Public service announcement: don't try making pancakes with rye flour. Utter disaster. Apparently, its gluten is less elastic than wheat flour, and, also, the bran has a seemingly infinite capacity to absorb liquid. I imagine the same applies to other types of wholewheat flour, though if anyone has succeeded, do let me know.
So, given that disaster, I was quite pleased with tonight's dinner. It was inspired by a recipe I've blogged about before, except with added starch and melted cheese to compensate my body for the hail today.
I made it for two, but the quantities beneath are for one, and you have the added advantage that this gives you an excuse to buy a cute little individual baking dish to both cook and serve it in. Two-purpose cookware: this is basically saving money, not spending it. Additional savings are made on the water and Fairy liquid you would have had to use to wash up a baking dish *and* a plate.
The quantities for the pancakes will make more than you need, but I fail to see "spare pancakes" as a problem.
Asparagus stuffed pancakes
For the pancakes:
125 g plain *white* flour
1 egg
300 ml milk
For the stuffing:
100 ml full-fat creme fraiche (you're baking it, so this isn't the time to be healthy. Unless you want curdled pancakes.)
15 g parsley
10 g dill
10 g chives
1 tsp dijon mustard
4 thick (or 6 skinny?) spears of asparagus
a grating of gruyere, or parmesan, or just cheddar. Or whatever.
Start by making the pancake batter: tip the flour into a large bowl, make a dip in the middle, and crack in the egg. Whisk it gradually in, adding the milk gradually as the mixture gets too thick to whisk. Place to one side to rest.
Steam the asparagus for 2-4 minutes, depending on their thickness. The best way of doing this is to lay them down in a frying pan (to which you have a lid), cover with water, and bring to the boil. Turn the heat off when the spears give way to a knife slid into them, and leave them to cool.
Whilst the asparagus is getting touchable, fry your pancakes. You know how to fry a pancake, right? Tip them onto a flat chopping board and leave until they, too, are touchable.
In the meantime, finely chop your herbs and stir them, and the mustard, into the creme fraiche. Taste for seasoning; you may like to add more mustard, or more of one of the herbs.
It's then an assembly job. Spread a pancake with a thick layer of herby creme fraiche, then pop two (or three) spears of asparagus in the middle. It's best if you put them top to tail, so each slice of pancake contains a bit of thick spear and a bit of soft tip. Roll the pancakes up, and place into a lightly greased baking dish. Grate your cheese over the top, then pop into a hot oven for 10 - 15 minutes, or until the creme fraiche is bubbling out and the cheese is golden.
Good with a leafy salad (I used watercress and spinach with a lemon dressing).
Showing posts with label asparagus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label asparagus. Show all posts
Tuesday, 3 April 2012
Wednesday, 15 June 2011
Pancetta and asparagus risotto
As some of you may have seen me tweet, I visited the Daylesford Farm Shop on Monday. This is probably a good opportunity to correct a small factual mistype: when I said I escaped having only spent £40, that should have read that the boyfriend escaped having only spent £40. Whoops.
As a small apology for making such a catastrophically erratic tweet, I made a risotto for him last night with two of the ingredients I (/he) bought there: a block of pancetta, and some asparagus. I've been meaning to get hold of pancetta in the piece for ages now; I love the idea of cutting my own lardons to just the size I want them. Supermarket packs always cut them far too small. This block did not disappoint, from the gorgeous smell when it came out of its pack, to the melting texture once fried. It's not that expensive, either - about the same as you'd pay for one of those supermarket packs of ready-teeny-cubed pieces.
Pancetta and asparagus risotto
c. 200g off a block of pancetta, sliced into large lardons (or a pack if that's all you can get your hands on)
Large onion, peeled and finely chopped
c. 200g asparagus spears, tough ends broken off, tips sliced off, and main stem chopped into three or so bits, about the length of the top two joints of your thumb
125g risotto rice
Small glass white wine
500 ml chicken stock (see previous rant here)
50g parmesan, grated
In a small saucepan, heat your stock with the tough ends of the asparagus spears until simmering, then keep warm.
In a larger saucepan, fry your pancetta lardons over not too harsh a heat, so that their fat renders down and they begin to crisp up. This should take 5 minutes or just over. You shouldn't need to add more oil, unless you have some exceptionally lean pancetta on your hands (I didn't!).
