First frost

First frost of this winter here today.  We're lucky down in the South West that we get a lot warmer climes most of the time than a lot of the rest of our wee island.  Today the river steamed gently in the morning sun on a truly beautiful morning as I wended my way to work.

The cold I can cope with but I do love it to be bright and sunny.  It's those grey dreary November days that get me down.  As I read recently 'November is like the Thursday of the year.'  And as the great Douglas Adams wrote in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy 'I never could get the hang of Thursdays...'

Bloggers around the World - Greece - Tomato Pancakes / Keftedes and the case of the spookily disappearing feta

This month’s country for ‘Bloggers Around the World’ by Chris over at Cooking Around the World is Greece.  Now this is one of my fave  blog challenges but sadly I have not managed to enter for a few months but, as it was I that suggested Greece, I really really am deffo going to get at least one post in for it.  Kinda feel I should!

That said, as my failure to take part in the other months has been due to time constrictions (either in making the dish or in posting it having made it – now that’s really irritating) I decided to start with a quick snack style option and see if I can get more of a main course in later in the month.  --As I’m now posting this at the very end of the month the obvious answer to that was no.  L  Doh!

Now I had intended to serve these tomato pancakes/fritters/keftedes* with a nice authentic Greek hummus to dip into.  Until that is, I started doing my research and found that hummus isn’t really Greek.  It’s most likely Middle Eastern in origin; although it does seem to be one of those things that’s gets argued about, but the earliest reference found for it is in Egypt (13thC) and the word Hummus is Arabic for Chickpea which seems fairly conclusive to my mind. 

 So - a little crumbled feta and some tasty olives would have to do the trick instead.  Hmm – where did that feta go?  One day it was in the fridge and the next – poof – it had vanished in a puff of (Halloween) magic!  Must have been the really big fridge dwelling mice the Chap tells me we have.  The ones that leave human sized bite marks in blocks of cheddar… !!  I settled for some shavings of goats cheese with the olives instead.

*I came across this recipe first on the BBC Good Food website then found it on the original blog.  [I've asked the blog owner for permission to post the recipe but had no response but the blog has been dormant for the last 3 years so I’m going to post it anyway, especially as she said a Greek lady gave her the recipe in the first place.  Plus I made a couple of small tweaks.  Still with me so far?!]  It’s called tomato pancakes there so I tried to find the translation for ‘pancakes’ into Greek.  Hmm – I don’t read the Greek/Phoenician alphabet though which came up with τηγανίτες or κρέπα, so after a little more pottering on google it seemed that keftedes was a close approximation to fritters/pancakes.  Having seen several very similar recipes to this that termed them fritters instead of pancakes I think it’s ok to adopt this term for them.  [Quite possibly any Greek person reading this is wincing at my torturous mishandling of their fair language though as it really isn't ok to use ‘keftedes’ in this way, if so my apologies to you!]  Also my apologies to anyone who just waded through this paragraph and wondered what the point was.  Believe me – I often wonder the same myself when I've been wittering on at length without appearing to get anywhere!

However; we have got to some beautiful warm islands in the blue blue sea and come upon Greece.  I haven’t yet been lucky enough to visit Greece but it’s on my definitely-want-to list.  I imagine the tomatoes there to be bursting with fresh flavour and that these simple little pancakes are a joy to eat.  Here’s how to make them:

Greek Tomato Pancake / Keftedes

5 Tomatoes

2 Spring Onions

1 Egg

Up to 120g Plain Flour

1 tsp Baking Powder

1-2 tsp dried oregano or fresh if you have it

1 tsp Sea Salt

Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Olive oil for frying

As some of my toms were on the small size I used 6 for the recipe so needed all the flour.  Add up to 100g first is my advice then add the rest if needed.

Slice toms in half round the ‘waist’ – this makes them easier to grate than slicing them top to bottom I found out after the first attempt!

Grate into a colander over a bowl to catch the juice.  (Use this up in soup etc.)

Finely chop the spring onions and mix into the toms.

Beat the egg and whisk into the mix.

Sift in the flour and beat in bit by bit.  Add the seasonings and beat in well too.  Add enough flour to make a thick batter – preferably sans lumps; unless they're the tomatoes!

Heat oil in a non-stick frying pan and cook in spoonfuls – 3 to 4 at a time depending on the size of your pan.  Cook until golden – they must be cooked through or can be a bit nastily mushy as the tomatoes are naturally full of moisture. 

I tried these on the bloke and he said they were ‘ok’.  Damned by faint praise!  I did tend to agree with him though.  I think the issue is that as aforementioned the toms in Greece are probably rather more flavourful than those here, especially at this time of year.  So – use lovely vine-ripened ones of the best quality would be my advice.  Oh – and don’t skimp on the salt; tomatoes are one of those things that really need it to bring the flavour out.

