Making My Wedding Cake Part 1

Never one to do things by half, I am actually having 2 weddings this year.  The official legal stuff is happening in Blackpool (where my Grandma lives) at the end of August and then it's off to Spain for the ceremony and breakfast at the beginning of September.

The original plan was to have one wedding cake, this would be for the Spanish event.  But two factors have brought us to the decision that we should also have a cake in Blackpool.  Firstly, my Grandma is unaware of the wedding in Spain and the wedding in Blackpool is as much for her as it is for us, so should mirror a normal wedding as much as possible.  I shall have a dress, Dave will have a chance to wear his kilt (because it will be too hot in Spain for the kilt), we're having a small party afterwards and now we're having a cake!

Secondly, Spanish cake is quite different to British cake.  In Spain, the cakes are sopping with syrup or booze and come served with fresh fruit and cream.  There are, of course, British cake-makers living in Spain, though unfortunately not close enough for us.  We were, however, lucky enough to find a Spanish-American lady who makes the beautiful tiered wedding cakes that we love, but she is not au fait with the traditional fruit cake.  Therefore, to have the kind of wedding cake that you can freeze until the birth of your first born, we need to make it ourselves.

For our fruit cake, I used a great Waitrose recipe that I've used for a number of Christmases now.  It is always moist, packed full of truit and tastes fantastic.  But, you have to start early because it regular feeding with booze.  In fact, when I get back from the wedding in Spain I shall probably need to start the Christmas cake!

The recipe calls for the cake to be fed every few weeks with Drambuie.  I have chosen to feed mine with Amaretto.  It's my wedding, I can do what I want!  I intend to spread cherry jam on the cake before icing it to achieve a cherry-almond flavour, which is a delicious combination.

The next challenge will be decorating the cakes (with the help of one of my many cook books!)  But I won't have to do that until a few days before the August wedding - because I like to make things easy for myself.

Meatballs: Albondigas, Almondegas and Koftas

The first time I tasted a meatball was at school in Spain.  Ironically, the meatballs were not actually Spanish albondigas (with a b), but Portuguese almondegas (with an m).

My brother, Tim,  and I went to a very small American international primary school (there were 4 people in my class).  One year we were set a project to write a report on a particular country each and this culminated in a presentation.  Tim had chosen to learn about Portugal and, as part of his presentation, wanted to serve national cuisine.

Mum has this amazing set of Reader's Digest cookery encyclopedias, which I believe was built up letter by letter over (I assume) 26 months.  The set contains recipes as well as being a resource in the traditional encyclopedic style.  If you were to look up a country, the books gave recipes for 2-3 traditional dishes for you to try, one of which under Portugal was the almondegas that Tim chose.  As with most Iberian dishes, the ingredients are few, but the flavours are full.  Other than minced beef, tomatoes, onions and garlic, I believe that the only other seasoning it called for was oregano.

As part of my Challenge, I revisited Iberian meatballs in the form of Spanish albondigas from my Tapas Cookbook.  This recipe called for lamb, but was made in a similar way to the Portuguese almondegas.  The meatball mixture contained minced lamb, breadcrumbs, eggs, garlic, nutmeg and seasoning.  The sauce contained onions, green peppers tomatoes and garlic.

As the base for my sauce started to cook, it occurred to me that I should reevaluate my disparaging attitude towards what I saw as the sweet red pepper's poorer cousin.  As the aroma of cooked green peppers filled the kitchen, I was suddenly transported back to a small tapas bar in a village near our home in Murcia, and I decided it would, in fact, be Spanish food that would be the poorer without the bitter balance that the green pepper offers.

While I am talking about the Tapas Cookbook I thoroughly recommend this book on the strength of one recipe alone.  The 'pinchitos morunos' (small Moorish kebabs) are happily authentic and very popular at summer BBQs.  When we lived in Andalucia, the summers were full of 'ferias', progressing through the villages.  Local flamenco competitions, live music, the ubiquitous fairground rides and games, and food stalls.  A particular favourite of mine was the open grills at which north Africans would cook rows of 3 inch kebabs, turning them 10 at a time, with the smell of garlic and warm spices filling the night air.

