Remember membrillo?

 No sooner, it seems, do I write about the long awaited arrival of Autumn, than Christmas lumbers into view.  Now I know this is as much to do with my recent slackness in updating this blog as it is to do with the late onset of Autumn, and nothing whatsoever to do with the early arrival of Christmas, which only appears to come round quicker every year, but still…  Anyway, if you’re here looking for Christmas ideas, then I’ll refer you to my post last Christmas posts from January , right now I still have autumn to get out of the way.  As, incidentally, does the weather – for all that as I write, Scotland is to all intents and purposes being blown away (a scenario that will doubtless please many, on both sides of Hadrian’s Wall) by the fiercest winds this century – so fierce they have their own Wikipedia entry.  Already!  Making ‘Bawbag’ official.  Kind of -  down here in the South, although it is admittedly a bit blowy right now, we are still in the throes of what is technically a drought.  It really has hardly rained at all this autumn.  And we’ve had three, maybe four days you could properly call chilly.  And we’re almost a third of the way through December!  At the risk of banging on, that’s not right is it?  SOMETHING MUST BE DONE.

Anyway, back to food.  Quinces.  Remember?  I’d made jelly, and was about to make membrillo.  It went like this.  Again, I simply followed that recipe and it came out fine, so I have little to add in terms of advice, other than do it: both the jelly and the membrillo (or quince cheese, if you must).  It really is so easy, and so very tasty.  The one comment I would make is that living as I do (and wouldn’t change for the world) with someone who can’t eat cheese, the opportunities for the consumption of membrillo might appear limited, but that just means it lasts longer.  I made my slab over three weeks ago now and took half of it, along with a big wedge of manchego to a dinner party hosted by our good friends Edgar and Lindsay.  A large part of the rest remains in our fridge, wrapped in greaseproof paper and sealed in a Tupperware container and will keep there perfectly happily for months, or even up to a year, I’m told, not that it stands even the slightest chance of remaining undevoured that long.  I would observe that as it matures, the flavour develops an increasingly strong hint of banana, but that’s the only difference I’ve noticed so far.  And I have no problem with banana.

Although membrillo is naturally and traditionally paired with manchego, what with being Spanish and all, it is worth bearing in mind that manchego is not the only cheese.  Not even in Spain.  I have found that it pairs particularly well with a nice crumbly Lancashire cheese (which pretty much by definition means it will go equally well with Caerphilly, Wensleydale and any other mildish, crumbly white cheese).  And the jelly too.  And of course you don’t need cheese at all, both the membrillo and the jelly will sit very happily on a plate with cold meats, pates or a good old pork pie. 

Ah.  Pork pie.  One of those combinations of words I cannot write, say, or even think without my mouth starting to water just a little bit.  I have long intended to get round to making one of my own, so much so that it’s an annual event, an essential part, indeed, of my own personal advent calender to wake up one day and realize that I’m not going to have time to make one for this Christmas either, again.  We are now rapidly approaching that day for this year.  Damn it.

Get a load of those eggs

Just a quickie, mainly to put up that picture of the most beautiful eggs I have ever seen, found on a Sunday walk in the Chilterns with Becca and her parents, just left at a farm gate with an honesty jar.  Half a dozen eggs, all different shades including colours I’ve never seen hen’s eggs come in.  There is, after all, a reason why the colour’s called duck egg blue, or the walls of our kitchen are painted “Starling’s Egg”, but we had both of those, and a pale pastel green that I don’t think I’ve ever seen any egg come in.  It was like Greek Easter come early (except one colour we didn’t have – perhaps fortunately, was deep red…).

And tasty too, as only truly farm fresh eggs can ever be.  The first I had I poached, as poaching is the way of cooking eggs most dependent for its success on their freshness.  And I wasn’t disappointed, although, aesthetically, it may not have been quite as perfect as the poached egg I previously posted.  Nevertheless, served on toast, with a few slices of a big open cap mushroom, fried up with slivers of garlic and parsley it was pretty sublime.

