Crispy fried goat’s cheese with pea shoot salad and honey dressing

Posted on May 17, 2012 by Sue

Food festivals: the middle-aged glutton’s answer to clubbing.

My kids relish being dragged along to them; they know that mumma turns into a woman possessed and if they endure the endless traipsing and tasting, she’ll say yes to almost any tasty goody they request.

“Ready to put on some kilos?”, my 8-year-old asked sagely on Sunday as we prepared to battle the crowds at the Christchurch Food Festival . He and Girl Child had rather enjoyed the Dorset Knob Throwing and Frome Valley Food Festival earlier in the month where, in between tossing stale bread rolls in a sunny field, we all enjoyed some merry feasting care of lots of small, independent producers.

Christchurch Food Festival is a different kettle of home-made jam. Big-name brands snuggle up to small producers and the involvement of Saturday Kitchen’s James Martin is touted as The Big Draw (go figure). It has a slightly corporate air (why allow a slimming company (for christ’s sake) to pitch up near a fudge stall?) which maybe accounts for the fact that some small producers complain it’s becoming too expensive to attend. But generally speaking, the festival is a good laugh and there are loads of good stuff to eat.

Nut Knowle Farm

My discovery of the day was East Sussex goat’s cheese producer Nut Knowle Farm. This family-run business has been producing hand-made pasteurized goat’s cheese in East Sussex for more than 30 years. One of my prizes was a single little cylinder of Wealden, a hard Crottin-style cheese, prettily mouldy on the outside – mature, strong and delicious on the inside.

It had been perfuming the contents of my fridge for a few days while I waited for a lull in the workload so I could sit and indulge in some mindful eating. What I had in mind was one of those delicious warm goat’s cheese salads so ubiquitous in French bistros but apparently passé this side of La Manche. This is a naughty version: I’ve double coated the little disks of cheese in egg dip and panko bread crumbs for a really crispy crust – the panko makes this particularly crunchy. The cheese I used was seriously strong; if you do me the honour of trying this recipe please try to find something equally robust as the honey dressing works so well with it.

I’ve discovered that my local Co-op keeps a constant stock of pea-shoots, currently my favourite green leaf. It’s pleasingly sweet and gentle taste is much nicer with this dish than punchy rocket.

Crispy fried goat’s cheese with pea shoot salad and warm honey dressing

Serves 1 for a main meal

6 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons floral honey
1 tablespoon lemon juice
salt and pepper
60g strong Crottin-style cheese
1 egg, beaten
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup panko breadcrumbs
vegetable oil, for frying
a handful of pea shoots
a handful of toasted walnuts

1. Start by making the dressing: whisk together the olive oil, honey, lemon juice and seasoning. Set aside. Place the pea shoots in the shallow bowl in which you plan o serve the dish.

2. Carefully cut the cheese into four disks about 1cm wide. Place the egg, flour and breadcrumbs in separate shallow bowls and dip each disk first into the flour, then the egg and then the breadcrumbs. For an extra crunchy crust dip again in the egg and the breadcrumbs.

3. Heat about 1cm vegetable oil in a large frying pan until smoking (toss a bit of panko in to check the heat – if it instantly sizzles and turns brown the oil is hot enough). Fry the cheese until golden on both sides, then reduce the heat a little and cook for a minute or more. If you are using a hard cheese the inside will soften but it is not meant to melt.

4. Briefly transfer the cheese to a plate lined with kitchen roll, then arrange on top of the pea shoots. Scatter with the toasted walnuts and generously spoon over the dressing. Keep the rest of the dressing in a little bowl beside you as you eat in case you need some more.

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Crazy kitchen gadgets

Posted on May 10, 2012 by Sue

If you’re looking for a cerebral post, come back later, ‘cos this is about as fluffy as they come. You see, I’ve lost my mojo. If anyone knows where it’s gone, please let me know. Perhaps it’s the weather or maybe I’ve dug myself into a work-related rut. Quite likely it’s a run of rejection emails from food editors saying no to my brilliant (!!??) ideas. Almost certainly I need to go out for a really expensive meal.

While I try to unravel this conundrum, I’ve been having a chuckle researching food-related gadgets and have come up with a list of paraphernalia that you never knew you wanted. All these items are – incomprehensibly – out there in the marketplace. Just shows you that good ideas take many shapes and forms. Take note food editors.

Note: The headings contain links for further info about each item, so click away!

