A Spoonful of Sugar

An organic butternut squash

Presenting--drum-roll, please--my first home-grown butternut squash!

After nurturing and pampering my four butternut squash plants since May, I have harvested my first squash! It may not have the classic butternut shape, but that just adds to its charm, in my opinion.

It weighs in at a magnificent 563g, and in case you hadn't noticed... I'm really, really proud of myself for actually managing to grow something!

There are another four squash ripening on their vines--two are almost fully ripe--so we shall have a small feast... eventually.

I've really enjoyed growing squash. Because they're such big plants the fruits form quickly--and die quickly--so you can practically watch them grow and get immediate satisfaction.

Way back I mentioned that there were about 15 squash growing on the plants. I'm afraid that the summer--or lack thereof--put paid to them. Squashes are pretty easy-going plants, but they do need warmth and sunshine to keep the fruit growing. We've had a foul summer this year: about 90% rain and 10% sunshine. Even the ever-reliable plum tree has struggled to fruit and normally it positively drips with luscious red plums.

Unsurprisingly my fennel has given up its valiant struggle against the elements and now refuses to grow at all. I'll be chucking it away--and I guess the compost, too, since it was container grown--when I harvest the rest of the squash.

Next year I'll definitely grow squash again. I'll probably cut back to two butternuts, though, as they trail everywhere, and add in a bushy gem squash plant and some lovely yellow courgettes. Hopefully the weather will be better!

So, I'm curious. What would you do with this small and imperfect, yet beautiful, squash? I'm leaning towards cutting it into wedges and roasting it with just some salt and pepper. On one hand that seems like the ideal way to showcase its natural flavour, but on the other hand... it's a bit boring.

All suggestions welcome!

Summer berry trifle

I'm not big on memes, but I couldn't resist The British One Hundred when I saw that Helen had created it in response to the Omnivore's One Hundred that's been doing the rounds lately.

British food is in the midst of a renaissance--long may it continue--and seeing this meme has reminded me that British Food Fortnight is coming up. Well, it's at the end of October, so still a little while away, but this is a good way to get yourself in the mood for some seriously good food.

Continue reading "The British One Hundred" »

Orecchiette alle broccoli e peperoncino

Orecchiette come from Puglia, the heel of the Italian boot. The name means "little ears," and the pasta is not only a beautiful shape but a very functional one, too. The indentations in the pasta catch the sauce ensuring the most marvellous flavour with every bite.

Traditionally orecchiette are made using a dough of flour, water and olive oil--no eggs here! It's a very time consuming pasta to make, as each little eat is rolled, cut and shaped by hand. Or by thumb, actually. The final shaping into the characteristic ear shape is done by pressing your thumb into a piece of dough to create the little pocket.

Ideally you would make Orecchiette alle broccoli e peperoncino with broccoli rabe or rapini--sold as tenderstem broccoli in the UK--but regular broccoli is still absolutely delicious.

For such a simple set of ingredients the resulting dish is remarkably complicated in flavour. The bitter and slightly metallic taste of the broccoli melds beautifully with the sweet garlic, salty anchovies and the heat from the chillis.

Continue reading "Orecchiette with broccoli and chilli" »

Our hosts for this month's Daring Bakers challenge are the lovely Meeta of What's for lunch, Honey? and Tony Tahhan. They took pity on us and offered up a fairly straightforward recipe that wouldn't leave us sweltering in the kitchen for too long: Pierre Herme's chocolate éclairs.

I adore éclairs and also have a little bit of a crush on Pierre Hermé, so I was thrilled with this challenge recipe. I often flick through Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé, sighing longingly over each recipe, but always reluctant to commit myself to so much butter and sugar. The Daring Bakers have provided me with the perfect excuse to indulge myself--learning, camaraderie and fun--and I couldn't be happier.

While I could have made the entire recipe within a day, I chose to spread it over two so that I could take things easy. I've only recently been allowed back into the kitchen after having surgery on my right eye, so I felt the need to move slowly, especially where sharp objects are concerned.

