jackal10

Its now raining ,which was not forecast, although the forecast http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/24hr.shtml?id=1417 remains fine for tomorrow. Some of the fish cakes evaporated from the fridge. Call it lunch. Here is the bread oven It stands outside the kitchen, under some apple trees. I built it instead of a barbeque. (Do you prefer the bigger or smaller pix?) The house stands on the edge of an ancient wood, so we use our own firewood. That dip is said by one of the local historians to be the ditch at the edge of a medieval road, but the evidence is poor. They have, however, found the remains of bronze age metalworking in the next field. It mostly elm scrub and coppiced hazel (the squirrels get the nuts before we do, with a few oak trees. In spring it is carpeted with bluebells, and wild garlic grows there. We mostly use the fallen timber. Wood waiting to be chopped up, and stacked Today we will also be using some cherry wood, from a tree that fell down some years ago. Lit the oven. It takes about four hours to heat. This is a "black" or retained heat oven. Black beacuse soot coats the surface of the vault until it gets hot enough to burn off. The fire is in the same chamber as the food, and relies on the massive thermal capacity (and insulation) of the brickwork. The fire heats the brick, and is then removed, the oven swabbed out, and the bread cooks in the residual heat stored in the bricks. Its well insulated, so only loses about 7C per hour, and is fairly fuel efficient - one barrow of wood will be more than enough to cook for 100 people. For maximum efficiency you take advantage of the falling temperatures 500F Pizza. with the fire in the oven 400F Breads, roasts 300F Tarts, cakes 200F Long cooked stews 100F Neringues, dry herbs etc " Fire in the hole"

Thanks. I always knew I was a figment of the imagination, but whose? The Ashkenazi cuisine was in remembrance of Rosh Hashonna...normal goyische regime will resume. However I don't know the sweet and sour salmon recipe - it sounds delicous - could you post it please? Especially as the supermarket had run out of whole salmon (see below), so I have two salmon sides. I was going to do salmon en croute, but sweet and sour sounds better... This morning started badly - the scaffolders came to change the scaffolding for the building work, and what with one thing and another I'm now running about 4 hours late. That meant I hit the supermarket later than I meant to, so it was more crowded, and the traffic was worse. The supermarket is the local branch of Tesco, about 5 miles from here. Apparently it is one of the larest in the country. Anyway is is a very large, soulless tin shed, although the staff really do try to be helpful, and they have a good organic range. They are open 24/7. I guess supermarket shopping is the same all over the world. Two hours and two hundred quid later..actually that is quite cheap, considering the number we are feeding. Cell phone camera are great, but I can see they could intrude.. The fish counter had whole salmon on special, but has sold out...

7.30 AM Saturday Coffee... First thing this morning is a trip to the supermarket (Tesco) before the crowds get there. Although they have an excellent Internet ordering and delivery, I still prefer to go myself - maybe because I prefer to pick the fresh produce myself, and can make instant decisions and substitutions... Shopping list so far PIzza components: Onions Mushrooms Peppers Anchovy Olivs Pineapple Corn Salami (home grown tomatoes and tomato sauce, herbs. I already have the Mozarella) Protein: Beef, ribs, chicken bits, sausages Salmon, Mayo Cheeses Eggs Dustbin bags, Cleaner, dishcloths, kitchen roll Cream/ceme fraiche/Yogurt Butter Olive Oil Avocado After that we'll fire the oven make the tourtes etc... Thanks for all the compliments, but I was hoping for more criitique, culinary discussion and suggestions...

I meant to add i was thinking of setting up a webcam, maybe pointed at the oven in the interests of exploring the medium. a) Would anyone be interested in watching it? b) Three ways to do it: - Set up a private Yahoo IM room. Hs the limit of 30 people at any time, and you would need a Yahoo id., but it does support streaming video. - Similar but using MSN and Windos messenger. - Upload an image to a web page, refreshing say every 30 seconds. I can set this up fairly easily, but it s not streaming video. Any interest, or would it be a waste of time? Any preferences as to method?

