The Urban Spice man cometh

It was an exciting day when the postman dropped off this parcel.
We have been entrusted with a selection of the Urban Spice Man's range of spice blends for pre-launch testing and honoured with the task of coming up with some recipe ideas.

Intriguing and enticing titles and a full menu of contents - I couldn't wait to get started.  But life has been hectic of late, so simplicity was the key consideration.  These spice blends are well thought out, beautifully balanced and absolutely zinging with flavour, so simple is anything but boring.

On a #MeatFreeMonday in dreary December, this zipadeedoodah green tomato and black bean curry was as bright and cheerful as a Spring day.

1 tblsp rapeseed oil, we always use our local favourite from Bennett and Dunn

1 onion, sliced

20g butter

2 cloves garlic, sliced

200g green tomatoes, chopped into large chunks - the last of the season, the plants withered by the first frost, the fruit clinging on, but with no hope of ripening.  You could also use any under-ripe tomatoes for this recipe, the astringency bringing another flavour dimension to the dish.

200g cooked black beans (or kidney beans)

2 teaspoons Wor Toon Curry Pooda (adjust the quantity to taste) 

50g creamed coconut

250ml water

4 generous handfuls spinach

Juice of 1 lemon

2 tsp salt

Put the oil and butter in a large frying pan or prospector pan and warm over a medium heat.

When the butter foams, add the onion and garlic and fry until translucent. Tip in the spice mix and cook for 5 minutes.  If the mixture starts to catch on the bottom of the pan add a little water (you don't need any more oil).

Put the tomatoes, beans and coconut in the pan and stir in the water.

Simmer for 30 minutes, adding more water if the sauce looks too thick.

Taste, add the lemon juice and season with salt.

Add the spinach, a handful at a time and when it has just wilted, the dish is ready to serve.

A handful of chopped coriander and some lemon wedges would not go amiss, but are not essential.

Serve with rice or naan.

Serves 4

Keep checking the website and our social media for more news from the Spiceman and more recipes.

Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2018 ©

https://www.netherton-foundry.co.uk/

Spiced lentil and sweet potato soup

A recipes for those in-between days - simple fodder after the Christmas lunch and before the New Year's Eve party.
There are so many recipes for lentil soup and now that the soup dragon has taken up residence within the internet, you are only ever a few clicks away from a bottomless cauldron of recipes.
Soup is a staple at Netherton Towers. When the offspring were small there was generally a pot of botbot (BitOfThisBitOfThat) soup on the go to feed them and any after school hangers on they may have picked up along the way. Leftover or limp veg, stock, rice and tins of tomatoes, the contents of the fridge - anything could be chucked together in an instant and I just love the power of the blender to hide things that kids claim not to like, but don't notice if they can't see them.

This one, on the other hand, was made in a more leisurely and considered manner, with the ingredients weighed out, so that I could share it.
It is a thick, warming soup, with a warm undercurrent and a little bite added to the  - long pause while I search for a less clichéd word than velvety; nope, brain has ceased up, the texture will remained adjectiveless - smoothness of blended lentil and potato.

1 onion, chopped
2 tblsp oil -  I used some garlic and chilli oil for an extra kick, but rapeseed or olive will work equally well
1 tsp ras el hanout
100g red lentils
450g sweet potato (or squash), peeled and diced
1 litre stock, vegetable or chicken (vegetable stock will make this a vegan/vegetarian dish)
1 red pepper, finely chopped

Put half of the oil into a large pan or casserole and warm over a moderate heat.
Sweat onion until soft and translucent.  Be gentle, you don't want brown or crispy bits, but you do want to coax the sweetness out of the onions.
Add the spice and stir well, cook for 2 -3 minutes.
Add the sweet potato, lentils and stock.
Simmer for around 30 minutes until the lentils are thoroughly cooked and the potato is soft.
Blend with a stick mixer or in a blender.

Heat the remaining oil in a frying pan
Add peppers, cook for 5 minutes

Stir into soup.
Serve.

Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2018 ©

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

Weekend breakfasts

To be brutally honest, weekday breakfasts are normally just fuel for the day ahead. Never rubbish, but washed down by coffee that is always too hot or too cold and slotted in between all the pre-work chores, it's generally a rushed affair.
It's a far cry from the primary school days when I got up at stupid o'clock, made the kids' packed lunches, checked the homework, packed the PE kit, signed the reading record and then sat down en famille for bowls of cereal.  Even when they moved up to secondary school, there were still lunches to be packed, but these days the only one taking lunch with them is Neil.
Weekends on the other hand are a different thing altogether; a time for treats and, more often than not, experimentation.  There are all the usual suspects, served up in succession; pancakes, waffles, muffins, a fry up, omelettes and then there are the experiments.  These are generally variations of baked goods, adding new flavours and textures to family favourites and classics.
Unusually for me, I have had a bread free week, so by Friday night the cravings had set in and in anticipation of a leisurely Saturday morning breakfast, I got to work.
September is upon us and with it the first whiff of Autumn, so the first things that came to mind were fruit and spice, both wonderfully evocative of the coming season.  Close your eyes and you can almost smell the apple and clove crumble, Christmas cake, chutneys, bramble vinegar and damson gin.  There will be apple recipes coming up shortly, so I have opted for something a little more exotic. This is a light, almost cakey (is that a word?  If not it should be) loaf, subtly flavoured with cardamom and orange. 

