JOLLY GOOD MESS

It's a hot summer’s day, deckchairs are out, everyone is sporting the latest trilby, and grandfather’s binos are fixed on the riveting game on the green. Two teams of strapping, young, well-brought up boys are all adorned in starched whites and spotless knee-pads. After the last innings, an afternoon tea is served, in the pavilion, of cucumber sandwiches and scones...

...Yet, amidst the impressive neatness and stiff upper lips, Eton MESS sits pride of place. A towering castle of meringue, upon strawberries, upon cream. Rather a triumphant piece, yes, but surely not for here? A schoolboy prank, perhaps..?

Of course, there are those who would serve a neat little mound of whipped cream, with carefully cut meringue, and equally sliced strawberries. But where is the fun in that? One thing is for certain, my take on Eton Mess can in no way be described as tidy and conservative.

Unlike a game of cricket (though some might argue otherwise), this summer pud has no rules. You can make it any way you like and it will still taste the way it should. All you need is a few vital ingredients: a bat, a ball and some players...

ESPECIALLY MESSY ETON MESS:
Serves one Etonian cricket team of 11 players.
(Double the quantities if good sports)

Ingredients:
750g whipping cream (double cream is fine but produces a heavier whip)
4 punnets/ 1kg of British strawberries.
1 vanilla pod
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 heaped tbsp caster sugar

750g small meringues:
750g egg whites
750g caster sugar
750g icing sugar

MERINGUES: Preheat the oven to a low temperature of 110C – you don’t want ‘em to burn.. Whip the egg white with an electric whisk, (by hand is fine if you want to increase the size of your biceps), until soft peaks appear. Then add the caster sugar. Continue beating for about five minutes, then add the icing sugar. Beat slowly for five more minutes. With a metal spoon, place small equal sized dollops (size doesn’t really matter for this recipe, it just looks more satisfying) on to a nonstick baking sheet. Why not make one giant meringue for the top of the mess? Bake for two hours, or until the meringues are crunchy and dry. You want the meringues to be white for this recipe, so make sure they do not start to brown. Leave to cool on a rack.

THE MESS: With an electric whisk (seriously, I would) whip up the cream until stiff and fluffy. Gently scrape the vanilla pod of its seeds and add to the cream.
Hull and quarter all the strawberries. Take a third of them and mash in a separate bowl until juicy, but still visibly chunky. Add the balsamic and sugar and marinate a while. Now fold into the cream, a little at a time. If the consistency becomes too wet, hold back on the mixture.
Crush the meringues, bar 11 into the cream. Best to leave slightly crunchy otherwise it just turns to sugar. The bittier the better.
Tower the rest of the meringues on top and sprinkle the remaining strawberries.

You now have a mountain of messy, summer scrumptiousity. Almost good enough to dive into...But if you’re wearing cricket whites I suggest you refrain, as strawberry juice is a toughie to remove and mother won’t be best pleased. Eat with spoons, forks, cricket caps or fingers. Anything goes old chap…

Beetroot Frittata with Goats Cheese

My diary last week left me no choice but to indulge and wallow in pure and unadulterated gluttony.

Tuesday's celebration of the 10 year anniversary of Lou Hutton's Food of Course Cookery School in Somerset provided an evening spent gorging on deeeeelicious canapes made by previous students. Perfectly formed Lemon Tarts, Beetroot Rosti with a Quinelle of Goats Cheese and succulent tortellini, were washed down with Orchard Mist cocktail. Appropriate taste bud tuning for the next day's eager tour of the neighbouring Bath and West Show...


...And exploit it, I did. It's not every day you get to pair your wild boar and apple sausage with a toxic, brain cell-removing 'Cider by Rosie'. A minefield of culinary beasts - not to mention the oversized prize winning bulls - meant no chance of starvation, and I am no shrinking violet when it comes to tasting samples.


Then to Hay-on-wye fest, where the likes of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall talked food and books and all-things-culture. A book in one hand and a pimms in the other, sheeps milk ice cream, deck chairs in the sun, listening to creative creatures, and tapping away to Laura Marling in concert. Not bad eh?
So as a thank you to a fab food-filled week, here is an adaptation of one of Lou's mouthwatering canapes:

BEETROOT FRITTATA topped with a

QUINELLE OF GOATS CHEESE, and WALNUT AND APPLE SALAD with a REDUCED BALSAMIC DRESSING...

