Shepherd's Pie and more jam!

Saturday afternoon, after the reglementary Trip to the Supermarket (which didn't involve much food shopping, other than for Greta- Peter is away most of this week, and then most of next week as well), I started off by re-boiling my blood orange jelly, as it hadn't set.

I think I didn't get enough pectin out of the skins during the initial cooking phase- despite keeping it at 221F/105C for a while, it's still pretty gloopy. However, it tastes unutterably yummy, so I'm just going to keep it, and use it to drizzle on things (hey, my Citrus Cake!), and in things (yoghurt!). I've labelled it as Blood Orange "Honey".

Whilst that was boiling, I chopped strawberries and rhubarb up, weighed them (just over 2kg, about half of each), and put them in to macerate with the same weight of sugar. And the juice of (my last) two small lemons. One of them was getting a bit hard, but fortunately it was still pretty juicy.

I did surf around, looking for Rhubarb and Strawberry Jam recipes, but I couldn't find any that floated my boat- every single one I found used pectin, and I don't do pectin. Christine Ferber says that pectin is unnecessary, as long as you cook things down long enough, or use fruits that have a higher concentration of pectin in with ones that are low. I don't really like that sort of dogmatism on recipes, but it's worked so far (mutters darkly about orange jelly).

Thus, I made my jam without a recipe, adapting what I've been doing so far.

I did discover a couple of interesting other blogs, though, which I shall wander through before deciding whether to add them to my blogroll!

After setting my fruit to macerate, I peeled and boiled a kilo of potatoes, and put them on to boil. There was a whole thread on the Guardian Word of Mouth blog last week about mashed potatoes, and I found it all very interesting. I know about the discussion on whether to use a ricer or a masher when making your mash, if that makes it lighter/fluffier, but I must say that I've never used either. I boil my potatoes, drain them, then chop them with a knife in the saucepan, after which I add either milk or cream, then mash them with a fork. Then butter.



In this case, I added a tablespoon of mascarpone (using it up), then about 3-4 tablespoons of double creme de Gruyere (ditto), then a few slices of butter, then thinned it out with some milk. None of which I heated, although I do sometimes. I then salted it, and left it all to sit in the saucepan.

In the meantime, I'd taken the remains of the leg of lamb from last week out of the fridge, removed all the remaining meat, and cut it into mouthfuls. I put that in a frying pan with one onion, chopped, and a couple of tablespoons of olive oil. I fried them up until the meat, which had been very pink, was slightly less so, and the onion was translucent. I then added a bottle (700ml) of passata, lots of black pepper, some herbed salt, some herbes de Provence, and let it simmer until thick- but not too thick.

I then tipped the whole lot into a pyrex casserole dish, left it to cool a bit, and topped it with mashed potato. It all went in the oven at 200C for about 45 minutes that evening (with a piece of greaseproof paper underneath to catch the drips!), and we ate it with much pleasure. A surprising amount of pleasure, in fact, as it was absolutely delicious.



And, a definite bonus, Greta actually tolerated a few mouthfuls of mashed potato! Last time I tried her with it, she spat it all out in utter disgust. I so hope this new period of eating things continues- I'm going to keep trying her with all sorts of things!

(She did spit out a mouthful of cauliflower the other day, and gave me such a look for having snuck it in around the side! But at least she didn't burst into tears and refuse to continue to eat her chicken...)

On Sunday, I cooked my rhubarb and strawberry jam (having to use my friend Mousecatfish's casserole dish again, as mine is too small- reminding me that I really do need to get my hands on a proper dish to cook my jam in!) bringing it up to the boil and keeping it going until it hit 221F/105C, and stayed there. It was very bubbly at the beginning, and kept on threatening to boil over, but the last half hour it was calm enough for me to have my lunch, Peter and Greta having had theirs. And I got to finish off the shepherd's pie, yum! And eat strawberry jam scum for dessert, also very yum.



Of course, the whole thing was so relaxed that I burned the bottom of the jam, but I was careful and didn't stir it in- and it really seems to only have affected the very bottom level of the pan, and that layer has gone in the one pot, which latter is already in the fridge, not being full, and, actually, tastes pretty damn good.

I didn't want to stir it too much anyway, because my rhubarb and orange jam I stirred a lot, and the rhubarb all broke up, and various other recipes that I've read since (including Alice B. Toklas!) say to stir rhubarb jam as little as possible to avoid this. Nevertheless, the rhubarb seems to be pretty much mush, whereas the strawberry quarters have stayed in nice chunks. It is a bit darker than I expected, and a bit caramelised, but the flavour has a nice few layers in it- sweet strawberry (also sweeter than I expected, as when raw they were as tasteless as strawberries bought in March should be!), nicely sour rhubarb, and then this odd caramel layer.



