Village Favourites List

 This week I’ve been inspired, online and beyond...... 

-          By this thought-provoking TED lecture on a foie gras farm in Spain

-          To make and taste this mouth-watering cocktail

-          By this New York Times opinion piece by Mark Bittman. Always thoughtful and insightful in the world of food, Bittman’s piece on gifts for non-cooks really got me thinking... I’m dedicated to giving gifts of homemade food, but perhaps I should extend this to cooking lessons, and shopping lessons...  

-          To attempt to pick up some good habits from this piece...., clean as I cook stands out as potentially challenging....  

-          By the charming and elegant prose of Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1883 Prince Otto: A Romance.   

-          And finally by the sheer fabulousness of this dreamy scene

What's inspiring you? I'd love to know! x

Spiced Christmas Bark

Kristoph and I are still full from indulgent Christmas Eve, Christmas and Boxing Day meals... We’ve both eaten far too much, too often, and should probably be limiting our next few meals to green vegetables. But as we loll around fire-side, it seems we’re both still reaching for a late comer Christmas hit: Spiced Christmas bark.

I came across this recipe over on Food 52, it was shared by Wanderash who writes the Smash and Sniff blog. Honestly, chocolate bark as never really captured my interest. It looks nice, but I always just viewed it as melted chocolate with a few nuts added. It reminded me of childhood “chocolate-making,” a common holiday activity in our house, which involved melting cooking chocolate and reshaping it into moulds. Lots of fun, but the chocolates weren’t winning any culinary awards, they tasted, well, like cooking chocolate.

Wanderash’s Ancho-Chilli Cinnamon Chocolate Bark however, aroused my interest. It was awarded the best edible gift contest at Food52, and included a delicious sounding mix of very Christmassy toasted spices – star anise, cloves and cinnamon.  The recipe didn’t disappoint, the unique salty, spicy savoury and sweet mix, was a huge hit with our family and friends this Christmas.

We served it on Christmas Eve alongside the pine-nut and rosemary brittle, and presented it in jars as gifts to very pleased family members.  

I altered Wanderash’s recipe a little, substituting dried cranberries for the cherries, and adding a little more star anise. Here’s the recipe: 

Recipe

3 whole star anise

1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns

3 cloves

2" cinnamon stick

1 teaspoon dried chilli

2/3 cups pistachio

2/3 cups lightly crushed cashews

12 ounces dark bittersweet chocolate (70% cocoa solids),

1/2 cup dried cranberries

sea salt

Step 1: Make the spice mix: Pre-heat oven to 200C. Place star anise, cloves, peppercorns, chilli and cinnamon on a baking tray, and toast until fragrant.  Remove from heat and grind the spices, either in a spice, or coffee grinder. 

Step 2: Toast the nuts by placing them on the baking sheet and place in the oven for around 10 minutes. Once toasted, lightly crush using a mortar and pestle.  

Step 3: Melt the chocolate in a double boiler. Once melted, stir in the spice mix. Add one teaspoon at a time, stir and taste. The strength of the spice flavour is personal preference – you can make it very subtle or quite strong.  

Step 4: Line a baking tray with aluminium foil. Spread out the nuts and cherries (reserving a few to use as topping). Sprinkle sea salt. 

Step 5: Pour over the chocolate onto the pan, covering the nuts and cherries evenly. Add remaining nuts to the top of chocolate. Put the tray in the fridge and leave to set for 45mins. Once set, break into pieces and store in containers in the fridge. 

Savoury Carrot, Goat Cheese and Caramelised Onion Loaf

Last weekend I co-hosted a pre-Christmas dinner with friends in Segur le Chateau. I was requested to make my savoury pumpkin and blue-cheese muffins. I wondered however what course my savoury muffins would fit within. My lovely friends Vicky and Charlie, and owners of the venue for pre-Christmas dinner, La Durantie, assured me that the muffins would be work well with aperitifs. 

I was even more perplexed – muffins and gluhwein, could they really work together?

Perhaps I should explain the background of the request. I recently sent, Vicky, Charlie and Vicky’s husband Ralph, off on their holiday with a bag of savoury muffins. The muffins were deemed as a delicious road-trip snack, and the girls were keen to try them again – hence the request to make them for our dinner guests.

