Category Archives: Starters

Broccoli with Orange Butter & Tagliatelle with Chicory, Pine Nuts and Raisins

13 Wednesday Mar 2013

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Early morning sun viewed from my kitchen terrace

Early morning sun viewed from my kitchen terrace

We have had some lovely rain and now suddenly spring has arrived. The patio is atwitter with swallows recently returned from wintering in Africa and now busily repairing their mud nests. The air is starting to be filled with the scent of citrus blossom – very early this year – and the raucous cries of the Great Spotted Cuckoos looking for mates.  All the deciduous trees are already pruned and now that the winter harvest of limes have been gathered, we are starting with the pruning of those. The trees have vicious thorns, so thick gloves and long handled secateurs are necessary. Once the pruning is done, then a feed of horse manure and iron chelate will be given to each tree, the groups of baby limes will be thinned out and then they can be left to enjoy growing in the spring sunshine. Lime trees being tropical don’t like even the small amount of cooler weather that we have here and always look a bit scrappy and sad at this time of the year, but the boost of fertilizer followed by some warmth will transform them into the lush green trees that they should be.IMG_0070

In the vegetable garden  the cycle continues of sowing, maturing and harvesting. There are continually salad crops, right now being harvested are a variety of chicories and endives, Florence fennel and three types of lettuce. I have seedlings of more lettuce, chicory and oriental greens just about ready to go in the ground. The mange toute peas have been fantastic this winter and are just coming to an end. I had sown some French beans to follow on, but it looks as though the birds might have stolen their heads as soon as they were out of the ground, so I am going to have to resow those.

With the early warmth I am thinking that I may be able to start sowing some of the summer vegetables – aubergines, beetroot, peppers, courgettes.  For some of these I can buy seedlings very cheaply from the local market.IMG_0082

Just starting to be ready are the asparagus and purple sprouting broccoli. The very first head of broccoli this season, I had with orange butter as a starter, absolutely delicious. Butter sauces are a little out of favour at the moment with the concerns with cholesterol and saturated fats, but I would rather have the occasional bit of real butter than weird tasting margarines made with emulsifiers and who knows what base oil. You can of course use green broccoli for this or the green Romanesco cauliflower, white cauliflower I think is too bland for this sauce. Asparagus, either green or white are both complemented well the flavour of the orange butter.

BROCCOLI WITH ORANGE BUTTER

Per person

3-6 florets of Broccoli depending on the size

15 grams butter

Grated zest of a quarter of an orange plus 1 tablespoon of juice

Cook the broccoli for a few minutes in salted boiling water until cooked but still with some bite. You can use your serving plate as a lid and warm it at the same time.

Meanwhile put the butter, orange juice and grated zest into a small pan and heat over a low heat. Swirl the pan around continuously to mix the ingredients and get a smooth emulsion. The sauce wants to warm but never bubble, so do not go away and leave it heating. It is ready when the butter has melted and made a smooth warm sauce with the orange juice and zest.

Drain the broccoli and lay on a warm plate. Pour over the sauce. IMG_0099

Best eaten with your fingers scooping up the lovely orange flavoured butter as you go.

The tender and mild centres of the red and green chicories I have been using in salads, and the slightly tougher and more bitter outer leaves I have saved to cook.  This next recipe is inspired by the cooking of Sicily with its arab influences of using pine nuts and raisins in savoury dishes. I thought the sweetness of the dried fruit would off set the slight bitterness of the chicory and it does very well and the red chicory contrasts beautifully with the pale pasta and pine nuts. This sort of sauce can also be served as a vegetable on its own.

TAGLIATELLE WITH CHICORY, PINE NUTS AND RAISINSIMG_0085

Fresh tagliatelle – see post – The Beginners Guide to Making Fresh Pasta – for recipe

For the sauce per person –

olive oil for frying

1 clove garlic – finely chopped

20 gms pine nuts

20 gms raisins or currants

1 tinned salted anchovy – finely chopped

6 leaves green chicory – cut into fine strips

6 leaves red chicory – cut into fine strips

Parmesan for garnishing

Put the water for the pasta on to heat up, adding a dessertspoon of olive oil and a pinch of salt.

