Perfect boiled eggs every time! The last tip for 2013. If you have been, thanks for following. Happy Christmas and a Peaceful New year

I absolutely guarantee that you will get a perfect bolied egg, even a boiled egg, with a set white and a runny yolk every time by following these few simple steps.

Requirements

Pan with lid

Egg(s)

Water 

Heat

Method

Put the egg(s) in the pan and cover them with cold water

Bring the water to the boil

Immediately the water boils remove the pan from the heat and cover it 

Set the timer for exactly three minutes, when the timer goes off remove the eggs and get them to the table as quickly as possible.

Eat immediately with buttered toast soldiers

Beetroot and Walnut Hummus - One for the Boxing Day Buffet.

First I must credit Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, one of the TV chefs I actually admire, as the inspiration for this recipe. You know him, he's the one with the scruffy hair, goggly stare, big specs - an intense almost evangelical approach to cooking and food. He's usually broadcasting outdoors from a muddy river bank or in a screaming rainy gale in the wilds of the Herefordshire countryside, wielding a wild mushroom and telling the viewers how to cook it with an even wilder squirrel!

No, stupid! Not the lovely late lamented "lets have a slurp" Keith Floyd, the poor chap died years ago, sadly; drunk and skint, but at least he had lived, rather too much I fear, RIP Keith!

My recipe has a more intense and distinctly Mediterranean feel about it than HFW's and NO bread in it. If you want bread, eat this dip with delicious home-made pitta bread!

Beetroot Hummus

Take a close look at the breakfast table in the picture, just above the croissants, you'll see a little white bowl and in it a "cyan" coloured dip.  Voila! Beetroot Hummus! It looks a bit lurid, but the flavour ...... yummy!

There's a funny story related to this picture.  It was taken illustrate the brunch offering in my guest apartment - look at www.ibizahomestay.com for more details (not yet though, I still need to revise it for 2014) well, you can if you like, but some of the text is out of date. I'll be keeping the 2014 tariff the same as 2013.

On with the tale.  A group of lovely Swedish girls came to visit and wanted a vegetarian brunch.  This is a picture of what I made for them.  Later that day I was having friends round and making a chicken and leek pie for them. As the smell of it reached the terrace, the girls wanted to know what I was cooking, so I told them - "Ooh, its smells so good" they said, "could we just have a little taste of the leeks and cheese Bechamel, please?"  No problem.  Then one of them scooped a bit of chicken up with her taste, by accident. "Mmmm, that's meat!" she said, "but not so bad!"  Then the rest of them dived in, liked it, started to giggle (by the way, there were no special Ibiza ingredients in it) and went off into a huddle.  So when I asked them what was making them laugh, they said "we have decided that from now on Chicken is officially a Swedish vegetable!"

Beetroot and Walnut Hummus

Ingredients

100g walnuts

1 tbsp cumin seeds

200g roasted beetroot coarsely chopped

1 tbsp tahini or more, to taste 

1 large garlic clove, crushed

Juice of one, or more lemons, to taste

sea salt, to taste

freshly ground black pepper, to taste

olive oil

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C

Wash the beetroot well to clean off any soil, do not peel or cut off anything other than a straggly root and the foliage, then rub well with olive oil, wrap in aluminium foil and roast at 180C on a middle shelf until tender. Usually about 45 minutes to an hour.

Allow the beetroots to cool, then peel and coarsely chop them

Sauteé the walnuts, stirring constantly, in a little olive oil in a heavy frying pan until they begin toast lightly and release their lovely aroma.  Take care they burn very easily

Toast the cumin for a few seconds in a hot pan then grind it, finely, in a pestle and mortar or spice grinder

Transfer the ground cumin, beetroot, tahini, garlic, half the lemon juice, a little salt and a grind or two of pepper to a food processor and blend to a thick paste. 

Taste the mixture and season it to your own taste with salt, pepper, more lemon juice and olive oil.

Eat with homemade, thin, warm pitta bread

End Note

Do not feed any leftovers to "Rover" or "Fido."  'Cos when you take him out for his early morning "business meeting" you may be inclined to rush him straight to the vet :-)  You have been warned!

Grandma's Pea and Ham soup and a rant!

One of my pet hates is the food produced on competitive TV cooking programmes, I'll be having a rant at the BBC, not just you, shortly!  The ingredients are expensive and extravagant; not even the most ardent home cook could either afford or find room for  the equipment used and the finished dishes are more worthy of the walls of the National Gallery than the table - edible art on a plate. Oh and whilst I'm at it, who the blazes wants to stare down John Torode's throat way past his tonsils as he chomps his way through "Lightly Roasted Pigs Nose and a hint of smoked cauliflower foam with an Owl turd jus!"  That's a job for his dentist, not TV viewers!  Let's get real, nourishing, inexpensive and hearty food is fun to make and healthy. 

Life wasn't always easy in the 20's and 30's when my grandparents were raising families in the north of England. In fact keeping body and soul together was top priority after getting a job and keeping it.  My Gran and Auntie Lizzie had a tough time raising dad and mum, but one thing is for sure, there was always a delicious meal on the table each night even if the ingredients cost next to nothing and would probably scare the pants off some of today's young mums and dads if you put them down on the kitchen worktop and said make something delicious from this!