I kicked things off with the pastry cream. The challenge rules stated that we had to make the choux pastry with no changes, but we had the option of having one non-chocolate component. I opted to make a coconut pastry cream as I suspected that an all-chocolate experience would be a little too much for my two expert taste-testers.

Anyone who has ever eaten a dark chocolate Bounty bar will tell you that it is a match made in heaven and I hoped that this would be the case with the eclairs.

The pastry cream came together like a dream. Richly scented and flavoured with coconut; I had to hurriedly press a sheet of clingfilm to it otherwise I'd have eaten the whole lot in the name of 'tasting'.

The chocolate sauce--a necessary component of the chocolate glaze--was next and was so easy to make. It provided a really intense hit of chocolate, unlocking the layers of flavour and making it easy to pick out the more subtle nuances. I'll definitely be using this recipe again as it wasn't overly rich or cloying.

The next morning I moved on to the choux pastry which turned out to be pretty damn fabulous. It was a world away from the previous recipe I used in every respect--texture, colour, flavour and behaviour. Taking an extra few minutes to cook out the choux pastry after it forms a ball in the pan really makes a difference to the finished pastry. Clouds of steam billowed up from the bowl of my KitchenAid when I beat the initial paste to cool it slightly before adding the eggs and it looked ever so slightly oily, but I persevered. Upon adding the eggs, that old magic happened and the most beautiful choux pastry emerged. Thick, glossy, silky smooth and sporting the most gorgeous golden glow. This will be my 'go-to' choux pastry recipe in future. I can't say enough how much I loved it.

And so to the actual eclairs. Interestingly Pierre said that the choux pastry must be used warm so I began piping straight away. I am not very good at piping. In fact, I suck at piping so I was dreading this part.

We were instructed to use a 2cm diameter piping tip and after looking at my meagre collection of tips I determined that the best thing to do would be to use the coupler without any tip at all, as that was closest to 2cm. This did seem to make the piping more difficult, but I persevered and by the time that I'd piped my fourth line of pate aux choux I'd managed one presentable line.

You see, in an effort to create perfect éclair shapes, I had opted to follow the lovely Tartlette's advice to pipe the choux in long lines, freeze, and then cut the éclairs to size. This worked out really well, and if I manage to improve my piping skills then I can see my turning out some really beautiful eclairs in future. Just not today.

Once baked, the éclairs were a little... rustic in appearance, but chocolate glaze can hide a multitude of sins. This is where things went really, really wrong. I think I over-stirred the chocolate when it was melting into the hot cream, as when I added the butter the entire mixture split. After staring in horror at the mess before me, I poured off the fat and gently stirred in the warm chocolate sauce at which point it miraculously recovered. Being greatly daring, I re-added the butter, drop by drop, and the glaze was rescued!

The glaze started to thicken really quickly, despite the warmth of the kitchen, so I had to work fast. After all the trauma of making the glaze I did not want to have to reheat it. So I quickly dipped the éclair tops in the glaze which worked out really nicely and they looked like a million dollars with their slick of chocolate.

And now the home straight... I added some sweetened coconut flakes to the pastry cream, just for a bit of textural interest as well as an added hit of flavour and lightened it with some whipped cream before piping it into the éclair bases and tumbling over a few raspberries. Popped their tops on and voilà! Dark chocolate and coconut éclairs!

I much preferred the éclairs after they'd chilled overnight. I love crisp profiteroles, but for me... éclairs need a bit of extra squidge to reach the proper heights of decadence. The crisp exterior gave way to the most delicious coconut pastry cream which gave up more and more flavour with each chew. And then the chocolate hit. Oh my god, the glaze was obscenely good!

It all melded together to create the Bounty flavour that I was aiming for, but so, so much better. This is a sophisticated and decadent--if not particularly elegant--éclair. Thank-you so much, Meeta and Tony, for a wonderful recipe!

Don't forget to visit the Daring Bakers Blogroll for more wonderful éclairs!

Continue reading "The Daring Bakers: Dark chocolate and coconut eclairs" »