In a shallow pan heat some of the olive oil and add the garlic.

When it is starting to change colour to a golden colour, add the pine nuts and continue frying until they are golden all over.

Add the green chicory which is tougher than the red and stir fry for about 5 minutes.

Add the red chicory and continue frying for a further 3 minutes.

Add the chopped anchovy and the raisins. If the raisins are large then cut them in halves or quarters.

Continue stirring and cooking for a couple of minutes.

Once the pasta water is boiling add the pasta and let it come back to the boil. Cook the pasta for about 3 minutes.

Drain the pasta reserving a little of the water and add the pasta to the chicory mix. Stir well to mix together.

If it is very dry add a little of the reserved pasta cooking liquid.

Check the seasoning and add salt and freshly ground black pepper as required.

Serve with grated parmesan cheese to sprinkle over.

New Years Eve Dinner

09 Wednesday Jan 2013

Posted by in Main Courses, Starters, Sweet Things

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THE MENU

Salad of mangetoute peas, chima di rapa and yellow plum tomatoes with poached egg and smoked fish dressing.

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Ragu of Turkey and Wild Mushrooms

Steamed New Potatoes with Chives

Braised Beetroot with Garlic

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Orange Semi-Freddo

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Cheeseboard

 

When planning a celebratory dinner like that for New Years Eve I generally start jotting down menus several days before the dinner so that I have time to really think through how the meal will be put together on the day. I look through the cupboards, vegetable garden and the freezer to see what I have already that could do with being included. Then I think about how rich or light I want the whole affair to be. After the excesses of Christmas I felt a meal on the lighter side was called for on this occasion.

My first draft menu was a starter of Foie Gras with a salad as above but without the tomatoes and with some of the gorgeous figs that I dried this summer, and a ginger dressing. Ginger with Foie Gras is a favourite flavour combination of mine. This I was thinking maybe of following with a fish dish, either salmon or swordfish steaks.

I wrote in a previous post of an eleven kilo  free range turkey that had come my way which was cut into portions and frozen. I thought I ought to consider turkey for the main course. There were two very good sized legs. Do I bone, stuff and roast them, or will they be too tough prepared like that? A casserole would suit the meat, but is it smart enough for a celebration dinner? I am assured by one of my guests that a Ragu would be perfectly smart enough and welcome change from the richness of the previous days. I have some dried wild mushrooms brought back from a trip to Italy, a perfect accompaniment to the gamey flavour of the turkey.

But then brown ragu preceded by brown foie gras would not do. I want to stick with a salad for several reasons, it is a healthy, light and colourful way to start a meal and I have in the garden some tip top ingredients for one, and most of the preparation can be done in advance which means I don’t have to abandon my guests for too long while I serve it up.

I have some fresh free range eggs that have come from my neighbour Marias happy chickens, a salad topped with a poached egg would be both colourful and the soft yoke mixed with a tangy dressing would make the salad interesting to the palate. For the dressing I used a tin of smoked fish roe in oil that I pureed and thinned with lemon juice and more olive oil.

Having had another look in the garden there are enough baby yellow plum tomatoes to make salads for seven, they are sweet and acidic at the same time and the colour will set off the yellow yolk of the egg.

So I recap in my mind the plan. Crispy mixed salad leaves, the baby yellow tomatoes cut into halves, lightly steamed mangetoute peas and cima di rapa which will still be warm when served, topped with a warm poached egg dressed with a thick dressing of smoked fish roe. Some pickled sprigs of capers to garnish. I am happy with that.IMG_3601

The ragu for the main course I will serve with steamed new potatoes tossed with chives and butter, and for a vegetable beetroot braised with garlic.

I have a good cheese board to end the meal which means that the dessert that I thought I wanted to make will not fit. I make mincemeat each year to sell in the farm shop, and there are a couple of jars left. Having a lime farm the mincemeat is lime and quince, which is wonderfully tangy. I had been thinking to make a cheesecake based on the Yorkshire Curd Tart of a previous post, but in place of the currants and raisins use the mincemeat. I still plan to try it at some point but for this meal it is too rich and cheesecake followed by cheese…..no.

