Black Garlic Siew Mai

Surprise! Here's a new post on Feast with Bron. Has to be said we've been eating well and variously in the intervening time but the actual writing about it has not happened of late. With the new year on its way that is set to change - probably! I have come close to posting - particularly for a recipe with spiced lamb balls and chickpeas, and another of lentils with minced pork and chopped kale. I especially liked autumn vegetables braised in stock and herbs and daube with tagliatelle - a trick I learned from eating more than occasionally at our fabulous local, The Canton Arms. And yet, somehow, though I thought about the elements and took some lovely pictures, the posts didn't come. Apologies.

What tipped me over into finally starting again was being sent some black garlic to try. It's amazing looking stuff - garlic cloves black as pitch, as though remade with molasses. They are gorgeous things, fragrant and sticky and chewy and vaguely shiny. I do love shiny. Best of all there is a delicate garlic undertow when sink your teeth in. It is made using regular garlic that is gently heated over a few weeks till the heads are a rich sweet black. There's none of the harshness of raw garlic in taste or perfume - when I showed the man what I was using he tried a clove. Tentative at first he soon declared they would be a great addition to a plate of nibbles with drinks - and he's absolutely right. Match them with some marinated olives, a little cheese and a few oatcakes and you have fabulous with Christmas drinks ready on a plate.

I googled to find things to cook - found an interesting Singapore site with lots of interesting ideas. I really fancied steamed wantons, so made a version of the siew mai and served them up atop jasmine rice and greens stir fried with garlic, chilli and oyster sauce. Total delight.

Black Garlic Siew Mai

Though you can make your own wanton skins they are readily available in Chinese grocers, sometimes fresh but always frozen. They don't take long to defrost. The pork comes from the Ginger Pig and you can buy black garlic at some supermarkets and good deliscatessans.

4 dried shitake mushrooms
3 cloves black garlic, thinly sliced
150gm minced pork
1 small egg, lightly beaten
1 tbspn cornflour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
25ml vegetable oil
25ml water
20 wanton skins

Soak the mushrooms in boiling water, stalk side down, for 15 minutes or until they are softened. If they are quite old they may need a second covering in boiling water before they are good to use. When properly softened, cut away and discard the stems and finely chop the caps.

Mix the mushrooms with the black garlic, pork, egg and cornflour and stir in one direction only until sticky. Add the salt, sugar, oil and water and mix well.

Dollop a teaspoon of mixture into the centre of each wanton wrapper and gently fold up the sides around it. Trim off any excess skin.

Put the siew mai into a bamboo steamer over boiling water or into a perforated tray for a steam oven. Steam for 8-10 minutes till cooked through.


Don't know why you are instructed to stir only one way - I did it, and included it here, just in case it has some mysterious effect!

It produced a fabulous tray of siew mai with lovely textures and flavours. It worked a treat as dinner but would be just as good as hot nibbles dipped in a little Japanese soy with cocktails.

New treats for Christmas!

Hope you have a good one, full of joy, happiness and lots of great food.

Pumpkin Soup

According to the BBC's Wheel of Hunger Pumpkin Soup is the most searched for recipe this week. Look no further, this is a sublime soup and ethereally beautiful to boot. I heard Heston Blumenthal on Women's Hour last week - yes I'm obsessed but it was actually by chance. He was talking about the delights of this soup and its relative simplicity to make and its resulting complexity when you taste it. With the recipe posted on the BBC site (I seem to be getting my licence fee's worth this week) I couldn't resist.

I love pumpkin, always have. It's a wonderful veg to roast or mash with cream, its vibrant colour brings joy to curries and soups, particularly this time of year as the days get shorter and colder and wetter. We ate it a lot when I was a kid, my mother was a huge fan, with a particular fondness for a type called Queensland Blue. It's a huge beast with steel blue skin and riotously orange flesh, with a good texture and not too sweet. It's only negative is the skin is spectacularly difficult to cut through - I was endlessly trapping a big knife halfway through cutting unable to take it further or get it out again.

Friday I set out to hunt me a piece of pumpkin, a proper tasty thing like we used to eat. I knew Brixton Market would have a good selection and would cut me a hunk to match my specifications. Though there was no chance of the Aussie favourite I was looking for similar - and found a lovely steel blue specimen that turns out is called Crown Prince. Smaller and neater it still has a wonderfully ridged exterior and a smooth orange interior. Perfect. For some reason I assumed it would be easier to peel than the ones of my youth but no, just as infuriatingly difficult as I remember. But worth it.

