My Luxurious Walnut and Apricot Tart is a variation on a classic Scottish Ecclefechan Tart. Its quite indulgent, yet easy to make. The addition of vinegar in the filling may seem a little strange, yet it is the perfect foil for the richness of the butter and sugar custard the holds the tart together.
The Expresso Crème Caramels combine creamy sweetness with a touch of bitterness from perfectly cooked caramel. This dish tests cooking skills while allowing for stress-free preparation ahead of time. Key ingredients include espresso, sugar, milk, cream, and eggs, with careful steps needed for making caramel and custard to achieve a delightful dessert.
These Garlic and Za’atar Knots are a tear and come again treat. Perfect for a get together and irresistible after the first bite. When you think of feta cheese, a Greek salad of filo pastry pie might come to mind. But I bet you didn’t think it could become a dip!
The saltiness of the cheese combined with the freshness of yoghurt and mint is sensational. And a perfect foil for the zip of warm garlic bread.
And of course, if you’re not in the need of party food, the rolls (minus the garlic) make a very acceptable addition to any dinner party.
Sift the flour into the mixing bowl, then mix in the yeast, dried garlic powder, and Za’atar.
Measure the water into a jug, then add the salt, and olive oil to the jug. Turn on the mixer then give the contents of the jug a quick whisk. Add the contents of the jug to the mixer to form a dough, then leave the mixer to knead the dough for five to six minutes.
When you think the dough is ready, stop the machine and pull off a little dough with your fingers. Give the dough a pull apart, it should be elastic and stretchy. If it breaks apart give the dough another few minutes’ mixing on the machine.
When the dough is ready, transfer it to a lightly oil bowl, cover with clingfilm and leave in a warm place to prove.
As the dough takes a little time to prove, we can make the Feta cheese dip. A food processor gives the best results, but it is possible to use the mixer with the whisk attached.
Break the cheese up into the machine, and add the yoghurt, and grated lemon zest. Turn the machine on as the cheese breaks up slowly drizzle in the olive oil. Keep running the machine until you have a smooth, light, creamy mix.
When the dough has doubled in size, tip it out of the bowl onto the work surface. Using the palm of your hand punch the dough to knock out the gasses. Then lightly knead the dough two or three times. This will re-distribute the yeast in the dough and improve the final result.
Roll the dough into a sausage, then divide it into 15 equal pieces.
Take the first piece of dough and roll it out with your hands to a rope about 200mm long. Form an overhand knot with the dough, tucking the ends underneath the knot. Place the finished knot on a lined baking tray. Then repeat this with all the pieces of dough keeping them well separated to allow for expansion. You will need the second tray to fit them all on.
Cover the trays loosely with cling film and leave the knots to prove until double in size again.
While the knots are proving make up the garlic butter. Melt the butter over a low heat and stir in the crushed garlic and Za’atar.
When the knots are proved, lightly brush them over with the garlic butter then pop them into a 200˚c oven (180˚c fan) for 20 minutes.
When they come out of the oven give the knots another brushing over with the garlic butter. Sprinkle the rolls with grated parmesan cheese and a little flaky sea salt and allow to cool a little.
If you have made the dip some time before it will have firmed up in the fridge. Give it a minute or so beating and it will return to its original consistency.
Spoon the dip onto a flattish serving dish, running the back of a spoon around the top to form ripples. Drizzle some olive oil over the top and sprinkle with some toasted pine kernels and chopped mint. Arrange the warm knots around the dip and serve.
Serving the Feta in a shallow dish like this will make it easier for your guests to pick up the dip with the knots.
Za’atar is a spice mix found in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean cooking. Its commonly made with herbs, sesame seeds, Sumac and salt. It can be used as a seasoning or with olive oil as a dip.
Enjoy Life!
John.
Hi, my name is John Webber, award winning chef and tutor, now retired to the west coast of Scotland. Welcome to our blog focusing on food, cooking, and countryside. My aim is to pass on my years of skills and knowledge together with an appreciation of the countryside.
Join us to experience the beauty of the west coast, cook some great food and be at ease in the kitchen.
Join The ‘Westcoaster Newsletter.