Once the pancetta is crispy golden, throw in the chopped onion, stir, and fry for a further 5 minutes or so, until the onion is softened and beginning to get slightly golden itself. Tip in the rice, and stir for a couple of minutes. Tip in the glass of wine and simmer furiously until almost entirely gone.
Add the first ladle of stock, and the chopped bits of main asparagus stem (but not the tips yet). Stir. Leave to simmer. Stir again. Add another ladle of stock when it starts getting a bit dry. Repeat.
After about 10 minutes, throw in the asparagus tips, and keep adding stock and stirring. After about 15 minutes, taste the rice - it should be nearly done, with a slight bite but no chalkiness in the middle. If it needs a little longer, give it a little longer, and taste again in a couple of minutes.
Once the rice is how you like it, stir in the parmesan, and perhaps a little black peppper; with the pancetta and parmesan, it shouldn't need salt.
Serve, with more parmesan at the table.
As a small apology for making such a catastrophically erratic tweet, I made a risotto for him last night with two of the ingredients I (/he) bought there: a block of pancetta, and some asparagus. I've been meaning to get hold of pancetta in the piece for ages now; I love the idea of cutting my own lardons to just the size I want them. Supermarket packs always cut them far too small. This block did not disappoint, from the gorgeous smell when it came out of its pack, to the melting texture once fried. It's not that expensive, either - about the same as you'd pay for one of those supermarket packs of ready-teeny-cubed pieces.
Pancetta and asparagus risotto
c. 200g off a block of pancetta, sliced into large lardons (or a pack if that's all you can get your hands on)
Large onion, peeled and finely chopped
c. 200g asparagus spears, tough ends broken off, tips sliced off, and main stem chopped into three or so bits, about the length of the top two joints of your thumb
125g risotto rice
Small glass white wine
500 ml chicken stock (see previous rant here)
50g parmesan, grated
In a small saucepan, heat your stock with the tough ends of the asparagus spears until simmering, then keep warm.
In a larger saucepan, fry your pancetta lardons over not too harsh a heat, so that their fat renders down and they begin to crisp up. This should take 5 minutes or just over. You shouldn't need to add more oil, unless you have some exceptionally lean pancetta on your hands (I didn't!).
Once the pancetta is crispy golden, throw in the chopped onion, stir, and fry for a further 5 minutes or so, until the onion is softened and beginning to get slightly golden itself. Tip in the rice, and stir for a couple of minutes. Tip in the glass of wine and simmer furiously until almost entirely gone.
Add the first ladle of stock, and the chopped bits of main asparagus stem (but not the tips yet). Stir. Leave to simmer. Stir again. Add another ladle of stock when it starts getting a bit dry. Repeat.
After about 10 minutes, throw in the asparagus tips, and keep adding stock and stirring. After about 15 minutes, taste the rice - it should be nearly done, with a slight bite but no chalkiness in the middle. If it needs a little longer, give it a little longer, and taste again in a couple of minutes.
Once the rice is how you like it, stir in the parmesan, and perhaps a little black peppper; with the pancetta and parmesan, it shouldn't need salt.
Serve, with more parmesan at the table.
Wednesday, 27 April 2011
A multi-season soup
I don't make New Year's Resolutions. Well, except this year I did. I resolved to make a large batch of soup most weekends, which I would then religiously take to work for my lunches the following week, and certainly not buy any more vastly overpriced, fattening, panini-type things.
The reason I don't make New Year's Resolutions is that I've hardly ever known anyone to actually stick to the things. January has always struck me as a bad time to go trying to make big life changes, just when the weather is telling you to hide indoors, drink lots of strong wine and eat lots of chocolate. But soup... ah yes, soup is for January. And February, as it turned out. I got as far as March before the weather improved sufficiently to slow me down. One of the last batches I cooked before I turned veggie for Lent (and therefore couldn't eat it) was the following, adapted from a Nigel Slater recipe in his Kitchen Diaries. His version (available here for you sorry folk who don't own the book) was more main-coursey, so I did the following.
The parmesan rinds are non-essential but fabulous. Whenever you finish a piece of parmesan, stick it in the freezer and save it for soups like this. The best results will also come if you use some kind of animal fat (so, the stuff you drain off when frying duck breasts or roasting a joint, or buy some lard in a supermarket), but olive oil would do just fine.
