Happy Easter! A simple Sunday Roast

I'm a wee bit behind in uploading these pictures, but better late than never.

I must admit I was at a loss for this year's Easter Supper.  Just not really enthused by any idea that came my way.  I suppose that's why I decided to go back to basics and have a simple Sunday Roast.  Nothing OTT, nothing garishly glam, no feigned humblebragging.

It's been a few years since I last did a roast beef. I just fell out of the habit, I suppose.

Clockwise, from top left:
Yorkshire Puddings
Roast beef with Horseradish Sauce
Maple Harissa Roasted Carrots
Peas, Dijon'd Mashed Potatoes and Gravy

What I didn't photograph?  The apple crumble, but here's the just-out-of-the-oven tweet

Apple crisp for tomorrow's Easter Supper out of the oven and bubbly. pic.twitter.com/0qK7CricBM
— Jasmine (@cardamomaddict) April 4, 2015

I consider roast beef a "back to basics" food.  Nothing fancy, nothing pretentious--when sharing a meal with good friends, you don't need pretention.  Just a good piece of meat, roasted until burnished on the outside, and blushing in the middle.  Delia Smith guided my very first roast, and is the inspiration behind the dusting the meat receives.  The temperature and time are from Nigella's How To Cook.

I like to have about 250-300g for a boneless roast/ 325-400g for a roast that has a bone, per person.  That all said, I tend to overpurchase for a couple of reasons: I think everyone should have as much as they want at a feast, and really...I want leftovers to sustain me through the upcoming days with beef dips, beef and spinach salads and Vietnamese-inspired noodle bowls.

Roast Beef 
Serves 4-5 people

1.5kg (3.3lb) roast
15ml/1Tbsp flour
15ml/1Tbsp powdered mustard
15ml/1Tbsp black pepper
10ml/1Dspn/2tsp powdered mushrooms
1-2 onions, sliced in 1cm thick rounds
Salt
Water or stock

Pat the joint with paper towels and let stand, unwrapped in the fridge for 4-24hrs.

Remove from fridge, pat again and let come to room temperature (about 30-45minutes).

Preheat oven to 450F/230C.

When the oven has come to temp, mix the flour, mustard, pepper and powdered mushrooms together and roll the joint in the mixture.  Tie the roast with cotton string.

Arrange the onions in the roasting tin, so they become a trivet on which the roast will cook.  Place the roast on the onions and lightly sprinkle with salt. Pour a little water or beef broth in the bottom of the tin, to avoid smoking your kitchen.

Roast for 15 minutes.  Turn down the oven temp to 180C/350F.  Tent the roast with aluminum foil for and return to the oven for 20 minutes.  Remove the foil and return to the oven for another 25 minutes (or until the roast's internal temperature reaches whatever safe cooking range, for whatever level of doneness you follow).

Remove from oven and tent with the foil for at least 20 minutes before carving.

Make gravy from the pan drippings, as you normally would.  Serve the onions, if you wish as a side dish.

cheers!
jasmine
  I'm a quill for hire!

Feast: Happy Easter! Buona Pasqua!

Happy Easter to all who celebrate!  I hope you and yours had a wonderful Easter, filled with good people, good fun and (of course) good food.

After a longer and harder winter than usual, Little Robin Redbreast hops through shoots of grass and tells me warmer weather will soon arrive.  This of course means soon trees will bud,  my irises will  their striated leaves through the ground, and of course favourite farmers' tweets about their spring rituals will fill my Twitter feed.

I start thinking about my Easter feast when the leaves begin to turn and we all begin to resettle into shorter days and longer nights.  Rarely do my plans hold true.  In September I thought about roasting turkey; in January that turkey became an Indian-themed dinner.  