Perfect soldiers

I bet you didn’t know how inferior your toast soldiers were until you saw how good they could be – with this superlative gadget. Just rock the device over your bread, pop it into the toaster and peel off your perfect soldier. This company quite rightly took gold at the British Invention show 2005 (although I’m wondering about the overall calibre of entries that year). I need one of these. Now. And only £5.99

Picnic pants

Italian company Acquacalda has come up with these nappy-style strides as a bizarre aid to dining al fresco. Technically, these are still in the concept phase, but the company is happy to provide further info if you really fancy a pair. The pants also include an “orientable pocket” to hold drinks – whatever that means.

Edible lasagne cookbook

German design agency Korefe has invented the first ever cookbook that you can read, cook and eat – surely the ultimate foodie gift? Made from fresh pasta, it can be opened, filled with ingredients and cooked. I think this might be a made to order affair, but the ultimate gift solution for those who have (absolutely) everything.

Portion control measure

I’m figuring that if you’re reading this blog, this gadget will be anathema to you. But consider the comedy value at dinner parties. The four rings help you measure out healthy portions of the main food groups so you don’t overindulge. For $US20 it’s yours – although you could always pile less on your plate for absolutely no cost at all.

Pointless knife

This product gave me a fit of the giggles. Yes, yes yes ….. it makes food preparation safer, but so would the knives in my kids’ toy picnic set.

Egg cuber

There’s genius, then there’s total genius and creating a way to turn eggs square is probably falls into the latter category. This gadget will give blessed relief to those with food prep OCD, or those who believe it’s just plain wrong for food not to have edges. For further information on how to turn eggs square, including an indispensible video, click here.

Forkchops

When I was a child my mother owned a set of splades, a spoon and knife hybrid with a handy little cerated edge on the side of the spoon. At the time, splades seemed like quite a sophisticated cutlery item. Whatever happened to them? As the marketing bumph for these point out, they enable users to eat in any language. Enough said.

Finger food plates

All that juggling of drinks, plates, napkins and canapés – it’s not fun and not necessary. Who knew? Go on – you know you want a set.

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Pasta recipe: baked penne with spicy sausage sauce and cheese

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Sue

If you’re counting calories or looking for food that holds the promise of spring (with fronds and green shoots and the like) you had best press the back button now.

Saturday dawned grey. Again. And it was so tempting to hunker down indoors. Again. But we decided to change our psychology. Instead of pretending the weather was what we wanted it to be, we dug out our proper coats and accepted it for what it was. We headed to the beach with our skateboards and scooters, and although the sun didn’t shine (a few mad folk frolicked in their bathing costumes, luminously goose-pimpled) it was actually a lovely day for a walk. If you didn’t dwell too much on how warm and sunny it should have been.

When we returned home windblown and slightly frazzled, we needed something comforting for supper. And while I have an irrational prejudice against pasta bakes – there is something very, I don’t know, hostess trolley, about the term – it seemed appropriate. A little bit of pottering at the hob, followed by a chance to sit down with a glass of something lovely while supper melded together in the oven was just what I wanted. And meld together supper did. The smell that comes from the oven while this is cooking is insanely good and guaranteed to persuade any calorie-counter to resume their depressing business another time.

Use terrific sausages here. My butcher had run out of cooking chorizo so I used her Spanish-style snags instead. If you do use chorizo, use your judgement and remove some of the oil from the pan if they ooze too much. Likewise, adjust the chilli according to your taste and the type of sausages you use.

If ever there was a silver lining to a drab and dreary weekend in May, this is it.

Baked penne with spicy sausage sauce and cheese

Serves 4

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 red onion, peeled and chopped
2 cloves smoked garlic (normal is fine), minced
4 good quality spicy sausages, cases split and meat removed
150ml red wine
1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary
1 bay leaf
good pinch of dried chilli flakes (optional)
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds
large handful ripe cherry tomatoes
70g Parmesan, grated, plus extra for sprinkling
70g Gruyère, grated, plus extra for sprinkling
150ml double cream

1. Heat the oil in a heavy-based pan and cook the onion gently for 8 minutes or so until very soft and starting to turn golden. Add the garlic and cook for a few minutes longer.

2. Add the sausage meat to the pan, breaking it up with the edge of a spoon into very small pieces and mixing it in with the onions. Increase the heat and brown the meat really well, until it has a golden crust.

3. Splosh in the wine, scraping the bottom of the pan well with a wooden spoon, and let the liquid bubble away for a few moments. Add the rosemary, bay, chilli (if using), fennel seeds and tomatoes, reduce the heat and let the pan barely simmer for 5 minutes or so. The tomatoes should have melted down and the sauce become thick. Add the cream and taste for seasoning.

