cardamom

Crumble

Cooking, Recipes

This week I decided to write about Rhubarb. After much thought, research and contemplating possibly pairing it with fish, constructing an elaborate sarnie or shaking a cocktail I opted for a good, old fashioned rhubarb crumble recipe to banish a few winter blues.
But hey there, hang on, where’s all the rhubarb?! I thought it was forced rhubarb-o’clock…am I wrong? Or, did you eat it all while I’ve been sleeping?
Anyway, after traipsing round 3 supermarkets and at least 6 grocers this week I am still rhubarb-less.
On my way home yesterday (past the final green grocers before our street) my flatmate Damian spotted a big pile of quince. I haven’t cooked with quince before so I was quite excited to give it a go. Also quince gets a nice mention in the poem The Owl and the Pussycat which we had been discussing earlier that afternoon after spotting someone sporting a rather fetching Christmas jumper with an owl design on it on the Piccadilly line.

“They dined on mince, and slices of quince,
Which they ate with a runcible spoon;
And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,
They danced by the light of the moon,”
-Edward Lear

Talking of owls there’s a lovely photograph by Deana Kolencikova at the Taylor Wessing portrait photography prize exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery at the moment. The photo is called ‘Man with Owl and Lucy’. Lucy is a white west highland terrier who I remember seeing with her owner and his owl walking along Bridlesmith Gate in Nottingham one morning. Her owner was politely talking to passers by who wanted to know more about his owl but he wanted to make sure people knew how frustrating Lucy found being upstaged by the bird. Anyway, back to the quince…

Quince and Apple Crumble

…there’s no mince in this crumble (you might be pleased to know) and I don’t have a runcible spoon…although I do have a plastic spork or two somewhere which I think is nearly the same thing. In this recipe, I’ve added fragrant cardamom and a splash of rosewater (which in my head gives it a bit of an Old Elizabethan vibe). It’s very tasty, give it a go…and if you’re in London pop into the National Portrait Gallery…or look out for Lucy next time you’re in Nottingham. Whatever you’re doing this weekend just don’t tell me how delicious all your rhubarb recipes are because that’d be mean  x

Quince & Apple Crumble (aka not Rhubarb Crumble)

Ingredients
1 quince
1 Bramley apple
100ml water
1 teaspoon of ground cardamom
50g Demerara sugar
1 teaspoon of rosewater

For the crumble topping:
200g plain flour
100g unsalted butter
100g Demerara sugar
50g rolled oats
Pinch of salt

Method

1) Preheat the oven to 190°C.

Crumble base prep
2) Peel, core and slice the apple and the quince. Lay the slices in a large ovenproof dish and pour over 100ml of water, the ground cardamom and 50g of sugar.
3) Bake in the oven for 45 minutes (stirring occasionally to ensure that the top layer of fruit doesn’t get scorched).
4) Meanwhile, make the crumble topping by rubbing the flour and butter together between your fingers until it resembles fresh breadcrumbs.
5) Now stir the remaining sugar, oats and salt into the flour and butter mixture and set aside.
6) When the fruit is soft sprinkle over the rosewater and then cover the fruit with the crumble topping.

Cooked apple and quince

rosewater and crumble topping
7) Return the dish to the oven for 25-30, minutes or until the topping is crisp and starting to turn golden at the top and edges.

Cooked Crumble
8) Serve with custard, cream, yoghurt or ice cream.Crumble dishes Crumble with cream

Crumble Dish

Total London

Events, Recipes

I use greek yoghurt loads, it’s a fantastic hero of an ingredient which I use in all sorts of recipes…off the top of my head, right now, I can think of about 10 different recipes. I think that’s pretty good. Well, turns out 10 is rubbish; the people at Total Greek Yoghurt have come up with 1000 recipes using their product! Hats off indeed as they launched 1000 ways to love your total this week.

Greek yoghurt panna cotta

As well as uploading all these ideas to their website they had time to host an event at La Cucina Caldesi (which is a lovely little italian cookery school in central London). I was very excited to be invited and Chef Paul Merrett expertly guided us through making Salmon Rillette, Butternut Squash Tagine and a Semolina Sponge cake.


Salmon Rillettes

Tagine

Semolina Sponge

So, Total have come up with 1000 recipes, arranged an event (where I got to cook, eat, drink wine at lunch time and hang out with super food bloggers like Filipa Kay, Phillipa Moore, Alice Langley and Lynne Clark) and they gave me a whole bunch of yoghurt to take home….I feel utterly lazy in comparison.

To pay homage to my Total experience I decided to come up with a really special dish, something pretty to celebrate their efforts and a recipe not already covered by the 1000 ways campaign; tricky stuff. Scoffing one of the complimentary honey split pots I had a sugary epiphany and an idea started simmering in my brain.


My Total Dessert

Apricots poached in a cardamon syrup with crushed pistachios & honey, greek yoghurt quenelles (oh I love a quenelle) in a walnut shortbread sandwich with turkish delight pieces. (serves 2 with leftover shortbread!)

Ingredients
1 tablespoon of coarsely ground pistachios (plus a little extra for decoration)
1 Total Greek Yoghurt Honey split pot
1 quantity of Delia Smith’s Walnut Shortbread dough (see here for recipe)
10-12 whole cardamom pods
1 orange
200g of caster sugar
6 fresh apricots
1 teaspoon of rose water
icing sugar
2 pieces of rose turkish delight
Method
1) Mix the coarsely ground pistachios with the honey from the split pot & set aside.
2) Make the shortbread dough following the instructions in Delia’s recipe, roll out and cut into rectangles (approx 12cm x 5cm) and place on a baking sheet lined with a sheet of baking paper. Bake for 15-20 minutes, they should just start to turn pale golden at the edges. Leave them to cool on the tray until you’re ready to assemble the dish.

3) To poach the apricots heat 300ml of water, the cardamom pods (slightly bashed to release their fragrance) juice & zest of one small orange and the caster sugar. Bring to the boil then carefully add the whole apricots. Cover them with a piece of baking paper and let simmer for 8 minutes.
Gently remove the apricots from the syrup and set aside to cool.
Allow the syrup to reduce for another 8-10 minutes then turn off the heat and add the rose water.

4) When the apricots are cool enough to handle gently split them in half and remove the stone, cut each half into 3 wedges
Dredge 2 pieces of the shortbread with icing sugar on one side, these will become the lids.

5) Lay an un-sugar dusted piece of shortbread on each plate. Top with teaspoon quenelles of the yoghurt with small amounts of the pistachio honey in between.

6) Then add a layer of the apricot wedges, a little of the fragrant syrup, more pistachio honey and then the sugared lid.

7) Decorate the plate with left over pistachio-honey mixture, small pieces of the turkish delight (cut up using scissors) and drizzle the plate with a bit more of the cardamom syrup.