Hot Smokin' Hubby

Even since Hubby saw Hugh F-W smoke fish in an old bread bin on River Cottage Autumn he's wanted to give it a go. Hubby being the resourceful man he is, he didn't want to buy a brand new smoker, but make one himself.

Hubby bought the bread bin a few months ago on ebay and last week the heat source he had been looking for, an old paraffin lamp/stove, finally arrived. The bread bin was then lined with oak chips that once heated begin to smoke. Hubby also has some whisky soaked chips somewhere, which should give an interesting flavour.



There is essentially 2 types of smoker. A hot smoker and a cold smoker. A cold smoker is use for flavouring a food, but not cooking it whereas a hot smoker not only cooks the food, but also flavours it.

In tonights fading light Hubby decided to try out his new toy by smoking some plaice. The fish was cooked & smoked in 15 min. I have to admit smoked fish isn't really to my taste so I only had the tiniest amount, but Hubby was impressed with what he had achieved and is interested in trying to smoke other things. The cold smoker is now next on his to-make list.

The Fruits of Hubbys Labour

The advantage of living where we live is that there can be an abundance of wild food and many people prepared to tell you their wild food haunts. Since tasting my Father-in-Law's sloe gin at Christmas last year I was determined that this year we would make our own. Well the weather put a stop on that plan as the sloe harvest is really poor this year so had to settle on some other fruits we could forage.

Inspired by Hugh F-W, Hubby set out Ray Mears style to forage for free food. Although there was no sloes he did manage to find the last of the blackberries and a tree heaving in haw berries. Added to the 5kg of apples from Auntie's tree we had a plethora of free food to work with.

A few months back we picked up a copy of River Cottage Handbook: Preserves and today it certainly came into its own!



First to be made was Haw Ketchup. Haws eaten raw are incredibly sour (Hubby can vouch for that!) and you wouldn't expect them to be edible, but with a bit of cooking they can be made into a lovely fruity sour sauce that will be perfect with game. I'm looking forward to trying this with a dish in a couple of weeks.

Haw Ketchup
Makes about 500ml
From River Cottage: Preserves

500g haw berries (Haws), washed
300ml cider vinegar
300ml water
170g sugar
1/2 tsp salt
black pepper, to taste

1) Simmer the haws in the vinegar and water for around 30 min until the berries are soft.

2) Pass through a sieve to rid of stones and skins.

3) Return the juice to a clean pan, stir in sugar and gently boil for 5 minutes. Pour into a sterilised bottle. Keeps for 12 months.



Next was the turn of flavouring some alcohols. If we weren't going to have sloe gin for this Christmas we could at least have blackberry & apple gin plus some haw brandy. The method for both of these flavoured alcohols is the same, all your doing is changing the ingredients. The longer you leave them to steep the better. Ideally they say you should leave them for a minimum of 8-10 weeks. The tasting at Christmas will tell us if they are really any good.

Blackcurrant & Apple Gin

300g apples (2 large apples)
200g blackcurrants
200g sugar
700ml gin

Haw Brandy
225g haws
110g sugar
300ml brandy

1) Pour alcohol into bottle, followed by fruit then sugar. Give it a good shake until all ingredients are well mixed.

2) For the first week shake the bottle to stop the sugar settling to the bottom. After that shake on a weekly basis and taste after 8 weeks. Once it is ready for drinking filter through some kitchen paper/coffee filter. Enjoy!

The Fizzy Drink Cupcake Experiment

The 6 week holiday boredom has truly set in. So much so that my science geek side has emerged and I decided to do some experimenting in the kitchen. Proof I have officially lost the plot. This was all inspired by Cakespy's cake challenges and various recipes on Craftster.

After seeing Nigella's recipe for Coca-Coca cupcakes it got me wondering... Which fizzy drink makes the best cake?. Rather than the usual cola I decided to pick some truly British fizzy drinks - Tizer, Vimto (my personal favorite), Irn-Bru and Dandelion & Burdock.



I hasten to add this blog entry should also be entitled "How to make ugly cupcakes". The last time I made cakes looking so decidedly dodgy was when I was 8.


