Ask Foodycat IV

Ms Crankypants has opened a whole can of worms with her question for Foodycat...

She says "My pancakes stuck in my non-stick pan today. Do you use non-stick cookware, does it have an average life, and do you have any favourite brands? The latest one to be sent to heaven is a Scanpan. The one before it was a cheaper Raco, but did a lovely job and I can't find a replacement".

Well, Cranky, the truth is that I loath non-stick cookware and wouldn't give it houseroom. All our cookware (except a couple of my caketins) is either enamelled cast iron (Le Creuset or cheaper Le Chasseur) or stainless steel. I used to have a flatmate who adored her Scanpan but I have just never got on with them.

One of the things about non-stick cookware is that it doesn't usually like really high heats. Which is fine for you non-meat eaters, but we like to cook our steak over blisteringly high heat. We also like to make sauces with the nice crusty bits that stick to the pan, scraped up with a fork, so non-stick just doesn't work for us.

This page of "10 ways to ruin a nonstick pan" is a pretty good resource for prolonging the life of your non-stick surfaces if you insist on using them! Peter's of Kensington have some pretty good deals on Anolon and Scanpan for your next purchase.

The kindness of strangers

Or, in the words of the Simpsons' Oh Streetcar! "A stranger's just a friend you haven't met". Some lovely, lovely people have been handing awards to me, willynilly across the blogosphere. Nice to know someone likes what I am doing!

Sam at Antics of a Cycling Cook and Dee from Choos & Chews gave me the Brillante Weblog Premio Award. I can't believe Dee - whose pancake mix is now indispensable to my health and happiness - is giving me an award! And Sam is a pretty new discovery for me, but his baking is admirable. You should see his French-style apple tart. Wonderful stuff!
Gloria from Cookbook Cuisine and Teresa from Mexican Chocolate Lore (and her other lovely blog Mexican-American Border Cooking ) have granted me the I'm a Chocoholic Award. Which is funny really, because normally I can take chocolate or leave it, but ever since they told me they'd given me this one I have been absolutely craving chocolate! Good thing a couple of kind friends recently gave me boxes of Leonidas Belgian chocolate truffles. I will now have one to celebrate!

Ask Foodycat III

My mother says "Italian has always been my favourite food country, and after our visit to Florence I'm sure Firenze is my culinary home. Not least because I love pulses. But I have never quite worked out what sort of bean is used in ful mesdames?"

Ful medames is made with dried broad/fava beans in all the recipes that I can find, but there must be a few different types because the beans seem to range from wide flat beans about an inch long to a smaller round bean. Either way, it occurs to me that I haven't had that lovely, earthy combination of beans, garlic and parsley in far too long. Definitely a dish to revisit this autumn!

Date Night

I've said before that we have a problem with Friday nights - I finish at 4 and therefore have to kill quite a lot of time without buying shoes if we want to go out in London.

So last night, in traditional fashion, I had a manicure (purple this time) and found a champagne bar to while away my time with a bellini (and then a bottle of perfectly chilled Piper Heidseick - Paul had joined me by this time so I was only 4 drinks ahead of him).
And then, we ate bbq. It's only been a week since I first heard of Bodean's BBQ on Gemma's blog but the thought off pork has been occupying most of my waking moments.

The dining room downstairs was fairly empty, but a waiter assured us that all the tables were spoken for and there was an hour wait for them. So we went back upstairs and stared fixedly at a couple until they felt uncomfortable and left us their seats at the crowded, buzzy bar.

There was some baseball game playing on the big screens, but I couldn't hear it and had to turn to see it, so I didn't feel overwhelmed by sports. Which is a good thing, because I would avoid it if it was a "real" sports bar.

The deli menu had a lot of things that interested me and I certainly have to go back for a smoked sausage hotdog and (probably on another occasion) a meatloaf sandwich. But last night I wanted ribs. I ordered a spare ribs and pulled pork combo. In no time at all I was confronted by a paper-covered cafeteria tray covered with a mound of pulled pork, a rack of 5 ribs, a mound of really nice chips (or should I call them freedom fries?) coleslaw (thank god they put that in a bowl, could have been messy) and a bit of slightly spicy mayo.

I have to say the pulled pork was a bit dry. I needed to give it a pretty big slurp of the Carolina-style bbq sauce (not as good as mine) to lubricate it. And I do think it'd be better in a sandwich than just in a pile. But the ribs were great. Sweet and smokey and porky with just the right amount of glaze. Paul was very proud that I managed not to get any in my hair while I inhaled them. He had a combo which included a 1/4 chicken which he said was pretty good, if not a meal he will remember to his dying day.

So. Not your first choice for an intimate date (although the couple at the bar next to us seemed OK using it as a venue for their break up) but really good for a reasonably-priced Friday night. And I think it'd be great for lunch.

