Pumpkin Gratin- when spring isn't living up to expectations!

As I've mentioned in recent entries- spring came, passed, summer came, passed, and we went back to it being late winter. It's been cold, it's been raining, it's been generally the sort of weather where you wish it weren't.


As such, a Sunday dinner of roast lamb, roasted courgettes with thyme, and a pumpkin gratin is definitely comforting.

I love pumpkin. I love buying big slices of it- thick, green and gold ridged skin, bright golden-orange inside. Mm, all the things that can be done with pumpkin! Pumpkin risotto and pumpkin soup are ones that spring to mind immediately- not least because pumpkin with bacon is definitely a happy-making combination.

And it's an easy thing to cook- you peel it (I either use a vegetable peeler or just chop bits off with a sharp knife, depending on the depths of the ridules between sections), chop it, and you're ready to do whatever you want to do with it.

In this case, obviously, gratin.

Now, some of my older French cookbooks say that the problem with pumpkin, and other vegetables such as endive/chicory, when you gratinée them, is the amount of water they ooze out into the surrounding cream, diluting it and making the whole thing taste rather bleah. They therefore recommend a pre-cooking, followed by much squeezing-out of water, followed by the gratin process.

I'll go with that on endive/chicory, but I've never had that problem with pumpkin. I just chop it, chop an onion, chuck them into my dish, stir them around, add black pepper, pour cream over until just below the edge of the dish, and stick it in the oven. In this case, for as long as the lamb took to cook- about 70-80 minutes at 200C.

Result- nice crunchy sweet burnt bits in a few spots on top, and lovely, sweet, creamy pumpkin underneath.

Perfect for an evening when you should have been out all day, but couldn't be without wearing a sou'wester. And I don't own a sou'wester.

Pork Paprikash (sort of)

I try to do a lot of cooking of the "What's on special offer at the supermarket" variety. As we all do these days.

The other day, ragout de porc being on cheap, that was obviously what we were going to be eating.

Last time I bought such packs, the meat was in reasonably large chunks- this time, each piece came with at least one long thin bone running right through it, and although I could have chopped them through with a cleaver and a call to Peter to come and use some muscle power, I didn't bother.

First I browned the pieces, then took them out of the casserole, and left them to sit whilst I tipped in onions in thick slices, softening them gently and slowly in the fat from the pork. I added a heap of spices: about 2 tbs of mild paprika (I find this has so little taste, I usually only use it for colouring!), 1 tbs of hot paprika, about a tsp and a half of cumin seeds, about 1/2 a tsp of cinnamon, black pepper, a couple of big pinches of marjoram, and a bit of herbed salt.

I let all the spices warm up with the onions, stirring, then added a whole bottle of white wine- a Petite Recolte from Nicolas, Cotes de Ceressou Moelleux from 2004. I really liked this wine back in 2004, so I had some crates of it, and this was the last bottle. I poured myself a glass before tipping the rest into the casserole- then tasted my glass, and poured that in too. It had no depth of flavour left at all- just a surface layer of "hello, this is a grape-based alcohol".

I have very little palate for wine, but I do know when there's nothing there.

I brought the stew up to the simmer, then added a bottle of passata- about 700 ml. Back up to simmer, put the meat back in, and simmered it gently, with the lid on, for three hours.

Very gently removed the meat, which was falling apart, and pulled out most of the big bits of bone. I then reduced the sauce like mad, boiling it fast with the lid off, and it thickened very satisfactorily. I had originally planned to add mushrooms, but once I'd put in the tomato, I changed my mind.

I really must use up those mushrooms.

Put the meat back in, warmed it all up, and served it over egg noodles. Yummy- it did Peter and I two meals, and a third one for him.

This week, there was a special offer of cote de boeuf (one bought for Peter, I will nibble around the edges and probably eat vegetables instead), and liver. I love liver. There are two lobes for each of us in the fridge... probably to be cooked dredged in seasoned flour, then fried quickly, and served in slices either with mushrooms and onions, or just onions, or maybe with egg noodles again.

We have some friends turning up on Monday night, rather unexpectedly, as they were on holiday in Italy and are now, due to the volcano, stuck there and can't get home. So they're coming here until they can get a flight out. So I'm going to have to do some food shopping and planning for the coming week, as I'll be feeding double the usual number! Besides having to plan it more than my usual "open the fridge, then decide what I'm cooking" method.

Gratin dauphinois and Citrus Drizzle Cake

These two are both old friends- long term standbys of mine, which both turn up regularly. As you can see, the gratin is very much appreciated- as potatoes and cream tend to be- this is all that was left after four people had been at it!

We had friends over for lunch on Sunday. It being cold and windy, and me trying to use up what is in the freezer, I dug out a ham that we'd bought when on half price over Christmas, and unfrozen it. There's one thing wiped off the board!

I paired it with a gratin dauphinois, made the way my father-in-law taught me, and a green salad. For dessert, we had a citrus drizzle cake, a recipe I've made so many times that I really shouldn't keep on needing to check proportions!

The gratin dauphinois is something I make quite often during the winter. When it's going to be a meal in itself, I add very finely sliced bacon (lard fume, or lard paysan, depending), and can increase the garlic at times... from a head to two!

Gratin dauphinois comme le fait Alain:
- 2kg potatoes (this, of course, depends on the size of your gratin dish!), peeled, sliced, praise all the gods for the invention of the mandoline! Note: do not put your slices into water to keep white
whilst you're slicing, it washes the starch off and your gratin won't "set" into a cake.
- 1 head (or two) of garlic, peeled, chopped, also thank the gods for the invention of the "smacky", which chops your garlic a lot faster than having to do it yourself!
- salt, pepper. Alain adds nutmeg. I'm not wild about nutmeg on it, but I do it sometimes. This time, I was using up a herbed salt that my mother gave me, so I didn't bother.
- optional: 2 packs of finely sliced bacon
- cream. Lots of cream. About a litre. At least.

