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

Pies, a paean to pastry

Pies and tarts by Annie Rigg

Pie dish by us

The newest product on our website and in some of our retail outlets is a terrific pie dish.  It came into being when food writer Annie Rigg contacted us, asking if such a thing were possible to produce.

Now as you know, our creative genius likes nothing better than a design challenge, and a slice of pie, so he set to work.

Annie's verdict - "gamechanger" - she likes it!!

Pies are, without a doubt, this year's cupcakes; the humble pastry offering has grown wings, sported controversy  and been turned into an art form.  Take a look at the Instagram posts of @lokokitchen and @julie_jonesuk to see what I mean.  These are no ordinary pies and I certainly wouldn't attempt anything like those here at Netherton Towers.

But we do love pies and were eager to read Annie's book, although I confess here, as I did to Annie herself, to an initial degree of scepticism.

What more is there to say about pies? Single topic cookbooks, so often found languishing in charity shops with their dull covers and formulaic writing are too often uninspiring and predictable.

But this one is different, the cover alone is enough to make you want to buy it - beautiful deep blue with that bronze embossing, gorgeous.

And the inside...... so many new ideas, so much well, clearly written information on pastry techniques, even new pastry recipes - tahini pastry is a new one on us and a real treat.

Take, for example, the classic custard tart.  Made properly, it is divine (the least said about my late mother's pallid pastry and soggy bottom the better) and there is a recipe for a buttermilk version in this book.

But, in popular culinary parlance, bordering on overused cliché, the recipe for malted custard tartlets with bourbon soaked raisins, elevates this to another level.  In fact it takes the lift up several floors and gives this tart a view across the skyline.  Absolutely, lipsmackingly, plate-licking delicious.

We love the book, we love our new pie dish and are grateful to Annie for suggesting it. 

Have a look at our full range of bakeware over on the website.

Collaboration is a cracking way to do business.

Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2018 ©

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

CHOCOLATE AND BLACK TREACLE TART

We have been diligently working our way through the recipes in Annie Rigg's glorious book, Pies and Tarts, of which more another day.
But like all good cookery books, this inspires as well as instructs.  Discussions between Annie and our resident creative genius inspired the design and production of our new pie dish and cooking from the book inspired me to create a new tart of my own.

Start by making either a standard shortcrust pastry with 150g plain flour and 75 g butter or follow my lead and use 75g plain flour and 75g ground hazelnuts with 75g butter.
Rub the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs and then add just enough water to bring it together into a firm dough.

Grease a 10" pie dish and roll out the pastry to fit.  If you have used the hazelnut version, it will be quite friable, so just use off cuts to patch up any gaps where the pastry has fallen apart.
Chill for half an hour and while it is in the fridge, pre-heat the oven to 170ºC.

Pop the pie dish into the warm oven and cook for 10 minutes.  Remove from the oven and set aside while you make the filling.

100g milk chocolate
50g black treacle
250g Mascarpone cheese
50g icing sugar
3 eggs

Place the chocolate and treacle in a bowl suspended over warm water and allow to melt.
Tip the Mascarpone into a mixing bowl with the icing sugar and beat well.  Mix in the melted chocolate mix and then the eggs and beat thoroughly.
Pour into the pastry case and return tot he oven for a further 30 minutes.

Serve at room temperature with clotted cream or creme fraiche.

Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2018 ©

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

The smell of baking

You cannot beat the smell of baking.  There is something so comforting about the aroma of bread and cakes wafting from a warm oven.  And the fug of condensation on the windows on a cold November baking day instantly transports me back to my childhood.  I remember baking with the children when they were small, and then not so small - they have inherited my love of the mixing bowl and wooden spoon.

There is always a cake in our house, rarely elaborate, but a welcome addition to a cup of tea and always, but always a key part of packed lunches.

