A baking cupboard clear-out

At least twice a year I feel (or rather see) the need to clear out my "baking drawer" - usually when it's so full of small bags, packets and pots containing the dribs and drabs of various types of nuts, dried fruit, biscuits etc that it doesn't open and close anymore! And then there is the vast amount of chocolate - which is mainly due to my Swiss father who sends (literally) kilos if it for every birthday, Christmas and Easter. (However, him being the most "frugal and thrifty" shopper on this planet, all these are supermarket own "bargain of the week" brands of mainly slightly dubious varieties - all proudly displaying their "Promo" stickers and ALWAYS just shy of their expiry dates... Oh, but one memorable massive Easter package contained nothing but ca 30 golden Lindt bunnies of various sizes - they were such a bizarre sight and sound (of their little bells all ringing) that my (then still very young) children ran away in fear! And, of course, they had all been marked down by 50% - because he'd bought them straight AFTER Easter the year BEFORE...) But what to do with all these left-overs now? One brilliant way is to turn them into this classic, easy - and most delicious and versatile - treat:

Rocky Road chocolate squares

400g of chocolate (I use all dark if it's (mainly) for adults, but any mix is fine if at least 50% is dark)
200g of mixed unsalted nuts, dried fruit, marshmallows, (plain) biscuits, dried coconut etc.
2 tbsp of butter

Put the chocolate and butter into a microwaveable bowl. 
Microwave on medium heat for ca 2 mins (checking/stirring every 30 secs) until melted.
Put the nuts and biscuits into a ziplock bag and bash with a rolling pin. Cut up the fruit and marshmallows into small pieces.
Add the nuts, biscuits and fruit to the chocolate and stir well to mix.
Pour the mixture into a lined ca 23cm x 30cm tin and spread. 
Let cool until set. Then cut into pieces.

Once I've cleared out the baking drawer, I move on to the "breakfast cupboard" - which is habitually jam-packed with more cereal packets than even Jerry Seinfeld ever owned... (The first "A mother's rule of food shopping" is surely "The day you finally buy that multipack/extra-large box of your child(ren)'s favourite cereal is the day BEFORE they inform you that they don't "like" it any more ("You didn't know? I thought you knew..."). This time there were LOADS of different coco pops boxes left - plus some white chocolate and dried cranberries from the baking drawer which I turned into these tasty littl'uns:

200g white chocolate
30g (1/2 cup) of coco pops
50g (1/3 cup) of cranberries
1/8 tsp salt

Melt and mix the ingredients as for the Rocky Road squares. Then spoon walnut-sized balls of the mixture onto a lined baking sheet (or into small praline cases) and leave to set.

However, my work that day was not done yet as next to the cereals two tired and unused-for-a-long-time jars of peanut butter and Nutella were lurking (the latter maxi-size - see "A mother's rule of food shopping" above...). These were soon transformed into the most gooey and rich:

Nutella and peanut butter brownies

225g (1 cup) butter
400g (2 cups) sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
4 eggs
125g (1 cup) plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
85g (3/4 cup) cocoa powder
1/8 tsp salt
125 g (1/2 cup) Nutella
125 g (1/2 cup) peanut butter

Pre-heat your oven to 180°.

Melt the butter in the microwave as for the recipes above.

Stir in the sugar and vanilla extract until well combined.

Add eggs, one at a time and mix in thoroughly.

Combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt and whisk into the butter mixture until fully combined.

Add the Nutella and peanut butter and mix well.

Pour the mixture into a lined 23cm x 30cm baking tin.

Bake for 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out almost clean.

Let cool completely before cutting.

Notes:
The 400g chocolate - 200g nuts/fruit ratio gives a luxurious fudge-like confection - but you can of course add more "solids" (including cereals) for a muesli bar-like consistency.

The slight sourness of the cranberries works perfectly to counterbalance the sweet- and richness of the white chocolate so I don't recommend substituting it with other dried fruit.

If the Nutella and/or peanut butter is too dry to get out easily, you can soften them (in their jars) in the microwave for 30 secs intervals on medium heat - just make sure there are no metal paper bits still sticking to the rims!