Pinchitos Morunos on the Griddle
I appreciate the irony of the only food picture in this piece on meatballs being of kebabs - what can you do?!

Back to my meatballs...

Both the recipe from this book and the Portuguese recipe from 20 years ago followed the same technique for cooking the meatballs.  First make your meatball mixture.  Breadcrumbs are vitally important in ensuring the balls hold together, and don't forget to season the meat as well as the sauce.  Form the meat into balls, roll in flour (which will also help to thicken the sauce), and set aside, ready to cook.  It takes longer than you think to make about 30 meatballs from 1kg of meat, so it is best to do it in advance, otherwise your sauce is likely to burn while you're still making spheres between the palms of your hands.

Soften the onion and pepper in the pan, then add the meatballs, and brown on all sides.  When this is done, add the tomatoes, tomato puree, garlic, stock, red wine and seasoning, and then simmer for 40 minutes.  The albondigas will be melt-in-your-mouth and the sauce will be thick and rich.  Serve 2-3 meatballs as a tapa with a hunk of bread to mop up the sauce.

You'll find, particularly with lamb-based meatballs, that this way of cooking meatballs can make a fatty sauce.  While fat does mean flavour, if you want to be healthy, you can bake the meatballs in the oven, allowing the fat to run off before you add the balls to the sauce.  With lamb koftas, as the meat has a strong flavour to start with, this does not undermine the dish at all.

The final recipe that I would recommend for meatballs is a low-fat Greek-style kofta, cooked precisely in this way.  I discovered it in my pink 'Cook Yourself Thin' book (which you will remember from The Trial of a Tiny Fridge).  The meatball mixture is made up of minced lamb, fat-free Greek yoghurt, cumin, ginger, chilli and chopped cooked spinach.  It is key to squeeze all of the water out of the cooked spinach before adding it to the mixture, but be careful to wait for it to cool down so that you don't burn your fingers!

Once the koftas have been baked, add them to a tomato sauce that you've been cooking down and serve with a fresh salad, rice or pasta.  While this is meant to be a skinny recipe, I would hazard that a bit of feta would be lovely in these koftas!

So far I have cooked Spanish, Portuguese and Greek meatballs.  But across Europe each country seems to have its own national recipe.  I shall have to work myself across the continent, trying out Swedish meatballs with gravy, deep fried Polish meatballs, big fat Italian meatballs in soup or Finish reindeer meatballs with jam and pickled cucumber.  I shall keep you posted!

From Blackpool to Bondi

As it is Father's Day this weekend, it seemed only fitting to tell you all about my Dad and his evolution from a meat-and-two-veg northerner, to a card-carrying connoisseur of international cuisine.  In fact, such was the fervour of his development that he even managed to bring my Grandma and Grandpa along with him.  Grandma's eating out treat is always Chinese (or Thai - she's not quite that discerning!) and Grandpa moved on leaps and bounds from the days where he turned his nose up at Camel steaks.

The stages of my father's progression can be measured by reference to how he has liked his steak cooked.  When I was really young he would only eat a steak if it was a dreary well-done.  He has since learned that this is a sure way to waste a good piece of meat.  Mum worked hard on him at the beginning and got him down to medium-well and he himself made the last few steps to medium-rare.  He's not quite on the same page as the rest of the family, who prefer our steaks mooing, but he is not shy of carpaccio or steak tartare, indicating that medium-rare is an informed choice and not something he has been bull-ied into (Ha ha!! A pun!).

Mum has told me some classic stories from the early years.  Like the time he tried to woo her with corned beef hash made from gelatinous tinned corned beef, baked beans and an onion.  Luckily for me and my brother, mum forgave him this inexperienced attempt to impress.

Dad also naively fell for a colleague's 'magic' cheese on toast recipe.  The principle was that you grilled one side of the bread, flipped it over, put the tomato on the bread, followed by cheese, then turned the grill off.  This 'magically' gave you the perfect cheese and tomato on toast, with slow cooked tomatoes and perfectly melted cheese.

