Asparagus, Brie & New Potato Tart

Asparagus is probably in my top 3 favourite vegetables. It definitely comes after aubergines though. They have to be my all time favourite (although technically, aren't they fruit..?). I usually eat my asparagus as simple as it comes, plenty of salt and pepper and a big pot of melted butter to dip each spear in (several times).

I decided to do something a bit different for my Tea Room at the Sunday Art Salon last Sunday, to showcase this wonderful British seasonal vegetable. The brie can easily be substituted if you're not fond of it. A soft cheese or goat's cheese would work well.

Ingredients

For the pastry:

225g plain flour

60g unsalted butter

50g vegetable shortening (eg Trex)

pinch salt

125ml cold water

For the filling:

4 medium new potatoes

16-18 thin asparagus spears

100g brie, sliced

300ml double cream

2 medium eggs

salt & black pepper

Method

Start by making the pastry. Put the flour, salt and butter in a mixing bowl and rub together with your finger tips until they resemble breadcrumbs. Add the cold water, a little at a time, and bring together to form a ball (you may not need it all), handling the pastry lightly and as little as possible. Flatten into a patty, wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.

Whilst the pastry is chilling (or in advance if you're super organised), boil the potatoes in their skins for approximately 20 minutes until just cooked, set aside to cool and then slice. For the asparagus, bring a pan of water to the boil, add the asparagus and cook for 1 minute. Drain the asparagus and plunge into ice cold water to stop the cooking process.

Preheat the oven to 200C.

Roll the pastry out to about 3mm thick and line a greased 23cm fluted, loose based tart tin. Prick the surface of the pastry on the base of the tin gently all over with a fork, taking care not to push through to the tin. Chill again for 10 minutes. Line with foil or baking parchment and fill with baking beans. Bake blind for 15 minutes, then remove the beans and foil / parchment and bake for another 5-10 minutes until the pastry has dried out and the base is cooked.

Reduce the temperature of the oven to 180C.

Cover the base of the pastry case with the sliced potatoes then arrange the asparagus and brie on top, ensuring that it is evenly distributed. Whisk the eggs and cream together and season with a little salt and plenty black pepper. Pour over the asparagus, potatoes and brie until it nearly reaches the top of the pastry.

Cook the tart in the middle of the oven for 15-20 minutes until set and the pastry cooked through. If the pastry around the edge is cooking too quickly you can cover it with foil.

Serve at room temperature or leave to cool in the tin before removing to serve cold.

Chocolate & Orange Maya Gold Layer Cake

I recently became ever so slightly obsessed with making a gargantuan and slightly bonkers chocolate 1st birthday cake for the Band of Bakers.  Three deep layers of chocolate and muscovado sponge, one layer of hazelnut wafer and one layer of hazelnut meringue all sandwiched together with treacle chocolate fudge frosting and vanilla meringue buttercream, topped off with lots of mini hazelnut meringues.

The sort of cake you only ever make once (like the campervan cake I made for my son's 2nd birthday...never again).

This layer cake is far more refined.  Perfect for a celebration, but equally wouldn't look out of place on the table for afternoon tea.  With three layers of gently spiced rich chocolate fudge sponge and about a gallon of Maya Gold chocolate fudge frosting it isn't for the faint hearted.  But it's made with dark chocolate which is ever so good for you.  And oranges, they count towards your five a day.

You will need to start by making the confit orange a couple of days (or more) before you want to make the cake.

