Monthly Archives: February 2009

In search of a sparkling marmalade

marmalade-jar

Marmalade has been a bit of a problem area for me. I have made jars and jars of it over the years (many of which are still in the cupboard), but seldom made one I’ve really been satisfied with. I’ve made ones with more peel than jam, that are very hard to spread, and others that are more of a caramelised orange syrup – boiled so long and hard that the sugar caramelised, but it never really set.

The pectin you need to set the marmalade comes from the peel, pith, membranes and seeds. There is a very easy recipe that has you boil the oranges whole, to get all that pectin going, then cool and chop them up, before adding the sugar and boiling to set. However, including all of this makes for a very lumpy recipe, which is ultimately a bit unsatisfying to spread on your toast.

I searched around, and came across June Taylor, an englishwoman living in Berkeley, who makes much-loved preserves distributed in the Bay Area. These sounded like just the sort of thing to aspire to – clear, colourful marmalade, with the taste of the fruit.

Fortunately, June has been generous with her time on more than one occasion, and I found a few sources to help me. Most helpful of all was a video on Chow, which shows clearly all her techniques:

Video: June Taylor and her marmalade – Chow

The New York Times: Jelly’s Last Jam

The San Francisco Chronicle: Jars of marmalade dance in her head

I took my recipe from the last one, but halved it – because I really couldn’t see myself getting through 12lbs of marmalade. The big difference between June’s recipes and other marmalade recipes I have seen is that she segments all the fruit – removing the fruit flesh from the membranes and skin. Now, I’m not pretending this is going to be easy – it’s very time consuming to do – it probably took me 1.5 to 2 hours to prepare all the fruit for this. But I did end up with a beautiful orange jelly, that set just perfectly. So it may be worth it if that’s what you’re after.

marmalade-on-muffin

Tangerine and Grapefruit Marmalade

  • 1kg pink grapefruit
  • 2 kg tangerines (I used a combination of tangerines, mandarins and a couple of oranges)
  • 90 ml lemon juice (3 or 4 lemons-worth)
  • 1 kg granulated sugar
  • 600ml water
  • Wash all the fruit – scrub the peel with soap.
  • Take 4 of the nicest-looking, least-blemished tangerines. Top and tail the peel from them, and segment with the peel on, then slice into thin slices across the segment.
  • Take the remaining fruit, top and tail them, and then cut off the peel in curve from the top to the bottom. Segmenting an orange is quite tricky to describe, so instead of trying, you’re best off with an instructional video or a series of photos.
  • Place all the segments and juice into a large, wide pan, with the lemon juice and water.
  • Place all the membranes and seeds into a square of muslin or a jelly bag, and tie it up with string. Use the string to suspend the bag into the pan in the juice.
  • Put the pan onto the heat and bring to a boil, then simmer for 30 minutes.
  • Lift the bag out onto a plate until cool enough to handle. Stir the sugar into the hot fruit to dissolve. When the bag has cooled, squeeze it over the pan to extract the pectin – a cloudy, smooth, thick substance. Massage and squeeze the bag for 5-10 minutes to extract as much as possible – this is what will make it set. Put a couple of saucers or small plates into the fridge.
  • Bring the pan back to the boil and simmer for 30-45 minutes, testing for a set after 25 minutes. If you have a sugar thermometer, it should reach 106C/222F. Test for a set by dripping a little on a refrigerated plate, and put back into the fridge to chill. If you can mound it up so it looks like an egg yolk, or it gets a wrinkle on the surface when you push across it, it is ready.
  • Use a ladle or a measuring jug to pour the hot marmalade into clean, hot, sterilised jars (sterilise by washing in very hot soapy water, or running through a dishwasher, then drying in an oven at 130C).

Basic Beef Stew

In the cold weather of February, a stew is the perfect antidote. But a stew is also a great answer to a week’s worth of cooking from a cheap cut of meat. A slowly braised pot of beef can be: stew with potatoes; then pie, with a pastry lid; and finally, the last morsels of meat, shredded, with the remaining gravy can dress pasta. And while I’m not often keen on eating the same thing night after night, you can coax such flavour from this, that I’m happy to return. And if it becomes too much, simply freeze it – and then re-heat when the weather gets colder again.

The basic elements of a stew are repeated in every recipe you come across. Understanding the components gives you licence to adapt and adjust as you go.

Meat – the substance of the stew, essential flavouring.
Plenty of fat gives flavour, and can be skimmed from the top by chilling the stew overnight before eating (which also helps the flavour). Collagen and fibres will melt, given long, slow cooking, into gelatin, which will thicken the gravy. Cuts with bones and fibres will need much longer cooking than, for example, cubed braising steak, but will give up much more in flavour and gelatin. In Waitrose today, I notice that they are now selling oxtail, ox cheeks, scrag end of lamb and other cheap cuts ideal for stewing.

Thickener – stock, flour.
Gelatin on it’s own is rarely enough (although a jellied stock will help too) to give a silky gravy. A little flour will provide you with enough thickening to allow the sauce to smoothly coat the meat.

Vegetables – more layers of flavour.
Traditionally: carrots, celery, onions – a balance of sweet and savoury flavours. Cut into small pieces if you just want the flavour. Leave in larger chunks to eat them with the stew. I sometimes chop extra, and freeze in little bags, in the ratio of 2 onion :  1 carrot :  1 celery. You can also use leeks, parsnips, celery leaves, swede.

Liquid – stock, wine, beer. Stock gives body and extra meaty flavour – but just use water rather than an oversalted stock. Beer is good, as is Guinness. Wine could be good, but go for something fruity rather than robust – too much tannin can skew the flavours.