The thinking behind this one was triggered by the unexpected treat of Jaffa cakes in the workshops, brought in by Carl, and Neil's sudden whim for toast and marmalade late one evening.
Apparently marmalade sales are on the decline, but there seems to be an ever growing band of marmalade makers, so it would appear that news of its demise is greatly exaggerated.  We are very partial to home made marmalade here, tangy and not over sweet, and definitely containing peel!

Not only have slices of this been wrapped in beeswax wrap for packed lunches, it has also been dressed up with poached quince and Greek yogurt as a dessert.

120g butter
120g orange marmalade, something robust and dark is best
2 nubbles of preserved ginger, chopped
1 teaspoon crushed fennel seeds
2 eggs
120g self raising flour

Pre-heat the  oven to 165ºC 
Cream the butter and marmalade with the chopped ginger.  Beat in the eggs and then fold in the flour and fennel seeds.

Spoon the mixture into a greased 1lb loaf tin and place in the oven.
Cook for around 30 minutes, until a skewer inserted in the centre of the cake comes out clean.
Turn out on to a cooling rack.

Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2018 ©

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

Lavender and Lovage, a book review

There was an invitation posted on Instagram to review Karen Burns-Booth's book, based on her blog Lavender and Lovage, before its scheduled publication date later this month.
Tentatively I put my name forward, expecting to be rejected like a first novel doing the publishers' rounds.
But they agreed to send me a copy, so it is my privilege to be able to share my thoughts on Lavender and Lovage; a culinary notebook of memories and recipes from home and abroad.
Read on, I did!

As you can see it is already full of bookmarks, like signposts on a journey, a journey in Karen's well travelled footsteps. Each chapter reads like a carelessly put together travel itinerary, taking you where the fancy leads you rather than a meticulously planned voyage.  The "snippets" are like snacks, to be eaten between meals and inevitably sharpening the appetite for more.

I have been dipping in and out of the book since it arrived, as Karen dips in and out of the phases of her life.  I can imagine her moving from destination to destination with a suitcase full, not of belongings, but bulging with recollections and recipes, memories and menus.

Turning each page is like rounding the bend to a new vista, each chapter feels like you are stepping on a plane or a train, either heading to somewhere new and exciting or the bittersweet journey, bringing you back to home comforts and familiarity.  Familiarity may be the essence of what you remember, but the reality has been updated, is fresher, as though every room in the house has been redecorated in brighter, more vibrant colours.

Her "recipe" for a bacon sandwich is a case in point; the addition of Worcester sauce consigning the humdrum debate between tomato ketchup and brown sauce to the recycling bin.

For what it's worth, my father always has a smear of bramble jelly on his bacon sandwiches - don't knock it til you've tried it, it's no weirder than having apple sauce with your roast pork.

The recipes themselves are evocative of time and place, the Gregg's inspired cheese savoury sandwich filling instantly takes me back to Durham in the 1980s, the Auberge marinaded goat's cheese has me muttering to myself in French and longing for a trip to France and the recipes from South Africa bring rays of sunshine into the kitchen on a dull and grey day.

This is not only a cook book, it combines history, geography, science and literature.  It is the ultimate text book!

Sentence openers like "Once upon a time.......I ran a restaurant in Cyprus" not openly makes me wonder what I have been doing with my life, but draws you in to pensive penning about conflict and reconciliation.

This book is an education, a revelation and an unadulterated joy. 
Published on 13th November 2018 by Passageway Press

Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2018 ©

Bonfires and bangers, a musing on Hallowe'en

Spiced pumpkin latte - what on earth? I mean, seriously?  If you like them, fine, but I prefer my coffee straight, no added vegetables
I have written about current day coffee culture before, so I won't bore you with that again.  Hallowe'en is in my sights today.
Autumn throws up enough images to keep an advertising agency occupied til the first snowdrops appear; spectacular sunsets, golden leaves, misty landscapes, squirrels and nuts, harvest festivals and, of course, the pumpkin.