Then I used four to make a tortilla, a proper Spanish tortilla, or PST, as described, but not pictured, here.  Four eggs, two medium sized Maris Pipers and half a large onion came to just the right amount to fill my 20cm pan to make a tortilla which, in turn, was just the right size to have half, warm, for lunch the day I made it, and the second half cold for breakfast the next day.  I do love tortilla for breakfast - the only downside being that it’s just another thing making you wish you lived in Spain…

More Egg

On past form you might not unreasonably expect this to be posted under the heading “Tortilla-ish”, but it won’t be, because, at the risk of leaving myself open to accusations of flip-flopping on my authenticity position, the potato and onion omelette featured here is just a potato and onion omelette, it’s not a proper Spanish tortilla.  Even if a proper Spanish tortilla is, in essence, just a potato and onion omelette.  And an omelette, after all, is an omelette, is an omelette, is an omelette.  Etc.

Ironically, though, that’s exactly why this is definitively NOT a tortilla.  Because, an omelette being an omelette, and all that, then if the word tortilla is to mean anything at all (in the context of potato and onion omelettes) then it has to mean something quite specific.  I have spent a substantial proportion of my adult life trying to capture that specific quality - that totally integrated, dense but light, genuinely cake-like consistency - and for a large part of that time I would have ascribed the name ‘tortilla’ to what I have just had for lunch today.  Today though, I'm not going to do that.

The key and crucial difference, and where I long went ‘wrong’ was that today’s omelette was made with left over potatoes, cooked for last night's dinner.  A proper Spanish tortilla (henceforward referred to here as a PST) has to be made with raw potatoes, cooked from scratch, sliced fine and effectively boiled in olive oil, before adding onions (and maybe garlic), and finally egg.  Made any other way, you might well end up with a very tasty omelette indeed, but it will not have the particular quality that would mark it as a PST.  The other, lesser, difference is that I threw a handful of chopped parsley into today’s omelette, while a PST should have no green herbs, consisting solely of potatoes, onions (and maybe garlic) and eggs.  Plus salt and pepper.  Nothing else.  They did a lovely “tortilla” in the – I believe, Portuguese – deli in Brixton where I used to live, which was heavy with rosemary, and delicious, but not a PST.


To make a PST, peel your potatoes and slice them into small pieces about the thickness of a pound coin.  Fry these gently in olive oil, in your omelette pan, covered with a lid (you want them to cook through without browning), until softening then add the onion, sliced into wedges about the same size as the potato pieces.  I add finely sliced garlic at this point too, but that’s optional and arguably controversial.  Plenty of salt and pepper.  When the onion is softened and turning translucent, turn the contents of the pan out into a large bowl in which you have already broken and beaten your eggs (mixing the egg, potato and onions in the bowl rather than just pouring the egg over the potatoes and onion in the pan seems somehow crucial to achieving a PST).  Re-oil the pan (lots and lots of olive oil is another key secret of PST success) then tip the mix back in, and keep it moving, stirring and pushing away from the edges of the pan until the egg is starting to set through.  Traditionally, at this point you turn the omelette by tipping it out onto a plate and sliding it back into the pan the other way up, but I find, with anything bigger than a one egg pan, that is a difficult and risky manoeuvre, and even if it goes well it leaves a substantial portion of your tortilla smeared across the plate.  Or, if you are incredibly skilled and have an arm like Popeye, like the tortilla-maker (tortillista?) I watched slack jawed with awe in a Madrid bar for a good half hour a couple of years back, you can just flip the whole thing like a pancake (and this guy was flipping tortillas at least a foot across and three inches thick, and in the half hour I watched he made at least four.  Frightening.).  Or you can do what I do and finish your tortilla under the grill.  As for quantities, it depends entirely on the size of your pan, but the volumes of potato and onion should be more or less equal, and the volume of egg enough to cover them both generously without overflowing the pan, obviously.