How about a little ice cream?  Small, light, tasty, perfect.  An orange semi-freddo will fit the bill.IMG_3608

I will write a whole post on Semi-freddos in the future, but today I will give you the recipe for the Turkey Ragu which was really good.

TURKEY AND WILD MUSHROOM RAGUIMG_3606

As with all stews it is a good idea to cook it the day before needed to let the flavours mature. As you know there is something about the time and the cooling and reheating that really improves the flavour of any stew.

2.5 Kilos turkey meat from the legs cut into chunks roughly three centimetres square

1 bulb of garlic

2 large onions

400 grams streaky bacon/ pancetta cut  into lardons

Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

1litre stock made from the turkey bones

75 grams  dried mixed wild mushrooms

Good fat for frying, either beef dripping, bacon fat or duck

2 heaped tablespoons flour

Break the garlic into cloves and peel and chop them finely.

Finely chop the onions.

Melt some of the fat in a large heat proof casserole. When hot add the onions and garlic. Fry for five minutes or so until transparent.

Add the bacon and continue frying stirring from time to time for another ten minutes.

Add the turkey pieces. Continue frying and turning the pieces until they are sealed all over. Season well with the sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Add just enough stock to cover the meat. Bring to a slow simmer and cover. Leave to cook for half an hour.

Add the mushrooms and stir in. Continue cooking on a very slow simmer until the turkey is cooked. I thought that the turkey I had, being very large and having run around free would have needed a couple of hours cooking as a minimum, but it only needed about three quarters of an hour more cooking at this point. I would recommend to start checking for doneness after half an hour.

Bear in mind as well that with such a large volume of ragu it will retain heat and the meat will continue to cook for quite some time after the heat is turned off.

To thicken the stew, melt some of the fat in a frying pan and add to it the two tablespoons of flour. If it is dry in the pan add more fat. Fry slowly stirring all the time until the flour starts to caramelise and turn a fudge brown.  Add a ladleful of the stock from the stew and stir into the flour. It will fizz and thicken. Continue adding the stock a ladleful at a time until the sauce is thinner and moveable.

Return this to the pan with the meat and stir gently to mix in.

Reheat the ragu and serve.

2012 in review

02 Wednesday Jan 2013

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I have been pleasantly surprised by how many of you have visited my blog in this the first year. Thankyou for your support and encouraging comments, and I look forward to taking you with me on more culinary adventures in 2013.

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. This blog got about 2,100 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 4 years to get that many views.

Click here to see the complete report.

 

Spicy Pork Kebabs – Malaga Style

30 Friday Nov 2012

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In Andalucía there are many culinary legacies of the times when Moorish princes lived in the palaces of Granada and Seville. Just the names of some ingredients show their Arabic origins – berenjena, zanahoria, albahaca, and azafran for example, which translate as aubergine, carrot, basil, and saffron.

These kebabs are part of this legacy with their seasoning of spices and the drizzle of the bitter sweet sugar cane syrup at the end. When I was first served these as a tapa, the cubes of meat were alternated with dates for an even sweeter taste. The spices are dominated by the flavour of the allspice and cloves which complement so well the pork. I know you are wondering what pork is doing in a dish with arab origins, but that is Andalucía for you. I had a student on my recent tapas cookery class who didn’t eat pork, so I used some nicely gamey free range turkey, which was very good too.

P

PINCHO MORUNO ESTILIO MALAGUENA

For 4 as a main course, for tapas halve all the amounts

700 gms lean pork cut into cubes

10 ml allspice berries or Pimienta de Jamaica

5 ml whole cloves

5 ml Cumin seeds

5 ml coriander seeds

5 ml ground cinnamon

2.5 ml chilli powder or the equivalent in fresh red chilli

2.5 ml pimenton or paprika

2.5 ml Salt

2-4 cloves of garlic

15 ml olive oil

Sugar cane syrup to serve

In a heavy based frying pan put the allspice berries, cloves, cumin seeds and coriander seeds and heat over a low heat. Shake the pan from time to time until the spices are warm and exuding their fragrances.