And what have they done with these seasonal representations of cooling days and bountiful produce to increase the sum of human happiness - they "invented", or rather re-imagined Hallowe'en.
All Hallow's Eve, may the saints preserve us from this over-commercialisation. 

I have written and re-written this piece as, quite honestly, I didn't know where to start.  Bear with me, the rant is quickly dealt with and a delicious recipe follow.

But first a little history.  You may think that the Hallowe'en craze came here from America, but it seems we may have been to blame for sending it there in the first place.
Long ago and far away, well my childhood in Yorkshire, to be more prosaic, it was the 4th of November, Mischief Night, not Hallowe'en which was the pretext for pranks.  We made Jack o'lanterns from turnips (cue jokes about Baldrick and ey up, it were 'ard in those days).  However, as this article by Xanthe Clay infers, pumpkins did not become "big business" until the early 1990s.   We didn't knock on people's doors (with the odd exception, when we would immediately run away and hide behind gate posts to see the look of annoyance on the face of the grumpiest of neighbours) and the worst offence ever committed was to smear the door handle of the local telephone box with treacle.
It was also the night before Bonfire night and this prompted the deliberately ambiguous title referring, on the one hand, to the small, loud, but boring fireworks of that name remembered from years ago and also to sausages that we would devour around the back garden bonfire.

The idea was exported, expanded and re-imported, bigger and uglier than ever.
I am now in full Grinch mood, so please feel free to skip to the bottom!

RANT ALERT

Costumes.

Stop to consider, if you will, the production of cheap witch’s hats, lurid orange pumpkin suits and set of devil's horns?  How come they are all so cheap? Where were they produced, by whom, and how will they be disposed of?   The Netherton offspring have long outgrown the notion of dressing up for Hallowe’en, but we do still worry about the combination of polyester and pumpkin lanterns – the story of Claudia Winkelman’s daughter still haunts us. 

Plastic pumpkins.

And what of the plastic buckets used for collecting all the treats?  Everyone on the planet must, by now, have watched Blue Planet.  We don't need any more single use plastic and let's face it, there aren't many uses for a plastic pumpkin bucket with a broken handle.  (Answers on a postcard, there may be a prize).   These will be discarded, end up in landfill, slowly degrade, leak into our water systems and out into the ocean.
Pumpkin.
Yes, pumpkin carving is fun. Yes, we admire the fantasmagorical creations all over social media. Yes, we will be making our own.
But what about the carved out pumpkin flesh - eat it, folks.  What's the point of wasting it?  Pumpkin soup is delicious, spike it with chilli, savour it with sage or bring a little warmth with cumin and coriander.

RANT OVER

You can all come back now, I have calmed down.

The point I really want to make goes back to those childhood memories of baked potatoes and sausages around the fire on Bonfire Night.  By November, the nights are longer, colder and often damper, but somehow this make eating outdoors more appealing than a stiflingly hot day replete with wasps and wilting salads.

Eating outdoors can be as simple or as fancy as you want, but it shouldn't be limited to a summer barbecue. 

It can be as simple as throwing a couple of potatoes into the embers of the bonfire, but if you want to be more adventurous, we have a range of kit and some tasty recipe ideas for you!   Nothing beats the sheer pleasure of combating the cold air with hot food, eaten around a fire and perhaps accompanied with some mulled wine.

Our outdoor cooking range is getting ever more extensive, so check out all the options and pick something to suit you.  Here are a few examples.

Chapa
This is an indoor griddle and oven bake plate, but add the legs and you have an Argentinian chapa - all you have to do is light a fire beneath it.  You can make it even more useful by adding the iron cloche, used indoors for baking your sourdough bread,  and you can cook bigger pieces, imbued with a delicious smoky flavour.
It's as simple as 1-2-3  screw on the legs, light a fire, cook.
Cooking can be as simple as burgers, as delicious as pancakes or as impressive as a roast chicken with smoky veg and pigs in blankets.