Method

I used the Nigella's coca-cola cake recipe but omitted the cocoa. To make enough for 4 sets of cakes, I doubled the recipe, then divided the cake mix by 4 before adding the various fizzy drink/butter mix. The icing was simply 110g of icing sugar for each flavour of cake mixed with 90ml of the fizzy drink.

I used paper cases as various recipes around the internet suggested that the cakes can go very sticky.

To make it a fair test all cakes were cooked for the same part of the oven for exactly the same amount of time. At the end of the 15 min all had passed the "skewer test"

Results

Resulted in an *cough* interesting mix of cakes some of which I certainly will not replicate again! Others however, with a bit of tweaking, could make good cakes.

Dandelion & Burdock



This drink makes me reminisce my childhood. The taste is unlike any other fizzy drink out there. In terms of cake baking it produced a fluffy well risen cake and you could certainly taste the D&B in both the cake and icing. The D&B tinted the cake and icing nicely.

Irn-Bru



Irn-Bru is one of those kind of drinks that you haven't a clue what it is meant to tastes like, but it's delicious especially with a bag of open chips from the chippy. It is also the unofficial national drink of Scotland. I didn't realise until I did this experiment that Irn-Bru has caffeine & quinine in it. Why you need quinine in Scotland is another question for another day.

Considering the amount of artificial flavours and colours in Irn-Bru it produced a so-so cake. Only a very slight colour change in the icing and cake. It just tasted sweet rather than Irn-Bruish. Not as fluffy as the D&B cake. It also had a slightly greasy texture.

Vimto



Vimto is my favourite fizzy drink of all time, it is also great in the cordial format. Never drunk it much as a child as I was always made to believe it was expensive! It made cakes with a pleasing purple hue and noticeable Vimto taste, however was almost verging on being too sweet. Like the D&B cake with a bit of tweaking it could make a nice cake. Didn't rise as well as D&B.

Tizer



Although they look like quaint little Bakewell Tarts , they turned out to be a bitter disappointment...where do I start. They have to be one of the worst cakes I have ever tasted. Cakes shouldn't have a chewy texture! Although they had passed the skewer test after cooking, they looked promising...until about a minute later when they just collapsed leaving a lovely crater for the icing to pool in. They also leached a load of grease while cooking. Euch. There was no change in colour of the cake or icing. Interestingly Tizer was the only drink that I experimented with that said "No artificial colours, sugars or flavourings" so I wonder if this had something to do with it.

The said cakes are now infusing the compost heap.

Conclusion

Dandelion & Burdock makes the best cake, as for Tizer, never again unless you want a chewy greasy mess.



Things I learnt while cooking the cakes:

* When the little old man in the Newsagents questions why you are buying so many crazy coloured fizzy drinks, don't admit to the fact you've lost the plot and want to cook cakes with them.

* I have a innate ability to make as much mess as possible while cooking. Cake mix down the washing machine? KitchinAid covered in cake mix? You name it, I can get cake mix on it.

* Cupcake cases are not a universal size, I must have picked up tiny ones and ended up with double the amount of cakes I had originally intended.

* The cake mixture is incredibly watery and it is easier to pour it from a jug rather than trying to spoon it in...yes I did try spooning it.

* Hubby does have the ability to be honest when it comes to my baking. I don't blame him as I thought the same!

Basic Hard Cheese & Charity Jailbreak

Hubby's latest edible project, basic hard cheese, has been a month in the making. He found out how to make it on the Creative Living forum. I never realised cheese making involved such a basic process. It was very interesting to see the milk curdle then the emergence of thick curds that could be sliced like jelly and the whey in which the curds floated. I did try to get a picture of this process, but it just didn't work out. I challenge anyone to make curds & whey look photogenic! To help him mould the perfect round of cheese Hubby made a fancy looking cheese press.

Yesterday was tasting day, and I have to say it looks, smells and tastes like basic cheese. It has a slight eau d'sweaty socks...mmmm. He has some Penicillium Roqueforti, so the next challenge is to make blue cheese.