Put in a mortar together with the salt and grind down to a powder.

Peel and roughly chop the garlic and add to the spices together with the chilli and pimento. Grind to a paste adding the olive oil.

In a bowl mix the marinade with the pork cubes to coat the cubes on all sides. Cover and leave in the fridge for the spices to penetrate for at least an hour.

Thread the pork cubes onto skewers and cook either on a griddle, or grill on the cooker or barbeque.

To serve drizzle with sugar cane syrup.

I have also used this same marinade very successfully to season a joint of pork prior to roasting it.

Oranges Are Not Only Fruit……….

15 Thursday Nov 2012

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orangesAll the citrus fruits are ripening early this year. Normally the limes are just starting to crop now, but have been ready for almost two months now. The one little grapefruit tree is so laden with large fruit that I will have to make some props for the branches to stop them breaking. As the fruit is already changing from green to yellow I thought I would check to see if they were sweet enough to eat so that I could thin out the biggest groups of fruit. On one side of the tree the fruit look pinker than the other, but the fruit are still tart, while the other side of the tree has yellower fruit that are edibly sweet.

There are several varieties of oranges on the farm, the earliest of which normally start being ready to eat at Christmas, but this year they are nearly there already. While still a little tart for eating alone, they are perfect for salads.

The use of fruit in savoury dishes is a vestige of the arab occupation of various countries around the mediterranean. While in Sicily recently I was treated to a one day course on Sicilian cooking and our profesora, Silvia, prepared for a starter a salad of Florence Fennel with Oranges. (There will be more of the cookery course in a later post.)salad_fennel_orange

Slivers of fresh plump Florence Fennel steeped in lashings of fresh olive oil from their farm, seasoned with salt and freshly ground black pepper, topped with sliced oranges and garnished with black olives.

The sweet and sour flavour of nearly ripe oranges and the fruity acidity of the new freshly pressed olive oil go together so well. One of the simplest orange salads that I have been served was in Merida while on honeymoon. Oranges lightly salted and soaked in olive oil for an hour or two, then garnished with tiny black currants. It was served as an amuse bouche.

Whenever I have been away on a trip, particulary if to somewhere landlocked, the food I yearn for on my return is the wonderfully fresh fish that we have here. Dorada or Sea Bream is farmed in large round enclosures just off the coast here. They are brought to market when the fish are a perfect one person size and are always brightly fresh. Some purists insist that line caught wild fish taste better, but I defy anyone to tell the difference in a blind tasting. Also freshness is such a factor with the taste of fish that I would rather have super fresh farmed than day old wild.Sea_bream_orange_salad

With my Dorada this week I made a salad of oranges, yellow plum tomatoes, fennel fronds, crunchy lettuce leaves and toasted hazel nuts, all dressed with some of the Sicilian olive oil.orange_carrot_salad

Now for the truly Arab version of an orange salad. Finely grated carrot dressed with lemon juice, honey and orange flowerwater, spread over a layer of thinly sliced oranges and garnished with a few toasted cumin seeds. Leave in the fridge to let the flavours mix for an hour before serving with a spicy lamb tagine.

One Ham – Two Meals

23 Tuesday Oct 2012

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We are having typical autumn weather for this corner of spain, quite cold evenings when you want the wood oven in the kitchen lit for some cosy and warming kitchen suppers, while during the day the sun warms so well that lunch on the terrace is the thing and you want to eat something light that reminds you of summer. With one ham I recently managed to create a meal of each type. Warm thick slices of the ham served with a mustard sauce and lentils for a snug supper, and then a couple of days later the same ham cold and cut into thin slices for a carpaccio with mustard viniagrette. Both dishes went down very well with my guests.

It isn’t possible to buy an uncooked joint of ham in this part of Spain, so we have to cure our own. I have some salts that were a gift from some lovely butchers in Ireland which I mix with brown sugar and black peppercorns to get a spicy joint of ham.