I felt uncertain about the muffin and gluhwein pairing, worried I’d frighten the French guests, and perhaps confuse everyone else. Eventually we agreed I’d make the muffin recipe, but as a savoury loaf.   

As it happened however, I was unable to source a decent pumpkin. The piles of pumpkins seen all around Segur two months ago seem to be no longer. Carrots however, were plentiful. So I substituted carrots for pumpkin, goats cheese for blue cheese, and added caramelised onions.

The end product was a success. We served the loaf cut in bit-sized morsels – with the gluvine. The loaf was both sweet and savoury, with the sweetness of the onion working well against the creaminess of the goats cheese.    

      

Recipe

2 cups grated carrot

½ cup caramelised onion (around four small brown onions)

1/3 cup grated parmesan

1/2 cup chopped rosemary

1/2 cup crumbled goats cheese

2 eggs

1 cup milk

Ground black pepper

Sea salt

2 cups plain flour

2 table spoons mustard

Baking powder

Step 1: pre-heat the oven to 180C. Great the pumpkin and set aside. Caramelise the onion.

Step 2: Combine the chopped rosemary, mustard, goats cheese, caramelised onions and parmesan. Add most of the carrot, save a little (to top the loaf later). 

Step 3: Sift the flour and the baking powder, then stir into the mixture.

 

Step 4: In a separate bowl, lightly beat the eggs and milk together. Then add to the mixture. Add salt and pepper. Then stir in slowly, folding the ingredients together gently.

Step 5: Add the mixture to your (greased) loaf tin. Cook for 40 minutes.  

Honey roasted heirloom carrots with moutarde violette dressing

We’re hunkering down for winter in Segur le Chateau. The new log burner is pumping out much needed warmth on these damp days. Despite the stark beauty of the village in the depths of winter, the recent rain has felt slightly repressive. In the last week we’ve had four consecutive days of solid rain. The usually gently meandering Auvézère was transformed into a fast-flowing torrent of water threatening to burst its banks.     

In a search at the local market for comfort food, I was delighted to come across these multi-coloured heritage carrots. In deep indigo, bright yellow, and orange, they immediately brightened my day. Apparently, before large-scale farming became the norm, diverse varieties of carrots were found across the world. With the indigo, or purple carrot being very common in Afghanistan, pink in India, and white and yellow carrots most commonly found in Europe.

In terms of nutrition, the Helpful Gardener says that purple carrots are filled with the antioxidants of blueberries! I’ll certainly be planting some of these come February.

I love the flavour of carrots, and was keen to avoid overpowering these colourful carrots with too many flavours. As such, I prepared them simply by roasting them in olive oil, honey and fresh chopped rosemary. I also made a quick sauce with locally made violet mustard and natural yoghurt.

Here’s the recipe.     

Recipe

1 Kg heirloom carrots (or regular if you can’t find heirloom)

Handful of fresh picked and chopped rosemary

Glug of olive oil

Two table spoons honey

Dressing: Two tablespoons natural yoghurt, and a ½ a tablespoon violet mustard

 

Step 1: Clean and peel your carrots

Step 2: Chop carrots into strips. Place in a baking tray and coat with honey, olive oil and rosemary. Season well.

Step 3: Roast for 30 minutes at 180C.

Step 4: For the dressing mix the natural yoghurt with the moutarde violette and serve at room temperature. 

Christmas Baking - Delicious Rosemary and Pine Nut Brittle

I seem to have been surrounded by rosemary and rosemary recipes over the last few days. First, I read a piece on rosemary infused olive oil, then on rosemary sugar syrup – that can be added to the very festive gin fizz, and then I came across this delectable rosemary and pine nut brittle on Food52 (which recently featured this blog, in their "Best of the Blogs" section). 

Perhaps it’s the time of year. The fragrance of rosemary certainly evokes in me Christmassy associations, and the herb is said to symbolise friendship and remembrance. A great friend of ours actually visited yesterday, delivering handfuls of fresh rosemary, cut that morning from her plant.