Sign up to our newsletter to receive regular updates of what’s new and upcoming at ‘The Westcoaster.’
© Copywrite, John Webber. 2024
Make a Christmas Stollen this year and forgo the heavy Christmas cake!
The Stollen, is a German fruit bread made with yeast, and contains dried fruits, candied citrus peel, nuts and spices. Traditionary marzipan is folded into the dough before baking. If that’s not to your taste, it can easily be left out of the recipe.
Serve these Christmas Pudding Souffles to you guests and you will instantaneously be seen as a culinary genius. People are always impressed by a served a souffle, in fact they are a lot easier than people imagine.
Harissa Paste is a condiment originating from Tunisia and one of those flavours that once tasted, you become hooked on. If you like spicy, rich flavours, then this is a must-have ingredient in your kitchen. Its tones of fragrant spices, together with the kick of chilli, place it firmly in my top 12 store cupboard ingredients. This recipe uses peppers as well as chilli to make a more refined, smother paste than all chilli versions.
Most people will be familiar with Harissa stirred though cous-cous, but its uses stretch far beyond that. It makes a great marinade for meat or fish, particularly for the barbeque. Try a spoonful in a tomato sauce or a lamb stew, or simply stir it into some mayonnaise to make a summertime picnic dressing. The ubiquitous Prawn Cocktail can be given a sneaky edge with a little Harissa mixed into the sauce before adding the prawns.
A great cheat is to add it to a shop bought item like Coleslaw or Hummus. Your guest will assume you have been busy in the kitchen all day. Just remember to hide the containers or the game will be up!
Beware though, once you start using harissa it becomes additive. The good news is that it freezes well so you can always have it on hand. Its one of my Top 12 Seasonings, see the rest of them HERE.
Let me explain this with a short story. Some years ago, when perfecting the recipe, I thought it would be a clever idea to buy a ready – made version to compare the flavours. So, we when to a supermarket and bought a well-known leading brand of harissa and performed a taste test.
Well, putting it simply, the bought version was flat and lacked any of the characteristics of a good harissa. Been a bit puzzled I checked out the ingredients list on the container, and what do you think was the main ingredient? Peppers? Chilli? Even tomato? No, it was carrots!
I think today things might have improved, but it’s still better to make your own. You have the ability to tune the recipe to your own liking, hotter or milder Some people like to add some roasted and ground caraway seeds, its up to you. You’re in control.
Traditionally the peppers would be roasted in the coals of an open fire. This not only cooks the pepper buy also allow the skin to be removed easily. During the process, the flesh of the pepper takes on a smoky flavour which enhances the paste immensely. I also use a little smoked paprika in the recipe to capitalise on the flavour.
This is a bit messy, but this is about 80% of the work in making the paste.
If you cook on gas its easy, just place the pepper over an open gas flame turning it with a pair of tongs. Have some clingfilm on hand, and once the pepper is black all over, wrap it in the clingfilm. Don’t be put off by the colour thinking the pepper is ruined. The black is only the skin, which we will remove. Repeat this for the second pepper, them leave them to cool completely. Some people like to roast the chillies as well, I just use the smoked paprika instead.
Now I don’t have gas, so I use a picnic stove backed up by a blowtorch. It works fine, as long as it’s not raining!
Once the peppers have cooled, we get to the messy bit. You will see that the peppers have collapsed a little as they cooked, and there will be some liquid sitting inside the flesh. Keeping the film in place slice down one side of the pepper and open it up a little. Cut off the stem, and you will be able to open the pepper right out to a flat sheet. Flip the pepper over using the film to lift off as much of the black skin as possible. The rest of the black skin can simply be scraped off with the back of a knife. Don’t worry about a few bits of black still adhering to the flesh, it’s all flavour.
Cut the stems from the chillies, split them open and remove the seeds and the white membrane holding them. Peel the garlic, and crush using the salt to make a smooth paste.
Add the chillies and garlic to a small food processor, followed by the peppers.