So the ham has been curing for five days and friends are coming for dinner this evening. This will be the first hearty type meal of the season and is very easy as it is all cooked in the one pot except for finishing the sauce at the end.

Ham with Mustard Sauce and Lentils –  For 4

Joint of raw ham

200 grams lentils – either puy or pardina

4 carrots

1 large or 2 small onions

Olive oil for frying

500 ml light stock

2 tablespoons whole grain mustard

2 tablespoons cream

Peel and slice the onions. Peel the carrots and cut them into cubes.

Heat some oil in a frying pan and fry the carrots and onions for ten minutes.

Put the ham joint into a pan into which it fits quite snugly. Add the fried vegetables. Put some of the stock in the frying pan to take up the brownings in the pan and add this to the ham. Put more stock in the pan to just cover the meat.

Bring slowly to the boil. Add the lentils and cook very slowly for one and a half hours.

Once cooked remove the joint of ham to a carving board and keep warm. Strain the stock from the lentils and vegetables, but not until they are very dry, they still want some moisture in them. Put the vegetables in a warm serving dish and keep warm while you make the sauce and carve the meat.

To make the sauce, put some of the stock that the ham and vegetables have cooked in into a saucepan. When I made this last it was about half the stock or about 200ml. Add a tablespoon of whole grain mustard and a tablespoon of double cream. Mix in well. Slowly bring to a simmer. The mustard and cream should be enough to thicken the sauce to a creamy but pouring consistency. if it is a bit thin, then add more of the mustard and cream.

Serve the sliced ham with the sauce poured over.

Ham Carpacccio with Mustard Dressingcooked_ham_carpaccio

Left over cold ham cut into thin as you can slices. Arrange these on dinner plates covering the whole plate as one does for carpaccio.

Left over mustard sauce to which you add 2 tablespoons of good extra virgin olive oil and a tablespoon of freshly squeezed lemon juice. Mix all together well and then spoon/drizzle over the ham.

Parmesan cheese which you shave over the plates of ham.

Golden Risotto

14 Friday Sep 2012

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Another busy day, and so another quick lunch, but that does not mean that lunch has to be dull and unexciting. The self sown fig tree is still giving four or five sweet little irresistible black figs every day so I shall have those with some smoked duck breast while a risotto is cooking.

I thought that I was going to make a courgette risotto, but when I went to pick a couple I was diverted by the sight of tiny yellow plum tomatoes and thought that combined with some pumpkin they could make a cheery golden risotto. The hazel nuts added at the end give a crunch that contrasts nicely with the soft risotto.

Per person

1 small onion – finely chopped

120 grams pumpkin – cut into small cubes

120 grams yellow plum tomatoes – halved

40 grams risotto rice

Chicken stock

Oil for frying or half oil and half butter if you prefer the flavour.

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

30 grams grated parmesan cheese

Roasted hazel nuts – 30 grams golden risotto

Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a shallow pan and add the onions. Fry gently until translucent.

Add the pumpkin cubes and stir to mix in. Fry for five minutes stirring from time to time.

Add the rice and stir to coat in the oil and pumpkin juices. Cook until the rice looks slightly translucent.

Add the tomatoes and some stock and stir. Season with salt and pepper. Cover and continue cooking on a gentle heat, adding more stock as necessary until the rice is cooked.

Stir in most of the cheese reserving a small amount to sprinkle on the risotto when you serve it.

Add the hazel nuts and cook long enough to warm them through.

Serve sprinkled with the remaining cheese.

Tortilla de Acelgas – Chard Omlette

13 Thursday Sep 2012

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There is a lot of work to do on the farm at the moment as the season is changing. We have had the early September rain that signals the end of the summer. The Christmas potatoes needed to be already in the ground ready and waiting before the rain comes. They are just starting to show through now.