Heat the oven to 180C. Prepare a layer of tin foil or baking paper to cover the oven tray, which will take the drips from the gratin dish. Don't miss this step, or you'll spend forever cleaning your oven!

Cover the bottom of your gratin dish with a layer of cream, season it with salt and pepper. Having peeled and sliced the potatoes, layer them over this in two layers. Please do it carefully- they can overlap, but not too much, and you really don't want to just chuck them in and swirl them around- if you do that, it won't set properly.

After two layers of potato, then strew all the chopped garlic (if using one head, if two, half) over the potato. Add a layer of potato, then pour cream over it all. Add salt and pepper. Add another layer of potato, then layer the bacon over the slices. Another layer of potato, then a layer of garlic if using two heads. Then layer the remaining slices until you use them up. Your slices should be just over the level of the sides of the dish. Add salt, and pepper, then pour cream over the top. The cream should reach up to the top of the dish!

Put it in the oven, and bake for about 2 and a half hours. You're cooking this slowly so that it absorbs a maximum of cream, and sets like a solid, albeit layered, cake.

Serve with a green salad with a nicely sharp vinaigrette- you'll need it to cut the fat!

I adapt this recipe to make a gratin of other vegetables, such as pumpkin (with onion, otherwise it's too sweet). The cream is totally OTT, but then for a dish which you make once a month, what the hell.

It also freezes very well, either in one slab or in portions, and reheats very well either in the oven, or in the microwave. The only disadvantage of the latter is the nice crispy top just stays soft!


Citrus Drizzle Cake

I got this recipe originally from a magazine. I've fiddled with it quite a few times since, and I think I'm finally getting there!

Ingredients:
-150g butter, softened
- 200g brown sugar
- 200g self-raising flour
- 6 tbsp tangerine juice (this is where you can fiddle- I also can just use orange juice, sometimes it's blood orange juice)
- zest of one orange
- 3 eggs

For the syrup drizzle:
- juice of two oranges (again, it could be blood oranges, or tangerines, etc)
- juice of 1 lemon
- 100g sugar

Heat oven to 180C. Cream the butter and sugar, add the flour and zest, stir, tangerine/orange juice, stir, eggs, stir. Scrape into loaf tin, bake for about 45 minutes to an hour, depending. Leave in the tin.

Warm syrup ingredients until the sugar is dissolved. Stab the cake all over with a toothpick/fine skewer. Pour the syrup over. Leave to cool.

Serve it with creme fraiche, and, ideally, warm. The creme fraiche is just sour enough to cut through all the sugar- so don't serve it with regular cream, it doesn't work.

Now, last time I had left-over syrup, so I heated that until it was thick, and then served the slices of cake with that syrup poured over as well, making a nice semi-topping. That worked well, and I'm going to experiment with that in the future!

However, one thing that gets me is that the first few times I made this, the syrup all soaked right down to the bottom of the cake, so it was lovely and moist all the way through. For a while now, however, just the top half has soaked it up, then it is a nice, but dry cake below. I need to sort this one out, it's annoying!

The bunny died happy

My camera's battery having suddenly died just as I was taking photos of Greta being amazingly cute (i.e. throwing all the tupperwares out of the drawer onto the floor with as much noise as possible), so there are no pictures of the redcurrant jam I made yesterday. Sadly, as the 2 tablespoons that wouldn't fit in the jar were very tasty! I'm thinking that redcurrant jelly would be a good idea for Christmas, so I'll start that up soon.

Currently simmering in my lovely Staub cocotte (large casserole dish) is two half rabbits (on special offer at the supermarket, and I really must remember that rabbit is usually cheap anyway), which I brushed with mustard and then "gilded" in a frying pan. In the mean time, I cut 2 slabs of lard fumé (smoked bacon) into lardons, put them in the Staub, added 6 medium carrots, cut into 5mm thick slices, 1 big, 1 medium, and 1 small white onions, sliced similarly, and about 8-9 cloves of garlic, chopped into bits. I put the vegetables on top of the bacon, turned the heat up, and when the bacon was sizzling, I stirred in the vegetables. I cooked that for a few minutes, then turned the heat off, and poured over a bottle of white wine (Cotes de Ceressou 2005).

When my rabbit pieces were nicely gilded, I put them on top of the vegetables, added a little bit of water, black pepper, thyme and three bay leaves from Peter's father's garden (it sounds like Mr McGregor should turn up too!). The whole lot is supposed to simmer for 40 minutes to an hour, after which I shall remove the rabbit and as much of the vegetables and bacon as I can, turn up the heat, boil the sauce thicker, add cream, return the bunny to the pot, reheat, and serve up. Peter wants potatoes, and potatoes he shall have!

This semi-recipe is adapted from the following three from Dans la cuisine, Marmiton, and Gourmandines. Mostly the Marmiton recipe, as I read it to Peter and he liked the idea of a whole bottle of wine. Although none of them contain bacon- but I can't help feeling that most dishes of this sort can do with being enriched with a little bacon. Even more so as I want this one to last through until Tuesday dinner!

My next non-jam project is involving the pattypan squash (patisson) that we bought at the weekend. I love the way it looks! Almost as beautiful as romesco, which I always have a hard time eating, I just want to admire it so much. I'm currently looking at this recipe from Chocolate and Zucchini for stuffing the squash, but I'm not sure.



Post-dinner verdict: It's a nice way of doing rabbit. I think, however, that it will be better tomorrow, reheated- and next time, I will make sure I have smooth mustard, which will coat the rabbit pieces better, as all I had this time was grainy mustard! And maybe add some button mushrooms right at the end of the cooking.