Today's recipe harks back to those times and is still relevant to the tough times we're having today.

Ingredients

• Water 
• Dried marrowfat peas - 1 packet 250gm
• Pork Hock - 1
• Carrots - 4
• Onion - 1
• Bay leaves, to taste, I use three
• Salt, to your taste but wait until the soup is made before adding seasoning.

* Pork hock is a pigs knuckle joint, found below the ham, fore leg or hind, it doesn't really matter, above the 'trotter,' it has loads of meat, and when cooked releases lots of lovely rich sticky gelatine into your finished soup.   It is highly prized in Germany and much of Northern Europe. 

Method

Day one - evening

• Put the dried peas in a large bowl, big enough to allow the peas to expand to two or even three times their dry volume. Add a pinch of bicarbonate of soda if you have it. 
• Boil a full kettle of water scald the peas with it and leave overnight to soak.

Next day.

• Peel and chop the carrot into medium sized pieces, do the same with the onion.
• Drain the soak water from the peas and rinse them well with cold water in a colander under a running tap
• Wash the hock well in cold water
• Put the hock into the largest pan you have, scatter the peas and vegetables over it and cover the meat and vegetables with plenty of water.  Put the bay leaves on top
• Set the pan onto the hob and bring it gently to the boil.

• Skim and discard any scum from the top of the cooking liquor as the water boils.
• Once the liquor boils put a lid on the pan and turn down the heat to a rolling simmer.
• Then wait for as much as four hours for the peas and meat to cook!  Slow cooking releases and combines all the delicious flavours of the ingredients. 
• When you are happy that everything is cooked, remove the lid from the pan and take out the hock. Set it aside on a chopping board and gently remove the bones, fat and skin.  If you have pets, they'll love the trimmings!  
• Remove the bay leaves.
• Break the pork into bite sized pieces and put it back into the pan, then decide what consistency you want the soup to be.  I like mine quite thick, so I reduce the contents of the pan until the soup is the consistency of loose porridge.  Your choice.
• Check the seasoning and add salt or a chicken stock cube to your own taste.

Finally

For a main course serve a generous portion in large bowls, making sure that each serving contains chunks of pork.  Eat and enjoy your soup with warm crusty bread.

As an h'ors d'oeuvre serve rather less, but still expect to be asked for "seconds."

This soup keeps well in the fridge for several days - put it in a suitable covered plastic container then heat it up as you want it.  To store it for longer, put portions in the freezer in airtight zip-lock bags.

Spuds (potatoes to non Brits) a classic crafty tip!

Billy's Birthday Potatoes

It's my dear chum "Farmer Bill's" birthday in November and as usual I let myself be conned into cooking his birthday dinner, for around fourteen people. "I don't care what you make" he said, "but I want a lot of potatoes with it". Bill, you see, grew spuds for most of his farming life, support the old firm I suppose.

"Ok" I said "go and get some for me" which he did and must have come back with 25kg or more, full of soil straight from his brother's field. Almost as much muck as potato!

How the blazes am I going to clean them and get dinner ready on time I thought to myself? Then as I was heaving the sack through the utility room beside the back door, came the brainwave. Why not heave them straight into the washing machine?  Yes why not?  I did and it worked.

Make sure there are no dirty (or clean for that matter) underpants lurking inside, load the drum with the potatoes, set the programme to cold wash and high speed spin, then voila!  In about twenty minutes you'll have a machine full of polished potatoes ready to cook, roast, boil or bake!

"ELF and SAFETY WARNING!" DO NOT put washing powder or fabric conditioner in the machine.

Oh and another thing. It's such a drag peeling tons of spuds, so if you have one of those frenchy, cheffy, windyroundy apple peeling machines, use it to peel your potatoes. You get a nice furrowed finish and a long tail of potato peel. Then deal with the result as you like and for the super frugal, you can deep fry the skin you peel off as a fancy garnish or curly whirlysnack!

Cooking from the heart for the belly. Not the other way around! Food for everyday food for fun, food for families and food for friends

I've been asked, cajoled, persuaded and finally I've given in by popular demand. "Carl's Crafty Kitchen" occasional blog begins today.

My aim is to pass on my love of cooking and good "ground up," home made food prepared from fresh ingredients.  The only time you'll see 'shop bought' ingredients is when they're as good as or better than what can be bought in the markets, for example some kinds of frozen vegetables or some canned products where the natural thing may not be available in your neck of the woods.

I'll try to post tips, original ideas and recipes that have either come my way, I've invented or modified sufficiently significantly to be able to call them my own.

Here goes, first off. "The Wickedest Nuttiest Tart in the World"

 

Eat your heart out American cousins this knocks spots off pecan pie, and that's good for sure, but try the Ibicenco version and you'll never go back to 'ornery' pecan pie.

 

 

Part 1

 

Make a pate brisee (sugar short crust pastry) first, as follows.

