La Recette du Jour

I made my mincemeat this year according to Delia’s recipe, adapted to local circumstances (mine included chopped dried figs and apricots, and dried cranberries, as well as glacé cherries, raisins and sultanas). I used most of the first jar to make some common-or-garden mince pies, but was not satisfied with the results, so I hunted around for alternatives. Here are three other ways of using mincemeat.

1. The simplest: mincemeat palmiers

Buy a block of ready-made puff pastry and roll it out thinly into an oblong. Spread thinly all over with mincemeat, then starting from a short side, roll up the pastry like a Swiss roll. Cut into slices about 2 cm thick, and lay them on a non-stick baking tray (or a tray lined with silicone/baking parchment). Put in the fridge for half an hour or so.

Preheat the oven to 200C. Put the tray in and cook for about 10 minutes, till the pastry is golden. Remove and cool to lukewarm before sprinkling with icing sugar and serving. This is a great and easy alternative to conventional mince pies.

2. Classic and luxurious: almond paste mince pies

I used this recipe; I don’t know why it’s called “almond paste” because there are no almonds in it, only almond essence. I was very pleased with these; the pastry was crisp and golden, and the “almond” paste makes for a lighter topping than pastry. Delicious. I didn’t have a piping bag so I just rolled the paste into small balls, flattened them and placed them on top of the mincemeat. So they looked a lot less elegant, but still tasted good. If, or rather when, I make these again, I’ll substitute ground almonds for some of the flour in the paste though!

3. Comfort food: Eliza Acton’s mincemeat pudding

I loved this; it was my favourite of the three, although it’s a pudding rather than a teatime treat. I’d happily eat it instead of Christmas pudding. It’s basically bread and butter pudding with mincemeat in it. I found the recipe in Elizabeth David’s Christmas; the original is from Eliza Acton‘s Modern Cookery, and is labelled “Author’s Receipt”.
Recipe for Three good things to do with mincemeat »

The result of googling to find a way of using up the rather flat Guinness left over from making the Christmas pudding. Yes, I could have drunk it, but that wouldn’t have been enterprising enough. Anyway, my search threw up at least a dozen variations of this ginger cake, all based on an original from the Gramercy Tavern, whatever that is. Since I like ginger cake and I had all of the ingredients except molasses, the decision was made.

But first, the usual trip to Diana’s Desserts to convert all those dratted American cup measurements. I started out with the version of the recipe at Smitten Kitchen, then reeled in horror when I found that my conversions resulted in 220 g of flour and 650 g of sugar. Beurkh, as we say in France. “No wonder Americans are so fat,” I ungraciously muttered. I bet Deb isn’t fat at all. Although I have tangled with an over-sweet cake recipe from Smitten Kitchen before.

Anyway, one of the comments on the Smitten Kitchen post led me to Epicurious where there was a version of the recipe posted by its originator, Claudia Fleming. For the same amount of flour and eggs, half as much sugar. Phew.

Taking due note of the many comments about spending half an hour scraping caramelised batter off the oven floor, I was slightly nervous as I poured the alarmingly liquid batter into the tin. It was more like pancake batter than cake mixture. Even though the batter was well below the top of the tin, I took the precaution of putting it on a baking tray to ease cleanup. But in fact it was fine and cooked in the time advertised. The cake turns out very moist with a rather coarse crumb, and — dare I say it — it could have been a little bit sweeter. Don’t stint on the spices, it needs them. I also have a sneaking feeling that some sliced pears arranged in the bottom of the tin to make an upside-down cake could be rather good, in which case you could skip the icing. Or you could serve it with vanilla or cinnamon ice cream.
Recipe for Ginger stout cake »

Margaret Costa’s Four Seasons Cookery Book has always lived in the reserve collection. I honestly don’t know why. Nigel Slater himself says: ‘If I had to choose only one book to cook from for the rest of my life it would be this one.’ Picking it up and starting to read, I instantly saw that she and I were of the same mind. The preface begins:

Professional chefs are notoriously bad at giving recipes for domestic kitchens. They are unable to think in small quantities for a start, they are maddeningly vague about times and temperatures, they use words which create total, unreasoning panic in the mind of the ordinary cook: déglacer, dégorger, tomber, revenir, beurre manié — no wonder we lose our heads.