375g bread flour

125g rice flour

1 egg

60g butter

100g Orange sugar (grate the zest of 2 oranges or 4 mandarins, add to a kilo of sugar and store in an airtight jar)

Zest of 1 orange

The seeds from 3 cardamom pods

250ml milk

1 tsp dried yeast

1 tsp salt

1 tblsp marmalade, warmed

Make sure all the ingredients are at room temperature and put them all, except the marmalade, into a food processor or use a food mixer fitted with a dough hook.

Beat thoroughly, it should be smooth and rather sticky.

Cover and leave to prove for at least an hour, I left mine overnight.

Pre-heat the oven to 190ºC

Generously grease a 1lb loaf tin and pour in the dough.

Place in the oven - no, I haven't missed anything out, I didn't give it a second proving - and bake for 30 minutes.  Remove from the oven, turn down the temperature to 175ºC and brush the top of the loaf  with the warmed marmalade.  Return the tin to the oven for another 20 minutes.

Carefully take the loaf out of the tin - you should be able to lift it out quite easily, but it will be HOT - and leave to cool on a wire rack.

Serve warm, not hot, with lashings of butter.  I found a 2 year old jar of peach and rose jam in the cupboard, which added to the doughy, buttery joy.

                                      © Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2017

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

Hot cross buns

Some things are best "unmucked about with" - if you will excuse the appalling grammar.
We are not keen on the supermarkets' playing around with chocolate or sticky toffee versions of hot cross buns. It's quite possible that these are tasty treats, but they ain't hot cross buns in my book.
When it comes to Easter bread based rolls, we prefer the simplicity of a spiced fruit bun.

It's hard to come up with a totally original version of a traditional recipe - something of an contradiction really - but it's fun to play around with the classics and add your own take.

Of course, this all comes back to learning the basics in the first place and I started making hot cross buns with a recipe from one of my old and tatty faithfuls.........

..... but as my culinary confidence grew, I began to add a few tweaks of my own.

Here is my latest version of hot cross buns, not too far away from the original, because sometimes tradition is best.

Buns

1lb bread flour

1tsp dried yeast

1 tsp salt

½ pt milk

5 allspice berries

Pinch of saffron

Pared zest of 1 orange

2 oz butter

1 egg

6 oz sultanas or 4 oz sultanas and 2 oz candied lemon peel

Crosses

A few strips of left over short crust pastry - I always keep my offcuts in the freezer for topping tarts etc.

Alternatively make a paste of flour and water, with a teaspoon of sugar thrown in.

Glaze

1 Tblsp milk

1 Tblsp water

1 Tblsp sugar

Put the milk into a saucepan and warm gently with the saffron, allspice and orange zest. When it reaches a boil, turn off heat leave for an hour to infuse the flavours into the milk.

Add the butter and warm through slowly until the butter has just melted.

Put the sugar, yeast and salt in a large mixing bowl and strain the milk mixture over.

Swish round and leave for 15 minutes.

Add the flour, sultanas (and peel) and the egg.

Mix well with a wooden spoon, then turn out and knead for a good 5 minutes.

Return to a clean bowl and cover with cling film or a damp tea towel.

Leave to prove for an hour

Then you can put the whole lot into a greased 2lb loaf tin to make a simple loaf, or divide into rolls and line up two by two in one or two loaf tins 

or divide into 12 - 16 buns - you decide how big you want them - and place, well spaced, on a griddle plate.

Cover and prove for a further 45 minutes.

Paint the tops with water and place a pastry cross on each bun OR cut a cross into each one and drizzle in your flour paste with a teaspoon.

Bake buns for 15 - 20 mins at 200ºC or loaf for 35 - 40 mins at 180ºC

Put the glaze ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to the boil.

Paint the glaze over the tops of the still warm buns.

Netherton Foundry Shropshire  2016 ©

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

Mango chutney

I make no claims to the authenticity of this recipe - but I can lay claim to its deliciousness and it's just as good with a goat's cheese as it is with a Goan curry.

In this part of the world we are blessed with a fabulous collection of farm shops and local food producers, but there is a dearth of the "ethnic" shops that make city shopping so much fun.
There being no local mango growers in Shropshire, I was obliged to turn to Sainsburys  where I got this fantasitic mango box, containing 8 perfect mangoes.

4 have been kept in the fruit bowl waiting for them to ripen and turn into honeyed balls of  juiciness and 4 have been converted into homemade mango chutney.

The only thing I will say about this is that traditionally chutneys were made to preserve food and make it last - this doesn't happen to this in our house.

It's great to eat straight away and I have absolutely no idea if it improves with age - we have yet to be patient enough to find out.