Eating these with the olives worked really well though so I think they are one of those things that contrast well; provide a good foil for something with a bit more depth of flavour.

So – a tasty relatively quick thing to knock up but make it in the summer when the toms are at their best.  Enjoy.  J

Perk up your pies

I'm woefully behind with my posts and have a veritable arms length of them to get up but I thought I'd share this little tip with you quickly.
When you're baking pies, or you could try the same with savoury scones; pop some herbs and ground black pepper in the egg wash over the top.  Whatever takes your fancy really.  This cheese and onion pie benefited from a little oregano, pepper and a squeeze of tomato puree mixed in and liberally sloshed on before baking.  Yum!

National Curry Week 2013

I just found out yesterday it's National Curry Week this week in the UK!  I spied a little display in the shop by my work otherwise it could have passed me by without me realising - and we can't have that can we?  :-)
On the website it tells you a bit about the idea behind it - participating restaurants donate a little of the profits or you can have a home dinner where yourself an friends all bring a dish and donate and the money goes towards helping with relief for disasters and/or malnutrition in Asia.
As I've just stumbled across the event I haven't arranged anything specific but I'm going to make something yummy and possible charge the Chap for it!!  Or just suggest we donate on line perhaps...

Meat Cooking for the Faint Hearted #6 - Bacon and Beans

This is the kind of warming dish I've wanted to try out on/for the Chap for a while now.  I finally made it prompted by my bargain purchase of 3 tins of cannellini beans for 99p at a newly opened 99p store close to

Flanked by some other bargains.
2 packs of the tuna fillets - 99p and
garlic salad 99p.  :-)

us.  This makes it tick the 'frugal' box and the usage of whatever veg you have in that needs using up makes it even better as a cheap meal.
I did a little scooting about on the t'internet and came up with the below; mostly influenced by and adapted from this recipe.

Bacon and White Beans
Lump bacon - you can get cheap mis-shape packs in S'burys and butchers.  (I forgot to weigh how much I used but you can use rashers instead, as much or as little as you like / your pocket dictates.)
1-2 cloves garlic (to taste)
1 small onion / half a whopper (that's what I had)
1 carrot (or a stick of celery or both)
1 can beans - drained and rinsed (I used cannellini but white beans of your choice will do)
250ml stock (I used veg, you could use chicken if you have it)
Black pepper
Sprig Rosemary
1 bay leaf

Chop the bacon into lardons or leave whole if using rashers and chop after cooking.  Fry off the bacon in a heavy based pan - I used my cast iron one person sized casserole.  Fry until crispy then remove but leave the fat in the pan.
Add the sliced and rough chopped onion, minced garlic and the diced carrot and cook for a few minutes until softened.  (I used carrot as I didn't have any celery in the house but use both or either or neither -it's not a real picky recipe.)
Add the beans and bacon and cook for a couple of minutes whilst you nip outside and get the herbs - these are mine by the front door.  Or use dried of course.  :-)
Scrunch up the bay leaf a little and chop the rosemary finely if using fresh.  Add to the pan with plenty of freshly ground black pepper.
Add the stock, stir well and whack up the heat to bring to the boil.  [At this point I realised I forgot the garlic so chucked in a good half teaspoon of garlic granules instead.  Doh!]

Reduce the heat and simmer covered for half an hour, stirring occasionally.  Then uncover and simmer for up to a further 30 minutes stirring more often to ensure it doesn't catch on the bottom.  It may not need the full 30 but do it for as long as it takes to get to a nice sticky consistency.  Adjust this to your preference, leave it more soupy if you like, everything's well cooked by now.
Serve with some fresh greens on the side and watch the Chap wolf it down - he professed it to be lovely and ate the lot at one sitting!  :-)

I had to entrust the Chap with taking this shot but to be fair, this kind of meal is never going to win any 'pretty' awards!

A short treatise on the scotch egg

Now this may seem an odd subject for a pescatarian to pontificate upon but one of my favourite blogs to read has an author who is ADDICTED to the humble scotch egg, so keeps mentioning them, which keeps putting them to the forefront of my mind, and has thus made me overly curious about them.
(Yes John from Going Gently - I am looking at you here.)
Admittedly it doesn't take me a lot to become curious about something when it means I can spend several happy hours pinging around t'internet looking at recipes when the alternative is doing the washing up or some other dull as ditch-water pastime; but in my defence, before I gave up the meat eating I was partial to an occasional scotch egg.  So the realisation that there are many varied recipes for veggie versions out there got

me even more interested.  Then this weekend we found these intriguing sounding variants in Falmouth and the compulsion was complete - I will make veggie / fish based scotch eggs!  Once I've spent hours researching them of course!!  :-D