Even the words we think we recognise — blend, beat, sieve — all mean something different to them because they use different equipment. And then they are used to having things to hand. “Garnish with truffles,” they cry, “cook in clarified butter, stuff with a duxelles, finish with a spoonful of hollandaise.” “The sauce? Oh, just a simple jus lié with the addition of a little demi-glace.”

She sums up everything I don’t like about 99% of cookbooks by professional chefs (the Roux brothers are a very honourable exception). And she was married to a chef! I like her introduction to the canapé section too:

Just listen to the next big party you go to: a party where there are enough nice little things to eat has a warm, contented sound, a sort of purr, quite different from the harsh, strident noise where there’s nothing but alcohol and cigarette smoke.

I’d love to go to a party catered by her; her “nice little things to eat” are all mouth-watering, and most are easy to do.

It’s a wide-ranging book, organised roughly by season (some dishes can be cooked all the year round though) — and within each season by theme. So Winter for example includes chapters like Christmas Classics, Party Pieces, Comforting Breakfasts, Winter Soups, Cooking with Wine (a sign of the 1970s that you had to have a special chapter for this!), Proper Puddings, Marmalade … Costa is from the same school as Jane Grigson: erudition worn lightly, with unpretentious yet elegant and classic dishes covering the whole range from dinner parties through everyday meals to preserves and bread baking. Perhaps part of the reason I don’t use this book more is precisely because Jane Grigson is my first port of call when I’m looking for this type of book.

Again like those traditional writers (Grigson, Elizabeth David, Patience Grey) this is a book you can read for sheer pleasure, even if you don’t cook a thing from it. The party pieces, the “proper puddings”, and the preserving chapters are the highlight of the book for me. So this post isn’t exactly a vintage feast, just a sampling of a couple of items from the book (which now sprouts a forest of bookdarts heralding future cooking sessions).

I have never cooked chutney in my life, apart from a brief and fairly successful flirtation with mango chutney. This is possibly due to traumatic memories of a house reeking of vinegar from top to bottom when my mother was engaged in her annual days-long chutney-making session, during which the rest of the family would move out to the garden for the duration. So it’s perhaps surprising that the first recipe I chose from here was the tomato and red pepper chutney, from the very comprehensive preserving chapter. Partly because I bought a big bag of peppers from the market for 3 euros, partly inspired by the chutney-making fervour displayed at the Cottage Smallholder forum.

Costa doesn’t weigh you down with instructions — she just tells you to mince or chop everything up, put it in a pan with the vinegar, sugar, and spices, and “simmer till thick”. The suggested 2 hours’ simmering stretched to 5 hours; I think my simmer must have been too low. But it did eventually acquire a jammy consistency, and I decided this was good enough. Into the jars it went, looking very convincingly like chutney. Verdict in a month or so, when it’s matured! Meanwhile, all the windows are open to eliminate the vinegar smell.

While that was bubbling away, I made some Belgian bun cake, because I’d made some lemon curd a couple of days ago. This is basically a rich brioche dough, spread with lemon curd and sprinkled with candied peel and currants, rolled up and baked. It turns out like a lemony panettone, best eaten while still slightly warm and fragrant from the oven. Delicious, and I already have plans for a very luxurious bread and butter pudding with part of it.

I won’t give the recipe for the chutney here, because I’m waiting to see how it turns out. But here’s my version of the Belgian brioche.
Recipe for Margaret Costa’s Four Seasons Cookery Book »

I never cease to be inspired by apricots, one of my favourite fruits for cooking with. This tart has many of the same ingredients as apricot frangipane tart, but with quite different results — and it’s much quicker to make. It’s based on the very English Bakewell tart, but the usual raspberry or strawberry jam is replaced with an apricot compote flavoured with vanilla and rosemary. I venture to suggest that the result is better than the original; apricot and almond are a classic pairing, and the sharp, intense flavour of the apricot layer contrasts well with the light, spongy topping. You can serve this lukewarm as a pudding, with a dollop of crème fraîche, a pool of custard, or simply some pouring cream. Or when cold, serve as a cake with tea.