I promise the next post will not be about cheese making!

My brother is currently in France somewhere. He's taking part in a "Jailbreak" for charity where the aim is to get the furthest away and back from the starting point in 60 hours. No money is allowed. It's a case of blagging/begging/hitching as far as possible. So far they have blagged various train journeys within the UK, a night in a 4* hotel, food from KFC & McDonalds and a trip on the Eurostar. As far as I know his team are the only ones who have managed to leave the country. I think he's mad! The map below is tracking their progress.


View Larger Map

Mr & Mrs Robin and the River Cottage Seed Project

We have a cheeky pair of robins that have been around for a couple of years and often come to have a nosy when Hubby is gardening. We think they have a nest somewhere in the eaves of the outhouse as over the last week they have been busy feeding from the insect suet ball hanging in the garden. Now, we have been trying to get a photo of them for the last few days, but every time we got the camera out they fly off. In the above photo Mr Robin posed nicely for a photo, but in the split second decided to dive for the new vegetable planters. If you click on the photo you'll get better resolution. It made me chuckle when I saw the photo and would like to see if anyone can come up with a fitting caption!

Hubby has River Cottage membership and is taking part in their Seed Project. Today our seeds arrived and they were Blue Ballet Squash, Blauhilde climbing French bean and rhubarb chard. We haven't tried to grow any of these veg before and I'm interested to see them grow, and of course taste them.

Our radishes are nearly ready to harvest. We were a bit late planting them so they are only just ready. I may roast some of them to go with the roast chicken dinner tomorrow. On another positive gardening note the lavender out front has gone crazy, the strawberry plants are flowering and I didn't kill the grapevine after all!

Bank Holiday Foodiness and tags

I had all good intentions of this post being about the beautiful blueberry polenta cakes I made earlier, but my new silicone muffin tray decided that the cakes were far too nice to release from the moulds in one go. Cute little lopsided cakes with half of one side still stuck in the muffin tray doesn't make good photos no matter how hard I try! The cakes were delicious and I'm going to have another go with them in a couple of weeks, hopefully they will work out more photogenic.

The Bank Holiday weekend has bought a bit of food craziness to the house. I've made some lemon and lime vodka as inspired by Serena at Rock Cakes while hubby has been making a pulley system allowing him to hang more meat to dry in the outhouse and is currently at his parents making a cheese press for his next project. I'm a bit sceptical that the cheese will work, but I'll be interested to see the whole process in action. I don't know what's come over Hubby. He's gone from the Vesta meal/cheap meat loving student I first dated to a chicken/pig hugging, local food, Hugh wannabe...not that I'm complaining.

I've been tagged quite a bit over the last few weeks, apologies if I have missed anyone out.

Firsty The Cottage Smallholder gave me a new twist for this tag.

1. Pick up the nearest book.
2. Open to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.

I'm currently taking advantage of the Food section in my local library as frankly I have no room left on my bookshelves for any more foodie books. Amongst other foodie books I'm currently reading Toast by Nigel Slater.

The three sentences are:

“Stevie, my brother;s new girlfriend, was everything in the kitchen my mother was not. When she came over for the evening she would always cook something for my brother. She cooked greens that shone emerald on the plate”

I tag:
A Forkful of Spaghetti
Gourmet on a Grant
A Slice of Cherry Pie
Dinner Diary
Claire's Cake Bake

Stressed Out Mum has also presented me with a You Make My Day award, for which I'm incredibly flattered. It's difficult to choose any particular blogs out there as all make my day :)




To finish off this post, I've been tagged by Maria at The Goddess's Kitchen and Nilmandra at Soy & Pepper Little Corner of Mine for a meme to write my Six Word Memoir.

Blue-eyed cake loving science geek.

I should tag, but I'm leaving the door open. Feel free to write your own six word memoir.

Makin' bacon ... plus salami & chorizo - part 1

This post should really be titled "The Hubby who wants to be Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall", oh and I before I go on I suggest veggies, click away now! Hubby's first flit with being Hugh started last summer when he built a clay oven in the back garden. Give him his due it turned out to be a fab oven and that blog post still remains one of my top google hits. With summer just about here Hubby has put his Hugh hat back on.