By March, Italy and the thoughts of homemade porchetta filled my mind.  Previously I'd done a Tuscan-style pork roast--a bit of a cheat on porchetta for those who don't want to wrap and tie a pork belly around a roast--so going the extra step only seemed right. Our Dear Little Puff of Cream suggested a recipe, and Alessandro gave me some moral support and tips as to what he looks for in porchetta (tip:  it's all about the crackling). The meal was rounded out with roasted capsicums, garlic and onions tossed with marinated artichokes in olive oil and lemon, grilled asparagus dressed in balsamic and parmesan, and potatoes mashed with (more) roast garlic.  I took a bit of a liberty with dessert, opting for a citrussy limoncello tiramisu.

Instead of snapping pics of each item, I decided to offer images and recipe links to the porchetta and tiramisu.

Porchetta (Bon Appetit (Sept 2011))
If you ever need a reason to go to a real butcher, this is it.  Matt (my favourite butcher), presented me with some beautiful tamworth pork, and he trimmed the belly to fit the loin exactly.

The roasted, fennelly-spicy meat was simply sublime.  And the crackling?  Burnished and amazing.




Tiramisù al Limoncello (Lidia Matticchio Bastianich)
As a means to shake off winter's heavy mantle, I wanted an Italian dessert that also brought a promise of sunny skies and warm weather.  Lemon and limoncello fit the bill.

Don't let the fact this contains alcohol scare you--it's cooked off in both the zabaglione and the simple syrup, allowing its boozy nature evaporate. And what's better?  It can be made ahead (up to two days).




cheers!
jasmine
 I'm a quill for hire!

Ceci n'est pas un fruitcake

This year I hemmed and hawed over what I wanted to make for Easter Dessert. Pies, cakes, ice creams--they all flitted through my mind as non-descript actors flit through the minds of fickle teenaged girls: nothing truly grabbed my attention for more than a few days.

TVO currently airs Edwardian Farm--a 12-episode programme chronicling two experimental archaeologists and one historian living the lives of Edwardian farmers at Morwellham Quay--where one episode included a Simnel Cake--a light fruitcake usually made for the middle Sunday of Lent. Tradition has it that the cake is covered with a round of marzipan and 11 marzipan marbles (one for each of the 12 apostles, less one for Judas).

This idea stuck. Well...some of this idea stuck.

Even though I am a founding member and lifelong president of Fruitcake Liberation Society (a rag tag group of people who like fruitcake and don't understand why people cast aspersions at fruit-ladened and alcohol-drenched cakes (well, apart from the storebought ones...those don't count), I just didn't feel like making a traditional fruitcake (even if it is a light one).

But a cake that combined marzipan and dried fruit...is not a fruit cake.

It is a fruited cake.

I quickly dismissed the idea of a plain fruited cake and decided to go for an almond cake. The nut quotient was increased by good bit by including a marzipan layer in the cake and a dribble of almond extract. I selected my favourite fruits that play well with the dominant nuttiness: apricots, cranberries and blueberries.

Unsurprisingly, this is an almond-lover's cake (so if you don't like almonds, you may want to pass this one by). It's sweet and a bit sticky and a great pick-me-up with a cup of afternoon tea.

Fruited Almond Cake
Yield 1 x 20cm (8") cake

Ingredients
100g (185ml/.75c) dried apricots (14-15 pieces)
100g (165ml/0.66c) dried cranberries
100g (165ml/0.66c) dried blueberries
225g (415ml/1.66c) cake flour
1.25tsp (6.25ml) baking powder
110g (125ml/0.5c) room temperature butter
3Tbsp (45ml) flavourless oil
150g (375ml/1.5c) sugar
0.25tsp (1.25ml) salt
2 eggs
0.5tsp (2.5ml) almond extract
85g (210ml/a generous 0.75c) ground almonds
165ml (0.66c) milk
225g (0.5lb) marzipan
icing sugar (for dusting)

Method
Tip all the dried fruit into a bowl and cover with boiling water. Let the fruit plump for at least 20 minutes. Drain, chop the apricots into cranberry-sized pieces. Cover with more hot water until ready to use.

Preheat oven to 170C (350F). Butter and flour a tall-sided 20cm (8") round cake pan. Set aside

Sift together the cake flour and baking powder. Set aside.