 

Sift 350gm good quality plain flour into a cold bowl then add a half teaspoon of salt

Sift 50gm icing sugar on top of the flour

Chop up 200gm unsalted butter (straight from the fridge) into dice sized cubes and add to the flour

Tip the contents of the bowl into a food processor and blitz the mixture (but not for too long it must stay cold) until it has the appearance of breadcrumbs.
Return the mixture to the cold bowl and make a well in the middle. 
Pour very small quantity of iced water, at first maybe 100ml, into the well.
Using three fingers of one hand (wash hands first) stir the flour mix and water together adding iced water a very little at a time until the mix binds together.  There should be none of the floury mixture sticking to the sides of the bowl by now.
Remove the dough, which should have the consistency of stiff putty, from the bowl and kneed very gently and quickly into a ball.
Wrap the dough in cling film and leave it to rest in the fridge for at least half an hour, an hour is even better.

Part 2

Blind bake the tart case

For people who may not be familiar with blind baking, it doesn't mean that you should do it with your eyes shut!  Rather the opposite.

You'll need a well buttered 28cm loose bottomed tart tin for this part of the show, some dried peas or beans that you'll have had lying around unused in the store cupboard for ages, cling film and aluminium foil.

First pre heat the oven to 200C
Then cover a part of your kitchen worktop with cling film, and dust it with flour
Take the pastry ball from the fridge, roll it in the flour and then press it out into a rough circle.
Roll the pastry with a floured rolling pin into a circle until it stands proud of the edges of the tart tin by three or four centimetres or a bit more. 
Gently invert the tart tin and place it lightly on to the pastry circle so as not to cut into the dough.
Now comes the tricky bit.  Put one hand between the cling film and the work surface with the other lightly holding the tart tin in place, flip the tin over so that the circle of dough flops into the tin leaving some of the pastry overlapping the edges.  Don't trim the excess yet, the pastry will shrink during cooking and there'll not be enough room for the filling!
Tuck the pastry gently into the corners of the tin and breathe a sigh of relief!  You've done it.
If you don't quite get it right, don't worry.  Moisten any broken edges with cold water and press them together.  Nobody will see when they're tucking in to the pie!
Prick the base of the tart well and layer it with aluminium foil
Pour over a good layer of dried peas, beans or baking balls.  These are to stop the pie base rising up during cooking
Put the tart tin in the oven and immediately lower the heat to 180 C.  This is to give the pastry a good blast of heat to first set it, then a slower more gentle bake to cook it through.
Ovens vary, so you'll have to be a judge of cooking time.  I first bake my pastry for 15 minutes with the baking beans in, then I lift out the aluminium foil containing the beans and continue cooking until the base shows no sign of being soggy.  Keep an eye on the cooking pastry case because it has sugar in it, you don't want it to burn.  Overall, the blind baked pastry case should be a very pale golden colour.
Take the tin out of the oven and get ready to load it with goodies!
 

Part 3

Make the nutty filling

Ingredients

200gm lightly smashed walnuts
100gm lightly smashed macadamia nuts
150gm whole, unsalted pistachio nuts
1 tin Lyle's Golden Syrup or equivalent
150gm butter
100gm moist natural brown sugar
3 eggs
150gm ground almonds

Part 4 Cook

Method

Set he oven to 160 C

Put all the nuts, brown sugar, golden syrup and butter into a pan, then gradually raise the heat stirring constantly until the mixture bubbles to a gentle boil.  Cook for a minute or so until you begin to feel the mixture thicken slightly, don't let it burn, if you do its an expensive mistake, then set it aside to cool.  This might take a while, but if you're in a rush pour it into a clean shallow roasting tin.

While the nutty mixture is cooling beat three eggs well, best with an electric whizzer and add the ground almonds.
Fold the eggs and ground almonds together
When the nut mixture is cool, you know when this is right because you can stick your finger into it for a taste without getting burned
In a clean bowl add the eggy almond mixture to the nutty mixture, stirring all the time to make sure the eggs don't cook in the process.
Now at last its time to load the tart
Pour the blended mixture into the blind baked pastry tart case until it reaches a few millimetres below the edge.  You need this head room to allow the filling to rise a little
Lightly cover the filled tart with aluminium foil and put it into the oven on a lower middle shelf for about 35 minutes
After 30 minutes or so check how its getting along.  It should have started to rise and have become drier with a hint of a 'browny' crust.  Now use your judgement (a word you don't often read in recipe books) for the next bit.
Take off the aluminium foil and continue cooking until you are satisfied that the filling is cooked through and the top isn't burned. You can test for the filling being cooked by lightly touching the top of the filling.  If its soggy and  wobbles cook it some more if its firm to the touch it is cooked.

Take the tart from the oven and set it aside to cool.  Wait at least 30 minutes until you attempt to unmould it.  The filling and pastry need time to cool, set and firm up.  When you're satisfied, first trim the tart edges to shape with a sharp knife before unmoulding it
Then place one hand on the removable base and allow the side of the tin to fall away gently.  put the tart on a wooden board to cool further until you're ready to serve it.

Voila!  You have the richest, nuttiest Tart in the world

Serve in smallish slices, with, best of all, chilled mascarpone. Its too rich to eat a lot at once unless you're a racing cyclist n the Tour de France on a high energy sugar diet.