SMOKED HADDOCK, PRAWN AND SPINACH TART

We are on a mission to use up the contents of our freezer at the moment.

I’m not sure why this is.  Maybe it’s the time of year when we instinctively want to make space for the glut of home-grown vegetables due to arrive in the next few weeks.  Sadly there is not much sign of that happening at the moment.

Our runner beans didn’t germinate and never came up.  We replaced them with some bought climbing green bean plants but they haven’t grown any more at all, they just sit there sulking, waiting for the sun and warmth to perk them up.

We planted out two rows of peas and days later they were nibbled down to stalks by either rabbits or pigeons.  We replaced them last weekend and in spite of taking reasonable precautions the same thing has happened again.  I think this is the point where I admit defeat and resign myself to buying our peas and beans in Sainsbury’s this year.  At least the broad beans are looking promising and the tomato plants are flowering in the greenhouse.

Anyway, we are gradually working our way through the contents of the freezer and pulling out UFO’s (unidentified frozen objects) on a daily basis.  Yesterday I found a bag containing some smoked haddock, probably not enough to do much with, so I fished out a small pack of frozen raw prawns as well.  In the fridge there was half a bag of spinach, looking slightly past its best, and part of a bag of the highly despised ready grated parmesan cheese (brought back from our last visit to France).  So I went hunting for a recipe to do something with them.

I bought “The Art of the Tart” in a charity shop a few years ago and confess I have barely opened it.  But in it I found a recipe using smoked haddock and watercress that looked interesting – and easily adaptable for the ingredients I wanted to use.

The author describes this as an “everyday tart”.  I presume this is because the filling is made like a white sauce, rather than consisting of lots of eggs and cream.

My piece of smoked haddock had been in the freezer well beyond the time it should normally be kept frozen but it seemed absolutely fine when it was thawed.  The prawns were uncooked, peeled prawns so when they were thawed I cooked them in butter before adding to the tart.

I have to say, there was nothing particularly everyday about the finished tart.  It was absolutely delicious. 

We had ours with new potatoes and an assortment of veg, principally the remainder of the bag of spinach and the other bits and pieces lurking in the fridge.  But it was good enough to serve to guests and would make a lovely starter with some salad, or a nice lunch.  Definitely a recipe I will be using again.

I am entering the recipe into this month’s “No waste food challenge”, organised by Kate from Turquoise Lemons.  This month’s title is “freezer stash” and is presented  by Elizabeth’s Kitchen.  You can see the details here.

Ingredients

For the pastry:

6oz plain flour

2oz Trex or other white fat

1oz butter

For the filling:

250g smoked haddock, dyed or undyed

100g cooked, peeled prawns

300ml milk

1 tblsp plain flour

1 small onion, peeled and finely chopped

1 stick of celery, washed, trimmed and finely chopped

salt, pepper and nutmeg for seasoning

Flora Cuisine, or olive oil, or butter, for frying

a few handfuls of spinach, washed and roughly chopped

2 eggs, beaten

a sprinkling of parmesan cheese

Method

Preheat the oven to 190°C / 170° fan / gas mk 5.  Grease a 22cm / 9” flan tin or dish.

Make the pastry as usual.  Line the dish, prick the base with a fork, add baking parchment and baking beans and bake blind for 10 minutes.  Remove from the oven, remove the beans, brush the base with a little of the beaten egg and return to the oven for 5 more minutes.

Meanwhile, put the smoked haddock in a saucepan with the milk, bring to the boil and simmer gently for 10 minutes.  Remove from the heat.  Strain the fish and reserve the milk.  Remove the skin and any bones from the fish and flake into a bowl.  Set aside.

Heat the Flora, oil or butter in another medium saucepan and cook the onion and celery until softened.  Stir in the flour and cook for 2 minutes.  Add the reserved milk and heat gently, stirring, until the sauce has thickened.  Season with salt, pepper and grated nutmeg.  Remove from the heat.

Add the eggs, fish, prawns and spinach to the pan and stir until combined.  Spread the mixture into the pastry case, sprinkle with the parmesan cheese and bake for 25-30 minutes until golden brown.

Serve warm.

Serves 4-6 good portions.

(Apologies for the mixture of metric and imperial measurements.  I always make my pastry from scratch in ounces but follow recipes in grams.)

