Bright lights, big city

I had the good luck at the weekend to be invited to speak at a film festival. Cannes? Sundance? London? No. The festival I was fortunate enough to attend was Screen Bites, a delicious combination of foodie film screening and farmers market.

http://www.screen-bites.co.uk/homepage.html

The drive down to Dorset was great, (M25, M3, M27), until I got to the unlit bits and then it went a bit Pete Tong. I'm afraid this city girl needs at least a dual carriageway and plenty of street furniture to orientate herself properly. I survived and got to the venue for Friday's screening late but relieved. I later discovered that I could have driven there by a brighter and much less complicated route. Thank you Google maps for the tour of the New Forest but next time I'll take a rain check.

Hulse Hall in Braemore was the perfect place to watch "A Private Function." A proper village hall, all wood panelling and Brownie Pack notices. The smells lingering from the food tastings earlier in the evening gave an added sensory depth to the film showing.

A very British movie needs a very British recipe. I imagine you are expecting a porcine recipe of some ilk, given A Private Function's storyline. The Pork Royale dish that Betty the pig was destined for appeared to be Roast Pork, roast potatoes and sprouts.

I did say that I'd be trying to include as many recipes on my blog from the publishing equivalent of the cutting room floor. The editor's waste paper bin if you like. Good recipes that for one reason or another didn't make the final published edition of Movie Dinners.

Yorkshire puddings seem to fit perfectly with A Private Function. I know a Yorkshireman would not serve these with Pork, although Aunt Bessie's is happy to make a version for chicken, but they would approve of the fact that they fill you up and help sop up any gravy.

The film the recipe comes from originally is 84 Charing Cross Road. Another film chronicling life in Post War England.

84 Charing Cross Road

Yorkshire pudding

How many friends have you got? I’m not talking cyber friends who nudge you occasionally and tweet at your witticisms but real flesh and blood friends who will lend you bus fare or possibly a sofa in your hour of need. It takes more than clicking the accept button to form a lasting friendship. Making friends, like falling in love, takes time and effort. Investing this energy pays dividends as a friendship grows and lasts.

Communications between post war London and New York came mainly in written form. Correspondents had no choice but to wait for a response. In the film this waiting heightens the pleasure of receiving a reply. What starts as a business relationship flourishes into true friendship between not only Helene and Frank but also others who are associated with the shop. Like all friendships there are discussions held and gifts exchanged. Food that gladdened the friends’ hearts and stomachs arrived in ration bound Britain and whilst sending spam and powdered egg back in return was not a possibility they sent back a British classic in recipe form.

Given that American biscuits look like scones, muffins are cakes and grits are edible (just) Yorkshire pudding turned out to be very different from the dessert that perhaps Helene’s dinner guests expected. True to her literary form she described the pudding as “a high curved empty waffle.” This recipe is for one large pudding and you will need to share it. Cyber friends do not eat so make sure you cook this for living, breathing ones.

Mise en scene

1tbsp oil or 1 heaped tbsp beef dripping

125g plain flour,

2 eggs,

½ pt milk,

Salt and pepper

It’s all in the edit

Pre heat oven to 250C Gas 9

1. Place a large, deep and very sturdy baking tin in the oven with the oil or beef dripping and wait until the pan is smoking hot.
2. Sieve the flour into a large bowl, break in the eggs, add the milk and whisk until combined. Season the batter well.
3. Light a ring. Take the pan from the oven. Place the pan over the heat and keep hot. Working very quickly, pour the batter into the hot pan.
4. Return the pan to the oven and bake for 20 minutes until risen and golden. Do not peek.
5. Serve to at least three of your closest friends and accompany with Roast beef, roast potatoes, vegetables and lashings of gravy. Pork Royale also benefits from the addition of Yorkshire puddings!

Hint and tip

If you can’t cope with a savoury pudding you can serve this as a dessert with cream and either honey or a chocolate sauce. If you are going to do this then don’t use the beef dripping to cook the batter unless you like that slightly meaty overtone to your pudding!

Something to go with that sourdough.

Those who follow me on Twitter will no doubt have been gripped by the ongoing saga of Fanny the sourdough starter. My loaf is now baked, the kitchen smells fantastic but the honeymoon is in danger of being over. I've had it warm, toasted and in a sandwich but I was wondering what to do next.

Soup!

Dipping buttered bread in soup has to be a solitary guilty pleasure. Why solitary? Well I'm certainly not sharing any.This brings me to the Movie Dinner of the day. Charlie and the Chocolate factory is jammed full of food and potential recipe ideas. This recipe didn't make the final edit because when the choice is between cabbage and chocolate, chocolate always wins. The chocolate fondue went in and cabbage soup was left out but it still tastes great. Now I can share it with you. Sourdough toast is an optional but highly recommended extra.