Of course, experience tells us that a turned-off grill is never going to melt cheese.  What his colleague actually did was sneak back into the kitchen and turn the grill on again to finish the toast off.  So when Dad, not having been let in on the joke, tried to make 'magic' cheese on toast for some friends, he presented them with half cooked bread, cold tomatoes and sweaty cheese.

Things started to change when we moved to Spain, where an appreciation of good food vanquished his traditional British sensitivities.  At first, he was reluctant to order fish for fear it would be served with its head still on and he was horrified by chipirones (a tangle of tiny baby squid legs).  But, within no time, he was ordering whole fish baked in salt and tearing heads off prawns.  Now his favourite dinner is sushi and together Dad and I have tried kangeroo in Australia, king crab in Malaysia, oysters in Scotland and, unfortunately, grits in America.


As well as exploring food around the world, Dad is a keen cook.  So much so that he has actually become quite possessive of the kitchen!  We have traced this enthusiasm back to a book Dad had bought called Dinner with Juliet.  Of course, the beautiful, blonde Juliet Lawrence Wilson on the front cover will have had nothing to do with it!  Instead it was the impressive duck and beef recipes from Juliet's Stockbridge Restaurant in Edinburgh that sparked his interest.

Dad's signature dishes include pork in a whisky cream sauce, tilapia baked with a  herb crust and, of course, our traditional kedgeree breakfast on Christmas morning.  He is also fond of trios (or triages as he calls them - though they rarely are!)  For example, a trio of salmon will often include smoked salmon, salmon tartare with a mango and tomato salsa, and salmon poached in orange juice with an orange mayonnaise.

And anyone who has come over for dinner will tell you that Dad makes a killer cocktail.  From Martinis to Cosmopolitans, and Brandy Alexanders to Egg Nog at Christmas, Dad makes them all!  Most recently he introduced me to a sake, ponzu and chopped spring onion cocktail with a prawn garnish.  An odd combination, but really delicious!

As inevitably happens 3 times a year, I am stuck with the question of what to get for a man who has everything for Father's Day.  But this year, in recognition of his culinary progress, I've picked a cookery book for him: the Pitt Cue Co Cookbook.  Living in America, Dad is experiencing BBQ big time - I even sent him to the BBQ festival in Atlanta for his birthday last year.  This book is full of British-style BBQ recipes and cocktails to match.  The Pitt Cue Co restaurant itself seems to be very mysterious - they are too small to take reservations; serve BBQ, Bourbon and Beer in Soho; and facebook tells me that they try harder every day.  But there are rave reviews for the food and cocktails at the restaurant and also for the book itself.  Seems like a winner!!  Happy Father's Day Dad!

Quite Interesting Facts About Fruit

It has occurred to me that, if I am not careful, my Challenge posts will simply become a record of my weekly meals.  While I am sure some nutritionist somewhere will be thrilled to read such a detailed journal, and centuries from now historians may hold it up as an exquisite insight into the early 21st century diet, I am quite confidant that my readership (at least those who I want to be reading my blog) are not in the least bit interested.

I am therefore adopting a slightly new approach to my blog and have decided to make sure I apply a liberal helping of anecdote within and as well as my Challenge posts.  Starting with this piece about fruit.

This adapted approach to my blog coincided with an interesting fact that I learned about tomatoes last week.  Couple that with another interesting thing that I know about pineapples and the fact that last week's Challenge recipe involved oranges, fruit was really the obvious choice.

A Quite Interesting Fact About Tomatoes

Ever since my first science project at school on 'botanist fruits' I have been able to declare with confidence that a tomato is a fruit. In overly simplistic terms, this is because tomatoes have seeds, and seeds are what differentiate a fruit from a vegetable.  So are other 'vegetables' like courgettes (zucchinis for my American friends), which wikipedia tells me are "the swollen ovary of the zucchini flower."

I have since discovered, however, that there is another twist in this tale of scientific classification, which is the legal position of the tomato.  (This is where I become particularly pleased with myself because I am meant to be revising for my law exams and I have managed to combine blogging with revision - albeit nothing that I will be examined on.)

