food geek

it’s pancake tuesday!

~ maireaddoyle ~ 1 Comment

>The day before Lent begins means a stack of pancakes for lunch and more after dinner. Or that was how it was when I was a child.

I would come home from school for lunch and Mum would have made a big stack of pancakes, frying-pan sized, made from freshly-mixed homemade batter. Simple: flour, eggs, milk, beaten until smooth then poured into a frying pan spoonful by spoonful.

The first one was always less than average. The frying pan was never hot enough, and the skill of pouring just exactly enough batter to make a thin pancake forgotten since last year. The second one was always better.

A perfect pancake was extra-thin, it filled the whole frying pan and it was cooked just long enough to give it dark brown grooves of caramelised loveliness on each side.

There was no messing about with exotic toppings in our house. This was a pre-Lent ritual, designed to get all the flour, eggs, sugar and butter used up before the fasting began. Each pancake would be spread with butter, sprinkled with a liberal amount of sugar and finished off with a good squirt of lemon juice. The three toppings would mingle into a sweet-and-sour liquid of perfect viscosity.

Mum always stacked the pancakes one by one, topped individually as described above, then when the whole stack was done she would slice them into wedges like a cake. Personally I always preferred to eat my pancakes whole, rolled up, with butter, sugar and lemon juice added fresh each time. This is how I do it myself when I make pancakes in my own house.

Anybody else doing Pancake Tuesday? Anybody got any other family rituals you want to share?

bajan sweet bread

~ maireaddoyle ~ Leave a comment

>This is a lovely cake/bread from Barbados.

Ingredients

125g butter
1/2 teasp coconut essence
1 cup caster sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup coconut
1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
300g sour cream
1/3 cup milk

Method

Grease a deep 23cm round cake tin.
Cream butter, essence, and sugar in a small bowl until light and fluffy.
Beat in eggs one at a time until combined.
Transfer to large bowl.
Stir in half the coconut and sifted flour with half the sour cream and milk.
Then stir in remaining ingredients. Stir until smooth.
Pour into cake tin.
Bake in moderate oven for 1 hour.
Stand five minutes before turning onto wire rack.

five memorable meals – are you in?

~ maireaddoyle ~ 1 Comment

>At dinner a few weeks ago with Sam, Amanda and Mena, our conversation revolved around food and its significance in our lives. We recalled memorable meals with family or friends, favourite restaurants, unusual or particularly good food in far-flung places when travelling.

Our conversation sparked further thoughts in my head about how food has such a strong place in our memories, connecting us with significant events, people or moments in our lives.

So I would like you to have a think about the five (or so) most memorable meals you have had in your life, and why you think they hold such a special place in your memory. It could be a simple rustic lunch of bread and cheese on a park bench on the side of the road in France, or your first Michelin-starred dinner as a proper grown-up. It could be alone when travelling on business, or in the heart of your family at Christmas or on a birthday. It could be home-cooked, shop-bought or served in an eatery. The link is its significance to you.

I think the trick might be not to think too much about it. What are the first images (or aromas, or tastes) that go through your head when you think about this? These are probably the places to start.

I shall deliberate upon my own list this week and share with you here on this blog. In the meantime have a think about your list, then either write a post on your own blog, or a note on your Facebook page, and make sure you share a link with me so I can collate all the responses. Or email me if you wish and I can add your list to my blog.

Just jot down a few words about when and where the meal took place, who you were with (if anybody), what you ate (which can be in detail or very brief, depending on how you are remembering it) and why you think this particular event is so memorable to you. Be as brief or as lengthy as you can: it’s the stories you are telling that I am interested in.

Begin!

healthy lunch

~ maireaddoyle ~ 1 Comment

>

Three Ryvita multigrain.
A helping of smoked salmon on each – about 75g in total.
Topped with cottage cheese – again about 75g in total.
Garnished with cherry tomatoes cut into quarters and plenty of black pepper.
This is my current favourite lunch – and at only 4.5 points for the lot, it’s a healthy one too.

making patties

~ maireaddoyle ~ Leave a comment

>We set up a pattie-making factory one hot afternoon, Eric, Orlando and I. We had been hankering for a proper West Indian pattie for a while and Eric was the resident expert. We would have liked saltfish patties but the salted cod here takes far too long to prepare – a full weekend for one side of salted cod. So we went with beef instead.

First, Orlando set about cooking the beef filling. He browned a large chopped onion, then added 800g of heart-smart minced beef, four large chillies (two red and two green) finely chopped, a decent dollop of old-fashioned curry powder and some Indian meat masala. When the meat was brown he added four medium potatoes which had been cooked, cooled and diced beforehand.

About a cup of beef stock was added to make the mixture moist, then about the same again of breadcrumbs to make sure the mixture bound enough for us to fill the patties.

Actually, we didn’t have breadcrumbs so we used cornflake crumbs instead – which I think worked better.
Meanwhile I coloured the pastry by painting it with turmeric, then rolled out the sheets and cut out large circular shapes using a breakfast bowl. I kept all the offcuts and Orlando insisted he would not waste a bit. He persevered, and from the scraps of five pastry sheets he got an extra size cutouts plus one tiny piece we made into a party pie. Then the factory line began.
Orlando placed a dessertspoonful of the beef mixture onto the pastry round. I wet the edge with water, folded it over and used a fork to seal the edges into a half moon shape.
Then once we had a full tray ready, Orlando brushed the top of with a beaten egg to glaze them. Not too many in a tray – we didn’t want to crowd them. Then into the oven at 200C for about half an hour.
The results were splendid: 26 perfectly golden, sturdily made patties with a rich beef filling with just enough bite to them. We ate two each on the spot (just to make sure they were ok).
Now we know how long it takes, and we have had a bit of practice, there is no stopping us. Two hours in the kitchen makes over two dozen patties. Only problem is, they take less time than that to polish them all off…