Diwali Food
The Guardian Unlimited features Leicester in an article on Diwali food.
Vicky Frost visits Leicester's Golden Mile and, in particular, Bobby's restaurant, to sample mithai; the sweets eaten during the 5 day festival of light.
The Guardian Unlimited features Leicester in an article on Diwali food.
Vicky Frost visits Leicester's Golden Mile and, in particular, Bobby's restaurant, to sample mithai; the sweets eaten during the 5 day festival of light.
Boy, oh Boy, I know some people who could eat for England, but they would probably be classed as having small appetities compared with the good old folks in the US of A.
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I had my hair cut today so until the anaesthetic has worn off I can't cook or drive!
So just a brief round-up of what's being reported around the web today.
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The Farmer's Guardian reports that a study, carried out by Professor Carlo Leifert at Newcastle University, has found that organic fruit and vegetables contain more than 40 per cent more antioxidants than non-organic fruit and veg.
The scientists also found that organic milk contained almost 90 per cent more antioxidants than non-organic milk.
So, its great that Local Lubcloud Organic Milk is widely available at the County's Farm-shops.
Emma and her boyfriend were carving pumpkins yesterday. One that they had bought had some bruising so they decided not to use it. Dad, therefore, ends up with a pumpkin to use – he can't throw it away 'cos he'd been writing about waste food a couple of hours earlier!
So what to make? Pumpkin Pie? Pumpkin Risotto? Ravioli? No, none of these, boring old Dad's chosen pumpkin soup
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Susan Smillie at the Word of Mouth Blog has drawn my attention to to information released by the government agency Wrap.
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In the run up to Guy Fawkes Night there will, no doubt, be plenty of recipes for traditional bonfire food. Parkin will almost certainly feature so there's little point me adding to the plethora of recipes. So, here's another 'tray bake' that is an old time favourite – Millionaire's Shortcake.
I couldn't find the recipe given to me by a friend of my mum's, so have amended one off the web to something like I remember it to be.
Line a 12" x 9" deep swiss roll tin, or similar with baking parchment.
1. The base
10½oz Plain flour
7½oz Butter
3½ Sugar
Cream butter and sugar, mix in flour and pull it together with your hands, add a teasp water if absolutely necessary. Line base of tin with this mix. Cook at 170° for about 25 mins until just lightly golden. Leave to cool.
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I was going to make some more Cinder Toffee today to check that I had given the correct temperature in the recipe. However, we had to go out and there wasn't time to make both bread and toffee when we got back.
The purists will scoff at this recipe. Yes, it does cut a few corners and, there are more chemicals than I would like, due to the use of fast acting yeast. It sure beats anything the supermarkets sell though.
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It's coming up to Halloween and Bonfire Night so the web is full of appropriate recipes – many trying to make culinary delights out of pumpkin!
I'm not that fond of pumpkin although it makes a great vehicle for other things – as in Cinderella or in Pumpkin Pie.
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Hannah (my eldest daughter) has had a friend stopping so I felt I had to do a pudding with yesterday's dinner.
Having been given some Conference pears I found that they were within the 10 minute time slot between being like iron and going black in the middle so thought I'd better use them. What is it with pears? Or is it just me? One minute they're so hard as to be inedible and the next, 'poof', they've gone bad!
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It's amazing the things that get discussed in my local. If they televised it, people would say it's too daft to be believable!
Anyway, the subject of Blackberry vinegar has come up a couple of times. Do I make it? No, I don't need to. My grandma always made our family's, now my Dad does it. It's something you have to wait your turn to do!
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I'm surprised that anyone with a blog makes pâté – It's just took me ages looking up the character codes for the 'a with a circumflex' and 'e with an acute' accent.
I made pâté today with the smoked trout I made earlier. I was going to post a picture of it but, to be honest, you've all seen what smoked fish pâté looks like so what's the point!
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Good ole Darren popped around again with 3 more trout.
I'm giving one of them to Maurice, don't know what he'll do with it, but I guess it will be something pretty good. The other two, I'm going to smoke. This time I'm going to use a 'lighter' wood. I think the oak is just slightly too strong – I'll probably go for Alder, Ash or a fruit wood.
This recipe started with one of those pub conversations “I'm thinking of making beetroot pickle but I've got this idea to add horseradish to it. I don't know where the idea came from?” My mate Maurice replied, “I do, I told you about it! It's from a neighbour when we lived in Leicester!”
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The trout prepared yesterday was smoked for about twelve hours over oak chippings and then put in the fridge overnight. Today it has had a further four hours. I will keep it for a couple of days, for the smoke to penetrate through the fish, before eating.
I'll probably use this in hot dishes rather than eat it raw, because of the haphazard method of it's preparation.
The poor filleting, due to having to fillet it on my knee, can be seen in this photo of the finished smoked trout.
If you don't fancy smoking your own produce, many smoked foods are available from Woodhouse Farm.
Thanks to the guys at the Sausagemaking.org forum for their help.
Yesterday my new mate Darren arrived on the doorstep with a couple of trout. I've only met Darren two or three times at my local, so this was a really nice gesture and shows what a generous guy he is. He'd caught them yesterday morning and they were still 'stiff' fresh – superb!
Now, the obvious thing to do would be just to cook and enjoy them: lack of a kitchen at the present time ruled this out so I had to put my brain into lateral thinking mode – why not smoke them? Any sensible person would hot smoke them, but with no heat that's a bit tricky! So, what does the little boy wonder (a la goon's) decide to do – yep cold smoke 'em!
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