Charlie and the chocolate factory (2005)

“sometimes I feel I’ve eaten cabbage soup forever.”

Cabbage soup

Living in the shadow of Wonka’s mysterious chocolate factory in a tumble down, dilapidated cottage the Bucket family exist on a subsistence diet of cabbage soup and if they are lucky, bread. Frost covered cabbages squat in the garden of this poor but kindly family. Charlie’s mother dispatches several of these cabbages to the great soup tureen in the sky almost as soon as the movie begins using a scarily large cleaver. The monotony of the family’s diet in such a dark, depressing and impoverished hovel contrasts superbly with the vivid and extraordinary culinary creations escaping from the imagination of Willy Wonka. This grinding banality is underlined by Grandpa George complaining that “sometimes I feel I’ve eaten cabbage soup forever.”

Smells are incredibly evocative, in the movie’s opening scene Charlie stops close to the factory gates, closes his eyes and breathes in deeply, savouring the wonderful smell of melting chocolate. I very much doubt he does the same when he nears the front door of his family home. Cabbage soup can be filling and tasty, something Mrs Bucket struggled to achieve. She watered down the soup on bad days and on days of plenty added extra cabbage because “nothing goes better with cabbage than cabbage”.

Let me prove to you, and the Buckets, that with a few inexpensive additions cabbage soup can be tasty and even looked forward to. Mind you, as good as this is I’d swap it all for a bar of Wonka’s whipple scrumptious fudge mallow delight and a trip round a chocolate factory with Johnny Depp.

Mise en scene

1 large cabbage (any variety you choose from brussel tops to Cavalo Nero depending on your finances or aspirations.)

2 large potatoes, diced (floury are best for this recipe)

Several rashers of streaky bacon

1 onion or leek chopped finely

750ml stock and a jug of hot water

Splash of milk or cream

Knob of butter

Salt

White pepper

It's all in the edit!.

1. Remove the outer leaves of the cabbage. Trim any damaged areas and cut out the thicker central ribs as these are very tough. Shred the cabbage very finely, Chiffonade is the technical term for this. Rinse and place in a bowl of water.
2. Cut the bacon into small pieces and place into a large pan. Cook the bacon until very crispy. Remove from the saucepan but leave as much bacon fat behind as possible.
3. Add the onion or leeks to the bacon fat and cook until softened. You may need a small knob of butter or splash of oil here. You decide.
4. Drain the shredded cabbage and add all but a handful to the pan. Allow to wilt and soften for two or three minutes and then add in the stock. Bring to a simmer, tip in the cubed potatoes, cover and simmer for 20 minutes.
5. After 20 minutes give the whole thing a vigorous stir. This will break up the potatoes a little and thicken the soup. Use the hot water here if the soup has become very thick. Add in your splash of milk or cream, the remaining handful of cabbage and season with salt and white pepper. Cook on for another 5 minutes to soften the later cabbage addition.
6. Serve in a warm bowl topped with the crispy bacon pieces.
7. Anyone who licks their bowl clean should be rewarded with a square or two of good quality dark chocolate and a Johnny Depp movie of their choice.

A good day for baking - but not for getting your kit off!

I have mixed feelings about wet and windy days during half term. I'd like to be sitting outside a coffee shop catching the last of the late autumn sun but if I can't, a bit of baking will do me fine. Today's project is to turn Fanny (named after La Craddock as she's acidic and temperamental) the sourdough starter into a loaf of crusty bread.

One of the recipes that I didn't finally include in Movie Dinners was, in fact. one of my children's favourites. Make the buns by all means but it's a bit nippy to recreate other scenes from Calendar Girls any more authentically today!

Calendar Girls

"I'm not a total dead loss as a woman. I can't knit or make plum jam but I can bake a bloody Victoria sponge."

Cherry buns

It’s that sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach that makes you realise you are having second thoughts. Friends the world over call in favours and others actually volunteer to help out. Usually it involves helping a mate to move house, lending another a cup of sugar or babysitting.

For the plucky Yorkshire lasses in Calendar Girls the favour involved both knitting and nudity. For these members of the WI the knitting caused few problems but getting nude in Yorkshire required grit, determination and access to several portable heaters. As the ladies pose for the camera the props used to spare their and our blushes are wide ranging and innovative. Sunflowers and apple presses are artfully shot but it’s the buns that steal the show.

Slicked with thick swirls of icing and garnished with an appropriately placed glace cherry they almost didn’t make it. Who can forget the sight of Celia Imrie walking towards the camera muttering the line, “We’re going to need considerably bigger buns!” This recipe might have helped. If you feel the need you can make them to match the cup size of your choice.