GUILT FREE, GLUTEN FREE, BLACK FOREST CAKE

I wanted to make a gluten free cake and decided to have a look in one of my favourite baking books, “Gorgeous Cakes” by Annie Bell.  Although it is not specifically a gluten free recipe book, a lot of the recipes are just that.  I liked the look of this one that is also described as "guilt free".

This is apparently because it has no butter or cream in it. 

As you can see, mine looks nothing at all like the picture in the book.  This is actually because the “cream” topping in the picture is in fact ricotta cheese and mine turned out to be extremely runny.  It ran off the top of the cake, taking the grated chocolate with it !!  The topping also has honey in it instead of icing sugar, which presumably makes it less indulgent and therefore making one feel less guilty about that second or third slice…...

Considering there is no flour or butter in the cake, it rose amazingly well, all the rise coming from the whisking of the eggs to give lift to the ground almonds.

The original guilt free recipe isn’t exactly for a black forest cake.  At the last minute I decided to add some black cherry jam to the filling and put some cherries on top for decoration.  I think it needed the jam.  Without it the cake would have been quite bland I think.

However, I would definitely make this cake again.  The good rise and the moist chocolateyness made it a lovely cake for a gluten free diet.  The ricotta didn't work for me so next time I might just abandon the guilt free concept and fill it with whipped cream!

As this month’s Tea Time Treats challenge is for “layer cakes”, I think this cake just about qualifies and just about sneaks in - in the nick of time !! The challenge is the work of Kate of What Kate Baked and Karen of Lavender and Lovage and you can see the details here.

As the cake was also a random selection and a healthy one (well at least until I added the black cherry jam!), it fits in (hopefully) with Dom’s Random Recipe Challenge at Belleau Kitchen this month, which is for “Healthy and Happy”.  You can see the details here.

Ingredients

4 medium eggs, separated

150g caster sugar

3 tblsp cocoa powder

225g ground almonds

1tsp gluten free baking powder

2 x 250g tubs of ricotta cheese

3 tblsp set honey

approx half a jar of black cherry jam

approx 4 tblsp grated dark chocolate

a few fresh cherries to decorate (optional)

Method

Preheat the oven to 200°C / 180° fan / gas mk 4.  Grease and line the base of a deep 20cm springform cake tin.

In a medium bowl, whisk the egg whites stiffly using an electric whisk.  In a larger bowl, whisk the egg yolks and sugar together until pale and creamy.

Fold the egg whites into the egg yolk mixture in three goes until well combined.  Then sift in the cocoa and baking powder.  Add the ground almonds and fold in.

Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and level the top.  Bake for 35 minutes until the cake shrinks back from the sides of the tin slightly and passes the skewer test.

Run a knife round the edge of the cake and leave to cool in the tin.

To make the filling, drain the liquid from the ricotta then blitz in a food processor with the honey until well combined.

Remove the cake from the tin and carefully cut into two layers using a bread knife.  Put one half on a cake stand or plate and spread generously with the jam.  Add about half of the cheese topping and put the second layer on top.

Spread the remaining cheese topping over the cake and sprinkle with grated chocolate.  Add a few fresh cherries to decorate.  Chill in the fridge for an hour or so before serving.

Cuts into 10-12 slices.  Keep in the fridge but leave out of the fridge for at least 30 minutes before serving.

FORGOTTEN COOKIES

I was looking at a couple of spare eggs in the egg basket late one evening and remembered this recipe which I had seen on the Good Food website a while ago.

The “late one evening” bit is the point, as these are essentially little meringues which you whisk up and put in the oven, then you turn the oven off and can leave them or “forget about them” until the next day.

As far as I can remember, this is the first time I have ever made a meringue, other than the sort you would put on top of a lemon meringue pie.  They turned out well, crisp on the outside and chewy inside, with nice little bits of nut and chocolate to surprise you as they melt on the tongue.  I also liked their rather rustic appearance and they are of course gluten free.

Some of them had nice hard, dry bottoms, which is how they should be I think.  Others were a bit gooey on the bottom and more difficult to remove from the baking sheet without falling apart.

I suspect this might be due to the efficiency of my fan oven in my French kitchen, which is newer than the one back home by about ten years.  I wonder if the fan that comes on to cool the oven down when you switch it off was too effective and cooled the oven too quickly.  I believe this oven has an option to turn the fan off so next time I make them I will see if I can find the instruction book (and understand the French text) and give that a try.