I've made far too much bread. 7 large wholemeal loaves (although some of those may be divided and reshaped for rolls) 3 Onion and Raisin 1 Chocolate challa. We will have to have five fishes...Not quite the feeding of the five thousand, and no Messiah, but close.. Might give the bagettes I'd planned a miss, unless there is an outcry from my readers.. Wholemeal sourdough: dividing and then shaping into boules. You do this by sort of rolling the dough along the pastry board with one hand on the side, so the friction of the board tightens the dough. We are working with very wet doughs, and you are trying to eliminate large internal air pockets ("the house where the baker sleeps") to give a uniform texture, and to stretch the surface gluten to get a tension to help hold the shape. They then go upside down into bannetons, which as Carrot Top remarked are cloth, usually linen, lined wicker baskets, although you can get all sorts and I've improvised some. The basket supports the now fragile and wet dough during proof. The dough is an increasingly delicate sponge, and needs careful handling from here until baking. The banneton, like the cane basket here, can have a pattern, which imprints itself on the bread. The inside is lightly floured. The bread will about double in the oven. They are now all in the fridge, retarding (slowing the ferment) overnight. This allows me to bake at my leasure, and I think the stiffer cold dough is easier to handle and rises better. Of course, wholemeal, and bread with fruit or other bits in it never rise as well as plain white, since the bran or the additions puncture some of the gas cells The red onion and raisin bread is also divided and shaped, and put into long bannetons. The chocolate challa doesn't seem to have risen as much as I expected. I wonder if the high sugar content is inhibiting the sourdough. Turned out easier to shape than I feared. The only difficulty is that clearing up us a major hassle. Anyone know any good ways? Dough is tenacious stuff and sticks to anything, and doesn't come off easily. It doesn't soak off. Best implement I've found is to scrape it off with a rubber spatula. If you get it on the dishcloth, it will never come out. Nightcap and then bed..shooping and then baking tomorrow.

I had in mind a compilation of culinary sins, tabulated along the lines of the Al Chait prayer, wherein observant jews confess their sins over the past year, sung to a jolly tune. I;m noit sure if these should be (as the original) formulaic general sins, or sins that one has personally comittted during the year. For the sin wherein we have sinned of using pre-processed foods For the sin wherein we have sinned of burning the food, and scraping off the burnt bits For the sin wherein we have sinned of over-salting For the sin wherein we have sinned of using non-organic or GM food For the sin wherein we have sinned of using chicken stock in vegetarian dishes For all these forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement..

Hmm..maybe I need to discuss investments with your bank...although I must say my current (private) bank does give good lunches when it wants something from me...no such thing as a free lunch! Mushroom omelettes for supper, with an avocado, which was about the only green thing to hand The dough is rising nicely: it has now had three hours and three turns, an about doubled. In an hour or so I'll portion and shape it, then put it into bannetons overnight in the fridge Edited to add we drank an Anjou Village, 1999, Domaine Des Forges. Claims it won a gold medal in Paris in 2001. £6.40 from Alex Riley Wines.

A culinary Al chait? For the sin wherein we have sinned of using pre-processed foods For the sin wherein we have sinned of burning the pan For the sin wherein we have sinned of over-salting For the sin wherein we have sinned of using non-organic or GM food For the sin wherein we have sinned of using chicken stock in vegetarian dishes For all these forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement.. Add you own...

Corporate lunches are indeed the same, except perhaps in France. Depressingly so. Worse, at least in my field, its often the same people, or at least the same recognisable types that attend them...The French are more serious, and are rightly insulted if offered only sandwiches Folded the dough, like making a turn when making flaky laminated pastry. Turn though 90 degrees and do the same, then back in the bowl to rest for another hour.