Fennel Goats Cheese Souffle - Foodie Joust October 1

Peter at Souvlaki for the Soul won last month's whole grain/citrus/ginger joust with a really delectable-looking halva recipe. And with a sort of perverse glee he set fennel, parsley and dairy as his 3 challenge ingredients. Fennel and dairy? And parsley? So this one took some thinking about.

Eventually I figured it out. A base of my wonderfully flexible fennel confit, with goats cheese in a souffle. I'm pretty relaxed about souffles since adopting a rule to live by - if it rises it is a souffle, if it doesn't it's a sformato. If it really, really doesn't it's a frittata. See? Nothing to worry about.

Fennel & Goats Cheese Souffle

Fennel Confit
Finely chopped stems of 2 x 25g bunches parsley
1 orange - grated zest and juice
3 anchovy fillets, chopped (I sacrificed my last anchovies for this. Won't be buying more until I can find a sustainable source since they have been identified as vulnerable to overfishing)
¼ cup white wine (dry sherry, vermouth, whatever is open really)
2 fennel bulbs, outer leaves removed, very finely diced
1 large onion, finely diced
50ml/2fl oz olive oil
1 tsp sugar

Bechamel
1tbs butter
1tbs plain flour
1/2 cup milk
80g grated pecorino
150g soft goats cheese

To finish
Extra grated pecorino
Extra butter
1 whole egg
2 eggwhites

Put all the fennel confit ingredients in a heavy-based pan and cook gently, covered, for about 20 minutes or until the fennel is soft and all the liquid has evaporated. Allow to cool.

Make a very thick bechamel flavoured with pecorino and goats cheese. I normally go completely nuts on seasoning a bechamel, but this is no time for mustard or nutmeg or lashings of white pepper. Well, maybe some white pepper, but on this occasion I didn't.

Combine the cooled fennel confit with the bechamel and the whole egg in a large mixing bowl.

Beat the eggwhites to firm peaks and fold gently into the fennel mixture. Leaving the odd small streak of unmixed eggwhite is OK.

Grease a souffle dish with some soft butter and dust it with more pecorino. I have heard that making sure your brush-strokes all lead upwards in the souffle dish helps it rise because the mixture "climbs" the strokes. Maybe it does. Can't hurt. Turn the souffle mixture into the dish and bake, undisturbed, at 180C for about 1/2 an hour, or until it is well risen (or not) and golden brown.

Serve with a parsley salad (did you think I was going to just waste the parsley leaves?). Serves 2 greedy people as a main course, 6 as a starter in cute little straight-sided ramekins.

Dessert Thing

It's not a cake, it's not a crumble, it's not a cobbler or a slump - but it is warm and comforting and just what you want from your apple desserts. Plus it doesn't require me asking my husband to make the pastry for me because his is better...

Rosemary-scented Almond and Apple Dessert

Place a branch of fresh rosemary in an oven-proof dish. Peel and core dessert apples (not too sweet, but will hold their shape), cut them into 8ths and fit them into the dish on top of the rosemary. My dish takes 3 apples cut this way. Grate the zest of a lemon over the top. Pour over 1/4 cup white wine (I was drinking sparkling white Burgundy at the time) and drizzle 3-4tbs of maple syrup over.

Make a batter from 1 cup of Instant Vanilla and Almond Pancake Mix adapted by Dee from a recipe of Nigella Lawson's, letting it down with 1/2 cup thick cream (the spooning sort, not the pouring sort), 1 egg and a dash more vanilla.

Dab spoonfuls of the batter on to the apples. Bake at 180C for about 40 minutes until the top is golden and crusty. Serve with cream.

The wine, lemon and rosemary combine to make an extraordinary perfume - it's almost like gingerbread. Very delicious! I liked the high fruit: topping ratio, because it meant I had room for seconds, but when I make it again I will make a double quantity of topping batter and really lay it on thick.

I am sending this to Sophie at Key Ingredient for her apple & peach KICK contest.

Marscarpone hotcakes with spice roasted pears

Ever since Dee posted her pancakes I've been wanting to have a go. I mean seriously, having a jar of almond pancake mix in the cupboard ready to go? How good is that? And today it coincided with 2 pears on my poor, neglected pear tree being ready. Not ripe - if I let them get ripe the birds would get them - but ready.

So for the pears I peeled and quartered them, put them in a baking dish with white wine to go half way up, a spoon of brown sugar, a cinnamon stick and 3 bruised cardamom pods, and baked them for about 1 1/2 hours, basting and turning periodically. For the pancakes, I took a cup of the pancake mix, 125g mascarpone, an egg and enough milk to make it runny. Served the pears (2 quarters went as quality control) and the pancakes with a quenelle of mascarpone flavoured with a little cinnamon and brown sugar, and drizzled the reduced cooking juices all over.

I am told that what the hotcakes really needed was bacon. That's the good bit about having the jar of pancake mix in the cupboard - next weekend I can do it all again with a side of bacon. And more pears - our tiny little home grown ones just weren't enough.