Feeding the Inner Mammal: Eggs

Showing posts with label Eggs. Show all posts

Parsnip medallions

Estafette recipe card
Makes 8
Preparation / Cooking time: about 45m all told

This recipe comes from the company that runs our local organic shop; it is translated from the Dutch. The Mammal hasn't tried it (yet), but based on other recipes from the same source, it should be very tasty indeed.

Ingredients
400g parsnips
350g mature cheese
2 eggs
4 tablespoons sieved flour
half teaspoon ground nutmeg
pepper and salt to season
1.5 tablepsoons chives or parsley
flour for coating
2 tablespoons butter

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Orange and almond cake

Gluten-free cooking p.116
Serves 6-10 (depending on slice size)
Preparation / Cooking time: about 3h 30m all told (2h if using a pressure cooker)

This recipe comes from Michael Cox's Great Healthy Food: Gluten-Free (London: Carroll & Brown, 2000). It is delicious: soft and moist, with the strong orange flavour sitting very nicely alongside the subtler taste of almond. It is well worth the effort of the longish cooking time, though since the first two hours merely involve boiling the oranges, you aren't tethered to the kitchen for all that time.

A word of warning: this is one of those recipes where it makes a big difference if you leave it in too long. Check it on the dot of 60m to see if it is done (or five minutes earlier if your oven tends to be too hot); it may need a bit extra, but if it is ready at this stage it should be taken out immediately.

Ingredients
Butter for greasing
2 large oranges
6 eggs, medium-sized, separated
250g caster sugar [use less if you don't have a sweet tooth]
225g ground almonds [or a tad more if you reduce the sugar]

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Cinnamon buns and marzipan buns

Makes 16–24 (or 8–12, if halving the amounts)

Preparation / Cooking time: allow 2h 30m (in case the dough is slow to rise)
Advance prep: needs 75g soft butter, so remember to take some out of fridge (also needs cold butter for dough, so don't take it all out!)

The mammal doesn't often bake cakes and buns – apart from small, light scones to pack in the lunchbox – unless it is entertaining guests (so many calories, so little self-control). But every so often it throws caution to the wind and gives it a go. And when you come down to it, buns with sweet fillings are really just bigger scones ... aren't they?

Anyway, the latest effort was actually sparked by noticing a link on the Guardian website to 'How to bake the perfect cinnamon buns': somehow, it seemed a bit more uplifting a topic than the evidence of skulduggery and disaster promised by most of the other articles. This then called to mind an existing recipe for enriched dough that we had made ages before and had worked reasonably well, so it seemed like a good idea to use the filling given in the Guardian recipe with this tried-and-tested dough.

It turned out that the dough recipe was accompanied by suggestions for fillings, including marzipan; this inevitably gave rise to mission creep and the grandiose notion of making one set of cinnamon whirls and one set of marzipan. The result, if less than professional in appearance, was wholly acceptable as far as taste was concerned.

Note 1: it is best to make the cinnamon and / or marzipan filling before the dough, so it is ready to be used once the dough has been kneaded.

Note 2: If you only want to make one set of buns, halve the quantities for the dough.

CINNAMON FILLING
Ingredients
75g butter, softened
50g dark brown sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
pinch salt

Method
Beat ingredients together until soft and easily spreadable

MARZIPAN
Ingredients
3oz ground almonds*
3oz caster sugar*
2oz icing sugar*
almond essence
1 egg
* As usual, the mammal decreased the sweetness slightly, using 4oz ground almonds and a total of 4oz of the sugars.

Method
Place ground almonds, caster and icing sugar, almond essence, and egg in a bowl and beat with wooden spoon.

ENRICHED BREAD DOUGH
Ingredients
1.5lb flour
1 tsp salt [actually used a heaped half tsp]
3oz butter (chilled)
2oz caster sugar
1 sachet quick (instant) yeast
8fl oz hand-hot milk
3 eggs, beaten

Method
Mix flour and salt together. Rub in butter, add sugar. Stir in yeast.

Gradually add milk.

Add eggs and mix to a soft dough. Turn onto a lightly floured board and knead until smooth.
[Note: this might be easier said than done – the dough is very soft indeed, so soft that the mammal chickened out of going straight to the kneading and first mixed it vigorously with a wooden spoon in the bowl until it had reached a manageable state of elasticity. Probably real bakers will faint on reading this.]

When the dough is kneaded, divide into two equal pieces if you have halved the quantities.

Roll the first (or only) piece out on a lightly floured board until it is about 14 by 8 inches (you can vary this a little depending on the size and shape of the rolls you want). Gently spread on the filling with a knife, leaving a margin of about half an inch on the long sides.