The recipe makes much more compote than you need, but this is no hardship; store it in the fridge and serve folded through Greek yoghurt, with ice cream and crisp almond biscuits, as a layer in an apricot trifle, or as a cheesecake topping.
Recipe for Rosemary-spiked apricot and almond tart »

Somehow from Christmas onwards, our fruit bowl seemed to be permanently full of clementines. At one point I found myself with a 2-kg sack of remarkably tasteless ones. What to do? I remembered Claudia Roden’s famous Middle-Eastern boiled orange and almond cake; maybe that would do the trick? Googling around I found many references to it, including Jill Dupleix’s version. I tried it with a few of the clementines but wasn’t very impressed. It was heavy despite the whisked egg whites, and not very tasty (clementines no doubt to blame for that). Darn, six eggs used on that.

More googling, and I hit upon Vegan Yum-Yum’s version. Aha, no eggs! I tried it and was really pleased with the result (and so were the choir members who got to taste it).

It was a bit soggy, and I messed up the frosting by cooking it too long, but candying the clementines gave it a really marmaladey flavour which I liked a lot. You can serve it for tea or as a dessert — skip the frosting and add a dollop of Greek yoghurt or crème fraîche. I’ve made it twice since then; it freezes well too. You do have to plan in advance to cook the clementines, but they’ll keep in the fridge for up to a week, or you can freeze them. Use the remaining syrup to make champagne cocktails (or just top up with sparkling water).
Recipe for Candied clementine cake »

I can still remember the first piece of French pâtisserie I ate, aged 18, on a hot summer day in Brittany. We came out of the bakery with our paper-wrapped slices and sat on a wall in the sunshine to eat them: my very first taste of tarte aux pommes. The pastry was flaky and buttery, the creamy layer of crème pâtissière melted into the thinly sliced apples, slightly burnt at the edges and brushed with shiny apricot glaze that stuck to our fingers. It was unlike anything I’d ever tasted, and I knew I wanted to stay in France forever, so I could eat like this every day.

I don’t think I’ve ever found quite that tart in a pâtisserie since; most of them lack the custard layer and just have plain sliced apples, or a layer of tart apple purée. Delicious all the same, but when I encountered Jane Grigson’s apple tarts from Evreux in Good Things in about 1980, I gave a cry of recognition and set about perfecting them. It took a while, but eventually, after several tweaks to the recipe, my own creations were as wonderful as I remembered that first slice being.

And then I stopped making them, turning to slutty Tarte Tatin as my go-to apple tart recipe. Whatever anyone says about the complexity of Tarte Tatin, it is frankly a doddle to make. All you need for complete success is to burn the apples, butter, and sugar, and how difficult is that? The worst of cooks can do it. It’s always baffled me that people try to make it look so complicated.

This tart is a lot more fiddly and time-consuming, but if you didn’t like spending time in the kitchen, you wouldn’t be here, would you? In any case, you can make the pastry and crème pâtissière in advance and put them in the fridge till needed. Blind-bake the pastry and assemble the tart just before the meal, put it in the oven, and serve it either freshly baked, or lukewarm.

I think this looks loveliest if you bake small individual tarts, but you can make a single large one instead, using an 18-20 cm loose-based tin.
Recipe for A classic French tarte aux pommes »

I first tried this recipe, from Brown-Eyed Baker, about a year ago. It was really nice, but somehow I forgot about it until I stumbled across it in my bookmarks yesterday. Immediately I got out the bowl and the wooden spoon. Here’s my version, converted to metric and made slightly more accessible to those (like me) who have to watch their fat intake. That’s one reason I made mini scones, so even if I can’t resist eating two it is not quite so naughty …

This makes about 16 small scones. They are ideal for buffets or picnics, or just afternoon tea curled up in front of the fire on a cold day. Scones have to be eaten the day they are made, or frozen and reheated (these ones freeze really well).
Recipe for Mini quiche lorraine scones »

This is that old French favourite, yoghurt cake. Good for cooking with children or Americans because no scales are required — you just use the yoghurt pot to measure your ingredients. Of course yoghurt pots may vary slightly in size, but then so do eggs, and anyway it’s all about ratios. For this cake it’s not critical. I found the mixture a bit sloppy, so I added a couple of extra tablespoons of flour. You might need to cook it for more or less time too, depending on how wet your mixture is.