Tonight I have to roast a chicken (for Peter's dinner, then to feed Greta with for the rest of the week), but myself, I shall be back to eating apples and celery, as I've had the most outrageous craving for chocolate the last 10 days, and have given in to it to an extent that I really should not have...

Rhubarb and Blood Orange Jam

I took this recipe from my Larousse des confitures. The recipe called for regular oranges, but as I had blood oranges, I figured that it wouldn't make too much of a difference. What it has done is ensured that my jam is a glorious pink, and tastes absolutely delicious. I'm looking forward to putting this on toast on a Sunday morning in the summer!

It has, however, inspired me to make blood orange jam/marmalade some time very soon, whilst they're still cheap in the supermarket... and
the search for recipes for that has me also drooling over a recipe for blood orange curd, which I think I will definitely be making equally soon, if not sooner!

What always gets me about jam recipes is the "cook for 20 minutes, then test for set" line. NONE of the jams I have made so far needed cooked for less than an hour. I really ought to give myself two hours of cooking time each time, because I keep on getting caught out making jam in the evenings, and then getting to bed later than I planned.


Ingredients:
- 2 blood oranges, sliced very finely
- 1.3 kg rhubarb, chopped into 1cm long pieces
- 1 lemon, sliced very finely
- 1.2 kg sugar

Put the oranges, rhubarb and lemon in a bowl. Add the sugar, stir to coat, leave for twenty-four hours.

Put in a saucepan, cook until it sets!

And it really is absolutely delicious...

Rhubarb Crumble

Rhubarb has just made its appearance in the supermarket here in Switzerland. A joy, as the rest of the fruits available are getting quite tired- the apples aren't as good as they were earlier in the season, pears always turn soft so unexpectedly that I rarely buy them, and as I do try to keep us eating seasonably, other than the occasional "oh gods but I'm craving something sweet and different and pineapples are cheap!", there isn't much around.

Rhubarb.

Peter loves rhubarb. He tells me he used to eat it freshly-picked from his grandmother's garden, just dipped in sugar.

I don't think I'd eat it that way myself, even though I'm a big fan of bitter and sour. The reason, actually, would be the sugar- I just can't bring myself to eat sugar without disguising it in some way!

"Pure, white, and deadly", is what my mother always says about sugar, and however much it makes me roll my eyes every time she says it, I've quite obviously absorbed her opinion. It makes me invariably cut a proportion of the sugar out of most dessert recipes! And, when it comes to rhubarb... to cook it with as little sugar as possible.

Thus, when I'm making a crumble, I don't add any sugar to the rhubarb itself- I put it all in the topping instead.

Chop enough washed rhubarb to fill your chosen dish in two tidy layers.

Rub together enough butter, about half oatflakes to half flour, brown sugar mixed with a generous tablespoon (and maybe a bit more) of quatre-epices (ground cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and ginger), until when you squeeze the mixture together, it stays in a big lump in your hand, but then when you move your fingers, it falls apart into clumps and lumps.

Drop over the rhubarb, making sure that there are plenty of the afore-mentioned lumps and clumps. You don't want this layer to be too thin, or the rhubarb will bubble up and cover it over, so be generous- about a centimetre is a good minimum. But you don't want it too thick either, so don't go over the centimetre and a half!

Now, this is the bit where I make allowances for the bitterness of the rhubarb- I drizzle honey over the top of the crumble. Not all over it, and not too thick- but it adds a nice layer of flavour.

Pop it in the oven at 180C for an hour. Or a bit less, depending on the colour of the crumble- you want it golden, not brown! The rhubarb will be cooked and bubbling up the sides, and that's fine.

Serve with a spoonful of mascarpone!

Any left-over rhubarb can be cooked in this way- chop as for the crumble, put it in a Pyrex dish with a lid, add a chopped apple (with the peel), a few spoonfuls of honey, and microwave on high. Keep an eye on it, as it produces a lot of liquid, which might escape out from under the lid.

It should be soft after about 5-10 minutes, depending on the microwave. Open it carefully, tipping the water back in. Stir with a fork, breaking it all up. This can then be eaten either on its own, with the rest of the mascarpone (!), or stirred into yoghurt. Don't try it on Greta, though, she'll spit it out. She likes the crumble topping, though.