Roll the marizpan into a 20cm/8" circle. Set that aside too.

Cream together the butter, oil, sugar and salt for about three or four minutes, until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs one at a time, followed by the extract. Mix in the almond flour. Drain the now plumped fruit and fold into the batter.

Add the flour and milk into the batter alternate addition, in the usual way (dry-wet-dry-wet-dry), scraping down the bowl's sides after each dry addition.

Pour half the batter into the prepared cake tin. Lay the marizpan round on top. Pour in the remaining batter.

Bake for 50-60 minutes. The cake will be golden in colour and begin to pull away from the sides. Remove from oven and let cool completely before unmoulding.

Dust with icing sugar before serving, if you wish.

Notes:

• Use whatever combination of dried fruits you wish--sultanas, currants, raisins, cherries--keeping the total weight (or volume) to what's in the recipe

cheers!

jasmine

I'm a quill for hire!

Good Friday: Seafood Pie

It seems as if everyone I know who's keeping Good Friday is having a fish fry today. Don't get me wrong, I love a good fish fry (tempura, beer batter, heavily spiced and dry fried--it's all good), but I just didn't want to go through "all that" ... not that it's arduous--if you're looking for a good deep fried fish recipe, here's my catfish fingers recipe.

After an oddly warm winter, we're back to seasonal temps--cool nights and just-this-side-of-warm days--and I want something a bit more hearty and soul-warming than battered or crumb-coated fish.

Work took me to New England for a few days last month--it's a gorgeous area, blessed with a long shoreline. Being landlocked at home, being an hour from the Atlantic meant sampling amazingly fresh seafood. And sample I did: crabcakes, calamari, lazyman's lobster, lobster rolls, baked oysters, seared tuna. All were delicious, but on my last night in Nashua, NH, my colleague and I had supper at Surf Restaurant, where I had the fisherman's platter: whitefish, scallops and shrimp with potatoes and veggies in a butter-white wine sauce, under a cracker crumb crust. One word describes that dish: succulent.

That dish inspired today's Good Friday supper of a seafood pie. Unlike other seafood pies, I didn't want a heavy white sauce binding together filling--I usually find them too rich, so I played with a yoghurt-olive oil bechamel I use for my moussaka. I also did away with the mashed potato topping (apologies to purists)--but I wanted this to be relatively easy and fuss-free, so I simply cubed the potatoes and mixed them with the fish filling.

Don't be put off by the seemingly lengthy ingredients list-- a good number of ingredients are for the poaching liquid, and although I could have simply indicated 250g (0.5lb) of mixed seafood, I gave you the breakdown I used for tonight's meal.

Unlike many traditional pies, this version has a slight tang, thanks to the sour cream and the dijon mustard. I like the lighter sauce, as it doesn't battle against the fish and seafood--if you'd rather go a more traditional route, make a standard bechamel sauce (see notes). The sour cream sauce is quite loose when the pie comes out of the oven--simply spoon it into your bowl. Keep the cracker crumbs--they add a nice textural contrast against the softness of the filling.

Seafood Pie
Serves 4-6

Ingredients
250ml (1c) clam juice or fish stock (see note)
125ml (0.5c) white wine
1 bay leaf
a few parsley stems
a few dill stems
a few celery leaves
6 lightly crushed black peppercorns
250g (8oz) firm white fleshed fish, such as cod, haddock, pollock or sole (see notes)
150g (5oz) boiling potatoes, cubed into 1.25cm (0.5") pieces
2dspn (20ml/4tsp) olive oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 celery rib, finely sliced
2dspn (20ml/4tsp) all purpose flour
125ml (0.5c) milk
125ml (0.5c) sour cream
1Tbsp (15ml) dijon mustard
1/8tsp dried tarragon
2-3Tbsp (30-45ml) minced parsley
salt
pepper
100g (3oz) smoked fish, such as trout or haddock, broken into bite-sized pieces (optional)
125g (4oz) scallops (I used bay scallops)
125g (4oz) shrimp
90g (0.75c) frozen peas
a few handfuls of cracker crumbs

Method
Parboil the potato pieces in salted water. While they are cooking, poach the fish by bringing to a boil the the clam juice, wine, bay leaf, stalks, celery leaves and peppercorns (if you have fish skins/bones, and shrimp shells, add them as well). Turn the hob down to a simmer, add the cod and poach for five minutes. Remove the fish from the broth. Strain out the leaves and whatnots from the broth. Reduce the liquid to 125ml (0.5c). Pour into a measuring jug and set aside.