Flavours – herbs.
Woody herbs (thyme, rosemary) do well with long cooking. Parsley, chives – do better sprinkled over at the end.
—–
I made this version a couple of weeks ago with braising steak from the butcher. I prefer to leave it to bubble in the oven, rather than on the stove, as it requires less attention, but either works.

Beef and Guinness Stew

Adapted from Jamie Oliver’s Steak, Guinness and cheese pie with a puff pastry lid in ‘Jamie at Home‘
[This is a great book, with lots of little tips for growing veg – and I positively covet his pizza oven]

  • 500g braising steak, in 2cm cubes

–> season with salt and pepper and set aside

  • 2 carrots
  • 2 sticks of celery
  • 1 large onion
  • 1 leek
  • 2-3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

–> chop all the vegetables into pieces.

Heat a large casserole.
Add olive oil, and fry the vegetables to soften them, giving them a little colour.
Start with the onions & leeks, then carrots and celery, finally garlic.
Remove the veg onto a plate.
Turn up the heat, and fry the beef in a couple of batches.
Leave alone to colour, turn over to brown the other side, then take out.

  • 4 large mushrooms, sliced across

–> With the heat still high, fry the mushrooms until they release their liquid and colour a little.

  • 2 tbsp flour

–> Pile the meat back in, and add the flour. Stir around to cook it for a minute or so.

  • 1/2 bottle of Guinness

–> Stir in the Guinness, a little at a time, scraping the bottom to dissolve the flour and browned bits. Bring to a simmer.

  • Thyme sprigs
  • Parsley
  • salt & pepper
  • Rosemary, finely chopped

–> Add the herbs, and season.
–> Put on the lid, and simmer very slowly for 2-4 hours, checking periodically to see whether the meat is tender. Alternatively, put into an oven at 140C.

Stew is always better cooked, cooled, put into the fridge overnight, and then reheated the next day. If you want to make a pie, put the cold stew into a pie dish and cover with a sheet of shortcrust or puff pastry. Glaze with beaten egg or milk, and cut a couple of holes in the top before baking at 200C for 30-45 minutes.

Birthday cake

Chocolate - from iStockphoto

Chocolate - from iStockphoto

Birthday cakes need to be so many things: celebratory; they need to fulfill the wishes of the birthday boy or girl rather than the baker; and demonstrate an appropriate level of effort. It’s this last one that can give me trouble. While I love to make a cake, and will use any excuse to do so, it sometimes feels odd to create something really elaborate for a work colleague or boss. And besides, I don’t often have the time to go overboard. This is where the chocolate torte comes in.

Chocolate torte is one name for a soft chocolate cake made with ground almonds. Other names are Reine de Saba, or Queen of Sheba cake, or it can simply be referred to as a flourless chocolate cake.

To give some idea of the amount of variation possible, I compiled this table from books I own (oh stop: you didn’t already know I was a geek?):

Author Nigella Lawson Sybil Kapoor Gordon Ramsay Alice Medrich Elizabeth David Julia Child
Book How to Eat Taste Just Desserts Bittersweet French Provincial Cooking Mastering the Art of French Cookery
Recipe Torta alla Gianduja Catherine’s Chocolate Cake Dark and Delicious Torte Queen of Sheba Reine de Saba Reine de Saba
Butter 125g 60g 100g 140g 85g 110g
Chocolate 100g 1 cup 350g 170g 110g 110g
Eggs 6 3 4 4 3 3
Sugar 0 85g 200g 170g 85g 150g
Flour 0 2 tbsp 0 2 tbsp 0 50g
Ground nuts 100g 0 0 70g 85g 55g
Others 400g Nutella Water, brandy, coffee Brandy, almond essence Brandy, coffee Rum, coffee

As with so many of my chocolate experiments, it began with Alice Medrich’s ‘Bittersweet’. She devotes a chapter to a number of variations on this recipe, and reassures the reader that this is a recipe that will accommodate, even welcome changes. She provides us with that elusive license to create almost infinite experimental variations, and still produce an edible result. There can be few experienced home cooks who don’t read through a recipe and mentally edit it. However, we are often admonished that one really ought to follow a recipe to the letter the first time, so you can understand the starting point. While that remains good advice, the freedom to add your own stamp right away is a great inducement to try this recipe. So here at last is a recipe that you can rearrange and make your own, and still produce something that everyone will be happy to eat – and provides a suitable celebration cake at the same time.

Chocolate torte:

Prepare a 20cm/8 inch springform or loose-bottomed tin, by lining the base with baking parchment.

150g dark chocolate (I used 64% Valrhona Manjari)
150g butter

–> melt together, and stir until smooth

1 cup espresso (I used about 1/2 tbsp instant espresso powder in enough water to just dissolve it)

2 tbsp brandy

–> mix into melted chocolate, and set aside

100g ground almonds

45g flour

–> measure and mix together

4 large eggs

–> separate into yolks and whites. If you have a stand mixer, use that bowl for the whites.

110g sugar

–> combine with the yolks and beat until well blended (you can do this by hand, or briefly with a machine)

–> stir in the melted chocolate to combine.

–> separately, whisk the egg whites to soft peaks

50g sugar

–> whisk in 50g sugar to make a meringue, and continue whisking until you have stiff peaks.

–> Fold the whites into the chocolate mixture, by first adding one-quarter, and thoroughly beating it in, then folding in the remainder.

–> Bake for around 30 minutes at 190C/375F, or until a skewer inserted about 4cm from the edge comes out clean, but one inserted in the centre is still gooey.