This time it's the turn of nettle Beer, bacon, salami & chorizo. It has reached the point to where he has built his own smoker and the outhouse has become the place of preserved meat all hanging from the beams. All of this has come about since I purchased Meat. I am thinking of also buying Fish, but am a bit hesitant as to the fact I may come home one day and find Hubby filleting a huge fish ready to smoke in his homemade smoker!



A couple of weeks ago hubby started on the cured belly pork, which in theory will turn into streaky bacon. He dry cured it with salt, peppercorns and bay leaves, wrapped it in muslin then hung it in the outhouse to dry for a week. The first time we tried it, it was unbearably salty because Hubby hadn't washed the salt cure off properly so after a good soaking in water and another week of hanging it's now tasting a great deal more edible. In the next few weeks he is planning to smoke half of it. Some people use saltpetre to maintain the colour of the meat however were unable to get our hands on saltpetre (unbeknown to us at the time apparently used in bomb making) not surprisingly the woman in Holland & Barret gave us a rather scared look when we asked for it!

This weekend Hubby's new sausage making kit arrived so he decided to try and make chorizo and salami. The basic method for the two are very similar apart from chorizo has paprika and the salami he made had different spices and pistachios in it. I have to admit I left him too it. The sight of the ox runners (intestines) were reminding me too much of specimens I studied during the Parasitology module in Uni! Given the fact I was slightly freaked out by the ox runners the meat mixes he made up smelt very authentic. These sausages are also now hanging up in the outhouse. I look forward to trying them in about 4 weeks time. The Cottage Smallholder are also curing pork and salami at the moment and it has been great reading their blog and getting tips.

Homemade Butter

This weekend was another weekend-long family gathering in Warwickshire. Like everytime we meet up there is lots of food left over by the Sunday afternoon. I managed to bring home, amongst other things, enough sausages to make a meatloaf tomorrow and nearly a litre of double cream. Not wanting the cream to be wasted I set about making butter.

I first came across homemade butter while flicking through River Cottage Family Cookbook a few years back. Never did I think it could be so easy to make. To make it even better not only do you end up with fresh butter you also produce buttermilk which is fantastic for making pancakes and scones.

Making butter this way takes some serious elbow grease, but it is great and satisfying to see the cream turn into butter. While watching a recording of Cook with Gordon, between the two of us we managed to churn out 5 pats of butter.

Homemade Butter

Double cream (ideally not really fresh cream)
jam jar

1) Allow cream to get to room temperature before using. Half fill the jam jar with cream and tightly screw on the lid.

2) Shake the jar enough so you can feel the cream slop against the lid. Keep shaking. All of a sudden you'll notice the slopping sound stop; at this point you have whipped cream.

3) Keep on shaking! All of a sudden the slopping sound will return and you'll notice a large lump sloshing around in a watery liquid. This can take anywhere between 10-30min. Carefully open the lid. If the butter looks like fine cottage cheese shake for a few more seconds until you end up with a smoothish round ball. The solid is the butter and the liquid is buttermilk.

4) Pour off the buttermilk into a bowl and fill jar with cold water. Swil and keep on changing the water until it is clear. Squeeze the ball of butter in your hands to rid of excess buttermilk. It is important to remove as much buttermilk as you can as this can make the butter go sour.

5) Shape into a pat, wrap in greaseproof paper and store in the fridge.

Clay Oven Pics

The summer holidays are over and I'm back in work so my blogging & baking hasn't been as regular as before.

As requested a picture of the clay oven hubby made. He was inspired by a pizza oven Hugh F-W made on one of his TV progs. The clay was from his fathers garden, was left to dry for a day, then he lit a fire inside to completely dry the clay. To cook he then lit another fire in it, let the flames die down to embers, pushed the embers to the sides, places the bread dough in then put a piece of wood up against the hole to keep the heat in.

It cooked really good bread and new potatoes. Our neighbour was so impressed he now wants to build one!