Roll up along the long edges, like a Swiss roll. Then cut into equal slices (8 gives fairly hefty buns, 10 or 12 for smaller ones) and set the pieces out on a greased and lightly floured baking sheet / tray on their sides, i.e. with the filling visible.

Repeat with second dough and filling if required.

Cover buns with lightly oiled clingfilm and leave in a warm part of the room to prove for an hour or until sufficiently risen (they won't double in size because of the filling, but they should be noticeably bigger). Brush lightly with egg before baking if you like.

Heat oven to 200°C / 400°F / Gas mark 6 and, when it has warmed sufficiently, bake the buns in the centre of the oven for 20 minutes (check after 15m if your oven is on the hot side).

Remove from oven and cool on a wire tray.

If you want to try the dough as per the Guardian recipe, you can find it here:
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2014/may/22/how-to-bake-perfect-cinnamon-buns (the article also discusses various opinions and alternative recipes for making the best cinnamon buns).

The source of the dough recipe given above is lost in the mists of time and transmission, so apologies for failing to credit it.

Celeriac schnitzel

The Mammal was away recently on two separate trips, visiting friends and family. This brought, of course, the inestimable advantage of having lovely meals served up by charming hosts. This particular dish is one of those ones that sound rather improbable until actually tried: the trick here is to make sure that the celeriac is cooked until nice and soft, so that it becomes beautifully tender and sweet. When trying to reconstruct it without the recipe, we found it difficult to get the right level of sweetness using the pan alone (our hostess clearly had magic powers), so experimented by adding an extra stage of baking beforehand. This worked a treat.

Serves 2–6, depending on the size of the celeriac and on whether it is the main ingredient or a side helping.
Cooking and prep time: about 1h all told

Ingredients
1 large-ish celeriac
2 eggs, beaten
flour
breadcrumbs, seasoned with salt and pepper
oil for frying

Method
Pre-heat the oven to 180°C.

Peel the celeriac, and cut into rounds about half a centimeter thick. (It might actually be easier to cut he rounds first and then peel). Put the rounds on a tray and bake in the oven for 20–30 minutes.

Let the baked rounds cool slightly; dip in flour, then in beaten egg, and finally in breadcrumbs. Heat oil in a frying pan, and fry in batches until breadcrumbs are golden.

Serve with boiled veg, mash, salad or whatever takes your fancy.

Henry's Lyonnaise salad

SM 2002-01 p.51 [01.075.01]
Serves 2
Preparation / Cooking time: about 1h 20m all told
Sausages: Polish kabanos - could use spicy Italian smoked sausage instead
Lentils: Puy
Mustard: Dijon
Vinegar: Red wine

Orange creme caramel

SM 2002-02 p.93 [01.072.03]
Serves 6
Preparation / Cooking time: about 8h all told, incl. 4h in fridge

Salad of endive, lardons and herb omelette

SM 2002-02 p.90 [01.072.01]
Serves 6
Preparation / Cooking time: about 2h all told (incl minimum advance prep of dressing)

Ingredients
1 x 150g pack endive and radicchio salad, or 1 x 140g pack fresh'n'ready crispy green salad
1 x 130g pack pancetta cubetti
3 tablespoons snipped fresh chives
2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1 clove garlic, peeled and halved
1 heaped teaspoon Dijon mustard
juice of half a lemon
10 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
6 large eggs
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method
Make the dressing at least an hour in advance.

Crush one half of the garlic clove into a small bowl, add the mustard and lemon juice, and gradually beat in 5 tablespoons of the oil so that it emulsifies. Season with salt and pepper, and add 1 tablespoon of the snipped chives. Set aside.

Rub a salad bowl with the remaining half clove of garlic, and tip in the salad. Put 1 tablespoon of oil in a frying pan and cook the pancetta cubes until brown. Set aside.

Beat the eggs in a bowl with salt and pepper, the remaining 2 tablespoons of chives, and the parsley. In an 18cm (7in) frying pan, heat a little of the oil, then tip in just enough mixture to coat the bottom - as you would for a pancake. Cook, flip over (or turn out on a plate and slide back in). Cook the other side until pale golden. Turn out on a chopping-board. Repeat to make a total of 8 thin omelettes.

Dress the salad [presumably with the remaining oil, as it is not mentioned elsewhere - RH], then toss in the hot pancetta cubes (reheated in the pan), and divide between 6 plates. Put 4 omelettes on top of each other, roll up, then cut into thin rounds. Divide these between three plates. Repeat with the remaining omelettes. Serve straight away.