SERVES 6
INGREDIENTS:
Frittata:
Pre-cooked beetroot in natural juices, 250g
200g (or 4 small) eggs
4 tbsps milk/cream
salt and pepper
2 tbsbs melted butter

Goats cheese:
100g somerset soft goats cheese
200g soft cheese

1 apple

10 g chopped walnut

Watercress, spinach and rocket salad

4 tbsps of balsamic vinegar to reduce

Whisk in the grated beetroot with the beaten eggs and sprinkle in the salt and pepper. Add a tablespoon of melted butter to the mix.

Heat up the remaining butter in a flat, non-stick frying pan (cm) on a hight heat. Pour in the eggs. Ideally the frittata should be about 1 cm thick. Cook for 5 minutes until cooked on both sides (The best way to flip is to slide the frittata on a plate, hold the pan over the un-cooked side and turn). Place the omelette on a plate to cool slightly. If you like it warm you can always pop the shapes back into a pan of melted butter and crisp them up - it's just easier to cut if cool.

Meanwhile, fold the goats cheese into the soft cheese until firm and mouldable. I like it with just a hint of the goats cheese, but if you like a stronger taste, just add more goat in the place of soft cheese.

For the salad, I used spinach, watercress and rocket, and added chopped walnuts. Slice the apple with a vegetable peeler into thin shavings, and fold into a flower shape to serve next to the frittata. When it's time to serve, slide it slightly under the frittata to hold it in shape.

Pour four tablespoons on balsamic vinegar into a warm pan and reduce until thick. You can buy it pre-reduced but this is so easy to make and produces a rich, sugary and sharp taste.

With a 3 inch cookie cutter, punch out 6 circles of the cooled frittata. Place each on a large plate, and spoon on an almost triangluar shape of the goats cheese mix. Place a few basil leaves on each quinelle, and serve with a handful of salad. This is an in season, easy and delcious starter. For canape size, simple use a small cookie cutter!

A summer smacker!

CIDER WITH ROSIE

Spending yesterday's warm and lazy afternoon rifling through Southbank's book market, I picked up an old gem - really to give to a friend, but which I couldn't resist reading myself. This morning was stolen by 2 hours of solid contentment in the old and woody smelling pages of Cider With Rosie by Laurie Lee. A 1959 Penguin edition no less.

Not only does it have the perfect title to get anyone in the summer mood, but it is written in that way that makes you want to get sodden in mud puddles like Loll, be so small in the long grass that it becomes a treacherous and interminable jungle (I still know the feeling), and be dizzy on summer cider...

'Huge and squat, the jar lay on the grass like an un-exploded bomb. We lifted it up, unscrewed the stopper, and smelt the whiff of fermented apples. I held the jar to my mouth and rolled my eyes sideways, like a beast at a water-hole. 'Go on,' said Rosie. I took a deep breath...

'Never to be forgotten, that first long secret drink of golden fire, juice of those valleys and of that time, wine of wild orchards, of russet summer, of plump red apples, and Rosie's burning cheeks'

Oh what joy. Now that definitely calls for a Westons...

WILD AND WONDERFUL

In celebration of last month's wild garlic - now on it's last legs - guest blogger, Matilda Moreton, shows us how it's done with some snaps of her foraging finds and her wild garlic pesto:

Now that spring is truly upon us, hail storms and all, you have the opportunity to gather the first of this year’s bounteous wild harvests on Hampstead Heath …

Wild Garlic (Allium Ursinum), also known as Ramsoms, is not hard to identify - it is unmistakable by its smell. The all-pervasive whiff of garlic that follows you through the woods might daunt you, but in fact the leaves can be used in large quantities as the taste is not as strong as the smell.

Take a look in the damp, shady parts of the Heath, along walls and hedgerows, beside streams or ditches. The plants are also distinguishable by their flowers - umbels of bright white stars that shine out from the dim woodland carpet. You will have to wait a few weeks for the flowers but the broad floppy leaves are just appearing now in great quantities and will last through till May.

For my wild garlic feast this year I was on one wheel in between Easter trips here and there and did not have many ingredients to hand, so decided to scrunch and chop the leaves and bottle them down in olive oil to be enjoyed on my return. Here, the essence is to hold the tip of the knife down hard with the left hand and chop the pile of leaves like crazy with the right, stopping before the garlic has turned to pulp. Hey presto - pesto! The nuts and parmesan are entirely optional – the main point being only to preserve the garlic for later.

I also did just have time to make a fresh lunch of wild garlic toast that was greeted with applause by hungry travellers. Just back from France, we happened to have a stash of the delectable grey Guerande salt, that my friends in Brittany had pressed into their pat of butter - so once the garlic leaves were chopped up they were squidged into the butter with some of the magic grit and spread on toast – et voila – the best things are so simple…

Crunchy garlic flower salad

1 crunchy cos or romaine lettuce

1 handful of chopped assorted wild garlic leaves

A few small leaves of garlic mustard

1 handful of assorted garlic (and garlic mustard) flowers

1 crunchy cucumber

A dash of blue cheese perhaps?