Ingredients

For the orange confit:

4 oranges
500g caster sugar
500ml water

(This is the recipe from Paul A. Young's book Adventures with Chocolate, but I make a big batch so that I have lots of leftovers - they keep well in am airtight container for up to 3 months)

For the cake:

160g unsalted butter, softened

150g dark soft brown sugar
150g light soft brown sugar
100g Green & Black's Maya Gold chocolate
50g Green & Black's 70% dark chocolate
40ml sunflower oil
3 large free range eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tsp glycerin
50ml soured cream
250g plain flour
50g Green & Black's cocoa
1.5 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 tsp ground mixed spice

For the frosting:

2 tbsp golden syrup
150g light soft brown sugar
4 tbsp Green & Black's cocoa
4 tbsp cornflower
300ml milk
150g Green & Black's Maya Gold chocolate
100g Green & Black's 70% dark chocolate
2 tsp vanilla extract
50g unsalted butter, softened

(This almost identical to my current favourite chocolate frosting recipe, which is in Dan Lepard's book Short & Sweet, except that I have swapped the treacle in his recipe for golden syrup and used Maya Gold in place of some of the dark chocolate.  If you don't have Dan's book, you should have!)

Method

For the orange confit:

Wash the oranges, then score the skin from top to bottom so the skin is in 4 equal pieces.  Gently peel the skin away from the flesh and slice each piece into 3 or 4 lengthways.

Bring a pan of water to the boil and simmer the orange skin for 3 minutes , then drain and discard the water.  Repeat twice.

Put the sugar and water into a pan and bring to the boil.  Put the orange skin into the sugar syrup and turn the heat right down to a very gentle simmer.  Simmer for 3 hours then leave in the syrup to cool.  Once cooled, gently lay the strips of orange skin on a cooling rack and leave for 24 hours, or until the sugar crystallises.

For the cake:

Preheat the oven to 180C.  Grease and line the bottoms of three 20cm sandwich cake tins.

Beat the butter, dark and light sugars with an electric mixer (I used my Kitchenaid Mixer) until pale and fluffy.  This will take about 4 or 5 minutes.

Whilst the butter and sugars are mixing, melt the Maya Gold and 70% dark chocolate in a bowl set over a pan of simmering water.  Take care not to let the water touch the bowl or the chocolate.

Beat the eggs, oil, vanilla extract, glycerin and soured cream together in a jug.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and mixed spice.

Once the butter and sugar mixture is pale and fluffy, reduce the speed of the mixer and slowly add the egg mixture, about 1 tablespoon at a time.  If the mixture starts to curdle, add a spoonful of the flour mixture.

Beat in half the flour mixture, then the melted chocolate and then the rest of the flour mixture.

Divide equally into the 3 tins and bake for about 20 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.  The cakes should be quite level on top once baked, which is perfect for layering them up with lots of frosting.

For the frosting:

Put the golden syrup, sugar, cocoa, cornflower and milk in a pan and beat until smooth. Bring the boil, stirring all the time.  Remove from the heat and add the chocolate.  Beat until smooth.

Once the mixture has cooled slightly, beat in the vanilla extract and the butter, a little at a time.

My Tea Room at the Sunday Art Salon & a recipe for my favourite Carrot Cake

My first ever Tea Room.  In a little kitchen and dining room, way up in the eaves, overlooking the glorious Hilly Fields in Brockley.  A whole day spent serving freshly baked cakes, tarts and tea and chatting to some wonderful people as the sun streamed through the windows.

The Sunday Art Salon is the perfect place to spend a lazy couple of hours on a Sunday.  Browsing contemporary art, vintage paintings, collectables and antiques.  Meeting and networking with artists, locals and collectors.  Listening to music.  Relaxing with the papers over a light lunch or tea and cakes.

At the very top of this beautiful home, studio and exhibition space in my little tea room, my first day as host was a whirlwind of antique teacups, boiling kettles, warming teapots and (ever glamorous) washing up.  For lunch there was a Stilton, Potato & Caramelised Onion Tart with salad.  On the cake menu were Carrot Cake, Blueberry & Almond Tart and Coffee & Madeira Marble Cake (made with locally roasted Volcano Coffee).  All washed down with big pots of Flint & Co tea served in teacups hunted down in local charity shops and very kindly donated by Sara Smith who designs stunning teacups and saucers here in SE London.