And I will definitely make them again.  I used a pack of Sainsbury’s Belgian chocolate chips and pecan nuts but I might try white chocolate and almonds next.  I also fancy making them even smaller so they could be served with an after dinner coffee.  Posh, eh ??!!

Ingredients

2 large egg whites

pinch of salt

120g caster sugar

120g pecan nuts, roughly chopped

150g dark chocolate, roughly chopped, or chocolate chips

1tsp vanilla extract

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C / 160°fan / gas mk 4.  Line two baking sheets with foil.

Whisk the egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff. 

Whisk in the sugar a little at a time.

Fold in the nuts, chocolate and vanilla essence.

Drop heaped teaspoons of the mixture onto the baking sheets, spaced 2-3 cm apart.  Put them into the oven and turn it off.  Forget about them for at least three hours, or until the oven is completely cold, or overnight.

Makes 30-35 cookies and they keep well for a few days in an airtight tin.

SMOKED SAUSAGE, LEEK AND SPINACH TARTS

I make these little tarts every so often and they’re a good way of making something rather tasty from whatever happens to be left over and lurking in the fridge.  I first wrote about them here.

For these I used one leek, a bit of Morteau sausage, some spinach and grated Emmental cheese.

Basically, you cut some ready-made, ready-rolled puff pastry into circles about the right size to line a muffin tin, add some savoury filling in the bottom, pour over an eggy mixture and bake.

These looked great and would have done very well as a starter for a casual lunch or dinner party. It was the first time I had tried the smoked sausage and leek combination and it worked very well – they were very tasty.  The variations are endless: smoked salmon with asparagus, bacon and broccoli – just use your imagination and whatever you have to hand for the filling.

One with some crudités makes a nice starter.  Two with some salad makes a nice lunch.  One or two with chips and coleslaw makes a very indulgent treat.

Ingredients (for six mini tarts or quiches)

1 pack of ready-made, ready-rolled puff pastry (pâte feuilletée)

2-3 thick slices of saucisse de morteau, or other smoked sausage

1 small leek, washed, trimmed and very thinly sliced

butter, oil or Flora Cuisine for frying

a few leaves of spinach

a handful of grated Emmental cheese, or cheddar, Parmesan, or thin slices of Brie or goat’s cheese.

2 eggs

a tablespoon or two of crème fraîche or double cream

about ¼pint milk

Method

Preheat the oven to 200°C / 180°fan / gas mk 4.

Unroll the pastry and cut it into circles big enough to line the holes of a 6-hole muffin tin.  I used an empty jam jar as a template and cut around the top of it for each tart.  Press each piece of pastry into the muffin tin.

Cut the slices of sausage into small dice.   Heat some butter, oil or Flora Cuisine in a small frying pan and add the sausage and leek.  Fry gently until the leek is tender, about 5 minutes.

Divide the sausage and leek between the six tarts.  Rip the spinach into small pieces and add to the tarts.  Sprinkle the cheese over the top or put a thin slice of goat’s cheese or brie on top of each one.

Put the eggs into a measuring jug with the cream or crème fraîche.  Beat together then add enough milk to make up to about ½pint.  Mix together and pour gently into the tarts.  Do not overfill.

Bake for 15-20 minutes, until golden and firm.  Allow to cool slightly before serving.  (The filling will be puffed up when you take the tarts out of the oven but will settle back down on cooling.)

COFFEE, ALMOND AND BLACKCURRANT CAKE

I came across this recipe on the Good Food Channel website and was dying to have a go as soon as the opportunity or need for baking a cake arose.  I didn’t have to wait long as I made it (along with other cakes) for the party I held in our little French house to celebrate my recent retirement.

The cake is essentially a coffee flavoured sponge cake but with a difference.  Ground almonds are included in the mixture and it is sandwiched together with blackcurrant jam as well as the usual butter cream.

It was the combination of coffee and blackcurrant flavours that made me want to have a go.  I had never come across this before and I have to say it was a lovely combination.  Coffee cakes, especially of the traditional coffee and walnut variety, can sometimes be a bit overly sweet if there is butter cream on top as well as inside.  I liked the way the sharpness of the blackcurrant jam contrasted well with the sweetness in this recipe.