Salt added. Now the dough ferments for four hours, being folded sides to midle (which stretches the gas cells gently) every hour or so. It alread feels much more like dough. The hydration of the gluten is time, not mechanical work. Converted 1Kg of the white sourdough into Comfort Me's famous double chocolate, adding 1/2 cup of cocoa, an egg, some butter and 12oz/350g of dark chocolate (Green and Black 72% organic cooking chocolate). It was a bit sloppy as I added some more flour. Seems an awful lot of chocolate, and the chumks will make braiding it interesting...

We kick off on Sunday officially at noon (BST), although people will be around all day. Yes I do eat trayf, and so fo I think all of the expected guests. This is not a kosher home.. (Od story: "Why do you have five refrigerators? Nu, that one is milchig, the other is fleishig, the two over there are pesachtika milchig and pesachtika fleishig, and this one we use most is treyf!") Don't be discouraged GG, your time will come... Lunch today was coporate sandwiches during a meeting. Indifferent bread cut too thick, and skinny fillings of indeterminate nature. Mixed up two 3Kg batches of wholmeal, Decided not to do rye as well and one of white. This will turn into onion and raisin bread, etc. They are currently autolysing, the pause to allow the enzymes in the yeast to degrade the starch into simple sugars. In half an hour I'll add the salt (2% or 60g per batch). I'll do the baguettes tomorrow, since they are better baked the same day, and also make the pizza doughs

8 am Friday Overclouded and grey. Looks like we will get some rain, but the forecast is OK for Sunday. Need more coffee Many thanks Carrot Top for the tourte recipe, just what I had in mind. I think that is on for tomorrow! Raspberries come in two sorts. The summer fruiting varieties, which fruit on last years wood, so you remove the old canes that have fruited, leaving the new canes (grown this year) for next years crop. Autun fruiting varieties fruit on new wood, so you cut them down to six inches above ground level in the winter when they are dormant. Raspberries are fairly shallow rooted, greedy feeders, and need lots of water but dislike waterlogging. The sourdough starter has woken up overnight I'll feed it again, and probably make dough this afternoon. It has the consistency of a very thick cream. I can't remember if this is a "poolish" or a "biga", I'll just describe it as a sponge... Lets see. Around 100 people. Say 10Kg (20lbs) of bread, or 12Kg/25lbs of dough. or about 7.5Kg of flour at 66% hydration - two and a half bags. I think mostly wholmeal boule or cut rolls (say two bags) and then some baguettes, some onion and rasin bread for cheese, and I want to try a sourdough version of Comfort Me's chocolate chocolate challa - thanks for the recipe! I need to go to my office for a meeting this morning, so I'll pick up some flour and stuff then.

We have a better class of graffiti, according to today's news: BBC News item There was a famous graffiti on the exit of the pure maths departmet "Beware: You are now entering reality!". Also one night in the 1960's an ornamental lampost in the middle of one the the green spaces (Parker's Piece, originally a market garden) that had been painted corporation green, was revealed carefully and beautifully painted in full psychedelic colours with the words "Reality Checkpoint" stencilled on it. After much public outcry, the council relented and let the decoration (and name) stay. If you look carefully at the statue of Henry VIII above the Great Gate of Trinity College you will see that holds an orb in one hand, and a chair leg in place of a sceptre in the other. Originally, of course, he held a sceptre, but some students climbed up and swapped it sometime last century; the authorities replaced it with another sceptre, but next night it was again a chair leg. Soon the College realised that chair legs were more plentiful than carved sceptres, and it has remained a chairl leg to this day. Back to tonights supper, in which it will be seen that while my intentions are good, my presentation is awful Golden Borscht (the gold beets were in an earlier entry) Shred the beets, and simmer with onion in chicken (or duck) stock; add vinegar and sugar, correct seasoning. Brisket tzimmes, with prunes and honey for a sweet year, and slices of carrot representing coins I forgot to take the filo pastry out of the freezer in time, so strudel is postponed. We had berries and honey cake instead. The yellow raspberries taste just like the red ones. The variety is All Gold, which is a sport of the autumn fruiting Autumn Bliss. They are unusual in that they fruit on this years wood, around this time, while most raspberries fruit on last years wood, in early summer. I do like the visual contrast with the blackberries We also had some "Mara du Bois", cultivated wood strawberries. Financiers, so called because they are meant to resemble gold bars. This is really just an excuse to show off my fancy flexible silicone silform mini-financier mould. Some with berries, but I was distracted and they are rather overcooked, and overfilled. We drank an Orb Rose 2003 (Vin du Pays Haute Vallee de l'Orb; Cave de Roquerrun) since our guest dislikes red wines...