My next Tea Room will be on Sunday 2nd June 2013 at the Sunday Art Salon at Hilly Fields Studio in Brockley from 11am to 5pm.

There was a lot of love for my carrot cake so I thought I'd share the recipe.  It is based on a Family Circle recipe for Passion Cake which was published back in the 1970s, but has evolved a little over time.  It is probably my most baked cake ever.

Ingredients

For the cake: 

4 large eggs
225g caster sugar
225ml sunflower oil
1.5 tsp vanilla extract
280g carrot, finely grated
225g plain flour
1.5 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1.5 tsp baking powder
150g sultanas
1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ground mixed spice

For the cream cheese frosting:

120g full fat cream cheese
60g unsalted butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
150g icing sugar, sifted

Method

Grease and line two 23cm loose based sandwich tins.  Preheat the oven to 180 C.

Beat the eggs, caster sugar, sunflower oil and vanilla extract for 2-3 minutes until well emulsified.  Stir in all of the other cake ingredients until just mixed.

Divide the cake mixture evenly between the two sandwich tins and bake on the middle shelf of the oven for about 35-45 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.  Leave to cool in the tins for 5-10 minutes then carefully remove the cakes from the tins and leave to cool completely on a wire cooling rack. 

Whilst the cake is cooling, make the cream cheese frosting by beating all of the ingredients together until smooth.

Place one of the cooled cakes onto your serving plate.  Cover with about a third of the cream cheese frosting.  Place the other cake on top and then ice with the remaining cream cheese frosting.  Decorate with toasted, chopped nuts.

Serves 12

Warm Salad of Aubergine, Moghrabieh & Chickpeas

Persepolis in Peckham is one of my all time favourite shops.  What you can't buy there or learn about whilst you're shopping really isn't worth knowing.  Each time I go I seem to pick up an ingredient I've never cooked with before, as well as stocking up on cupboard staples for recipes I love to cook from Sally Butcher's Veggiestan or Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi's Jerusalem.

A rather large packet of moghrabieh had been lurking in my cupboard for a while (I would say unopened, but I have a toddler who is rather partial to 'digging' them with his mini digger and liberally distributing them around the house).  Together with an aubergine, half a jar of rather lovely chickpeas and a few lonely tomatoes they made a tasty impromptu warm salad for dinner on a cool May evening.

Serves 2 as a main meal or 4 as a light lunch.

Ingredients

100g moghrabieh
1 aubergine
3 tbsp olive oil (plus a little extra for the tomatoes)
1 tsp sumac
8 small tomatoes
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 small onion, halved and finely sliced
200g chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley
salt & black pepper

Method

Preheat the oven to 200C / 180 C (fan).

Cook the moghrabieh according the pack instructions (I cooked mine in boiling water for around 15-20 minutes).

Slice the aubergine in half lengthways and then, placing the cut side down on the chopping board, slice each half into 1cm thick semi circles.  Mix with the sumac and 2 tablespoons of olive oil, season generously with salt and freshly ground black pepper and then roast for about 20-30 minutes until cooked and starting to brown (you will need to turn them over at east once during cooking).

Put the tomatoes in a small roasting dish, season and drizzle with a little olive oil.  Roast in the oven for 12 minutes, or until the skins are just starting to colour.  Set to one side.

Place a medium frying pan over a moderate heat and add 1 tablespoon of olive oil.  Add the cumin seeds and fry for 1-2 minutes until they release their aroma.  Add the sliced onions and cook for 7-8 minutes, until they are starting to brown, then add the chickpeas.  Cook for 5 minutes, then add the ground coriander and season with salt and pepper to taste.

Mix together the cooked moghrabieh, aubergines, onions and chickpeas and chopped parsley and place on a serving plate.  Top with the roasted tomatoes and their juices.  Serve warm or at room temperature.