You can bake the apricots into it — or if, as I did, you happen to have a whole trayful of baked apricots in the fridge, add them before pouring the honey over. Or use any other fruit you fancy. Cherry compote for example.
Recipe for Gâteau aux abricots et au miel »

This is March’s entry in my Cookbook Challenge, but I got a bit behind, because I had so much else to do. The book lay on the coffee table for weeks with a scribbled list of recipes next to it. I’ve had this book so long and used it so much that the copy I have is almost pristine; the first one completely disintegrated and had to be replaced.

First published in 1974 and endlessly reprinted since, it’s a true classic; unlike Elizabeth David, Jane Grigson wears her scholarship lightly and is a comfortable companion in the kitchen, rather than a somewhat alarming and superior presence. Nevertheless, there is a lot of historical information here along with authentic regional recipes from the Middle Ages onwards. It is a reminder of the regional traditions Britain seems to have lost; many recipes here are truly rooted in a place and its local ingredients, and Jane Grigson makes you want to cook them.

So, I love this book (along with Good Things and Grigson’s Fruit and Vegetable books it’s one of my all-time favourite cookbooks). There are already a few Jane Grigson recipes in my blog, including my best-ever pudding, Springfield Pear Cake, and the famous Chinese Yorkshire pudding featured in English Food — a must-try if your Yorkshires always flop.

I’d planned to do something I hadn’t done before, but time was pressing so I ended up plumping for one of my oldest favourites for the main course: pulled and devilled chicken. This is simplicity itself to make, and, says Jane, “there is no better way of using up the Christmas turkey with the glory it deserves.” You can use any poultry though, including pheasant, chicken, or guineafowl. You basically separate the leg and breast meat, tearing it into rough quills. The leg meats is spread with devil sauce, left to marinate, then grilled, while the breast is heated through in a thin, creamy sauce flavoured with lemon. The two are served together, with crispy toast. Don’t do vegetables with it, just serve a salad afterwards.

For the starter, I decided to make individual leek tarts, because I had some puff pastry that needed using up. “I’ve lost my Michelin star!” I wailed as I struggled to prise them out of the tart tins. They looked a bit of a mess on the plate, but they did taste good. I think if I made them again, I wouldn’t use a top crust, and I’d add more cheese (which was supposed to be Wensleydale or Lancashire, but hey, this is rural France — I had to use Gruyère).

For pudding, I’d have liked to make the gorgeous syllabub-topped trifle, but it’s just impossible to make syllabub with French UHT cream, as I have discovered to my cost. This book also has the original sticky toffee pudding, credited to Francis Coulson at Sharrow Bay. Then there’s the famous Sussex Pond pudding, heart-attack-on-a-plate stuff. In the end, I made Stuffed Monkey, which isn’t really a pudding, but I liked the name. It’s a very sugary, buttery pastry filled with chopped candied peel and ground almonds stirred into melted butter. As I slid it into the oven I realised the filling was supposed to have an egg yolk in it too. Oops. No wonder it wasn’t very spreadable. Still, the recipe worked despite this, a crisp browned crust surrounding a crumbly filling. It’s very rich even without the egg, so you only need small pieces served with coffee; the peel and almonds give it a Christmassy flavour. Although actually it’s a Jewish recipe, credited to Florence Greenberg.
Recipe for Vintage Feasts: English Food by Jane Grigson »

Thank you to Pam on the Cottage Smallholder Forum for this recipe. I took advantage of it to use up three mushy bananas from the freezer. It looks a bit “whole earth”, brown and speckly, but it is moist and tastes great either on its own or (better) spread with butter. And it costs almost nothing to make. I cut down on the sugar a bit here, because I found the original 150 g made it too sweet for my taste.
Recipe for Pam’s cheap-as-chips low-fat banana bread »