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F.

Sweat the onions and celery in the oil. Stir in the flour and cook until biscuit-coloured. Whisk in the milk and sour cream for a few minutes, until thick. Add in the reduced poaching broth and mustard. Continue whisking for a few minutes. Stir in the parsley and tarragon. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Stir in the parboiled potatoes, smoked fish, scallops, shrimp and peas. Fold in the poached fish, keeping care to keep bite-sized chunks.

Pour into a baking dish. Strew the crumbs over top.

Bake for 25 minutes. Turn on the grill (broiler) and brown the crumbs for about 1-2 minutes.

Notes:

• Truth be told, I used one 236ml bottle of clam juice (why it's such an odd volume, I have no clue).
• This is a pretty adaptable recipe--add whatever vegetables you wish (peas, carrots, spinach, fennel), use salmon or trout instead of white fish, and choose whatever combination of fish and seafood you wish (try including clams or mussels to the mix)--the total fish and seafood weight should be about 600g (1.33lbs).
• If you are using smoked fish, remember to slightly undersalt the sour cream bechamel as the fish will add to the saltiness of the dish.
• To make a standard bechamel for this recipe: sweat the onions and celery in 25g (30ml/2.5TbspP butter, then stir in 25g (20ml/2.5Tbsp) flour, let toast until it is biscuit-coloured. Pour in 250ml (1c) of light or heavy cream and stir until thick.

cheers!

jasmine

I'm a quill for hire!

Happy Easter! - Cupcakes for all

For those who observe, a very joyous Easter; for those who celebrate, Happy Pesach. Regardless of your beliefs, I hope all of you are enjoying all the best of this time of year.

Over here, right now, we're enjoying a lovely warm spell with temperatures more like early June than early April. My teeny little flower bed is waking up with a few icicle pansies in bloom and bleeding hearts poking throught the soil.

There's definitely something light and joyful in the air.

There must be because I decided to make these springtime cupcakes. Cute ones, if I do say so myself...

Those of you who know me or have followed this site during the past few years know that I am not a fancy or frilly cake person. Foofy cakes just aren't my thing--anything that needs more than a dusting of icing sugar, a dollop of billowy whipped cream or at worst an easy schmear of icing rarely enter, are made in or leave my kitchen.

But after spying some overly cute bunny cupcakes at my fancyfooderie of choice, I knew I had to make them. Maybe it's this time of year--it was the same shop that sold the bunny bread that I deconstructed so I can make them myself (here's my step-by-step how to on making bunny shaped bread)--but again, I bought so I could see how it was put together...and eat it.

And yes, I realise the eyes on my bunnies are a tad on the maniacal side (you can use smaller candies, if you wish), but I think they add a certain je ne sais quoi leaning towards "you really aren't going to eat me, are you?"

How to make fuzzy bunny cupcakes:

What you need:

• cupcakes
• marshmallows
• coloured sugar (optional)
• icing
• sweetened desiccated coconut
• Smarties (or any other candy)

For the ears: cut a giant marsmallow on the diagonal and stand each half on the flat side. If you wish, you can brush the cut sides with a bit of water and then sprinkly some pink coloured sugar, with more sugar applied at the base of the ears, lightening up as to you get to the tips.

Schmear the cupcake with icing and position the ears in a bunny-like way. Place appropriately coloured candies for the eyes (and nose, you wish and if the candies are small enough) and then spoon coconut over the rest of the surface to make a fuzzy face.

