lakeland (oh, if only I was getting product endorsement deals!). They also have mini versions that should work in the same way but might be a bit fiddly. 

For the fondant filling, there are a couple of recipes on the net using corn syrup aimed at US cooks; some suggest replacing that with golden syrup for UK cooks but this results in an off-white filling, not the pure egg white we need. Instead, I tried simply using icing sugar and water, which makes the right texture and consistency but needs jazzing up with added flavours. The closest flavour to an original Creme Egg is vanilla extract, but I've made a few other suggestions at the end of the recipe.

Ingredients
(Makes 3 eggs using the Lakeland mould)

300g good quality chocolate (milk or dark, or a mixture)
200g icing sugar
A few drops of vanilla essence
A few drops of yellow food colouring (I find the gel types work best)


Method

1. Melt the chocolate, either in the microwave for a few seconds or over a pan of simmering water. Leave to cool slightly, then spoon into the egg shell moulds, making sure to coat the sides. Chill in the fridge for an hour until set, then repeat to make a thick crunchy shell.


2. Make the filling by mixing the sieved icing sugar with a trickle of cold water to make a thick white paste. Add a few drops of vanilla essence.


3. Pinch off a third of the fondant and add a few drops of yellow food colouring. Mix well and chill in the fridge until the chocolate shells are ready.


4. When they're completely set, pop the chocolate shells out of the moulds. Add white fondant to a pair of halves until about almost full. Roll a small lump of yellow fondant into a ball and push into the middle of one half egg.


5. Brush the edges of one half shell with molten chocolate, add the other half and squidge together to fuse the two halves into a complete egg. Chill until ready to eat.


Enjoy as you would a normal Cadbury's Creme Egg, i.e. whenever you feel like it between now and Easter Sunday. You might need to phone a friend to help get through whole one...


As promised, here are a few variations for flavourings and fillings: 

- Add 2 drops of rose water to the white fondant instead of vanilla
- Add orange essence or finely grated orange zest to the yellow fondant for a chocolate orange vibe
- Add a mini egg to the middle of the yolk for an extra surprise
- Fill the whole egg with mini eggs or other bite sized sweets (they're big enough!) for anyone that finds the fondant a bit too sickly sweet.

Happy Easter!