asparagus and badger risotto*

Ah, asparagus - food of the gods. We eat loads of it when it’s around, but we won’t have imported asparagus, so it’s a short season for us.

This serves 2

Take half a bunch or so of English asparagus, trim off the woody bits, slice into 3cm-ish chunks, and blanch for about 5 minutes, or to taste. Drain the cooking water into a measuring jug, and set the asparagus to one side.

Finely chop some spring onions, and sauté them gently in an ovenproof pan in olive oil and butter, along with a packet of pancetta cubes. Add 5 oz risotto rice and turn it about in the pan.

In the measuring jug with the asparagus water, add the juice of a lemon and a couple of fl oz of white vermouth, then top it up to a pint with cold water. Add this to the pan, bring to the boil, and bung in a slow oven - gas 3 - for 20 minutes.

Remove, stir, and return to the oven for 15 minutes. Remove, stir in some shaved parmesan, dish into bowls. Utterly delicious.

Return to the kitchen afterwards to spot what you, dear readers, probably already had … the asparagus still in its pan. Sigh a lot, and eat it cold. Also delicious.

This is what is known in our house as a badger moment, since the day I looked in the mirror and saw the grey streaks in my hair, and shrieked to Pete that I was turning into a badger ..

* Yes, I know that strictly speaking it’s not a risotto, and I don’t care.

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unseasonal soup

It has rained here (near Bristol, UK) since Sunday, and the forecast says rain as far ahead as I can see (which is next Sunday). And so last night, I made some soup for our lunches. It seems ridiculous, given that it’s almost June, but we were actually sitting watching television last night with a rug over our knees - I utterly refuse to turn the heating on in the last week of May!

So - in the food processor, finely chop some tired carrots, a weary courgette, and most of a big onion (the rest went to something else). Sweat these over a low heat in some olive oil until they’ve softened a bit.

Add a carton of creamed tomatoes, a mug full of red lentils, and enough water till it seems about right - about 1 litre in our case, but there were a lot of carrots. Add salt and pepper, and some fennel seeds for good luck, bring to the boil, and simmer for about 90 minutes with a lid.

I’m just about to go eat mine now. Apologies for the lack of photo, either the camera is buggered or the operator is - I know where my money is …

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drop scones

Having been to Pizza Hut for lunch (first time in many years, and not particularly nice, especially not the (possibly mildly autistic) screaming child at the next table), we didn’t want much for supper.

So we had drop scones.

8oz self raising flour
1/2 generous teaspoon of cream of tartar
ditto of bicarbonate of soda
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 of yogurt and milk mixed (my substitute for buttermilk - I do 2/3 yogurt to 1/3 milk
1 tsp honey

I’m sure this isn’t very authentic, but I just bung it all in the food mixer and beat for a while.

Heat a thick frying pan or similar  (we have a cast iron griddle) until Very Hot.  Grease with a little butter, lard, whatever you like.  Drop spoonfuls of the mixture on the hot surface, watch until they start bubbling, and turn.  You’ll have to do it in batches, so wrap the cooked ones in a tea towel to keep them warm.

We ate ours with maple syrup and, in my case, cream as well - who cares, it was a wet Bank Holiday Monday.

There was some batter left, so we had some more for breakfast.  Yum.

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a simple veg stir fry

Stir fries are indeed quick to cook, but they are not necessarily quick to prepare. The secret is to do all the prep first, as the cooking is very swift. For this one:

Take one red pepper, some rather tired mushrooms, two courgettes, and chop up as you will.

Finely chop ginger and garlic - we usually use an old Braun Multipractic for this; I’ll be heartbroken when it dies, because the new ones are horrible in comparison.

Finely chop spring onions and a red chilli (we only had green, but red is better, in my view), and leave them to one side for the end. Ditto some basil leaves ready to be shredded.

Boil some noodles for however long they say, then drain in a colander, and pour cold water over them to stop them sticking.

Then let battle commence! Heat some oil in a wok until is Very Hot. Hurl in the garlic and ginger, stir about for a minute or so. Add the pepper, courgettes and mushrooms, and stir fry for a few minutes. Then add a splash of lime juice, and some tamari. Bung in the noodles and stir around until they’re warmed, then add the chopped chilli, spring onions and torn basil, and stir until they’re just combined - you don’t want to cook them.

Decant into bowls and scoff; a really nice, light summer supper.

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Words. Fail. Me.

This was drawn to my attention by my mate Budley.

It has to be a spoof, but it’s a pretty disturbing one. Ewwww.

dinnerinabottle.com

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what to do with the leftover asparagus

Make an omelette! Three eggs, some asparagus blanched for about 4 minutes, salt, pepper and some shavings of gruyere. Lovely.

Had it with home made soda bread - this is a useful recipe, as you can use pretty much any combination of bread flour, and it will work. And it has no yeast, so is very quick.

