La Recette du Jour

This month’s partner for Taste & Create was Min of Bad Girl’s Kitchen. She has a large and eclectic collection of recipes, so I had a tough time choosing. I was very tempted by the “French toast souffle“, which sounded like a fancy name for bread and butter pudding (why haven’t I posted my recipe for that yet?), and I nearly chose the poulet au porto, which I remember making once many years ago. But time constraints got the better of me, and in the end I did something quick, simple and tasty, using a couple of gigantic chicken legs and ingredients I always have in the house (I was shocked that anyone would run out of lemons as Min did). I made the sauce with a fruity organic Chardonnay from Gérard Bertrand, which we drank with the meal too. I had to use dried thyme, but fresh would certainly have been better. Or you could use rosemary as well/instead.

I humbly apologise for the hastily snapped picture and suggest you go and look at Min’s instead. Actually even in her pictures the sauce isn’t very photogenic, given its greyish colour, but it’s delicious. This was a nice way to ring the changes and make something that tasted special while not requiring much hands-on time. We had it with bread to mop up the sauce, but a potato gratin would be nice with it too.

Another slightly disappointing experience from delicious:days. This was OK, but it tasted bland (read: not lemony enough) and had a grainy texture around the edges which I didn’t particularly like. It also has a rather solid pastry case instead of the usual crumble base. As part of the same baking session I had made some lemon curd with a big bag of bargain lemons, so I improved it by spreading this over the top and adding a garnish of crystallised lemon peel.

Sorry Nicky, but I prefer my own lemon cheesecake!

Continuing with my cookbook challenge: chalk one up to not reading the recipe properly. I read the ingredients for the crust and gaily flung them all into the food processor while thinking that breadcrumbs were quite an odd ingredient in pastry. Then when I’d rolled it out I discovered that the breadcrumbs in the list of ingredients were intended to be sprinkled on top of the pastry before adding the filling.

Oh well. The pastry isn’t baked blind, so I reasoned that the crumbs were intended to stop the pastry going soggy, and instead sprinkled on a little couscous to serve the same purpose.

The pastry is nice, made with butter and quark (40% fat curd cheese) — but overall the quiche was a bit blah. I used what I had, namely leeks, carrots, and a mixture of frozen green beans and sugar snap peas. Unusually, I pre-empted Steve and said “It needs some bacon!” Either that, or some of those lovely caramelised onions, or more cheese, or lots of fresh herbs.

I could only get quark in the form of a huge 1 kg tub, so look out for a follow up in the form of the cheesecake that also features in the book.

I don’t know what is specifically Spanish about this cake, but we enjoyed the moist texture and fresh orange flavour. Both times I’ve made it, it has sunk a bit in the middle on cooling, but this does not detract from it in the least!

We had it plain, but you could make a simple glaze by mixing orange juice and icing sugar to the right consistency. It would probably make nice cupcakes too.
Recipe for Spanish orange cake »

My latest effort for my Delicious Days cookbook challenge was little pots of rice pudding. I have to say I have never really understood why people eat cold rice pudding. It’s just not as good as the lovely hot, creamy comfort food we ate as children — the best of nursery food. Nicky suggests toppings of strawberries or caramelised apples. I substituted pears for the apples because that was what I had, and seasoned them with nutmeg instead of cinnamon. This sauce was delicious and went really well with the rice — it just would have been better served hot! I think the leftover sauce will also be rather good poured hot over vanilla ice cream …

Anyway this is my excuse to present three ways of cooking traditional rice pudding. In the old days, you had to bake it for 2-3 hours, but with the advent of pressure cookers and microwaves, it’s become almost an “instant pudding”, to be whipped up if you are still feeling hungry after your main course. Here are three ways of cooking it; if you want proper golden skin, you have to use the traditional oven-baked method, but otherwise the others produce excellent results. Note: theoretically you can cook it in the microwave, but in my opinion it doesn’t produce good results and takes as long as cooking it in a pan, so I haven’t included that method here.

We like it hot with either jam (must be red) or maple syrup, or soft brown sugar. But in future I may well try the caramel sauce again. If you’re not watching fat intake, make it with full-cream milk; otherwise semi-skimmed is OK.
Recipe for Three ways of making rice pudding »