Either. For parties with a dip - horseradish or sweet Thai chili sauce. For lunch, maybe with just a nice salad Carrot Top: I've not got a particular recipe. Do you? Apples seem appropriate. Probably do this on Sat.

The brisket is doing nicely. In 4 hours or so I'll add potao, carrots, prunes and honey. I added no liquid to start - its made it itself. The oven is at about 180F/90C. Innoculated the sourdough starter: 1 cup flour, 1.5 cups water, and a spoon of the mother starter. This will sit on the side of the stove, at 85F for about 8 hours, when I will triple the volume with more flour and water, and then agin tomorrow, ready to make lots of dough for bread on Saturday and Pizza on Sunday. Those on a diet should skip the rest of this entry. Other families has gefillte fish. We had fish balls, as sort of cross between an English fish cake and and fried gefillte fish. Take equal quantities of fish, chopped onion and potato, and a good bunch of parsley. The fish here is boneless and skinless cod loin (mea culpa - I feel guilty about using cod as the stocks are rapidly depleting, but it was the cheapest and looked nice, and it was dead anyway). Any white fish works, and its good with salmon, or even crab. Increase the proportion of potato if you are feeling mean or ruuning a restaurant. You can use these components to make a fish pie, and then turn the left-overs into fishcakes or fish balls - two meals for the price of one. Par-cook the fish (2 minutes in a microwave), chop the parsley, sweat the onions to golden brown, peel and boil the potatoes. Put it in the food processor, add an egg or two and enough Matso meal or flour to make it firm and mouldable. Season well with salt and pepper. Whizz or mash together, but so that you can still distinguish individual components. Form into balls, roll in Matzo meal, or panko or breadcrumbs or whatever is your favourite coating and deep fry until they float and are deep gold. Good hot or cold. Small ones are good for amuse or party food; larger ones for a meal. Dissapear fast at parties, and evaporate if not in a tightly sealed container in the fridge.

Soba: A torte blette is a sweet tart from Provence made from swiss chard (can substitute spinach) GG: The jar is indeed not quite full - there wasn't quite enough jelly. If the seal is good, the jars well sterilised, and the jam hot when bottled, then there is no reason why they should mold. Turn the jar upside down for a few minutes after filling so the and the lid heats and sterilises helps. SOme people put a layer of candle wax, or paper dipped in brandy on top of their jam when cold, but I prefer a properly sealed sterile jar.

Thanks! Financier batter, made with honey. Needs to rest in the fridge Added sugar (500g) and lemon juice, boiled and bottled the grape jelly, Note the thermometer probe - 221F is setting point