My subtly spiced and sumptuous rhubarb chutney

I absolutely love pickles and chutneys yet - apart from my wonderful tomato-chili jam - I've never made any myself. But last week I visited my friend Sue (the most prolific and sucessful veg (and plant) grower I know - Masterchef's "veg guru" Gregg Wallace would surely "dive right in" and stuff big ham-sized handfuls of her PURPLE SPROUTING BROCCOLI - which I've NEVER seen in Belgium before - into his greedy gob...) and I left with (amongst other lovely vegs and plants) a big bag of rhubarb. So after looking through loads of chutney recipes I finally devised my very first own batch - which I'm extremely pleased with (AND it can be eaten straightaway):

Surely this hipster rhubarb should be on Instagram?

1kg rhubarb, trimmed and chopped (in the food processor)
350g (4 medium) onions, chopped (in the food processor) - red ones are nice for colour
3 cloves of garlic
400g light brown sugar
500ml cider (or white/red wine, or apple) vinegar
150g raisins
1 tbsp each of (ground or whole) cardamon, coriander, black pepper, cloves, cinammon, mustard, ginger and tumeric
zest of 1 orange

Put all ingredients into a large heavy-bottomed pan. Stir well and bring to the boil. Turn the heat right down to a mere simmer and let cook for 2 hours, checking and stirring frequently. Divide the hot chutney among sterilised jars, seal and set aside to cool. 

Notes:
You do need to check - and stir - the mixture frequently as it can easily catch on the bottom of the pan.
You can of course use other dried fruit instead of the raisins - I topped up the amount with a few dates.
There is no need to sterilise your jars - just put them (on their own) through the highest temperature wash of your dishwasher and let them dry completely.
You will get approx. 3 x 500ml jars of chutney.

Pumped-up pasta with salami & fennel kicks

I've been writing my blog for seven months now but I haven't given you a SINGLE pasta recipe so far - which is simply scandalous as at least one is on the menu every week! So without further ado here is one of my favourites:

This recipe is very slightly adapted from Jamie Oliver's "Happy Days" book and it's just wonderful: the salami-fennel combination is unusual but it works SO well - hearty and filling yet delicate and fresh at the same time!

ca 4 tbsp olive oil
140g good ltalian salami, skinned and sliced
2 cloves of garlic, finely sliced
1 heaped tsp fennel seeds
1 fennel, halved and finely sliced, feathery tops reserved and chopped
2 x 400g tins of chopped tomatoes

a little dried chili (optional)
500g dried pasta (penne, spaghetti or linguine)
2 handfuls of breadcrumbs
a sprig of chopped rosemary or 1/2 tsp dried (optional)

(serves 4)

Put 1 tbsp olive oil into a large pan. Add the salami and the garlic.

Lightly crack the fennel seeds and add to the pan. Cook for 1-2 mins on a low heat – the fat should cook out of the salami and it should begin to get crisp.

Add the sliced fennel and stir, then put the lid on the pan and increase the heat to medium. Cook for 5 minutes, then add the tinned tomatoes (and the chili if you like).

Cook slowly for 25 mins until the mixture has thickened. Season to taste.
Meanwhile cook the pasta according to the packet instructions.

Then make some crunchy breadcrumbs: fry two handfuls of coarse crumbs with the rest of the oil (and the rosemary) until crispy and golden brown.

Drain the cooked pasta in a colander and add to the sauce. Mix and serve with the green fennel tops and the crispy breadcrumbs scattered over.

Notes:

Use a chunky semi-soft "rustic" salami with big globules of fat for this.
 If you haven't got any fennel seeds in your cupboard, you might have a (forgotten) packet of fennel tea though - which is exactly the same ie crushed seeds! 

The sauce is, of course, equally delicious without the breadcrumb mix.
I always make double quantities of the sauce to freeze. The fennel does draw a bit of water when defrosted so I let each portion defreeze in a fine-meshed colander.