A Herb and Barley Broth
100g barley
2 tbs of some kind of fat, preferably animal (I used some duck fat I had hanging around)
1 carrot
2 leeks
3 stalks celery
2 onions
4 cloves garlic
1/2 glass sherry
1 litre chicken stock (or 500ml and 500ml water, or all veggie stock, etc!)
4 or so bay leaves
handful thyme
parmesan rinds, if you have some hanging around
handful parsley
First you need to cook your barley, as the rest of the soup doesn't need too long. The packet on mine suggested 1 hour to an hour and a half, and I think the shorter time is about right - you want it to keep some bite when it goes into the soup. Nigel says it'll be done in 20 mins, but I think that's wildly optimistic.
Meanwhile, chop the carrot, celery and leek into little cubes, and slice the onions thinly from root to tip (so they make little crescents, most still joined at the root). Heat your fat in a big saucepan or casserole, and then saute the veg over a gentle heat, stirring often, until softened but not browned. Slice the garlic thinly, add to the pan, and saute for another couple of minutes.
Once the barley is cooked, tip it into the pan, then add the sherry and simmer until you don't get a whack of alcohol when you inhale the steam. Then add the stock, thyme, bay leaves, and parmesan rinds if available, and bring to a gentle simmer. Pop on a lid, and simmer for half an hour or so. Chop the parsley roughly, and stir in.
A more summery dinner
Two portions of the above have now sat in my fridge for the whole of Lent, tempting but out of bounds thanks to the duck fat and chicken stock. It's now really too warm to have soup at lunchtime, so I thought I'd have one for dinner, but on its own it was a little restrained, so I thought I'd add some fresh veggies. It would have worked well with peas, beans, or maybe some purple sprouting broccoli, but (perhaps predictably, at the moment) I went for some asparagus - about six or seven spears, each cut into three bite-size lengths, and simmered in the soup for seven minutes or so, until tender. I dished it up and grated over a generous amount of parmesan for good measure.
One portion of the soup remains in the freezer. Suggestions for what to do with it warmly welcomed!
The reason I don't make New Year's Resolutions is that I've hardly ever known anyone to actually stick to the things. January has always struck me as a bad time to go trying to make big life changes, just when the weather is telling you to hide indoors, drink lots of strong wine and eat lots of chocolate. But soup... ah yes, soup is for January. And February, as it turned out. I got as far as March before the weather improved sufficiently to slow me down. One of the last batches I cooked before I turned veggie for Lent (and therefore couldn't eat it) was the following, adapted from a Nigel Slater recipe in his Kitchen Diaries. His version (available here for you sorry folk who don't own the book) was more main-coursey, so I did the following.
The parmesan rinds are non-essential but fabulous. Whenever you finish a piece of parmesan, stick it in the freezer and save it for soups like this. The best results will also come if you use some kind of animal fat (so, the stuff you drain off when frying duck breasts or roasting a joint, or buy some lard in a supermarket), but olive oil would do just fine.
A Herb and Barley Broth
100g barley
2 tbs of some kind of fat, preferably animal (I used some duck fat I had hanging around)
1 carrot
2 leeks
3 stalks celery
2 onions
4 cloves garlic
1/2 glass sherry
1 litre chicken stock (or 500ml and 500ml water, or all veggie stock, etc!)
4 or so bay leaves
handful thyme
parmesan rinds, if you have some hanging around
handful parsley
First you need to cook your barley, as the rest of the soup doesn't need too long. The packet on mine suggested 1 hour to an hour and a half, and I think the shorter time is about right - you want it to keep some bite when it goes into the soup. Nigel says it'll be done in 20 mins, but I think that's wildly optimistic.
Meanwhile, chop the carrot, celery and leek into little cubes, and slice the onions thinly from root to tip (so they make little crescents, most still joined at the root). Heat your fat in a big saucepan or casserole, and then saute the veg over a gentle heat, stirring often, until softened but not browned. Slice the garlic thinly, add to the pan, and saute for another couple of minutes.
Once the barley is cooked, tip it into the pan, then add the sherry and simmer until you don't get a whack of alcohol when you inhale the steam. Then add the stock, thyme, bay leaves, and parmesan rinds if available, and bring to a gentle simmer. Pop on a lid, and simmer for half an hour or so. Chop the parsley roughly, and stir in.