Today’s omelette was a much simpler affair, just a handful of left over boiled new potatoes fried in the pan until they were browning, half an onion, cut into wedges, a little garlic, two eggs beaten in a mug and poured over once the onions were soft, a handful of chopped parsley thrown over and the whole thing flipped - with a spatula, I’m afraid, like a big soft gurl…

 

It made a thoroughly delicious lunch with a couple of slices of buttered brown bread, but it wasn’t a tortilla…

A perfect poached egg

This won’t take long, and I’m only writing it up at all to give me an excuse for posting the accompanying pics, but is there anything quite as perfect as a perfectly poached egg?

Eggs don’t get much of a look in on this blog, what with Becca being allergic, but I’m not always cooking for two, and, like the previously featured grilled/fried cheese sandwich this is a case of a basic snacky lunch for one being made just a little bit unnecessarily indulgent for very little effort.

To poach an egg is undoubtedly to go to a bit more trouble than to simply fry one, or to boil it, but not by so very much.  You just need to put a pan of water on the heat and bring it to the gentlest simmer you can.  Add some vinegar – about as much as you’d sprinkle on a portion of chips, then, using a wooden spoon stir the water to create a whirlpool in the pan, into the centre of which you drop the egg. The trick is to break the egg into a small cup or ramekin, and then tip the edge of the cup into the water, so the egg just gently slides in, and that way it all holds neatly together.  Then you wait until the egg white is set, just a couple of minutes, then lift it out with a slotted spoon, tipping off any excess water before placing it on to a slice of toast or a potato cake or, as here a golden fried disc of colcannon.  Some mushrooms, sliced and sautéed with perhaps a little garlic and parsley could even make it a little better still.  Breakfast, or lunch, of champions.

If you do like an egg, by the way, fried or poached, on toast or colcannon, for breakfast or lunch, my top tip is to try a few drops of the mild green Tabasco sauce sprinkled over it.  A marriage made in heaven.


And speaking of marriages made in heaven, I've said it before and I'll say it again: smoked haddock and mash with spinach topped with a poached egg.  As I believe the kids say elsewhere on this internet thingy, OMG.

Best toasted cheese sandwich ever.

Okay, so it wasn’t toasted so much as fried, but yum.  Two slices of wholegrain bread, a wedge of pecorino (Pecorino Giglio Sardo from my local Italian deli, Gallo Nero in Stoke Newington), two rashers of smoked pancetta (also from Gallo Nero).  Served with green tomato chutney.  Pecorino is ideal because it has the right combination of density with a bit of elasticity that allows fine slicing, without rubberiness - a good mature gruyere would do, or maybe manchego – and strength of flavour without being overwhelming, and even a little hint of sweetness.  I think a properly mature cheddar would be too crumbly and too astringently powerful, although I’m not going to say it might not work if that’s what you like.

It is essential to slice the cheese finely, as it’s not going to be exposed to direct heat, but you do want it melty, so just thinly cover one slice of the bread.  Meanwhile, briefly fry the rashers of pancetta, then lay them over the pecorino and cover with the other slice, then fry the sandwich in the pan with the pancetta fat and maybe a little olive oil (depending on how much fat the pancetta’s left behind).  When you first put the sandwich in the pan you’ll want to flip it almost immediately, otherwise all the pork fat will be soaked up by just one slice of the bread, and you want it evenly distributed.  Then, after the initial flip, just a minute or two on each side to get the bread golden brown and the cheese just melting.  I happen to have a heavy Le Creuset casserole lid that fits neatly within my frying pan and I used that both to cover the sandwich, to retain heat and encourage the cheese to melt, and to apply some downward pressure to it, which I guess roughly duplicated at least some of the effect of those deli style sandwich toasters.  That probably wasn’t essential, but I’m sure it helped.