© Sainsbury's Magazine

Muscovado sugar meringues with lime cream and mangoes

SM 2002-02 p.60 [01.070.03]
Serves 6
Preparation / Cooking time: up to 5h all told [meringues bake for at least 4h]

Dense chocolate loaf cake

SM 2002-10 p.59 [01.070.01]
8-10 slices
Preparation / Cooking time: about 2h [incl cooling]

Lemon tart

SM 2002-02 pp.58–59 [01.069.02]
Serves 6–8
Preparation / Cooking time: about 3–4h all told
[advance prep: chill pastry; also needs to cool completely after baking]

A very chocolatey mousse

SM 2002-02 p.58 [01.069.01]
Serves 6
Preparation / Cooking time: about 3h all told (incl. chilling)

Banana bread

[02.025.01]
Preparation / Cooking time: about 1h 50m all told

This recipe was provided years ago by one of the Mammal's mothers; in the fullness of time, she managed to lose her copy so here you are, Ma—banana bread once more! Despite the name, it's actually really a cake rather than a bread, and is the ideal way to deal with those squishy, black bananas that you meant to eat but never got around to. According to the recipe, it tastes better if left for a day or two but it usually doesn't last long enough to enable a comparison to be made.

As usual, we have reduced the amount of sugar used, showing the original amount in square brackets: you would need a pretty sweet tooth to use the full amount, given the sweetness of the ripe bananas. There are three optional ingredients—raisins, glacé cherries, and walnuts: from the Mammal's point of view, it really benefits only from the inclusion of the walnuts.

One word of warning: though very straightforward, this is one of those cakes where you have to keep an eagle eye on the time, as the outside burns very quickly after even five minutes too long in the oven. If your oven tends to be a bit on the enthusiastic side, have a quick check 15 minutes before it is due to come out and keep a close eye on it thereafter.

Ingredients
8oz flour
1 tsp baking powder
half level tsp salt
4oz cold butter
4[6]oz caster sugar
*4oz sultanas / raisins [optional]
* 1oz chopped walnuts [optional]
*4oz chopped glacé cherries [optional]
2 eggs
1 lb very ripe bananas

9.5" x 5.5" baking tin

Method
– Pre-heat oven to Gas 4, 180°C, 375°F
– Sieve flour, baking powder and salt into a large mixing bowl
– Rub in butter
– Add sugar (and sultanas/raisins, walnuts, and cherries if required)
– Mash bananas with a fork
– Add eggs to bananas
– Mix the banana–egg mush well into the other ingredients
– Pour / spoon mixture into lined and greased baking tin
– Put in the centre of the oven and bake for 1h 30m

Turn out onto a wire tray to cool.

Basil French-toast sandwich with prosciutto, mozzarella and tomato

SM 2002-02 pp.74–75 [01.068.04]
Serves 2
Preparation / Cooking time: 20m

Sardine pasties

SM 2002-02 pp.70, 72 [01.067.02]
Serves 4
Preparation / Cooking time: 1h

Gevulde speculaas (Speculaas with rich almond stuffing)

A seasonal recipe, this, and typically Dutch. You can either go the whole hog and make the marzipan-filled version, or just make the speculaas dough to make rich, spicy biscuits.
"Speculaas or speculoos is one of the Dutch culinary specialties. It is a spiced biscuit, made with wooden forms or moulds. They are typically winterfood, and especially associated with the feast of 'Sint Nicolaas' or Saint Nicholas, the original Santa Claus. This feast is celebrated on 5 or 6 December. Speculaas is very old, the spices used date from medieval times."
The recipe comes from the Coquinaria website, which gives some background information as well and from which the above information was extracted.

Note: This is a cake / biscuit recipe, but it also works very well if you serve it hot with ice cream as a dessert. It makes a fair amount, so plenty to allow the best of both worlds!

Ingredients for speculaas dough
500 gram (4 1/4 cups) simple white flour
250 gram (1 cup) cold butter
250 gram (1 1/4 cup) sugar
2 eggs, stirred
1/2 decilitre (1/4 cup) cream
salt to taste (don't forget this, and be liberal, otherwise your speculaas will taste bland)
50 to 60 gram (1/4 cup) spices for speculaas*
grated skin of 2 untreated lemons
200 gram (2 cups) flaked almonds, broken in to little pieces (optional)
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
*This is a standard mix readily available in the Netherlands, but the website gives instructions for mixing it from scratch using powdered cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, white pepper, ginger and cardamom.

Ingredients for almond paste** [you can use ready-made marzipan if you want]
Ground almonds
Caster sugar
Icing sugar
Eggs
Almond essence
Vanilla essence
**Use a standard recipe for almond paste / marzipan; depending on how deep a filling you want, use somewhere between 300g and 500g of ground almonds and proportion the other ingredients accordingly.

Method
Go to the Coquinaria website at
http://www.coquinaria.nl/english/recipes/speculaas.htm

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