Painter's blog including Residency at Creekside Centre, Deptford Quartrains, Hong Kong and China
Had some leftover potatoes and an under-ripe avocado. Fried them in olive oil, adding s and p, a tiny pinch of chili powder, fresh coriander and spring onion tops, snipped. Delish.
Another grey and cool day.
Yesterday, I made Ratatouille, at least my version of it.
I realise I have been very cavalier with Ratatouille. It’s not enough just to sling the ingredients into a pan, fry and stew.
For some reason I decided to change the habit of a lifetime and cook the onions slowly first. I then added a sliced red pepper, then two courgettes and then the aubergine. I added more olive oil and five crushed cloves of garlic.
I cooked all this very slowly on a low heat for about an hour then added a single tin of tomatoes. I also added a bayleaf and a bunch of thyme. I took out the bayleaf after about half an hour as I thought the flavour might take over.
This is only slightly different to how I had been doing it for years but it made a huge difference to the final result. I think the slow cooking, extra olive oil and fewer tomatoes made all the difference.
NB: This is not a classic Ratatouille recipe.
Ingredients:
2 onions
1 red pepper
2 courgettes
1 aubergine
5 cloves of garlic
Salt and pepper
Thyme
Bayleaf
I had some leftover veg in the fridge so decided to make cole slaw:
A quarter of a head of red cabbage
A head of fennel
Two carrots
One small onion
Dried dill
Mayonnaise
Greek yoghourt
Salt and pepper
Chop all the veg into small pieces, add the mayonnaise, greek yoghourt, salt, pepper and dill and hey presto a really delicious cole slaw.
Fresh dill would be better but in these straightened times ….
Apart from cooking and cleaning – I cleaned behind my fridge today and surprised a large spider who looked very at home and most put out at being disturbed – I have also started a writing course. The course has been organised by Cork County Council Arts Office and is free. Novelist Denyse Woods is running it and we have been set our first assignment. We could choose to write 200 words on either of the following:
2. Apart from the staff, there were three other people in the library….
I chose the J-cloth naturally.
I would be interested to know if choosing an inanimate object to write about as opposed to the human is psychologically revealing in any way. It probably means I am a psychopath, this seems to be the latest buzzword and all roads seem to lead to psychopathy these days.
Anyway, I got thoroughly carried away and ended up writing a short story in the end. Based on the J-cloth.
Some outstanding garden jobs:
1. Make inventory of all plants – I have a chronic memory for plant names and so before it’s too late …
2. Trim hedges.
3. Cut dead brambles from back wall.
4. Weed flower garden and plant out all pots with cuttings.
5. Re-seed lawn and path through back meadow.
6. Put out bird bath.
7. Create insect log hotel.
8. Clear outside perimeter wall.
The meadow was the main task and now that is out of the way …
Meet Dutch – I drive into Clon every Friday to pick up my veg box. The fruit and veg is all organic and delicious.
Today I am cooking red cabbage to go with the last of my lamb stew.
I will be interested to see what this is like – adapted from an online recipe.
Clon was like a ghost-town on Friday. I took some pics of some of the shops and Emmet Square where there is usually a busy market.
INGREDIENTS:
3/4 pound spring lamb for stewing
3 small onions
2 medium carrots
4 stalks of celery
5 large cloves of garlic
2 teaspoons of ground cumin
2 teaspoons of dried coriander
1 teacup of dried haricot beans
1 bayleaf
2 sprigs of fresh thyme
METHOD:
1. Brown the lamb in olive oil – in two batches in a frying pan.
2. Deglaze:
This means splashing a bit of wine in the frying pan and scraping the bits. I used a splash of apple cider vinegar instead – you don’t need much.
3. Chop and fry the onions in a saucepan:
Always fry the onions for slightly longer than you think feasible. This will improve the taste.
4. Chop the carrots and celery and fry (see above).
5. Peel 5 large cloves of garlic and crush.
6. Add the lamb and garlic to the mix.
7. Add 2 teaspoons each of cumin seeds and ground coriander. Fry.
8. Add two mugfuls of water and bring to the boil.
9. Add the bayleaf and sprigs of thyme.
10. Turn down the heat to simmer for two hours.
11. Leave overnight for flavours to deepen.
11. Soak the haricot beans overnight to add to the stew next day.
This is basically it. You could eat it after cooking for two hours but I feel it always tastes better the next day. To be continued …..
I also found lurking in the fridge about a tablespoon of leftover duck fat let down with some red wine which I also put in.
NEXT DAY:
12. Next day drain the beans and boil for about an hour. When they are cooked, drain, leaving some of the cooking water.
13. Add the beans and the water to your stew.
14. Bring to the boil and simmer for a further half-hour on a low heat.
I served it with bulghur wheat and chopped parsley on top.
Lunch today is goat’s brie with home-made green tomato chutney.
The great thing about writing a blog is that you don’t have to be falsely modest and when I say this is the best chutney I have ever had I really mean it.
The annoying thing about not really following recipes and belonging to the flying-by-the-seat-of-your pants cookery school is that sometimes you really wish you had made a note of how you actually did it.
I am convinced cooking is actually a form of alchemy and all sorts of unlikely influences enter the equation, your emotional state at the time, a misaligned planet, the weather. It is not just a matter of slavishly following recipes. I made this chutney on the eve of returning to Folkestone to see my mother who was not expected to make it when I last spoke to the family.
I was given a boxful of green tomatoes from J and so I decided to make some bottled tomato sauce and the chutney the evening before my journey on the overnight bus. I had never made chutney before and looked up the easiest recipe on the internet. I decided to halve the amount of vinegar and quadruple the amount of garlic and to add ginger. Sultanas were added for good measure and various spices. The whole lot bottled went into the chest-of-drawers in my spare room to seethe for the two months I was away.
Well, the results are spectacular. It is really, really good. I think the added ooopmh may be due to the Chinese Five Spice Powder. I wonder if I could ever replicate it?
My mother made a full recovery by the way and is living happily in Folkestone.
Dear Christian
So glad you enjoyed the crumble when you came to visit. My cooking is strictly improvisational so the crumble we had was made with whatever was to hand – pears, apples, blackberries. However, I thought it would be a good idea to give you a standard no-nonsense recipe for your first go so that you have something to go by (see below for a classic crumble recipe).
If you are using really good apples that is all you need. I bought some beautiful organic apples from the market the other day just to stew. I usually add spices such as cloves, ginger, five-spice, cinnnamon (NOT all at once!). But these apples were so beautiful I just stewed them with a knob of butter (large) and not much water and they were wonderful. So use your intuition.
Afterwards you can ring the changes – I add ground almonds to the crumble sometimes, maybe oats or crushed walnuts and you can use all manner of fruit. I once had a delicious strawberry and banana crumble – it sounded very unlikely but it was delicious. I made a peach crumble last summer – absolutely divine.
I tend to make it up as I go along and never bother to weigh anything, though when making a crumble I always feel that the more butter the better! So when it says “the consistency of breadcrumbs” make sure they are buttery breadcrumbs.
Serve with PLENTY of cream or custard.
Have fun!
For the filling:
600g apples – peeled, cored and sliced to 1 cm thick
2 tablespoons golden caster sugar
For the crumble:
175 g plain flour
110 g golden caster sugar
110 g cold butter
For the topping:
1 tablespoon rolled oats
1 tablespoon demerara sugar