But I digress, back to the Rosemary and Pine Nut Brittle. Submitted by Ms T, who writes the Still Simmering blog, this recipe was voted best holiday recipe on Food52. There’s no doubt it’s well-deserved. As I read the recipe, and looked at the pictures, my mouth was quite literally watering. And, as it’s got less than five ingredients, all of which happened to already be in my store cupboard, I jumped off my seat and immediately made it.

Recipe:

2 cups sugar

2 1/2 cups pine nuts

8 tablespoons (one stick) unsalted butter

1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh rosemary

1 tablespoon finely ground sea salt (I used Maldon sea salt)

Step 1: Place the sugar in a large, heavy saucepan over high heat and stir with a wooden spoon until sugar begins to melt. Lower the heat to medium, and stir until the sugar is melted. Stop stirring and watch for it to turn a medium caramel colour, this takes a few minutes.

Step 2: Stir in pine nuts and the butter. Allow pine nuts to cook for about two minutes – keep stirring. Stir in half of the rosemary and half of the sea salt.

Step 3: Pour the mixture out onto a sheet pan lined with baking paper. Spread it evenly to the desired thickness with a wooden spoon or stiff rubber spatula – Mine was around 4mm thick. Sprinkle remaining rosemary and salt on top, while the brittle is warm.

Step 4: Allow to cool completely. I’m impatient, so I cooled it in the fridge. After an hour or so it should snap easily.

Warning: this brittle is addictive! Both a positive and negative trait. It’s impossible to stop with just one piece. To avoid too much over indulgence, I put in jars, and made it into Christmas gifts immediately. I have to confess, I then opened one and started nibbling... but at least I tried. 

Christmas Baking - Vegetarian Mince Pies

“They dined on mince, and slices of quince

Which they ate with a runcible spoon;

And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,

They danced by the light of the moon.”

Edward Lear, The Owl and the Pussycat

As a vegetarian, I like to imagine that Edward Lear was writing of mincemeat and mince pies, as opposed to ground beef. As we are now in the season of more moonlight, than daylight, I’ve been baking mince pies. This year I made mince pies that are both vegetable suet-based, and alcohol free.

This is my first attempt at making my own mincemeat, and I used a melange of recipes off the internet, including this one from Delia Smith, to come up with the recipe described below. It takes a while to make, but more in waiting for the flavours to combine, as opposed to actually cooking. As such, it’s a good recipe to prepare while you are baking other items.

In an effort to avoid too much rampant consumption over Christmas, and to tread a little more lightly on the earth, I’m a fan of edible Christmas gifts. I’ll be giving both mincemeat, and mince pies as Christmas gifts this year, as well as some other planned goodies, which I’ll be blogging about in the coming weeks.

Here’s the recipe:

Recipe

Mincemeat

110 grams shredded vegetable suet (available from health food stores)

180 grams raisins

120grams sultanas

120 grams chopped dates

30 grams lemon candied peel

100 grams orange candied peel

180 grams soft dark sugar

Zest and juice of one orange

Zest and juice of one lemon

40 grams almond slivers

One teaspoon ground cinnamon

One teaspoon grated nutmeg

Pastry

200 grams plain flour

Pinch salt

110 grams butter

2-3 tablespoons of cold water

One egg beaten

2-3 tablespoons of caster sugar

Step one:  Combine all the mincemeat ingredients in a large bowl. Mix them together thoroughly. Cover the bowl with a tea towel and leave overnight to allow the flavours to mix together.

Step two: Place the mixture in an oven tray covered with foil and bake for three hours at 120C. As it cools, stir often to ensure the suet coats all of the ingredients.

Step three: Once fully cooled, place the mincemeat in sterilised jars. As this mincemeat is made without alcohol it won’t keep in the cupboard. As such store the mincemeat in the fridge and use within a month.

Step four: To make the pastry, combine the flour, salt, and butter. Need together in a bowl until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Add a little water to help the pastry knit together. Roll the pastry into a ball and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.

Step five: Once the pastry is prepared roll is out. Cut into squares and place the pastry squares into a muffin tray. Cut the edges neatly and re-roll, and set aside to make the pie tops.

Step six: Fill the pies cases with mincemeat, pressing it firmly into each case. Add pie tops in whatever shape you desire. Brush with a lightly beaten egg, and sprinkle a little caster sugar over the top. Cook for 20 minutes at 200C