Ingredients

4 green (under-ripe) mangoes

2 tsp salt

¼ pt malt vinegar

¼ pt distilled malt vinegar

5 oz sugar

½" ginger

10 cardamom pods

2 small dried chillis

2 tsp coriander seeds

1 tsp fenugreek seeds

1 tsp nigella seeds

Peel and chop the mangoes and place in a large bowl. Sprinkle over the salt, cover with a clean tea towel and leave for 24 hours.

Drain and rinse the mangoes.
Place the vinegar, sugar and finely chopped ginger in a casserole dish or large pan.
Bring to the boil, then simmer for around 10 minutes.
Add the mangoes and nigella seeds.  tie all the other spices into a muslin bag and throw that it in with the mangoes.

Cook gently for about 20 - 30 minutes until the mangoes are soft and pulpy and the vinegar has virtually disappeared.

Taste and add more sugar, if desired.

Pour into a hot sterilised jar and seal.

Now - a note about seasoning the cast iron casserole: if you buy one of our casseroles, you will receive a note explaining that you should season it if your first dish contains a lot of acidic ingredients.  Obviously vinegar is an acid - acetic acid to be precise, so this may not be the best dish to christen your casserole with.

Acetic acid /əˈsiːtɨk/, systematically named ethanoic acid /ˌɛθəˈnoʊɨk/, is an organic compound with the chemical formula CH₃COOH (also written as CH₃CO₂H or C₂H₄O₂). It is a colourless liquid that when undiluted is also calledglacial acetic acid. Vinegar is roughly 3 %-9 % acetic acid by volume, making acetic acid the main component of vinegar apart from water.

However, I have been using my casserole for over 4 years now and this is what it looked like when I cleaned out the chutney - so you need have no fears about any lasting damage!!

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

© Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2015

Coconut curry

We are very fond of spiced food here and our trip to India last summer heightened my interest in creating curry style dishes.
I make no claims for the authenticity of this dish, it is simply a combination of warm, fragrant spices that I happen to enjoy.
This is not a mouth blistering curry,but has a subtle blend of flavours, with an overlay of toasted coconut.

It works well with lamb, hard-boiled eggs or paneer.

You will need:
3 onions
3 garlic
1" ginger 
50ml water
2 tblsp coriander seeds, 
1 tblsp cumin seeds, 
2 tsp fenugreek, 
1 tsp white peppercorns  
10 cloves
1 tblsp turmeric 
1 tsp asafoetida
1 dried chilli
4 tblsp dessicated coconut.
500g lamb or 4 hard boiled eggs or 1 pack of paneer
500ml water
1 tsp salt
2 chopped tomatoes
1 teacup frozen peas.

Peel and roughly chop the onions, garlic and ginger and blend to a paste with the 50ml of water.
Dry fry the coriander, chilli, cumin, fenugreek, cloves and peppercorns,  Our blini pan is perfect for this.

Allow to cool and then grind with a pestle and mortar or in a spice mill. 
Dry fry the coconut and set aside.

Put 2 tblsp oil in a cast iron casserole dish, add the onion paste and fry gently for 5 minutes.
Tip in the ground spices, turmeric, asafoetida and coconut.

Cook for 2 minutes, adding more oil if necessary.
Throw in the cubed lamb (if using) and cook for 10 minutes, stirring frequently.
Add the tomatoes and water and 1 tsp salt.
If using eggs or paneer, add them now.

Cover with a lid and simmer for 1 hour.
Chuck in the frozen peas, cook for another 5 minutes and serve with rice or Indian breads.

You can make great chapattis in our crepe pan.

© Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2015

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

Piggy perfection

Making the most of a joint of belly pork......

If any of you were reading Twitter yesterday, you will know that I was feeling creative and trying out a new recipe for the slow cooker.  Well I am delighted to say that it turned out even better than I could have expected and, in the words of my 9 year old food critic , Megan, was absolutely amazing - full review after the recipe.
This was so simple to make, the preparation time was less than 10 minutes and the end result was so tender and full of flavour.  What's more, belly pork is a very economic cut and you don't need to add much to it to make a gourmet dish.
As you can see in the picture, the meat just fell apart at the touch of a fork.
I am guessing that this would be delicious served cold in a crusty cob, but I can't swear to that because there is none left to try!



3 onions, thickly sliced
1 joint of belly pork (mine weighed 750g)
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons five spice powder
3 dessertspoons runny honey
300 ml water

Lay the onions on the bottom of the cast iron bowl. If they don't cover the bottom - add some more.
Mix the salt, five spice powder and honey together and rub all over the pork, ideally with your hands.  Messy, but that's half the fun of cooking.
Put the pork on top of the onions and pour the water round.
Cover and place on the heater base.
Cook for 8-10 hours on KEEP WARM.

And here is what my harshest critic had to say:

Ahhhhh, the pork is all I could ever think of. Absolutely gorgeous.  Meat soft and chewy, sauce is superb and skin is just delicious.  Everyone need and MUST try it.  It was heaven for me.

Megan, age 9



Thank you for your kind words, Megan and I love Piglet!