The greenhouse contains hundreds of little pots of winter vegetable seedlings that have been hiding from the heat and will need to be planted out quite soon. There are Mange Toute Peas, Purple Sprouting Broccoli, Cima Di Rapa, a huge selection of salad greens,chicories and endives, Artichokes,Florence Fennel,Beetroot……..chillies

Then there are the crops that are ready and need picking and/or processing. I have been making Preserved Tomatoes in White Wine and Chilli Jam this week which is one of the most popular products in the farm shop. Fifty Jars of the Chilli Jam and fifteen of the tomatoes, plus ten of Sun Dried Tomato Pesto which is one of my favourite sauces for pasta, or spread on toast and topped with mild cheese for breakfast.

Picking and curing the olives will be next week, closely followed by the quince which are looking swelled and golden yellow since the rain. I don’t have enough olives to send for oil, so they will all be for eating and the quince will be made into jelly and a mustard conserve, which again is popular in the shop. There are only two jars left from last years crop, which looks like perfect planning.

Because of all this activity, quick nutritious lunches are needed that centre on the vegetables from the farm.

The spanish tortilla is a thick savoury cake that is golden brown on the outside and soft and eggy in the centre. Although the best know version is made from just potatoes, any vegetable of solid texture is used in combination with small amounts of meat or fish to make sucessful tortillas. Peas, broad beans with ham, asparagus and prawns, or green garlics and prawns, spinach and bacon, chickpeas, peppers, onions or any combination thereof. There is even one made from dates and ham which I had to try when I saw it on a menu. I have to say that it was not the most successful food combination that I have tasted.

Today I have some lovely dark green chard and some smoked streaky bacon. Spinach or green cabbage can be used for this in place of the chard. The following recipe is for one person.chard_tortilla_ingredients

Warm some olive oil in a large frying pan or wok.

Finely chop a small onion and add to the pan. Cook for a couple of minutes.

Cut the bacon into lardons and add to the pan. Cook for five to ten minutes until lightly browned.

Wash the chard and cut the green leaves only into strips. Add to the bacon and toss. Cover and cook for two to three minutes, then toss again. Keep doing this until the volume of the chard is much reduced and it tastes cooked.

Break two eggs into a bowl and beat enough to mix the yolks with the whites. Add the chard and bacon to the eggs and mix thoroughly. Check if it needs salt. My bacon was quite salty so I didn’t need to add more. Season with freshly ground black pepper.

When you come to cook the tortilla the size of the pan used is very important. It wants to be of a size small enough that when the egg mix is poured in you get quite a thick cake.

Put a good amount of olive oil in the frying pan and heat. When the oil is hot slowly add the egg mix. Cover and let it cook slowly for a few minutes.

With a spatula gently tease the tortilla away from the pan around its perimeter to plump up the edge. Cook a couple more minutes and then check if it is ready to be turned over. The tortilla wants to be just solid enough to hold together as it is turned over onto a plate and then slid back into the pan. If it seems to watery still, cook it a bit longer. I gently tease the spatula under the tortilla all the way round to make sure that it is not stuck in parts. If you shake the pan and the tortilla moves then that is good.

Take a plate that is a good bit larger than the pan and away from the heat place it over the pan and hold it there. Flip the pan over so that the tortilla is on the plate. Put the pan back on the heat and add some more olive oil to it. Give it a couple of minutes to heat up before gently sliding the tortilla sideways into the pan.

With the spatula tease the sides of the tortilla in as before. This side of the tortilla will not need as much cooking as the first side. Lift up a side of it with the spatula to see if it is golden underneath.

Invert onto a plate as before and enjoy. I had mine with a simple salad of tomatoes annointed with good olive oil and salt.chard_omlette-tortilla_de_acelgas

Sardines with Pine Nut and Raisin Stuffing

01 Saturday Sep 2012

Posted by in Fish, Food for One, Main Courses, Starters

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sardines-stuffed-and-bakedI don’t remember now where I came across this recipe for boned sardines that are wrapped around a stuffing of toasted pine nuts, raisins and onions and then moistened with orange and lemon juice before being baked in the oven, but it has been a favourite way of preparing these fish in my kitchen for many years. The combination of the oily fish, with the acid of the citrus and the sweetness of the onions and raisins is very successful – and so summery.