Add the tomato puree, salt, and spices to the machine, then process the contents to a smooth paste. Lift off the lid then work in the olive oil and lemon juice into the paste. Have a taste, it should linger in the mouth with each individual flavour coming through. If its not spicy enough for you, add a little cayenne pepper into the mix.
The paste will keep a week in the fridge. Store it in a covered jar with a little olive oil covering the surface of the paste. I always keep some in the freezer, Ice cube trays are ideal for freezing. The cubes can then be stored in a freezer bag or box. If you need to make the paste, double the recipe so you have some to freeze. Double the joy, and you only have to clean up once!
By wrapping the pepper in the film, the heat is retained, and the pepper will cook from within. This is also a wonderful way of preparing peppers for use in a salad or stuffing as well. If you object to the cling film, you can put the peppers into a plastic bag. Its not quite as good, but should work.
Rose Harissa is similar to a standard Harissa bit a little milder. The paste is made with the addition of rose water and rose petals to add a floral fragrance. If you would like to make some, there is a great recipe ‘HERE‘
Enjoy Life!
John.
Hi, my name is John Webber, award winning chef and tutor, now retired to the west coast of Scotland. Welcome to our blog focusing on food, cooking, and countryside. My aim is to pass on my years of skills and knowledge together with an appreciation of the countryside.
Join us to experience the beauty of the west coast, cook some great food and be at ease in the kitchen.
Join The ‘Westcoaster Newsletter.
Sign up to our newsletter to receive regular updates of what’s new and upcoming at ‘The Westcoaster.’
© Copywrite, John Webber. 2024
Baking Simple Scones at home is easy and very rewarding. Homemade scones are always a winner whatever time of year. But particularly pleasing enjoyed in front of the fire when the weather is disappointing.
These are The 12 Best Seasonings you need to get sensational results in the kitchen. They should be in everybody’s kitchen at home, and in fact, I would go so far as to say I feel culinary naked without these. Some of these you will …
Making Sweet Pickled Cucumber is a great way of using up excess cucumber and giving a rather bland food an enticing lift.
I decided to have a go at growing cucumbers this year. And I quickly discovered that they had teamed up with the courgettes in an attempt to take over the planet. Having bombarded the friends and neighbours with free cucumbers I still had more than we could deal with.
This led me into looking into new ways of using cucumbers in new ways. The obvious option was pickling, and after a few attempts I ended up with the version below.
As the cucumber is technically a fruit, I have married it with a slight Asian influence using ginger, chili, and coriander as a background. The result is a sweet, light, zingy pickle, which marries perfectly with fish, particularly cured fish. Of course, it’s equally at home at the BBQ, on a burger or lifting your lunchtime sandwich to new heights.
This is not a long-term pickle used as a preserve but more of a short-term chutney which helps to season and punch up the flavours of the item it is served with.
The first task is to slice the cucumber, aim for slices about 3mm in thickness. Too thick and they become intrusive, too thin and the pickle will lack character. You can either use a sharp knife or a mandolin as you wish, whichever you feel safer with. The mandolin has the advantage of producing consistent slices but watch your fingers! There isn’t a chef on the planet that hasn’t cut themselves on a mandolin at some point.
Once all the cucumber is sliced take a colander set in a bowl and cover the base with slices of cucumber. Sprinkle the cut slices with some of the table salt, then add another layer of cucumber, then more salt. Keep going until all the cucumber and salt is used up. If you run out of salt don’t be afraid to use a little more to complete the process.
The function of the salt is to draw out some of the liquid in the cucumber. In turn this will season and crisp up the slices ready for the pickle.
Don’t be afraid of the amount of salt. Its not the volume of salt that will dictate the saltiness of the pickle but rather how long the slices are exposed to the curing.
When the slices have been exposed to the salt for 10 to 12 minutes, give then a good rinse under running cold water to remove all the salt. Don’t leave the slices sitting in water, drain them as soon as ready and tip them on to a clean cloth to drain.
I am flavouring the pickle with two types of ginger. Root ginger for its vibrant warmth, and stem ginger for a smoother sweeter flavour. I also like to add some of the syrup from the stem ginger as well for good measure.
Weigh the sugar into a small bowl then add the cider vinegar, and whisk together.