Stroll round the garden to see what looks ready to eat Gold raspberries and Rainbow chard. Maybe a tourte blette at the weekend. Pulled some golden beets Browned the brisket and put into the lowest (plate warming) oven to murmer away all day to itself. Put the pate components to marinate. Of course the ultimate dish from chicken liver is chopped liver, but this is just as good but different. Its a recipe adapted from Michel Guerard's Cuisine Gourmande, with the insight being that sausage meat provides a good fatty pork base to the terrine. All the booze and garlic make it strong stuff, but delicious and easy. 1lb/500g chicken livers (frozen is fine) 12 oz/400g good sausage meat, or the insides of frying sausages 7 tablespoons brandy or armagnac or rum 6 tablespoons port or maderia (or both) 2 tsp chopped garlic big bunch of parsley 4 sprigs thyme 4 bay leaves pinch nutmeg tsp sugar 2 tsp salt lots of pepper Mix together and marinate in the fridge overnight. Next day whizz together in a food processor or with a hand blender. Keep it quite course, or even dont belnd at all. . Pour into a greased loaf tin (you can line with bacon if you like, or decorate the base, which will be the top, with sprigs of thyme and bay leaves), Bake in a bain amrie in a hot oven (220C/425F) for hours. Cool to room temperature then refigerate overnight, weighted. Serve either with a salad a pickles as a first course, or spread onto good bread...

Thanks for the suggestions! Keep them coming... Bit early for Brussel Sprouts, and this is basically finger food, or things on bread I will do some chicken, maybe wings or drumsticks Also I plan a chicken liver pate Susan: I don't make my own sausage - its hard to do in small quantities, and the local butchers make at least as good as I can. I've tried it once or twice, just as an experiment, and I would if we raised our own meat, but for everyday its not worth it. Naturally Yours is a local organic and rare breeed meat producer that makes excellent ones, and they deliver weekly. As today is Rosh Hashona, although the orthodox won't read this today, L'Shona Tova. Happy New Year, and may you be inscribed in the book of life for a sweet year. Pray for peace in these troubled times. Last night we went to friends for dinner to celebrate another friends birthday. Lovely old timber framed house dating back to the 17th century, about 45 minutes from here. No pics, but imagine the dark polished oak table, old silver cutlery gleaming in the candlelight...12 sat down for dinner. Haddon Hall china. We had Indian nibbles (various bhajis); Champagne (en Magnum) Poached Salmon, Hollandaise sauce; Poilly Fuisse (but I did not get the year) Roast Beef, Green Beans, Broccoli, Roasted Veg (parsnips, carrots, potatoes, jus, leeks); Ch. Valandraud (St Emilion, Grand Cru Classe) 1995, en Magnum Raspberry fool (Raspberries muddled with cream: like Eton Mess, but with Raspberries) Coffee. Birthday Cake (orange and chocolate), a 1975 Barsac (drying somewhat) and Port ( 1977 Warre) Moving a little slowly this morning...need more coffee. Today we have a friend visiting. Supper is I guess Rosh Hashonah foods: traditionally honey sweet (for a sweet new year) with ronds of carrots symbolising coins for prosperity. Polish food was often quite sweet. I wonder why this does not extend to say Financiers, which are so-called since they are meant to represent gold bars... Golden Borscht Beef Tzimmes Maybe a blackberry and apple strudel, Financiers, perhaps Also finish the grape jelly, and maybe start the pate

Grape jelly progress: Simmer 30 mins Strain and pass through muslin: The colour is, like many biological colours, an indicator. It goes from red when acid to blue when alkaline. No reply yet to requests or suggestions for things to make... Out to supper. Not sure if they will apreciate pictures being taken.... l'shona Tova

I'm making grape jelly over on my foodblog... Heat the grapes in a pan I've added apples for the pectin...

Nope, firecrackers look like this. I'm second from the right wearing a "Kimbolton Fireworks" sweatshirt and a leather jacket, holding a pair of double cylinder shells.. This was setting up the fireworks for the local Millenium celebration. The large spherical shell in the middle is 12 inch

Rusk is dried bread; also used for teething babies to chew on. Lunch is Peanut butter and Jelly...with marmite and salad cream The jam is home made wild strawberry, but what this really needs is grape jelly...hmmm On the wall next to the Jacuzzi is a grape vine and a fig tree. The fig is Brown Turkey and it produces lots of immature fruit, and a few ripe figs. The grape is Tiomphe d'Alsace, now unfashionable, but good autumn colour. It produces smell seedy grapes, but true black, and with good sugar level. Not a big harvest - the birds get there first, but 500g or so. I'm adapting the recipe from "Mes Confitures" of Christine Ferber: 500g grapes, 400g apples, 400g water; simmer, pass through jelly bag, let settle overnight before decanting and then boil with 500g sugar and the juice of a lemon until setting point. Simmering now.