4. Meanwhile, cook the penne in salted boiling water until al dente. Drain but reserve a couple of tablespoons of the cooking liquor. Add the cooked pasta to the pan with the sausage sauce and reserved cooking liquor and stir gently until everything is evenly combined. Fold in the cheese, then tip the pasta into a buttered gratin dish. Sprinkle a little extra of both cheeses on top.

5. Bake in a 180°C oven for about 20 minute until the cheese on top is golden and the cause is bubbling.

How to make goat’s curd, served with simmered strawberries or a fig tart

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Sue

Little Miss Muffet, that’s me. Husband has flown off again for work, leaving me and the chickadees to get on with things, and it occurred to me that what our life was missing was goat’s curd. No, I haven’t been sniffing rennet – it’s just one of those wonderful ingredients frequently found on restaurant menus but for some reason tricky to find in the shops. I’m not sure why – we’re not talking asses’ milk here, are we?

Loads of ways to use goat’s curd

I eat quite a lot of goat’s curd in Australia and find it addictive. It has the wonderful tangy, farmyard taste of goat’s cheese plus the creamy deliciousness of ricotta – and still tastes fresh and light. It’s magnificent married with pumpkin and lentils, wonderful with a warm beetroot salad and pretty fantastic just smeared on sourdough toast with a light shower of good salt. Although it probably falls this side of savoury, goat’s curd also adds an interesting dimension to puddings: a little splodge on a lemon tart for example, or just drizzled with a small amount of honey and a sprinkling of almonds or pine nuts. I know some people add sugar or mix in lots of honey when they use goat’s curd in puddings, but in my view you might as well serve cream. You’ve got to have that farmyard taste or there really isn’t much point.

Why make goat’s curd? Just because

Imen McDonnell inspired me to do this in her fantastic blog about making her own clotted cream. She is a dairy farmer, so it makes a certain sense for her, but the point she made was valid for everyone. Don’t ask yourself why you’re making clotted cream, just do it.

With this in mind, I urge everyone to have a crack at it – for something so simple, it really does give you a sense of achievement. I would love to make it with raw milk (now there’s a story – anyone interested in buying a lovely article about raw milk? I have one going spare..) as the taste would be richer and more intense. But I was very happy with my results, made with full-fat pasteurized goats milk following Xanthe Clay’s method. Possibly I needed to strain the curd for longer than a couple of hours to achieve a slightly thicker curd. But if patience is a milkmaid’s virtue then that probably rules me out of a place in the dairy.

1. Heat 1 litre of full-fat goat’s milk to 77°F. Remove from the heat and add 1 tbsp rennet (Waitrose sells it and most good health food shops) and 2 tbsp lemon juice and a little salt. Cover and set aside for 1 hour.

2. Pour the mixture into a muslin-lined colander set over a large bowl, and leave for two or three hours, depending on how thick you want your curd to be. (Note the free product placement for Eve Lom. I didn’t have anything else to hand). I did have to give the curd – wrapped in its muslin shroud – a good squeeze at the end to achieve the thickness I was after, and even then it was quite wet. Perhaps I needed to leave it longer.

3. Ta-da! Creamy and tangy goat’s curd. Beware – 1 litre of goat’s milk yields 1 scant cup of curd. I’m ashamed to say I threw away the whey – but here are some ideas if you would like to put it to good use.

4. The curd was delicious served with this simple fig tart. To make a tart for 2 (greedy people) place 250g dried figs in a pan and add just enough water to cover. Add a chai teabag and simmer for 10 minutes, then remove from the heat and leave to plump while you prepare the dough. Take a sheet of ready-rolled puff pastry and cut off a quarter. Give this a light roll to make it slightly thinner, then cut it in half and mark out a 1cm border around each piece. Drain the figs, reserving the cooking liquor; slice the figs so that you have enough to cover both rectangles of pastry. Pop in an oven preheated to 180° for 10-15 minutes, or until the pastry is puffed and golden. Serve drizzled with the reserved cooking liquor, a scattering of toasted flaked almonds and the goat’s curd on the side.

Alternatively simmer some over-ripe strawberries with a little icing sugar and splash of balsamic until the fruit releases its juice. Leave to cool and then spoon over some goat’s curd.

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Pen and Spoon

Recipes, reviews and raves about food

Crispy fried goat’s cheese with pea shoot salad and honey dressing

Crazy kitchen gadgets

Pasta recipe: baked penne with spicy sausage sauce and cheese

How to make goat’s curd, served with simmered strawberries or a fig tart