In 1893, the United States Supreme Court confirmed, contrary to science, that a tomato was a vegetable (Nix v Hedden).  The reason for the decision centred around the fact that tomatoes are more often used as a main course than a dessert.  Considering we often have fruit in main courses (see my previous post relating to orange-glazed duck breast) and vegetables in our desserts (see Martha Stewart's Sweet Potato Chocolate Cake), the reasoning seems somewhat outdated.

But, as with all things, it came down to money.  The reason why the classification was so important was that, at the time, tax was payable on imported vegetables not fruit.  Very much like the Jaffa Cake saga of 1991 when the Jaffa Cake was classed as a cake and therefore not liable for VAT.  Apparently, the Jaffa cake was assessed on 11 different criteria, including its consistency when stale and its attractiveness to children.

It is comforting to know that my future career and my gastronomic enthusiasm have realms over overlap!

A Quite Interesting Fact About Pineapples

Going back to my original point about identifying fruit from the presence of seeds, it struck me one day that I had never seen a pineapple seed, and I started to panic.  Could it be that the botanists are wrong?  Or is a pineapple in fact a vegetable?

I need not have worried.  Pineapples do, indeed, have seeds.  But we have never seen them because the pineapples with seeds allegedly don't taste as good as the seedless ones.  Much like grapes, I suppose - although seedless grapes are more about convenience than taste.

In carrying out my research I learned that a pineapple is a 'multiple fruit' and is actually a collection of berries.  So each of those wee knobbly bits on a pineapple is an individual piece of fruit.  I also discovered that the scientific word for pineapple, 'ananas', comes from the Tupi word nanas meaning excellent fruit - which is very fitting, and I think quite interesting!

And there we have it.  2 quite interesting facts about fruit.

Washing Up - The Sign Of A Cook That Cares

As it is meant to be bordering on summer, I flicked through my Marks & Spencer 'Easy Summer Food' for a suitably anticipatory supper and the subject of my next Challenge task.  This book is full of simple ideas for sunny days (paraphrased from the front cover) - over 100 recipes to be precise.  I would have found you a picture and link, but it seems the book is no longer on sale...  Which is a shame, because it really is full of good ideas.

Anyway, back to the Challenge...

Treating myself, I picked a duck breast recipe.  Whenever I have duck, I'm usually so excited about that decadent crispy skin and soft pink meat, that I can't bear to have it any other way than au naturale - i.e. sauce-less.  The book, however, called for a refreshing summer glaze of freshly squeezed orange juice, Chinese 5 spice, maple syrup and soy sauce.  And I can confidently say it was worth the deviation from my norm!  The balance of the flavours in the glaze was perfect and it was a lovely complement to the duck.

It was really very simple.  I mixed the ingredients for the glaze together, slashed the skin on the duck breasts and put them in the sauce, leaving them to marinate.  Later, I removed the breasts from the marinade, pan fried them skin-side down and then popped them in the oven for 5 minutes with the glaze.  I let the meat rest while reducing the sauce.  When we were ready to go, I served it all with steamed green vegetables.

Dinner was delicious, but there is one thing that I would change, and it has nothing to do with the recipe.  The thing I would change is more fundamental to me as a cook and that is the conditioning I have undergone to use fewer pans.

Dave does the washing up in the house, and over the years little comments here and there about the number of utensils and pots that I use have honed me into an efficient cook.  However, one of Michel Roux Jr's tips to his potential proteges this week has reminded me that a chef should use as many pans as they need to create the perfect dish.

In this case, by being efficient with my pots, I added my glaze directly to the pan in which I had been frying my duck breasts.  This meant it was full of rendered duck fat and I was therefore unable to reduce it down as I should have.  If I had removed the duck breast to a new pan (as the recipe instructed), then poured over the glaze before roasting, the resulting sauce would have been a million times better.

I shall need to add a picture to my kitchen wall of inspiration to remind myself that a big washing-up pile is a sign of a superior cook that cares!

Picture Adapted from The Radio Times