Black treacle and raisin pancakes

2 dessertspoons of black treacle

50g butter

2 eggs

200g self raising flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

200ml milk

50g raisins

Put the treacle and butter into a milk pan and heat gently until the butter has melted.

Tip the flour and baking powder into a large mixing bowl and add the eggs and milk.  Whisk together then pour in the treacle and butter.  Whisk thoroughly then stir in the raisins.

Drop spoonfuls on to the greased surface of your hot chapa and flip over when bubbles start to rise to the surface.  Slather with butter, maple syrup is an optional extra and scoff.

Of course, these can also be made indoors using either the griddle plate or a large frying pan

Outdoor hob and slow cooker
Both a barbecue and an outdoor slow cooker, our favourite dish for this time of year is a big dish of home made baked beans.  And of course, if you are having beans, there must be bangers.  Cook them directly on the outdoor hob grid or as I did here, in a frying pan so that I can glaze them in home made marmalade.

Barbecue basket
This is a handy accessory for your barbecue for all those little bits and bobs that normally fall through on to the coals.  
You can also buy this with a tray and oak chips to use as a hot smoker. 

Here are a few pictures to whet your appetite for year round outdoor cooking.

If you are lucky enough to have a wood fired oven in your garden, then we would urge you to buy Genevieve Taylor's book which "tells you everything you need to know about your oven, from initial setting up to choice of woods, plus tips and tricks for perfecting cooking times, and of course, over 70 amazing recipes." 

Or turn to DJ BBQ's book for further inspiration

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

Netherton Foundry Shropshire 2018 ©

Mushroom and goat's cheese risotto

Funny stuff, fungus; not an animal, nor a vegetable, almost other worldly, alien.
And a bundle of contradictions too, the prettiest are often poisonous, such as fly agaric,  whilst the ugly or unprepossessing are delicious, bordering, in some cases, on divine - think ugly shaggy ink caps and unprepossessing truffle, neither would win prizes for their looks.
They are also very much of the moment, a true reckoning of the changing seasons, brought to life by the damp of early autumn, as seasonal as pumpkins and quince.  There are wood blewits to be found in the Wyre Forest, well worth a detour on the way home and a bank of shaggy ink caps just outside the workshops, their briefest of peaks to be watched for between shy emergence and ebony liquefaction. Fascinating fungus indeed.
Instagram has been full of envy evoking baskets of foraged ceps and chanterelles this year.  Sadly we have found neither and have had to resort to handing over our hard earned cash for a little mushroom magic.
Fortunately a small amount of mushrooms can be transformed into a delicious dinner and this is what I did with our humble haul from the farm shop.

For 2 of us
130g Arborio rice
Approx 300ml of chicken or vegetable stock
1 onion, finely chopped
80g butter
4 - 5 sprigs of tarragon
Grated rind of 2 lemons
Juice of 1 lemon
75g soft goat's cheese
A handful of wild mushrooms (use chestnut mushrooms if there is nothing more exotic available)

Keep the stock simmering (not boiling fiercely) in a saucepan
Melt 50g of the butter in a frying pan or prospector pan  over a low heat.
Add the onion and cook gently until translucent.  Add the rice and cook until it turns white and opaque.  
Gradually add the stock, one ladle full at a time, stirring all the time.  
When almost all the stock has been added, stir in the chopped tarragon, lemon rind and goat's cheese.  
Adjust the seasoning to taste. 
Stir in the final stock and then cover with a lid and set aside while you cook the mushrooms.
Heat the remaining butter in a frying pan and when it foams, throw in the mushrooms.  
Cook until the mushrooms are golden and there is no liquid in the pan. Season with white pepper and add the lemon juice.
Place the mushrooms on top of the risotto and serve immediately, ideally with a glass of chilled white wine.

www.netherton-foundry.co.uk

Netherton Foundry Shropshire © 2018