Roasted Cauliflower & Squash with Spiced Bulgur

Cauliflower is one of those vegetables that has always failed to inspire me. I'm not talking about the fractal beauty that is the romanesco cauliflower, but the common or garden white variety. In my kitchen they usually find their way into cauliflower cheese or curry (there's something about cauliflower and spices that works so well), but overrun with them as I was just before Christmas I decided to try something new.

I've fancied Denis Cotter's recipe for cauliflower with green peppercorns for a while, but a lack of green peppercorns in my cupboards put paid to that plan! Here I was looking at a rather large cauliflower that really was ready for eating and to be honest there wasn't a fat lot else in the fridge. Aren't the best recipes always the ones that come out of nothing?

You could add some cooked chickpeas to the squash and cauliflower 10 minutes before the end of the cooking time to make this a more nutritionally balanced vegetarian dish.

Ingredients

1 small cauliflower

1/4 of a crown prince squash or 1 small butternut squash

1/2 to 1 red chilli (sliced)

3 cloves garlic (peeled and left whole)

2 tbsp olive oil

salt & pepper

For the spiced bulgur:

1 tbsp olive oil

6 cardamom pods

1 tsp cumin seeds

2 whole cloves

150g bulgur wheat

350ml water (approx)

salt & pepper
1 tbsp toasted nibbed almonds

For the caramelised onions:

2 tbsp olive oil
2 onions (sliced)

1 tsp soft brown sugar

1 tsp good sherry vinegar

salt & pepper

Method

Preheat your oven to 190 C.

Peel the squash, remove the seeds and cut the flesh into thick slices. Remove the outer leaves of the cauliflower, wash the cauliflower and then cut into thick slices (rather than breaking it into florets). Put the squash and cauliflower into a roasting tin with 2 tablespoons of olive oil, the red chilli and whole cloves of garlic. Season generously with salt and pepper. Put into the oven for around 40 minutes until the cauliflower and squash are tender and beginning to crisp and brown at the edges.  Remove the garlic cloves.

In the meantime prepare the spiced bulgur and caramelised onions.

For the spiced bulgur, heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a small pan (which has a tight fitting lid) over a medium heat. Add the cumin seeds and cook for a minute stirring often, then add the cardamom and cloves. Stir in the bulgur and reduce the heat. Continue to stir over a low heat until the bulgur has turned from a golden to a nutty brown (without letting it catch or burn). Season and add the water. Bring to the boil, stir, put the lid on the pan and immediately reduce the heat to very low. Cook for approximately 15-20 minutes until the bulgur is tender but still with a little bite.  Fluff the bulgur with a fork, remove the whole spices and then stir through the toasted almonds just before serving.

For the caramelised onions, put the oil and onions into a heavy based pan over a low heat. Cook the onions very slowly, stirring often, until they begin to turn golden brown (this will take around 30-40 minutes) and then add the sugar and season with salt and pepper. Cook for around another 5 minutes. Add the vinegar and cook until the liquid has disappeared. The onions should now be caramelised and a rich brown colour.

Serve the roasted squash and cauliflower on top of the spiced bulgur and finish with a spoonful of the caramelised onions.

Smoked Mackerel with Celeriac & Beetroot Remoulade

The root vegetable mountain that grows in my kitchen at this time of year can become a little tedious after a while. Don't get me wrong, I love root veg, but if I see another beetroot or swede this month I might just scream. Devising ways to make it feel like we're not eating the same root vegetable stews, soups, gratins and mash for the seemingly endless winter months has become a bit of a challenge.

Caramelised swede, onion & thyme tartlets, beetroot carpaccio with goat's curd & honey roasted walnuts, mini cheese & celeriac scones, beetroot, red quinoa & feta fritters and spiced roasted carrot houmous have all made an appearance but I'll be needing a bit more inspiration to see me through to spring!

This recipe made me feel like I'd been transported out the depths of winter - a little seasonal salad to accompany the smoked mackerel that was lurking in the fridge.