Chocolate and Guinness cake

Today was the birthday of my daughter's teacher and, as Mme S is a complete chocoholic, I was keen to try out a new chocolate cake recipe: I was looking for something less brownie-ish than my usual one ("A tale of two cakes"), something more cake-y, yet also something - more "manly/bloke-y"... Then I remembered that my friend Emma had sent me a Nigella Lawson recipe which she was raving about - and which sounded really unusual: I've made beetroot and chocolate cake before - but with beer? But then, while I was going through my other cookbooks, I came across EXACTLY the same recipe in one of my favourite books of last year (Cake Days by The Hummingbird Bakery)! So I figured that three great cooks can't be wrong - and have now added this truly wonderful concoction to my repertoire (and my husband declared this one "another winner" too*):

250ml Guinness

250g butter

80g cocoa powder

400g caster sugar

140 ml sour cream (or buttermilk or full-fat milk with a dash of lemon juice)

2 eggs

1 tbsp vanilla extract

280g plain flour

2 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Preheat the oven to 180° (160° fan oven), and butter and line a 20cm square cake tin.

Pour the Guinness into a large wide saucepan, add the butter and heat until the butter has melted.

Whisk in the cocoa and sugar.

Beat the sour cream with the eggs and vanilla and then pour into the mixture.

Finally whisk in the flour and bicarb.

Bake for ca 45 mins until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.

*Oh and if you wondered how my husband and I were able to actually taste this chocolaty wonder: well would you believe it but a small piece was accidently knocked off from the bottom - oops there went another teensie chunk - and another... clumsy us!

And Mme S liked his cake so much that she squirelled it away tout suite and was planning to smuggle it straight home after school (thereby setting a VERY bad example for her pupils/other teachers in terms of (not) sharing...)

Notes:
The original recipe(s) use a springform tin. If you want to switch one for the other, always use a SQUARE tin which is 2-3cm SMALLER than a round one (or, of course, a ROUND one which is 2-3cm LARGER...)

And both Nigella and the HB use cream cheese frosting as well - but I thought the cake was pretty enough "au naturel" - especially with my daughter's lovely decorations!

"Who ate all the pies?"

Who indeed? Well I'm certainly one of the runner-ups for that position as I love savoury pies and pasties in any shape or form: Jamaican patties, South American empanadas, Moroccan b'stillas, Russian pirozhkis -  and, of course, the vast array of wonderful British ones: beef and ale pie, Cornish pasties... that list is endless. (I have however, to my shame, never tasted one of the famous "chicken balti pies" that my husband and other Brummie (Birmingham) Aston Villa fans like to imbibe in during half-time... I shall ask him to get one "à emporter" at the next match!)

But my favourite pies of all are these fabulous ones which I've been making for longer than I can remember - they are slightly adapted from my favourite Australian chef Bill Granger's book Sydney Food:

Individual chicken, leek and tarragon pies

Not only are they delicious, but they are also quick to make as they don't need the usual pre-two hour-long-stew which is required for meat pies. And the flavours just come together in the most warm, sweet, delicate yet deeply-scented way... utterly divine. Children love them too - my daughter regularly asks to take one for her packed school lunch! AND these pies also work extremely well with left-over cooked chicken - a brilliant way to use up the rest of the Sunday "farmyard scratcher". ( I also made them with the rest of last Christmas' turkey crown and, last week, with left-over veal chops - both an absolute triumph!)*

500g chicken breast, cut into smallish (3-4cm) dice
3 tbsp of well-seasoned plain flour
2 tbsp olive oil
25g butter
2 leeks**
2 cloves garlic, crushed
80 ml white wine
250 ml chicken stock
125 ml cream
250g frozen peas
1 heaped tbsp of chopped tarragon***
300g puff pastry

Preheat the oven to 180°.
Put the seasoned flour and chicken pieces into a ziplock bag and stir to combine.
Heat half the oil and butter in a large pan and cook the leeks and garlic over medium heat until soft (ca 5 mins).
Remove the leeks, add the rest of the butter and oil and fry off the chicken pieces until lightly browned and sealed. Add the stock and scrape off any pan stickings. Add the leeks, wine, cream, peas and tarragon and simmer for 5 mins.
While the mixture cools, line 4 loose-bottomed tartlet tins (10-12 cm) with baking paper. Roll out the puff pastry and cut 4 circles big enough to line the bases and sides of the tins. Also cut 4 circles for the tops. Line the tins with the 4 big circles and spoon in the filling. Place the tops on the pies and crimp/seal the edges firmly with your fingers.
Bake in the oven for 35 mins or until golden brown.

Serve with a green salad.