This is not a “light as air” kind of sponge cake.  The almonds made it slightly denser but it rose well and had a nice even crumb.  Using five eggs and a whole pack of butter it is not cheap to make but it goes a long way and tastes delicious.

I followed the recipe closely but made my butter cream by whizzing it up in the food processor.  I used espresso powder for the flavouring instead of the coffee granules in the recipe.  When filling the cake I found it impossible to “spread” the butter cream on top of the jam so just blobbed it on – otherwise the jam was being pushed off the edge of the cake!

As a change from the usual coffee sponge cake it was a great success and I would definitely make it again. 

(The link to the original recipe on the internet has disappeared.)

Ingredients

For the cake

2tsp instant coffee granules (or espresso powder)

250g self-raising flour

30g ground almonds

275g softened unsalted butter

275g caster sugar

5 large eggs, beaten

1 tblsp milk

For the filling

½tsp instant coffee granules (or espresso powder)

200g icing sugar

60g softened butter

1 tbslp milk

3-4 tblsp blackcurrant jam

icing sugar for sprinkling

Method

Grease and line the bases of two 20cm (8”) sandwich tins.  Preheat the oven to 180°C / 160°fan / gas mk 4.

Dissolve the coffee granules/powder in 1 tblsp boiling water and put aside to cool.  Sift the flour into a bowl and stir in the ground almonds, making sure to break up any clumps.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. 

Add half the flour mixture and beaten eggs.  Beat together. 

Add the remaining flour mixture, along with the other half of the eggs, the milk and coffee and beat until just combined.

Divide the mixture between the two tins and level the tops.  Bake for 30-35 minutes.  Remove from the oven and cool in the tins for a few minutes then transfer to a wire rack.

To make the butter cream, dissolve the coffee in 1tsp boiling water and leave to cool.  Then put all the ingredients into a food processor and process until it is light and fluffy.

When the cakes are completely cold, slice some of the the dome off the top of one of them and turn it upside down on a cake plate so the flatter surface is facing up.  Spread with an even layer of jam.  Blob the butter cream over the top and gently spread it with the back of a spoon, making sure it goes right to the edge of the cake.

Put the second cake on top and dust liberally with icing sugar before serving.

Cuts into at least 12 slices.

A DUO OF RHUBARB PUDDINGS

When I was a little girl I adored rhubarb.  (I still do.)  My parents had two huge rhubarb patches at the top of their garden, one either side of the home-made greenhouse.  We had rhubarb pie or crumble every Sunday from May until August.  The rest of the year we had apple pie or crumble made from windfall apples or Bramleys bought from the shop, if they were in season – although every so often my mum would make a steamed pudding, usually ginger or golden syrup – she also made a lovely steamed apple dumpling from a suet pastry case filled with apples in a pudding basin. 

Rhubarb and strawberry crumble. 

In late summer our apple pies and crumbles would be enhanced by blackberries from the local hedgerows and occasionally bilberries picked from the moors above Baslow in Derbyshire.  My grandmother had a damson tree and my aunt had some raspberry canes and we would benefit from the annual glut of fruit, but my mother rarely made anything other than a pie or a crumble.  Crumble was favourite.

My mother’s rhubarb crumble was a simple affair.  The rhubarb would be peeled and chopped into large chunks, straight into the baking dish, and a good few spoonfuls of sugar sprinkled over.  The crumble would be made with self-raising flour and margarine, rubbed in by hand.  She never baked with butter, thinking it far too extravagant – except maybe for the Christmas cake.  Pastry was always made with lard.

I always used to make my crumbles the same way as Mum, but as time has gone by they have evolved into something slightly more fancy.  I discovered how well rhubarb goes with strawberries in a friend’s blog and somewhere else I read that including oats or ground almonds in the crumble mix can be nice.  And so it goes on, the continuous evolution of baking skills, constantly improving on the already perfect.

RHUBARB AND CUSTARD CRUMBLE PIE

A couple of weeks ago I spotted a recipe for this pudding on the Good Food website and was compelled to have a go.  The combination of so many comfort food favourites in one dish just had to be tried – a pastry base, rhubarb and egg custard in the middle and a crumble topping.

The recipe had a lot of good reviews and I took note of the comments that said the quantity of topping in the recipe was not enough and most people doubled it.  It worked well and turned out lovely. 