If you wish, you can put a little white marshmallow for the bunny's teeth, but that's up to you

While I was at it, I decided to make some nests. Again, so easy I can manage it.

How to make nest cupcakes:

What you need:

• cupcakes
• icing
• sweetened, desiccated coconut
• candy eggs (I prefer Cadbury's mini eggs, but gummy eggs would work as well)

Lightly toast the coconut in a dry pan until most of it is lovely and golden. Set aside to cool

If your cupcakes have domed, cut off the peaks and enjoy the cook's treat. Schmear the survace with icing. Roll the outer edge of the cakelettes in the tosted coconut, leave the centre coconut free.

Place the eggs in the centre of the nest.


Vanilla cupcakes
Yield: 12

110g (0.75c +4tsp) cake flour
1 tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
125g (0.5c + 1Tbsp) unsalted butter, softened
125g (0.5c+ 2Tbsp) sugar (vanilla sugar, preferably)
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla extract
3Tbsp milk

Preheat oven to 200C/400F. Line a 12-bowl cupcake tin with papers.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

Cream together the butter and sugar until light, fluffy and almost pearlescent. Mix in the eggs one at at a time (or as best as you can), followed by the vanilla.

Incorporate half the flour into the batter, scrape down the sides and then continue with the rest of the flour. Mix in the milk, one tablespoon at a time, until smooth.

Divide between the papered bowls and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until the cakelettes have risen, are golden and an inserted skewer comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack; decorate as desired.




cheers!
jasmine

I'm a quill for hire!

Estonian Lenten Buns...and bunnies and duckies and tap-dancing Barneys

When I saw our dear Pille's recipe for Vastlakuklid (Estonian Lenten Buns I knew I had to make them. Rich, tender and flavoured with cardamom, how could I not make them?

Well, that was three or four years ago.

Just before each subsequent Easter I have every hope and intention of making her perfect buns. But then...well...I forget. Yes, even though I can recall many conversations word-for-word (ask any of the men I used to go out with), at times I cannot keep a simple, seasonal foodish intention in my mind long enough to follow it through to fruition.

It was almost the same story again this year. Almost.

Long after I declared my Lenten promise a disasterous foray into self-improvement, I remembered the buns. Those lovely, cream and jam-filled buns. Well, if I can't actually get around to 100 pages of pleasure reading every day during Lent, I can get these buns done. Yeah, it was probably safest for those around me that I not give up chocolate, caffeine or anything that keeps my few shreds of sanity firmly within my possession.

Since it's Easter, I also decided to use some of the dough and revisit the bunny-shaped bread I made a few years ago. I mean, how perfect would it be to make a Lenten bread in the shape of a cute little Easter bunny? Well...

In that last rise, my lovely little bunnies took on lives of their own and turned into...edible instances Gestalt figure-ground principle (yes, those pictures that could be interpreted in more than one way, like the old woman-young woman picture).

Except my tray produced what some people would call bunnies...while other would see...I don't know...a toucan, a little lamb with a bow, a tap-dancing Barney, a mollusc, a duckie...some sort of leaping Pokemon character.

This isn't the first time my yeasted goods have taken on some sort of figurative bent.

Based on this, I'm sure I can come up with some sort of side business as a baker-teacher-cum-therapist: I teach people how to make delicious yeasted breads and when the treats are done, analyse the buns (or doughnuts) to help them lead a happier and less neurotic life...and one filled with tasty, tasty buns.


I'm late in making these (I hope Pille will understand)--they are traditionally eaten the day before Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, much like pancakes are eaten here in Canada. These buns are easy to make have a light cardamom flavour. Split them open and fill them with sweetened jammy cream, jam (apricot, lingonberry or blueberry would work nicely), orange curd or even marzipan.