Notes:
*If you use already cooked meat, just add the 3 tbsp of flour to the filling after the tarragon and stir to combine before simmering.
**I always save any leftover bits and pieces of leeks from previous meals in the freezer - and I often top this up with ready-chopped frozen leeks - Aldi (Trader Joe's in the US) sell 700g bags for 89 cents which is fantastic value. Use ca 350g for this recipe.
***I also use frozen tarragon as I haven't had any luck with growing them in my garden and a bought pot just goes to waste... A small container from Delhaize costs just 1.29€ and lasts for AGES.

Three cheers for my Chardonnay chicken!

Today I give you another fantastically tasty (and of course easy) dish which is one of my favourite chicken recipes of all times: coq au vin blanc. It gives maximum flavour with minimum effort - and cost: because it tastes so luxurious and velvety-rich (but without the "too-heavyness" of its red wine counterpart), I somehow never focused on the fact that it is extremely economical: it costs just under €8.50 for the main ingredients - that's €2 per head ONLY! Fine dining surely doesn't get any cheaper (OR BETTER!) than that - so bon appétit tout le monde!

1 1.5kg chicken, jointed into 8/10 pieces*
16 shallots, peeled**
100g bacon or pancetta bits
250g mushrooms, halved/quartered
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
4 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
2 bay leaves
a sprig of fresh thyme or 1/2 ts of dried thyme
2 tbsp seasoned flour
250 ml white wine
250 ml chicken stock (from a cube is fine)
2 tbsp medium dry sherry
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 180°/160° fan oven.
Put the seasoned flour and the chicken pieces into a large ziplock bag. Close and shake until well coated.
Heat 1 tbsp of the oil in a large pan, add the bacon and fry until crisp. Remove with a slotted spoon and put into a large casserole.
Add another tbsp of oil and the butter to the pan, then add the shallots and mushrooms and fry until golden, adding the garlic after a few minutes. Add to the casserole, tuck in the bay leaves and add the thyme.
Heat the remaining oil and fry the chicken pieces until dark golden (you may have to do this in two batches). Put in the casserole and then flash the pan with the stock and wine. Pour over the chicken and vegetables, add the sherry and seasoning. Then cover with the lid and bring to the boil.
Put in the oven and cook for ca 90 mins until the chicken is done (insert a metal skewer into the thickest part of a thigh - the juices should run clear). If not, cook for another ten mins or so.
Serves 4 with boiled potatoes or mash.

Notes:
* You can, of course, buy already jointed chicken pieces, but I always joint a whole chicken myself - it's so much cheaper and not difficult at all: http://www.finecooking.com/item/18461/how-to-cut-a-whole-chicken-into-pieces And I always include the back chopped in half in casseroles as well - my cook's treat...
** If a skinned shallot separates into two, then these count as two.

A trio of tastylicious trotters

I am a more-than-committed carnivore, but above all I adore the "off-cuts" of animals from nose to tail: pig's ears, sweetbreads, beef tongue, veal cheeks/head, bone marrow, oxtail... and, of course, pig's trotters. These are so underrated, but they are SO full of flavour - and SO cheap: at my Delhaize supermarket they sell them on their "offal Friday" for around 85 cents (60 p) each. (And I can't be the only Belgian customer who loves them - even at the poshest branches they will have sold out by Saturday). But what to do with the boys once you get them home? I'm aware that a lot of people are squeamish about handling them (my own children dared each other to "touch them up" - then ran away shrieking and retching... lightweights!) so I'm giving you three lovely recipes which become more and more "trotter tactile" as we go along.

So let's start with the easiest to "handle": just chuck them into a pot to make the most aromatic stock for the most delicious pea soup. This was a staple of my childhood, but my mother used Schweineschwänze (pig's tails) instead - I fondly remember them curling up jauntily out of the cauldron!

Split pea soup (Erbsensuppe)

Put two pig's trotters into a big-enough pot. Cover with a generous amount of water, add two large onions (skinned but not chopped) and a small bouquet garni (parsley, thyme and bay leaf). Bring to a boil, then simmer for three hours. Now take out the trotters, onions and herbs and drain. Let the stock cool completely until it is a solid mass of jelly. You can then scrape/spoon off the layer of white fat and discard. When you're ready to make the soup, sweat off a handful of bacon bits/chopped-up rashers in a bit of oil. Add 2 medium chopped potatoes, carrots and onions each. Add the stock, lots of seasoning and 250g dried green split peas. Bring to the boil, then simmer until the peas are soft (30 mins to 1 h).