Wednesday morning, slowly adsorbing a mug of Java. I have one on the go most of the time, and I guess I drink a couple of pints of coffee over the day. Doesn't seem to affect sleeping patterns, fortunately. Snarfed a couple of the small sausages left over from last night, They were at the front of the fridge, when I opened it for the milk for the coffee. We are out to supper tonight, and I need to do some errands in town today, We live about 5 miles west of Cambridge. Cambridge is University and high tech, a town of about 100,000, with the University about 10,000. In the 60's, and still to some extent today, the planning policy was to restrict the growth of the city, but build or expand a series of village developoments as a "necklace", with about another 100,000 living there. Oxford is much bigger, and has real industry like car plants. Cambridge is primarily agricultural, untl the growth of spin-out knowledge, high tech and bio-tech industries, mostly small - 20 people or so. There are, however, over 1000 of them, and a few such as ARM (that is a Cambridge ARM designed microprocessor that you have in your mobile phone) that have broken the billion dollar barrier. ARM is typical - they are knowledge based, in that they don't manufacture themseleves, they just design and then licence the design and take a royalty, but even so there are more ARM processors then INTEL processors shipped. The result is that the town is affluent, and has survived the recession well. Traffic is awful, and house prices high. There is a surprising lack of serious restaurants (but lots of tourist ones), perhaps becasue the colleges compete to some extent on the quality of their food and drink, and academics, and hanger-ons like me, who might otherwise go to high end restaurants eat in College instead. We'll talk more about the University next week. Suffice to say its a collegiate University. There are 31 colleges, of which two are post-graduate only. Most people have a dual appointment, both as a member of a University faculty and of a College. The University faculty or department are where the main lectures, research and labs are, while the colleges provide living accomodation, meals and individual or small group tuition. I teach at the Department of Computer Science, and also at the Judge Institute of Management and I am also by-fellow of Emmanuel College. The "by" bit means I have no formal dutues, but also I don't get paid, but I do get dining rights - I can eat in college at College's expense four times a week. Colleges actively promote networking, and spread their influence by keeping a good table and encouraging people to bring interesting guests. The colleges are independant, and I guess the closest equivalent are fraternity/soriety houses. Back to food. Last weekend I made the honey cake from the recipe refenced in the Rosh Hasonah thread. Improved I think by having a non-traditional glass of rum poured over it. What should we cook for the apple pressing party? Need to start to think about shopping and prep. About 75 adults and 25 kids. Current plan is pizzas. What else do I need for toppings? Currently I plan build-it yourself from: Tomato sauce Tomatoes Onions Garlic Peppers Hot peppers Salami Cheeses (Mozarella, cheddar, gruyere) Sweetcorn Pineapple Anchovies Olives and of course, apples, butter, sugar Also plan various breads (suggestions for type - currently wholemeal boule, white baguette, foccacio, maybe onion and raisin with things to go on or in them: Cheeses (whole Brie, Cheddar, maybe stilton) Roast beef (I have two ribs joints ageing) Whole planked salmon Garden salad Chutneys etc Other things from the wood fired oven: Maybe a tart flambee , various fruit tarts, some baked potatoes Suggestions welcome. What would you like me to cook?

My Mothers Kipper Pate Take a kipper and fry it in plenty of good butter in the usual way. When cooked remove the back bone as as many boses as possible. Add a can of tomatoes, and some pepper. Mush up with a fork. Kepp cooking and turning until the liquid has evaporated and the thing is a consistent whole