I will definitely make it again BUT I think that next time I will make it in a smaller diameter tin, which will make the custard deeper and then the original quantity of topping should be enough.  If you fancy having a go you can see the recipe on the Good Food website here.

I really like the method used for part cooking the fruit and used it the next time I made a crumble.

RHUBARB AND STRAWBERRY CRUMBLE

A crumble has to be one of the easiest puddings to throw together but it is always a favourite in our house.  And everywhere in fact.  If it’s on the menu in a pub or restaurant it always sells well and even the French have adopted it as a dessert – pronounced “cramble” – it’s amazing how often it’s on the fancy menus in France.

Here’s how I made my crumble ~ the ingredients are in ounces as that is how I have always remembered it, having learned the basics from my mum.

 Ingredients

8ozs SR flour

4ozs hard butter or margarine, cut into cubes or chunks

4ozs granulated sugar

2ozs porridge oats

3-4 sticks of rhubarb, probably about 1lb in weight.

a handful of strawberries

a sprinkling of flaked almonds (optional)

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C / 160°fan / gas mk 4.  Grease a suitable baking dish.

Trim and wipe the rhubarb, cut into 1” pieces and put them into a frying pan with half of the sugar.  Heat gently, stirring occasionally until the sugar has melted and the fruit begins to soften.  Remove from the heat.

Put the flour and butter into a food processor and blitz to breadcrumbs (or rub together by hand).  Stir in the oats and the other half of the sugar.

Tip the rhubarb and any liquid into the prepared dish.  Remove the stalks from the strawberries, cut any large ones in half and scatter over the rhubarb. 

Spread the crumble mixture over the fruit and give the dish a little shake to level the top.  Scatter the flaked almonds on top if using and bake for 30-40 minutes until the crumble is golden and the fruit bubbling around the edges.

Serves 6.

MANGO BLONDIES

When I saw that the We Should Cocoa Challenge for this month, hosted by Shaheen of Allotment 2 Kitchen, was to bake with chocolate and mango, I was sure that I would not be taking part.  I’m not really a mango kind of person.

I do like mangoes, but I can probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I have bought a mango in the last five years, maybe even ten years.  Then I remembered a bag of dried mango lurking in the cupboard, left over from baking a cake using “exotic dried fruits”.  As I was looking at it I remembered baking cranberry blondies a couple of years ago and wondered if I could use the dried mango instead of dried cranberries.  It was worth a try anyway.  Blondies are essentially brownies made with white chocolate instead of dark chocolate.

My original recipe makes a lot of cake so I hunted around and came across this one on the Stork website, which I thought I could adapt quite easily. It makes a smaller cake and is also quick to make.

The recipe states a baking time of 35-45 minutes.  My cake was slightly overdone after 35 and I was a bit annoyed with myself for not checking after 30.  The phone rang and I forgot until the timer beeped.  Still, although it was a bit crozzled at the edges it was still nice.  The cake was moist and crumbly and it was nice to get a bit of chocolate and chewy fruit with every mouthful.

I’m not sure I would rush out and by white chocolate and dried mango to make it again, but it was an easy cake to make and a nice change to have with a cuppa in the afternoon.

So it’s thanks again to Choclette of Chocolate Log blog, and Chele of Chocolate Teapot, for thinking up the We Should Cocoa Challenge in the first place.  Also to Shaheen for being this month’s host.  You can read the details here.

Ingredients

115g Stork block margarine

115g caster sugar

2 medium eggs

125g plain flour

200g white chocolate, chopped, or chocolate chips (I used half of each, as that’s what I had in stock)

115g dried mango pieces

Method

Preheat the oven to 190°C / 170° fan / gas mk 5.  Grease and line the base of an 18cm square baking tin, or similar.

Put the Stork into a small saucepan and melt over gentle heat.  Remove from the heat and stir in half of the chopped chocolate, reheating as necessary, until the chocolate has melted in and the mixture is nice and smooth.

In a large bowl whisk together the eggs and sugar with an electric whisk until thickened and creamy.  Sift over the flour and fold in with the chocolate mixture.

Add half of the remaining chocolate and half of the dried mango.  Stir gently until combined and pour the mixture into the baking tin. 

Scatter the remaining chocolate and mango over the top and bake for 30-35 minutes until nicely golden.  Remove from the oven and cool in the tin.  Cut into squares when cold.

Makes 16 small blondies.