My wonderful fishmongers (Moxons) sell the most amazing whole smoked mackerel which I used for this recipe. It has a gentle smokiness, silky smooth texture and would easily feed 2 (gluttonous) people all for around £3. If you can't get hold of this sort of smoked mackerel it will work just as well with smoked mackerel fillets.

Ingredients

1 whole smoked mackerel

2 tbsp mayonnaise

1 tbsp crème fraiche

2 tsp Dijon mustard (or more to taste)

1 tbsp small capers (rinsed)

1 tbsp chopped flat leaf parsley juice of 1/2 a lemon

1 medium raw celeriac

1 small raw beetroot

Method

Put the lemon juice into a bowl. Either grate or finely chop the celeriac into thin matchstick sized pieces and coat immediately in the lemon juice to prevent it from discolouring. You don't want the celeriac grated too finely - it still needs to have some crunch. I use my trusty old handheld moulinex which I brought back from France a few years ago. Set the celeriac to one side.

In another bowl, mix the mayonnaise, crème fraiche and mustard together. Strain any excess lemon juice from the celeriac and discard. Stir the celeriac into the mayonnaise mixture. Add the capers and set to one side for up to 20 minutes.

Prepare the smoked mackerel - remove the head and tail and then slice through the body to make 2 or 3 large steaks.

Stir the chopped parsley into the celeriac remoulade, reserving a little to garnish.

Peel the beetroot and then grate or chop in the same way as the celeriac. Add to the celeriac remoulade. Do not stir it in or you will end up with pink remoulade! Just fold it through once or twice very gently.

Serve immediately with the smoked mackerel and some brown bread.

Mike+Ollie

There's a fantastic little market over the hill in Brockley which has become a bit of a habit of mine.  Every Saturday from 10am to 2pm you'll find a friendly bunch of local stallholders selling fruit and vegetables, speciality potatoes, flowers, free range chickens, game and a whole host of other meat, cheese, bread, cakes, handmade chocolates, fish, chilli plants, coffee and an ever changing array of food to eat on the go.

I like the fact that there aren't twenty odd stalls all selling the same produce, that the stallholders always have time for a natter and that I barely notice that I've easily whiled away a couple of hours browsing this tiny gem. First stop is always Dark Fluid Coffee, the newest artisan roastery and mobile brewer on the block, to top up my caffeine levels.  A short black americano to start my shopping with a warm tingly glow.  You may have to queue for 5 or even 10 minutes or more before someone is free to take your order, but good coffee takes time to make.

More often than not I trundle home laden with Kentish apples and pears from Perry Court Farm along with kale, leeks, cauliflowers and whatever else is in season to supplement my weekly Local Greens veg bag. I've been steering clear of the cheese recently (foolhardy I know...), but that hasn't stopped me gazing longingly at the Norbiton Cheese stall piled high with the likes of ticklemore, morbier, tunworth and epoisses.  Last Saturday it was a lovely whole Mont d'Or that spoke to me - a tenner's worth of pure cheese heaven. 

Now, if it's brunch or lunch on the hoof you're after, you'd have to go a long way to beat what Mike + Ollie have to offer.  Mike and Ollie are two young chefs serving up affordable street food. But you won't find the regular fare of burgers, falafel, burritos and such like.  Instead the ever changing menu reads like an encyclopedia of (often unusual) locally foraged foods that have been smoked, cured or preserved by Mike and Ollie themselves: fennel seeds foraged in Brockley, membrillo made from Crystal Palace quince, cobnuts, chestnuts picked in Greenwich, Brockley rosehip molasses...  You get the picture.

My homemade Lebanese flatbread was loaded with smoked aubergine, local fennel, babaganoosh, red cabbage slaw, Crystal Palace membrillo and a whole host of other herbs, spices and seeds too numerous to mention.  At first sight you might be mistaken for thinking that it's just a bit of everything thrown together with no thought but you'd be a long way from the truth.  From chatting to Mike, I have no doubt that every single ingredient has been well thought out and included for a reason.  It's an incredibly tasty work of art.