A more summery dinner
Two portions of the above have now sat in my fridge for the whole of Lent, tempting but out of bounds thanks to the duck fat and chicken stock. It's now really too warm to have soup at lunchtime, so I thought I'd have one for dinner, but on its own it was a little restrained, so I thought I'd add some fresh veggies. It would have worked well with peas, beans, or maybe some purple sprouting broccoli, but (perhaps predictably, at the moment) I went for some asparagus - about six or seven spears, each cut into three bite-size lengths, and simmered in the soup for seven minutes or so, until tender. I dished it up and grated over a generous amount of parmesan for good measure.
One portion of the soup remains in the freezer. Suggestions for what to do with it warmly welcomed!
Saturday, 22 May 2010
In a crabby mood
Sometimes cooking for just yourself can be tough.
Really, really tough.
There's so many yummy foods out there that come in two-person shaped packages.
Like crab. A dressed crab is about right for two people. It's far too much for just one person, right?
So I did an adapted version of this Good Food recipe. And ate the lot.
Tough. Really, really tough.
My crab and asparagus salad
1 dressed crab (around 150g total)
1 tbs mayonnaise
1/2 red chilli, finely chopped
juice 1/2 lemon
100-150g asparagus
50g watercress
Snap the woody ends off the asparagus, and boil for 4 minutes or until you can easily slide a knife into the thickest stem. Drain, then slice each stem into three.
Separate out the white and brown crab meat, and place the white to one side. Mix the brown meat with the mayo, chilli, and lemon juice, then toss the stem sections of the asparagus (but not the tips) in this dressing.
Arrange the watercress on the plate, pile the dressed asparagus in the middle, top with the tips, and then the white crab meat.
Enjoy. All on your own.
PS. Yes, dear readers, that is a *photo* you see there. It would seem that posting on a public blog about missing card readers is an excellent prompt for their return.
Really, really tough.
There's so many yummy foods out there that come in two-person shaped packages.
Like crab. A dressed crab is about right for two people. It's far too much for just one person, right?
So I did an adapted version of this Good Food recipe. And ate the lot.
Tough. Really, really tough.
My crab and asparagus salad
1 dressed crab (around 150g total)
1 tbs mayonnaise
1/2 red chilli, finely chopped
juice 1/2 lemon
100-150g asparagus
50g watercress
Snap the woody ends off the asparagus, and boil for 4 minutes or until you can easily slide a knife into the thickest stem. Drain, then slice each stem into three.
Separate out the white and brown crab meat, and place the white to one side. Mix the brown meat with the mayo, chilli, and lemon juice, then toss the stem sections of the asparagus (but not the tips) in this dressing.
Arrange the watercress on the plate, pile the dressed asparagus in the middle, top with the tips, and then the white crab meat.
Enjoy. All on your own.
PS. Yes, dear readers, that is a *photo* you see there. It would seem that posting on a public blog about missing card readers is an excellent prompt for their return.
Friday, 30 April 2010
More asparagus...
Dinner tonight courtesy of the wonderful Mr Simon Hopkinson's Week In Week Out, probably the second most beautiful cookery book I own. Of course, just because it's beautiful doesn't mean I've ever cooked a single recipe from it before, so tonight was a bit of an experiment.
This is what I was aiming for: Asparagus, Sour Cream and Herb Omlettes. My first attempt resulted in a pile of slightly raw, slightly charred scrambled egg. Lesson: when it says non-stick pan, it means it. The next attempt resulted in an only slightly split omelette, spilling its insides across the plate, but by my fourth one, I got a perfect little swiss roll of soft omelette, tart cream, fragrant herbs and grassy crisp asparagus. Sometimes it's not just the simple recipes that make you happy.
Of course, making mini quantities just for me resulted in my now having, in the fridge, a large bunch of tarragon, one of chives, and one of parsley. So... what to do with them? I may have a little idea of my own - but you'll have to wait and see for that!
This is what I was aiming for: Asparagus, Sour Cream and Herb Omlettes. My first attempt resulted in a pile of slightly raw, slightly charred scrambled egg. Lesson: when it says non-stick pan, it means it. The next attempt resulted in an only slightly split omelette, spilling its insides across the plate, but by my fourth one, I got a perfect little swiss roll of soft omelette, tart cream, fragrant herbs and grassy crisp asparagus. Sometimes it's not just the simple recipes that make you happy.