I was faithful to the Heston version Friday night, coating the inside of the bowls with a nubbly aromatic mix of rosemary, breadcrumbs and hazelnuts but for lunch next day I simply toasted some nuts and crushed them before scattering them over the soup with dots of pepper oil and a light sprinkle of salt chrystals.

This is a wonderfully complex soup with incredible depth of flavour. I must warn you to start early - it takes a while to put it all together but you will be richly rewarded. I can imagine it served in tiny bowls at the start of a long meal, perfect for Christmas Day perhaps at the end of a long bracing walk.

Pumpkin Soup by Heston

It seems odd to weigh liquids but it's actually quick and easy

850g Pumpkin flesh

Olive oil

250g Unsalted butter

3 Onions, peeled and finely sliced

400g Whole milk

4 sprigs of rosemary

Pinch of cayenne pepper

40g Sesame oil (or to taste)

40g Balsamic vinegar (or to taste)

Salt

20g Hazelnuts, toasted until golden brown

½ sprig of rosemary

20g coarse dry breadcrumbs

1 tbsp melted brown butter (see tip below)

1 Red pepper, de-seeded, roasted and peeled, then cut into diamonds

Pumpkin seeds

Red pepper oil (see tip below)

Thinly slice half of the pumpkin on a mandolin and cut the other half into large cubes. Roast the large cubes of pumpkin drizzled with a little olive oil at 180 for 40 minutes.

Melt 200g of the butter in the saucepan and sweat the onions and pumpkin slices for approximately 10 minutes.

In the meantime, in a second pan, heat the milk until almost simmering. Turn off the heat, add the rosemary, allow to infuse for 20 minutes. Strain the liquid and discard the rosemary.

When the onions are translucent, add the rosemary milk, 600g cold tap water and the roasted pumpkin, bring to the boil and reduce to a simmer for 10 minutes until the sliced pumpkin is soft. Remove from the heat, liquidize and pass through a fine sieve. Season with cayenne, sesame oil, balsamic vinegar and salt.

When ready to serve, combine the toasted hazelnuts with the rosemary and blitz to a coarse powder. Combine with the breadcrumbs. Brush the inside rim of the soup bowls with the brown butter and coat with the hazelnut and rosemary mixture.

Place some red pepper diamonds and pumpkin seeds in the bottom of each bowl.

Warm the soup, add the remaining 50g of butter and aerate with a hand blender. Ladle into the nut-encrusted bowls and garnish with drops of red pepper oil.

Brown Butter

Melt unsalted butter in a medium pan over a gentle heat, whisking continuously, until the solids turn golden brown and give off a nutty aroma. Take the pan off the heat immediately, strain the butter through a coffee filter and store in the fridge.

Red pepper oil

1 Red pepper, de-seeded, roasted and peeled

100g Groundnut or grapeseed oil

Put the pepper and oil in a liquidizer and blitz until fine.

Strain through a fine sieve and pour into a bottle. Keep in the fridge for 4-5 days only.

I wanted...I bought...I made

Really enjoyed these lentils and kale, perfect autumn food

I know I have been a bit intermittent - can you be a bit intermittent? - with this section of the blog of late. It is mostly because now that I am at home, making sweet Wolfe things for the stall at Brixton or for my new clients, I have less need for an overarching plan each week as I can pop out for things when I need to. It is also, it must be said, because Borough is becoming less home cook friendly - I have mentioned before the loss of Booths - my once favourite place for vegetables whose removal made the weekly shop unbalanced, like a wheel had fallen off my trolley. Many of the people working there are new and it takes time to know them though often they are too busy for that to be realistic. It is though still a treasure trove of good things and it will have to change much more before I could contemplate not heading there each week. So I guess I need to try a bit harder with this round up!

Friday I want pumpkin soup, from a recipe I heard on Women's Hour with Heston Blumenthal - ah the joys of working at home. There is half a rye loaf in the freezer that will be the perfect accompaniment. Thoroughly fabulous. Saturday the man is threatening to have to work so perhaps sausage and mash would be a cheering sight on his return - he worked Sunday so Saturday we had his favourite of cold collation, bits and pieces of cheese and olives and saucisson with good bread to go with. Sunday I think roast lamb - we have some in the freezer kindly given to us by the man's sister and brother in law from their farm, needs roasted root veg and perhaps a parsnip puree - we also had pork spareribs in the freezer I noticed as I fossicked so I steamed them with black beans, did cabbage with ginger and served the lot with rice. Monday the man is out so might just have an omelette had an exceptionally good lentils with minced pork, garlic and curly kale, Tuesday I think butterbean puree and steamed aubergine, perhaps a beetroot salad to fill pitta with a little more of the lamb we had the lamb from Trew farm roasted with root veg and potatoes dauphinois. Wednesday noodles actually a simple pasta with tomato and balsamic sauce, I still love noodles, and Thursday tortilla - more freezer treasures we had grilled pork chops with mashed swede and wilted greens for a very wonderful autumn repast. Should be a tasty week.