And highly recommended with fish on Friday!

THANKS MATTIE!

FINALS OVER FOOD

BAH HUMBUG.

For the next few weeks, my blog will look malnourished, starving hungry and unloved. Why? Because it's crunch time - and not in the good sense.

Time to hang up the apron. To shelf the cookbooks and bring out the library books. Pens must put away the pans.

Finals are looming and I'm pretty sure my degree mark will suffer if I start twittering on about fish pie in my Italian grammar exam... So, here's an apology - one that I am not happy to produce. Of course sustenance seals success and I will still be eating. Just not writing. Unless I just can't stay away...

SPELT LIKE THIS.

Whilst Fred is sifting through his wheat free repertoire (god that's hard to say out loud), I thought I'd begin mine.

Now, to me, pasta is the most loved, most used, and most flexible ingredient in my larder. It comes in every shape and size, and making it from scratch is one mighty reward. But what it consists of is the enemy to all gluten and dairy allergies. So, I have been on a rampage to find pasta that knocks down these almighty barriers.
To be truthful, the search was easier than I thought. Most supermarkets stock varieties of wheat and gluten free pasta, which is a god-send if you eat it as much as me. If you tread far and wide, you can even get pasta which is wheat, gluten, dairy, and egg free. And vegan. NICE.

For non dairy eaters go for Spelt pasta, which is made from 100% spelt flour and water. NO eggs. This is what I went for - purely to see how it managed to bind together like usual pasta, without the use of eggs. Spelt is a species of wheat so is not gluten free. Beware.

So, here is a very simple recipe, which tastes oh-so delicious and is edible to all with a dairy intolerance. Change the lasagne for gluten free if this affects you. The sauce is just as good with any shape of pasta. I know there are far more wild and interesting things out there which I could hunt down but, for the moment, this will hit the spot.

OPEN SPELT LASAGNE WITH CHILI AND AUBERGINE RAGU.SERVES 2

ingredients:
6 spelt lasagne sheets
2 tbsps olive oil
1 red onion, finely chopped
1 crushed garlic clove
1 aubergine, roughly chopped
2 fresh tomatoes, finely chopped and de-seeded
200g chopped tomatoes
half a red chili, finely chopped and de-seeded
half a glass of red wine
pinch of salt and black pepper

Heat up the olive oil in a large frying pan and add the chopped onion.When the onion is soft, throw in the tomatoes, aubergine and garlic. Stir regularly and make sure it doesn't start to burn. Tomatoes can be pretty acidic if not cooked long enough, so you really want to slow cook this sauce. It makes it all the more tasty too.

Pour in the red wine and turn up the heat. Simmer so that the alcohol burns off. Then put on a low heat for 10 to 15 minutes until the vegetables are juicy and tender.

Add the chili, salt and pepper.

Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil. Add the pasta sheets and simmer for 8 minutes (or as directed on the packet). Once al dente, drain and serve, layering the sauce in between the sheets. Such a tasty dish, and full of goodies.

If you can eat dairy, cover the pasta in Parmesan. Serve with a few leaves of basil.

Have ideas on cooking with free-from ingredients? Please let me know them so I can try them out!

WHEAT THE DEVIL?

A Happy Post-Easter to you all.

Apologies for the long delay. I have spent the holiday in France gorging on creamy, stomach-swelling tartiflette, french bread, and greedy amounts of chocolat chaud with cream (or rather cream with a dash of hot chocolate). I know. Yawn. It's alright for some.

But while I was out there, munching on the finer things in life, it came into me how blooming lucky I am and how much I take for granted being allergy and intolerance free to all food. Having to ask what is in every dish before eating it, putting a brave face on when you want to be polite, or going on endless wild-goose chases for substitutions to the no-can-eats in a delicious looking recipe sounds like hard work to me.

FRIENDS OR FOES?

But where there is a will there is a way, and those who need to find a way often do it with the ultimate style. Over the next few weeks, I call out to you all, whether averse or sensitive to certain foods, to laden me with your YUM recipes, restaurants that cater for all, and intolerance-friendly ingredients that are highly underrated. I am far too (and gratefully so) naive on the matter, and want to find out what I'm missing - it could, after all, be an entirely better option to cooking with things that I mindlessly gobble up.

So on that note, while you all think of ideas, I'm off to find my friend Mr. F. Haines, - a wheat and gluten free man - to peer over his shoulder as he experiments in the kitchen...