Mise en scene

Dough

650g strong white bread flour

60g caster sugar

75g white vegetable fat or lard

1 egg

1 tsp salt

180ml warm milk

150ml warm water

1 sachet yeast

Flavourless oil for greasing trays

Topping

150g icing sugar

Glace cherries

Its all in the edit….

Pre heat oven to Gas 5 190c 375f

1. Place the warm water in a jug and stir in a sprinkle of sugar and the yeast. Leave out of any drafts until the yeast has doubled in size.

2. Into a large bowl sieve the flour and stir in the sugar and salt. Cut the vegetable shortening/lard into the flour and rub in until the vegetable fat resembles breadcrumbs

3. Pour in the warm milk and stir to begin to incorporate, now add the beaten egg and the yeast mixture. Using a round bladed knife mix until the dough comes together.

4. Using your hands knead the dough gently but effectively for 5 minutes or so until the dough becomes smooth and silky.

5. Make the dough into a ball and place in an oiled bowl. Cover with a damp cloth. Leave for an hour and a half until well risen.

6. Knock back (punch the dough in the middle to deflate it) and let it rise again for another 45 minutes.

7. On a lightly floured surface divide the mixture into your required sized pieces (see hints and tips). Roll them around until nice and spherical and place on an oiled baking tray to rise again for another 15 minutes.

8. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes and leave to cool. When cool ice and decorate with a well placed glace cherry.

9. Get naked and raise money for charity.

Voiceover

A cricket ball sized piece of dough will give you a C cup bun; golf ball sized a AA and so on. Remember bigger buns need a longer cooking time. Surely making these buns is easier, cheaper and far less painful than a boob job, go on be a devil!

Back to business.

My newest book is out, and has been for the past month or so. It seems to be doing well. Movie Dinners was featured in the Mail On Sunday as food book of the week.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/you/article-1304760/Meals-reels.html

Not bad for an accidental food writer. However there were recipes that for many and various reasons couldn't be included in the book. I went to the trouble of writing the damn things and what's more force feeding them to family and friends to make sure they tasted fine and didn't poison anyone.

So here's what I'm going to do. I'll post them on here. Let me know what you think of the recipes and if you happen to have a copy Movie dinners - the book. If you like it lots a review on Amazon would be appreciated too.

Ratatouille (2007)

"This much I knew. If you are what you eat, then I only wanna eat the good stuff." Remy

I bet there are days when you stand in your kitchen and wish you had a chef to do the cooking for you when the guests turn up. For many the closest we come is passing off a premium range ready meal as home made or relying on Delia’s fool proof recipes to triumph once again.

If I wore a chef’s hat in the kitchen, which I don’t although believe me I’ve been tempted, I’d like Remy under mine. I know rodents and food preparation areas shouldn’t mix under any circumstances however I’d be prepared to overlook his more whiskery qualities in order to learn from his genius. (Yes I know he’s a cartoon but humour me!)

Remy is an innovator, he takes a dish as well known as ratatouille and with a very little twist transforms it something visually stunning and positively delicious. Of course he needs to work through Linguini to make his dishes a reality but for a rat with dream he has little option. I only wish I had Remy’s highly developed senses working alongside me when the guests at my table are waiting to be fed.

Mise en scene

1 courgette

1 small yellow pepper

1 small aubergine

2 tomatoes

1 red onion half sliced and half chopped

2 cloves of garlic

4 tablespoons passata

Olive oil

Salt and pepper

Herbs de province (thyme, rosemary, oregano)

A round or oval baking dish with a lid if possible

It’s all in the edit...

1. Preheat the oven to 200C.
2. Slice the vegetables very thinly. You can use a mandolin if you are feeling brave but those with an attachment to their fingertips might choose to use a sharp knife instead.
3. Heat a splash or two of oil in a saucepan and soften the chopped onions and garlic. Tip these into the bottom of the baking dish and cover with the passata. Season with salt and pepper.
4. Begin to layer the vegetables around the dish in a spiral. This is time consuming so find your own sous chef, commis or even plongeur to complete this task for you. Alternate slices of different vegetables to make the dish appealing to the eye. When the dish is full or you have run out of vegetable slices season again.
5. Sprinkle on a dessert spoonful of herbs. Use ones you like from the list above, whatever you have knocking about in the garden.
6. Slosh a tablespoon or two of olive oil over the vegetables and pop the lid on the baking dish. If you don’t have a lid you can easily use foil or make a paper cartouche (see voice over). Bake for 25 minutes and then remove the lid. Bake for a further 5 to 10 minutes until the top of the ratatouille just colours.
7. Check under the table and behind the bin for rodents. Find a food critic to serve this too.

Voice over

Covering a dish without a lid is easy. You can use foil scrunched around the lid to secure. This is fine but can lead to the food under the foil steaming so if you want the food to bake then use parchment. Cut the paper slightly larger than the dish as this will allow you to tuck the paper into the edge of the dish.