Every Saturday you'll find Mike and his amazing bike parked up at the market.  You can't miss the tantilising smells wafting across the entrance to the market.  If it's meat you prefer, there's plenty of that too: spiced slow cooked lamb, free range Suffolk pulled pork, middle eastern spiced lamb, potato and almond cakes...

Each Saturday Mike cooks up a soup (£3.50), a meat main (£5.50) and a veg main (£5.50).

Thank you to Toby Allen and Helen Graves for letting me use their photos of Mike at work and people enjoying the market in this post.

Brockley Market

Lewisham College Carpark

Lewisham Way

Brockley

SE4 1UT

http://www.brockleymarket.com/

Saturdays - 10am to 2pm

Mike + Ollie

http://www.mikeandollie.co.uk/
Wednesdays & Fridays - 9am to 4pm - Deptford Market

Saturdays - 10am to 2pm - Brockley Market

Cranberry & Orange Mincemeat

Homemade mincemeat knocks the socks off anything you can buy in the shops.  Fact.  Luckily for me, in the past I've been gifted lovingly made jars of the stuff by friends and family.  But this year as December approached the cupboards were bare.

So I set off in search of a recipe.  The sort of tried and tested one that can't go wrong (but that I would inevitably end up playing around with because I can't help myself).  I thought Delia might hold the key, but melted suet?  What's that all about?  Not for me. 

Whenever I need what I'd refer to as a staple recipe (you know, things like simnel cake, shortbread, lemon curd...) to work from there is a handful of food blogs I tend to turn to. One of them is Gin and Crumpets written by fellow South East London dweller, Jassy.  She writes recipes that work and ones that I want to cook. 

Armed with her wonderful recipe for Apple & Lemon Mincemeat (and some advice along the way) I set about creating my own vat of mincemeat.  For that is what I made, a rather large quantity of mincemeat to see me through the festive season.  I haven't put mine into jars as I reckon it won't be in existence any longer than a couple of weeks, so it's currently residing in a large tupperware in my cupboard.  But you could of course sterilise some jars to store it in or to give away as gifts.

Ingredients

1.2kg mixture of sultanas and raisins (I used Waitrose vine fruit mix)
300g dried cranberries
500g bramley apples (peeled & cored weight - approx 5 medium apples)
300g vegetarian suet
300g golden caster sugar
zest & juice of 3 oranges
zest & juice of 1 unwaxed lemon
200ml brandy
1.5 tsp ground mixed spice
1.5 tsp ground cinnamon

Method

Put the lemon and orange zest in a bowl, cover with boiling water and leave for half an hour.  This will help extract any bitterness.  I use a zester to remove long strips of zest, but if you haven't got one you can either grate the zest using a fine grater or pare the zest with a peeler (taking care not to take too much of the white pith which is bitter).

Mix the dried fruit (sultanas, raisins and cranberries) in a large bowl and pick over to get rid of any stems . 

Drain the lemon and orange zest and chop.  Stir the zest and all of the orange and lemon juice into the dried fruit.

Peel, core and coarsely grate the apples.  Add the grated apples, vegetable suet, sugar, brandy and spices to the dried fruit mixture and stir to mix thoroughly.  The apples go brown pretty quickly when peeled, so I did a few at a time, adding them to the dried fruits as I went along so that the lemon juice prevent them from going brown. 

Leave to stand for a few hours, covered with a tea towel, returning to stir the mincemeat regularly.

If you are just making the mincemeat to use over a couple of weeks then it will keep perfectly well sealed in a plastic container.  If you want to store it in jars to keep it for longer, then fill sterilised jars, seal and store in a cool dark place.

Use to make mince pies.

Huge thanks to Jassy of Gin and Crumpets for her mincemeat guidance.