The next delicious recipe uses the already cooked trotters and onions - how convenient is that? It's straight from the fantastic "Ripailles" cookbook and it turns the humble trotters into a wonderful, tasty starter - good enough for any dinner party. It has also made me discover bric pastry, which, to my shame, I'd never used before - despite seeing it every day at my local greengrocers. Bric is basically the insanely easy-going, non-temperamental cousin of the filo pastry - each round, wafer-thin and porous sheet folds like a dream! So here goes:

Croustillant parcels of pig's trotters

The meat of your 2 pigs trotters and the 2 onions
100g spinach (frozen is fine)
20g hazelnuts
1 small shallot/onion
seasoning
4 bric pastry sheets

Take off the trotters' skins (scraping off the tissue inside) and discard them, and then pull off all the meat, tissue and fat from the bones. You can do this with your hands and with a knife. You will end up with a mostly gelatinous and rubbery mass which won't look very impressive, but trust me: this is "the good stuff" you want. I admit this is a bit of a labour of (pig) love, but I find this job very relaxing: you can take your time, and being left with just a pile of scraped-clean bones and knuckles is extremely rewarding!

Then heat your (thawed) spinach in a pan and cook off as much of the water as you can, then drain in a sieve. Now put the spinach with the rest of the ingredients (and with LOTS of salt and pepper) into a food processor and whizz down. Then shape into a large sausage and roll up with cling film and chill for at least an hour. Cut into 4 portions. Cut the bric sheets in half and peel off their papers. Lay two halves on top of each other but with the diagonal sides on the outside. Wrap each parcel with their bric sheets and cook in the oven at 160° for 15 mins until golden. Serve with a green salad with a mustard dressing. 

My last recipe is quite "cheffy", but it's still very easy - and it tastes out of this world! It's based on the great French chef Pierre Koffman's legendary stuffed trotters recipe, but I've pared it down somewhat. You will have to debone the (uncooked) trotters yourself, but this really isn't complicated: take a long sharp boning knife and work it under the skin as close to the bones as possible. Then saw up and down and all around, pushing your knife up to the first knuckles as far as possible. Once the skin is loose everywhere, cut a slit at the back. Pull the skin down until you can see the knuckles. Wriggle them around so you can see where to cut through - front and back. All done now - your skin should look like a glove puppet with toes attached!

Trotters stuffed with chicken mousseline and mushrooms

4 pigs' trotters, deboned
2 medium carrots, diced
2 medium onions, diced
150ml dry white wine
1 tbs port (or Marsala/Madeira)
150ml beef stock (from a cube)

1 tbs of butter
a small handful of dried wild mushrooms, soaked until soft and drained
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 chicken breast, skinned and cut into pieces
1 egg white
150 ml double cream
knob of butter, to serve
salt and freshly ground pepper

Preheat the oven to 160º. Lay each trotter on two long-enough pieces of string. Insert the bone parcels again and tie up the skin around them (this helps to retain the skins' shape and also adds extra flavour).

 Place the trotters in a casserole with the diced carrots and onions, the wine, port and stock. Cover and braise in the oven for 3 hours.

Fry the mushrooms and chopped onion in the butter and cook for 5 minutes. Leave to cool.

Purée the chicken breast with the egg white and cream in a food processor and season generously. Mix with the mushroom mixture to make the stuffing. Take the trotters out of the casserole and strain the cooking stock, then add it back to the casserole together with the mushroom liquid.

Snip the strings off the trotters and remove the bone parcels. Open the trotters out flat and lay each one on two large pieces of tin foil. Leave to cool.

Fill the cooled trotters with the chicken stuffing and roll up tightly with the foil. Chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 220º or prepare a steamer, and when the water is simmering, steam the foil-wrapped trotters until heated through. Alternatively, put the trotters in a casserole, cover and heat in the oven for 15 mins.

Meanwhile reduce the stock by half. Whisk in the butter and pour the sauce over the trotters.

Hello boys!

Notes:
To make the soup even more authentically German, use 1 generous tbsp of Maggi seasoning.
I often use the left-over roast potatoes, carrot and onions from the Sunday roast as the soup vegetables.
Do check/stir the soup regularly after 10 mins or so - you might need to add more water.