Then using a fine microplane grater grate a lump of stem ginger into the vinegar. Peel the root ginger (this is best done by scraping the root with a spoon). Then grate a teaspoonful of fresh ginger on top. Doing the grating this way will make sure all the sticky stem ginger finds its way into the bowl.
Add a teaspoon of the ginger syrup, followed by the chili flakes and coriander seeds. Give the whole thing a whisk, and it’s done.
Take a sterilized half litre Kilner jar and cover the base with a layer of the drained cucumber. Spread a spoonful of pickle over the slices, then add more cucumber and more pickle. Repeat until all the cucumber is used pouring any remaining pickle into the jar. Lightly press the cucumber down with the back of a spoon, then close up the lid. Give the jar a shake to insure all the slices are exposed to the pickle.
You will notice that the cucumber slices are not covered with pickle, don’t worry that’s fine. Place the jar in the fridge for at least four hours, or better still overnight.
As the pickle reacts with the cucumber the volume of liquid will seem to increase as the cucumber sinks down a little in the jar. Store the pickle in the fridge ready for use.
The pickle will keep up to five days in the fridge and I think gets better after a couple of days maturing.
Enjoy Life !
John.
Hi, my name is John Webber, award winning chef and tutor, now retired to the west coast of Scotland. Welcome to our blog focusing on food, cooking, and countryside. My aim is to pass on my years of skills and knowledge together with an appreciation of the countryside.
Join us to experience the beauty of the west coast, cook some great food and be at ease in the kitchen.
Join The ‘Westcoaster Newsletter.
Sign up to our newsletter to receive regular updates of what’s new and upcoming at ‘The Westcoaster.’
© Copywrite, John Webber. 2024
For these tarts we are using two distinct types of apples. Bramley apple for full on flavour, backed up with a dash of good cider. Green apples, Granny Smiths of French Golden delicious provide texture and a hint of freshness to the tarts. These tarts can be made the night before and stored in the fridge. The trick is to glaze and seal the apple with melted butter and lemon to spot the apple discolouring.
How to make – Cheats Chocolate Fondant. The classic restaurant chocolate fondant is a challenge for the pastry chef needing dexterity and exact timing to be served to perfection.
This version is much easier to make and is far more forgiving in cooking and serving as it is made in advance.
How To Be A Shortbread Expert. There are thousands of recipes for shortbread, and an equal number of opinions as to the ingredients, methods, and baking. I suppose really you could think of shortbread as posh pastry, uplifted to celebrity status. The fundamentals of making shortbread are very like pastry and it would be worth reading our post on ‘Getting to grips with pastry.’ To put things into perspective.
The big barrier to getting crisp, light shortbread is gluten so a low protein plain flour, maximum 10% must be used. Shipton Mill do a nice Organic Soft Cake and Pastry White Flour with just over 9% protein.
This is a gluten free agent added into the flour to further reduce the protein in the flour and make it lighter.
Cornflour, always on hand and disappears into the flour perfectly. Use if you need a biscuit with a good snap Overdoing the quantity can make a dry powdery finish in the mouth.
Rice flour gives a rougher texture to the dough with a crumbly nature.
Ground almonds, make the dough crumblier, but also heavier. They also need a dash of almond essence to boost their flavour.
Some people like granulated sugar to give a gritty texture, but I’m not a fan.
Caster Sugar is a common choice and gives a good result. Golden caster offers a little more flavour in the dough.
Icing sugar is my preferred choice, unrefined sugar could also be used.
Use the best unsalted butter you can. The lower the water content of the butter the better the shortbread will be. While it may seem counter intuitive some chef’s lower quality use a pastry butter / margarine instead of superior quality dairy butter. This is because the pastry butter has an exceptionally low moisture content. The shortbread is crisper, but the flavour suffers.
True shortbread dough should be au natural, but I sometimes use a little vanilla to enhance the flavour of the butter. You could also add some chocolate chips or citrus zest if you like. Try sprinkling demerara sugar on the surface of the dough before cooking to add a sweet crunch.