Vastlakuklid: Estonian lenten buns
adapted from Pille of Nami-Nami's Vastlakuklid: Estonian lenten buns

Yield 12 buns

250ml (1c) hand-hot milk
6g (1.75tsp) dry yeast
400g (3c less 2.5Tbsp) ap flour
0.5 tsp salt
0.5 tsp ground cardamom (seeds from 4 pods)
100g (0.5c less 1Tbsp) butter, melted and cool
1 egg, lightly beaten
cream or lightly beaten egg (optional)

Dissolve the yeast into the milk. Stir in approximately half the flour until fully incorporated. Cover with cling and let double in volume in a warm, draft-free place (about an hour).

Combine salt, cardamom and the rest of the flour and add to the yeasty mixture. Add the butter and the egg and mix well. Turn out to a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and elastic, but not tacky.

Return to proving bowl, cover and let double in size.

Preheat oven to 200C/400F; line a baking tray with parchment paper.

Punch down and divide into 12 pieces. Roll the pieces into balls, and place on lined baking tin. Let rise for about 30 minutes or until the buns have doubled in size.

Brush on cream or beaten egg and bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden. Remove from oven and cover with a teatowel while cooling.

Split the buns and fill with sweetened or flavoured cream, jam, curd or marzipan.

cheers!
jasmine


I'm a quill for hire!

Bread bunny massacre

It was one of those ideas that grabbed hold of me and wouldn't let go. It was just so...cute.

That's the only explanation for my bread bunny massacre.

Actually...no. That's not the only explanation: It is my ingrained desire to recreate whatever foodish item that's tickled my fancy, in hopes that I can then have it whenever I want.

Wait...one more reason: I felt the need to put my Fine Arts degree to good use...even if my degree was in Art History, I have years of studio work under my belt (mostly in painting, but some in sculpture).

You see, the other week I was in the SwankyFooderie and they had little flyers pinned to the cash till advertising Ace Bakery's bread bunnies. While I was queued, balancing containers of Portuguese olives, hunks of Stilton and Roquefort and Guinness Cheddar, packets of breaded portabellos and jalapenos, sushi and a box of Maldon salt (umm...I went in for the salt, that's it), I stared at the photo of the bread bunny.

"Gosh...That is cute--and creative," thought I as the sushi tried to make a break for it. "It can't be that difficult to fold bread...it would be great at Easter."

(Yes, here's where you're allowed to go "No Duh...it is Easter time.")

I thought about the photo...and the cuteness surcharge on what really amounted to a couple of whorls of dough. It became my mental wander of choice for the ensuing days. Let's face it, when I'm super busy, my brain needs a break and meanders to a different puzzle that needs solving.

Well...I couldn't figure it out without actually seeing one. Unfortunately, they were special order breads, only available this weekend. So I broke down and ordered a couple of bunnies, which I picked up on Holy Saturday.

When I got home, I closed my blinds and out came the paring knife.



Mwah-ha-ha...I felt like one of those early anatomists, forced to learn the intricacies of form by scavenging cadavers from public hangings or insane asylums or something. After looking at them, back and front, and then carving out the nearly Möbius strip-like construction, I pretty much had it sorted...after I figured out that each bun was made of two bits of dough.

So Now that I had the form figured out, I needed to recreate it. I chose my favourite hot cross bun recipe, as previously blogged about. Except this time, omitting the fruit and just using the spiced dough--each hot cross bunny would get a raisin eye, though. It was pretty easy, even if Beelzebub gave me black-bottomed bunnies (yes, out of pure stubbornness, I re-made them).

So, for those of you who want to make bunny-shaped bread, here are my step-by-step photos. I didn't give them enough room to rise, so many of them look rather...Quasimodo-like...but the few who were given ample growing room look rather bunny-like...even if in a Picasso-esque way.

After the first rise, divide the dough into as many pieces you wish. For the Delia recipe, I divided it into 12 pieces, and snaked them out. Divide each into two pieces, with one piece roughly twice the length as the other. The longer bit will be the bunny body, the smaller will be the head and ears. Then put them onto a baking sheet and allow them to rise until doubled in size. About 30 minutes before you pop them into the oven, place a current or sultana in the head for its eye:

And the final result...isn' t he cute?



cheers!
jasmine