Of course, making mini quantities just for me resulted in my now having, in the fridge, a large bunch of tarragon, one of chives, and one of parsley. So... what to do with them? I may have a little idea of my own - but you'll have to wait and see for that!
Saturday, 24 April 2010
First asparagus
Nigel Slater reckons that 'only a prude can ignore the sexual overtones of asparagus officinalis.' Perhaps that explains my even-greater-than-usual desire to get my hands on the first of the British stuff this year. Although, seeing as Slater never seems to have met a piece of food he wouldn't like to fuck, perhaps we shouldn't take the psychoanalysis too far.
Anyway, here it is. Normally I just boil my first asparagus of the year and smother it in melting butter, but I had to eat a proper supper sometime, so this is the recipe I made. If you're using supermarket thin-cut water-pumped bacon, you'll need considerably more than the 6 rashers of thick-cut dry-cured butcher's bacon I used.
Ingredients
200g asparagus
6 rashers smoked streaky bacon
100g (ish) cherry tomatoes
Method
Heat your oven to 200 celsius and get a baking tray out of the cupboard. Snap any woody ends off the asparagus and drizzle with a little oil. Cut each rasher of bacon into two, and roll up, then snuggle them among the asparagus. Place in the oven for 10 minutes.
Take them out after this time and scatter the tomatoes among the spears and bacon. If the tips of the asparagus look like they might be burning, rearrange the bacon to cover them. Return to the over for a further 5 minutes or so.
Munch with plenty of crusty bread to soak up any juices.
No picture, this time because I munched so fast I didn't have time to take any. I burnt my mouth as a result, so I've already been punished for this sin.
PS. Sorry about the Slater quip. I love him and his cooking very much, but the food/fuck alliteration was too good not to say.
2011 edit
I always make this recipe at least once a year, and last night was the night this year. I am one of those people who are simply incapable of following a recipe (yes, even one of my own), and so I had to have a bit of a tinker around the edges. I used thin slices of pancetta instead of traditional English thick-cut streaky bacon, and wrapped the slices around the tops of around half the asparagus (so, around 6 spears and slices out of 12 spears total).
The effect is gorgeous. Somehow, the pancetta traps the steam coming off the tips of asparagus, and they steam in their own juices to a melting softness, giving a lovely contrast with the crispy pancetta and grilled stalks.
Anyway, here it is. Normally I just boil my first asparagus of the year and smother it in melting butter, but I had to eat a proper supper sometime, so this is the recipe I made. If you're using supermarket thin-cut water-pumped bacon, you'll need considerably more than the 6 rashers of thick-cut dry-cured butcher's bacon I used.
Ingredients
200g asparagus
6 rashers smoked streaky bacon
100g (ish) cherry tomatoes
Method
Heat your oven to 200 celsius and get a baking tray out of the cupboard. Snap any woody ends off the asparagus and drizzle with a little oil. Cut each rasher of bacon into two, and roll up, then snuggle them among the asparagus. Place in the oven for 10 minutes.
Take them out after this time and scatter the tomatoes among the spears and bacon. If the tips of the asparagus look like they might be burning, rearrange the bacon to cover them. Return to the over for a further 5 minutes or so.
Munch with plenty of crusty bread to soak up any juices.
No picture, this time because I munched so fast I didn't have time to take any. I burnt my mouth as a result, so I've already been punished for this sin.
PS. Sorry about the Slater quip. I love him and his cooking very much, but the food/fuck alliteration was too good not to say.
2011 edit
I always make this recipe at least once a year, and last night was the night this year. I am one of those people who are simply incapable of following a recipe (yes, even one of my own), and so I had to have a bit of a tinker around the edges. I used thin slices of pancetta instead of traditional English thick-cut streaky bacon, and wrapped the slices around the tops of around half the asparagus (so, around 6 spears and slices out of 12 spears total).
The effect is gorgeous. Somehow, the pancetta traps the steam coming off the tips of asparagus, and they steam in their own juices to a melting softness, giving a lovely contrast with the crispy pancetta and grilled stalks.
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