450g plain flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp bicarb of soda
400ml buttermilk (use plain yogurt if you haven’t got buttermilk)

Preheat oven to 230C/450F/gas 8

Sift flour, salt and bicarb into a bowl.  Make a well, and add buttermilk.

Using one hand, slowly incoporate the flour into the milk to give soft, but not sticky dough. (Or cheat - use a mixer with a dough hook :).

Turn onto a floured board, and knead lightly for 1 minute until smooth.  Shape to a round about 4cm high. Cut a deep cross from one edge to the other.

Place on a floured baking tray and bake for 15 minutes.  Reduce the heat to 200C/400C/Gas 6, and bake for a further 30 minutes.  To test if the bread is cooked, tap the underside of the loaf - if it sounds hollow, it’s cooked.

Cool on a wire rack, eat with good butter.  Gorgeous.

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spring greens with coconut and chilli

A lovely simple dish, very quick to prepare.  We always have it with basmati rice.

A bunch of spring greens, sliced thinly - I take the big stalks out too, but it’s up to you
1 tin of coconut milk
1 or 2 dried chillis, depending on your palate - seeds removed ditto, chopped
[some] cloves of garlic - we generally go for Lot - finely chopped
juice of half a lemon
a sprinkle of salt
vegetable or sunflower oil

Blance the spring greens in boiling water for a couple of minutes, then put in a colander, run some cold water over them, and squeeze the water out.  Set aside.

Put some oil in the wok, heat it, and add garlic and chilli.  Fry until cooked - 3 minutes, maybe? depending on how hot your hob is (how alliterative!).

Add the coconut milk, and boil fairly fiercely for about 10 minutes, so that it reduces down.

Add the spring greens, the salt and the juice of the half lemon, and boil ferociously some more until it’s the consistency you fancy - we like a bit of coconuty sauce to put on the rice, but the original recipe I have says to boil it all away.  Still, what are recipes for if not to adapt for your own preferences?

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rhubarb crumble

As always, bits of this are fairly random.  Serves 4 if they’re not overly greedy.

Take 3 good sticks of rhubarb, clean, trim, and chop into chunks.  I do mine in different sizes so you get a different texture when it’s cooked.  Some might say this was accidental, but it’s not.  No really.

Put into an ovenproof dish, and add a couple of dessertspoonsfull of elderflower cordial.  Or a bit more - I just went sloosh.  Sprinkle with some golden granulated sugar - probably the same sort of quantity, but we don’t like stuff too sweet.

In a food processor,  put:

150g plain flour
100g porridge oats
100g butter
100g soft brown sugar

Blitz until it resembles fine breadcrumbs.  Keep an eye on it, but don’t worry if it goes a bit lumpy; you can always recrumble it with your fingers.

Spread this over the rhubarb, put in a pre-heated oven at gas 4 / 180C for about 45 minutes.  Best eaten warm, ideally (in our view) with good vanilla ice cream.

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banana and bran muffins

Who stole the muffin?

We always have a surfeit of bananas here - Riverford deliver them regularly, and I’m not a big fan.  We generally make banana bread or banana muffins, and I found a new recipe on the back of the bran flake box that I tried out yesterday for breakfast.

I suspect they would have risen better had I not left the egg out, but they tasted gorgeous, although they were too sweet.  I cut the sugar down from 225g to 200g, but I think I’ll try with less next time - far too much of a sugar rush for us

Makes 12 muffins

100g softened butter
200g demerara sugar
1 medium egg
3 bananas, peeled
150g natural yoghurt
225g plain flour
2 tsps baking powder
50g bran flakes
3-4 tbsp milk

Cream the butter and sugar in the food processor.

Add the rest of the ingredients, and blitz.

Divid mixture into a muffin tray (I use a silicon one), and bake for 25 minutes at gas 5, 375F/190C

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asparagus and brie quiche

Somebody on CIX drew my attention to this recipe on Great British Kitchen yesterday.  We had all the ingredients in the house, amazingly, so I thought I’d cook it last night.  Although, I must confess that after an hour and a half of Wii Fit and Sport, I ran out of steam a bit, and sent perlmonger up to the Local Shop for some frozen pastry …

We had it with sauté potatoes and steamed broccoli tossed in butter, and it was exceedingly nice.  And there’s some left for lunch today too!

8oz or so of shortcrust pastry
3 eggs
3-4 spring onions, chopped
25g butter
225g brie
120ml milk
120ml cream
100g asparagus tips, blanched
1tsp mustard
grated nutmeg, to season
salt and pepper

Pre-heat oven to 200 °C / 400 °F / Gas 6. You will need a 22.5 cm (9 inch) flan tin or dish; line it with the pastry.

Melt butter and lightly sauté the spring onions, allow to cool.

Remove the rind from the cheese and cut into small cubes, whisk or beat with eggs, beat in the cream and milk, add seasoning.

Scatter the onions on base of flan case, carefully pour in cheese mixture then arrange asparagus spears and bake for 25-30 minutes until set and lightly golden.

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