Some small tweaks here to make the lightest shortbread. I use a two to one mix of plain flour and cornflour to really reduce the gluten content. I also like to add a touch of baking powder to help the dough rise in the oven and become airier. Finally, we use icing sugar to make a nice smooth dough. I like to roll the dough into logs and then slice the biscuits off (see below). This minimises stretching, and toughening the dough.
Here the rice flour helps lighten the dough. The texture of the rice flour is coarser, hence the ‘Sandy’ nature of the shortbread
This recipe uses ground almonds to reduce the gluten content of the flour. Along with the egg yolk this makes the shortbread richer abet slightly heavier.
Mix the butter icing sugar, vanilla, and salt (Unless you’re using salted butter) on low speed in the mixer until smooth. Increase the speed of the mixer to medium and cream the butter mix for three to four minutes. The mix should become soft and lighten.
Bring the speed of the mixer back to low and add the sifted flours mixing only just enough to incorporate the flour. Take extra care not to overwork the dough! It is better to finish the mixing of the dough by hand The lighter this is done the better the final shortbread will be.
Rollout the dough carefully dusting with a little flour as you go. Don’t be too vigorous with the rolling and turn the dough as you go. This will Roll the dough to the required thickness according to use and cut out with a cutter dipped in flour on each cut.
The remaining dough can be brought together once more then re rolled and cut again. Discard and dough left over from the second rolling.
If you can’t be bothered with all that rolling, and don’t mind slightly rustic biscuits there’s another option. Bring the dough together and split into two. Roll each dough into a log 4cm in diameter and wrap in greaseproof paper. Chill for 15 minutes, then slice into 1cm rounds.
Lay the biscuits out onto a baking sheet and prick with a fork. Leave to rest for about 15 minutes, use that time to heat up the oven read for baking. Bake the shortbread in the centre of the oven at 160° for roughly until light golden brown around the edges.
As the biscuits are removed from the oven dust with caster sugar and allow to cool before storage.
If you don’t have a food mixer you can make the dough in a food processor, or by hand. The processor makes a decent job of the creaming, but great care is needed not to overwork the dough when the flour is added. I would recommend using the processor just to cream the butter and sugar and then work in the flour by hand.
Yes, the best way of doing this is to carefully roll the dough into a log about 5cm in diameter. Wrap the log in greaseproof paper, then freeze on a tray. To bake, remove the cling film from the logs and slice into 5mm thick discs. Lay the biscuits out onto a baking tray, then place in the oven for around 8 minutes, until nicely golden brown.
I always do, but some people choose to use the rubbing in method. Mix the flour and sugar together then rub the cold diced butter in with your fingers or a pastry knife.
This will make a very crumbly shortbread with very little snap.
Easy, make the dough as described above. Line a rectangular baking tin with baking paper leaving a good overlap at the sides. Press the dough into the tin to a dept of 2cm than prick the dough all over with a fork. Leave the dough to rest for 15 minutes then bake as above. When cooked, remove from the oven, and let cool in the tin for 10 minutes. Then using the paper overlap, carefully lift the shortbread out onto a chopping board. Take a cook’s knife and using a guillotine like motion cut the shortbread into fingers. Let the shortbread cool completely before removing from the paper.
Enjoy Life!
John.
Hi, my name is John Webber, award winning chef and tutor, now retired to the west coast of Scotland. Welcome to our blog focusing on food, cooking, and countryside. My aim is to pass on my years of skills and knowledge together with an appreciation of the countryside.
Join us to experience the beauty of the west coast, cook some great food and be at ease in the kitchen.
If you enjoyed your visit with us, please subscribe up to our newsletter to receive regular updates of what’s new and upcoming at The Westcoaster. Subscribe Here
© Copywrite, John Webber. 2024
© Copywrite, John Webber. 2024
Vanilla Panna Cotta must be one of the easiest desserts to make, but perhaps harder to get exactly right. Success depends on using the best ingredients and taking care to blend them perfectly. Read on to learn just how to do that.
Baba Ganoush is easy to make at home and so much nicer then the bought in versions. Serve it as a snack or as part of a mezze spread with warmed Pita breads. Why not go the whole hog and try our recipe to make your own flatbreads and impress your guests even more.