The market was busyish Friday morning, started at Neals Yard and bought milk, yoghurt and cream but no spaghetti as they had run out, spent £9.70

At Ginger Pig John was back from his holiday, cheerful as ever. Bought smoked bacon, minced beef and pork chop - all for the freezer in the end - for £13.87

A pork pie from Mrs Elizabeth King - I had a sudden hankering and the moment I got home I cut me a huge hunk for my lunch, ah the fabulous smell, the amazing textures of meat and jelly, the rich pastry, no surprise they won gold at this year's Melton Mowbray awards. All that joy a mere £5

Cheese from Gastronomica - a rich old Pecorino, a creamy dreamy rocchetta and a crumbly chunk of Parmesan - £19 the lot

Round to the fish man and joy! he was there but hadn't made a plan for fish so bought a tranche of smoked bass to be getting on with - £3

From Lizzie at Wild Beef I bought eggs and sausages, not as a breakfast surprise but should have! £7 She was telling me about getting a kindle and wanting a particular book which turns out is not available till January, so she has put the kindle away

Fancied salted almonds so wandered through Brindisa - £4.50 a pack - definite treat territory

Then to Fresh Olive where I was told with some certainty that Friday may be cold but Sunday would be 20C. I doubted but I was wrong! Bought a tub of luques £3.50

That was all - bought veg from the organic stall at Oval Market Saturday - spent £65.57 at Borough

Caramelised Onion Tart

Have been busy lately and out and about and my cooking has mirrored that - sometimes thought through, sometimes rushed but usually interesting! I found the recipe for this on Splendid Table, I think, though I know it comes from Grand Central Bake, and anything New York will always snag my attention at least for as long as it takes to decide it's level of fabulousness. Loved the sound of this so copied it to my recipe file which, often as not, is where my untried recipes stay, sometimes for months, other times for going on forever. This one, however, hung around the edges of my mind partly because I am a total sucker for caremalised onions with anything and partly because theoretically I am trying to expand the great meat free dinner repertoire. But it was mostly the onions, you understand.

So this week, when I had half a carton of cream to use and plenty of onions I couldn't resist. Definitely one of my better ideas - all manner of textures and flavours, a lot of them associated with the last taste of summer, it made for a great supper and good next day for lunch.

Caramelised Onion Tart with Roasted Vegetables

Serves 4 with salad

20 x 30 cm ready rolled puff pastry sheet, defrosted if frozen
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 medium-sized onions, thinly sliced
2 teaspoons salt
¼ cup cream
1 egg
¼ cup grated parmesan cheese
250 – 300g sliced (to coin thickness) courgettes and tomatoes
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat olive oil in a large, heavy pan over medium-high heat. When hot, add the onions and sprinkle in salt. Cook onions until they release some liquid and begin to develop a few dark spots, about 5 minutes. Reduce heat and continue cooking until onions are soft and toasty brown, 35-45 minutes. Do not stir too often during the caramelizing process. Instead, give the pan a good shake about every 5 minutes to redistribute contents. Allow onions to cool. Taste for seasoning and add more salt if necessary. Whisk the cream and egg together and fold in cool onion mixture and parmesan cheese.

Pull puff pastry from the refrigerator and place onto a baking sheet lined with parchment – or a silicon mat if you have one. I used to have one, never used it, gave it to the charity shop, and now have many times I wish I hadn’t. Pfff. Use a paring knife to trace a smaller rectangle on the puff pastry, leaving a 1 cm border. Be careful not to cut all the way through the dough. The border will puff up and be the edge of the tart. Use a fork to poke small holes in the centre rectangle.

Spread onion filling in centre of tart inside the central rectangle and arrange tomato and courgette slices decoratively on top. Chill tart for 20 minutes.

While tart is chilling, preheat oven to 400F/Gas 5. Bake tart for 15-20 minutes. Turn oven down to 350F/Gas 4 and bake another 10-20 minutes or until pastry is rich golden brown. Garnish with fresh basil after baking. Serve warm from the oven or at room temperature.

We had it simply with alfafa sprouts for a really clean fresh crunch.