This recipe is for when the sardines are medium to large in size and need to be  gutted and deboned. I use two or three per person as a starter and four or five if it is to be a light main course.

12 medium sardines

1 medium onion – very finely chopped

Olive oil for frying the onions

25 gms pine nuts – dry roasted in a thick based shallow pan

25 gms raisins or currants

chopped fresh flat leaved parsley

fresh bay leaves

100 ml freshly squeezed orange juice

100 ml freshly squeezed lemon juice

Salt and black pepper

Start by descaling the sardines and then cut off their heads, gut them and remove the backbones. Open them out flat.

Prepare the stuffing.

Fry the onions until lightly browned. Add the pine nuts, raisins and parsley and mix well.

Take a small amount of the stuffing and place it at the wide end of the opened out sardine. Roll the fish around the stuffing, starting at the wide end and rolling towards the tail.

Put the fish into a shallow oven proof dish side by side with the tails sticking up. It can be pretty to use individual dishes per person if you have them. I use ramekins that will take two to three fish each if I am making this as a starter, or shallow bowls with four or five fish in each as a main course.

Once you have arranged all the fish, put a bay leaf in between each fish.

For cooking liquid, mix the lemon and orange juice. Pour over the fish to cover half a centimetre up from the base of the dish.

Bake at 180 degrees centigrade for 20 minutes.

Serve with a side salad and fresh bread.

An alternative stuffing is chopped capers, olives and chillies, with a white wine and lemon juice mix for the cooking liquid.

Fresh Fig Tart

28 Tuesday Aug 2012

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la_breva_green_eating_do_it_yourselfMy fig trees are behaving themselves this year. We planted four varieties – actually that is not strictly speaking true – we planted three varieties and another planted itself. It could not have worked out better though. The trees we planted were an early black variety called La Breva, which has a very early small crop in May, followed by its main crop of very sweet large fruit throughout the month of July going into August. As these come to an end the green figs start to ripen. One tree has large fruit for eating and the other smaller fruit for drying. The do-it-yourself tree crops from June to October with small black very sweet fruit that are good to eat or dry. I wish that I knew which variety it was then I could reccomend it.

The above description is how the trees are supposed to behave, but some years, depending on the weather, all the trees crop at the same time which makes quite a lot of work to deal with them.

The surplus Breva are made into Caramelised Fig Jam which is sold throught the farm shop and is very popular. The small figs are dried for the winter. As for the sun dried tomatoes, I use a fold out clothes drier with a sheet of mesh or fabric pegged to it to make a flat surface, and place it in a spot with all day sun and a breeze. Leave the figs whole and just place on the mesh. Bring them in at night so that they are not re-moistened by the dew. Turn them each day. I have problems with bugs getting in the green figs, but not the black ones. I think that this is because the end where the flower was on the green ones, it leaves a little hole that the bugs can use as an entrance. I am experimenting at the moment with stopping up this hole with a paste made from bread and water. I will report back on success or lack of it.fig_goat_cheese_Mint_salad

The fresh figs are complemented by anything salty, so are very good with Serrano Ham or salty cheese as in the above salad of Oak Leaved Lettuce, La Breva Figs, Goats Cheese, and Fresh Mint dressed with Basamic Syrup.

For eating as a sweet, try putting them into a tart.fig_tart

For a shallow 28 cm diameter tart tin

500 gms fresh figs

100 ml thick cream

3 large eggs

Fresh or bought puff pastry to line the tart tin

250 gms crema de almendras / 200 gms ground almonds and 50 gms sugar

This is a very quick and easy tart to prepare particularly if you are using bought puff pastry.

Preheat the oven to 180 C.

Roll out the pastry and lay out in the tart tin. You will see from my photos that I like to line the tart tin with baking parchment, it just makes it that little bit easier to slide the tart out of the tin.

Wash and dry the figs. Cut them into quarters. Arrange them on top of the pastry close together and in a pattern that pleases you.

Mix together the eggs, cream and almond cream or ground almonds and sugar.

When well amalgamated, spoon evenly over the figs. 

Bake for 1 hour at 180 C until golden brown. Let cool slightly before serving.