The origins of the scotch egg seem to be contested territory with many people espousing the 'invented by Fortnum and Mason' line.  F&M themselves lay claim to it, quoting 1738 on their website, although it's not backed up by any actual history pages.  However - a little further research tells us it may have been the name that came first, referring as it did to a preservation process used back in the 18th and 19th centuries, and the encasing in meat / whatever that came later.  *This site explains the preserving method using lightly boiled eggs dusted with a lime-powder disinfectant that was utilised to enable the eggs to be shipped from Scotland to London without spoiling.
A written recipe for the meat encased version first popped up in 1807 (in Britain anyway) and at this time scotch eggs were served hot with gravy as part of a meal.
[I mentioned this to the chap and he was roundly disgusted by the idea; which goes to show how much our preconceptions of what is 'normal' affect our thinking sometimes.  Meat and hard boiled eggs served hot with a sauce shouldn't seem odd surely, but put them in that particular combo and all of sudden our culinary conventions alarms are all shrieking.  I digress...]
Interestingly the info on that website also includes a recipe from the 1861 Mrs Beeton 'The book of Household Management' which indicates it was perfectly normal to make them with anchovies instead of pork.  This was another idea which greatly offended the sensibilities of the chap...  (Should you wish to try this - I might - the 'Forcemeat recipe No. 417' can be found here - scroll down until you reach it.)
The other strong contender for the origin of the idea, although not the 'scotch egg' moniker, seems to be the Indian version called Nargisi Kofta where the egg is cased in spiced lamb.  This was brought to India from Persia and then presumably found it's way to us in the empire days.  Tellingly this ties in with when F&M claim to have invented the scotch egg.  (In the book 'Delights from the Garden of Eden' it's mentioned that meat encased eggs existed in medieval times in Persia.)
Some of the other theories are rounded up here, for anyone not already over-satiated on scotch egg facts.
(I admit I tend to overload on info in a compulsive way before trying new recipes out; in this way I hope to get 'the' definitive idea of what something should be like before attempting to create it.  High falutin - much?!)
Anyway - whatever the history there now seem to be multiple versions out there, from the black pudding encased Manchester egg invented in 2010 (with optional salt and vinegar crisps crust) to the Worcester egg (pickled in worcestershire sauce) to the previously mentioned multitude of veggie options to a 'Geordie egg' which utilises both black and white pudding.  I am trying to come to a conclusion on what to try first, the veggie options range from bean crusts, soya mince, falafel or rice so there's plenty of scope for a little kitchen experimentation.  I do fancy trying a fishy version though - if only the shop in Falmouth hadn't been sold out of that one...

*'The Foods of England' site is a gem with the very worthy mission of finding the story behind all traditional English foods ever!  They also have copies of many early recipe books including the c1390 vellum roll 'The Forme of Cury' (=Ku-Ury - ie cookery) written by the Chief Master Cook of King Richard II.  I find it an absolutely fascinating resource.  Mind you I do like my obscure old recipe books; I love the social history you can glean from them as much as the crazy sounding (to us) recipes.  :-)

The Chap and I go to Dorset :-)

We had a weekend in Dorset a few weekends back.  We went to see the Brownsea Open Air Theatre's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.  We also got to meet up with my mother and sisters, brother in law, aunt and uncle, 2 cousins and their other halves.  So there was a fair few of us!
After a late Friday night on Brownsea Island enjoying the open air Shakespeare and our 'posh' picnic (de riguer for these things) - although enjoying the mossies somewhat less, we started later than usual for our Saturday morning walk.  We drove west through Corfe Castle and on up along the ridge until we turned off for Worth Matravers.  This is a very pretty little village situated a mile or so from the coastal path and homing my favourite pub, the Square and Compass.  (Of which I have spoken before.)
On the walk we saw lots of insect life on the hills and cliff tops.  This is a Marbled White butterfly - I think a male.

There were lots of these flitting about the thistles growing through the long grasses.  Often in the past I've seen blue butterflies on these cliff tops but not today - perhaps a sad indicator of the changing nature in our countryside?
This is a moth rather than a butterfly but was showing itself off just as enthusiastically, and was just as welcome a sight.  This is the Six Spot Burnet - rather fab don't you think?

Later that day it absolutely threw it down, but thankfully after we'd had the customary pint and pasty at the pub.  :-)  It just wouldn't be the Worth Matravers experience without those!  

If you should find yourself in that region of Dorset do give it a look, it's a beautiful place.

(PS - apologies for the shortness and fairly insipid nature of this post - I still seem to be struggling to have time to write these things up.  We've had the Chap's son staying for the summer and he has somewhat monopolized the pc as his laptop gave up the first week he was down.  He has now returned home so hopefully autumn should prove bounteous in posts as well as produce though!)