March Cake – Raspberry Cream Sponge
I just made this up. So far as I know, nowhere in the Northern Hemisphere is March peak time for raspberries. I could have made Welsh Cakes for my Seniors Lunch Club group as our theme for this week was Wales and St. David but some of our members aren’t too keen on raisins. It was my Mum’s birthday in March, and she always had pink icing on her cake, so I thought I’d do something like that. Then pink icing made me think of raspberries, and there you are. I’m sorry about the food miles, but you could make this with European frozen raspberries, so salve your conscience and do that. This is based on the Genoese sponge that is the One True Cake – the only recipe you really need to know. I made the simplest version possible, flavoured with vanilla – which was the one my Mum always made anyway, so it’s very fitting. I just iced it with pink and white water-icing, and then filled it with whipped cream stirred up with crushed raspberries and caster sugar. Our Seniors Lunch Club discussion was about Wales, and our memories of Wales. As we are based in Manchester and only a few miles from North Wales, we had a lot of holiday reminiscences – beaches, rain, fog, castles, mountains. We’ve loved the scenery, the history, the food, steam railways and climbing Snowdon. Holiday camps, beachside caravans and boarding houses were happy memories – not many of us had the budget to stay in hotels! We disagreed on our memories of the weather. For some, it was only sunshine in byegone Wales, but for others bad weather was to be expected and planned for – cars were packed with books, wellingtons, board games and rainy day projects. Makes 16 squares. Timings: 1 hour to prepare and bake the cake, another hour to cool and ice.
For the water icing: 200g icing sugar, red food colouring Pre-heat the oven to 180°C. Prepare a 24cm square cake tin, grease it and line with baking parchment. Make a simple Genoese sponge: whisk the eggs and sugar together either with a mixer or over a bowl of hot water, until thick and creamy texture. This takes only about 3-4 minutes in the mixer. While these are beating up, melt the butter and sieve the flour. Turn the mixer down to low and add the flour to the egg/sugar foam gradually, adding the vanilla essence at the same time if using. Turn off the mixer and using a metal spoon, stir in the melted butter. Spoon the mixture into the prepared cake tin and bake about 30 minutes till golden on top and a skewer comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes in the tin and turn out onto a rack, remove the parchment. Leave to cool. When cool, cut the cake in half through the middle carefully using your biggest breadknife. The cake will keep fresh in a sealed tin for at least a day at this stage. It also freezes very well wrapped up in cling film, so it can be made well ahead of time. Ice the top of the cake with water icing. Make the pink icing with most of the icing sugar and a little water and the food colouring and make up a white icing in a small bowl with the rest of the sugar. Ice the cake with the pink icing and then drizzle lines of white icing vertically across the pink. Use a skewer to drag the white icing attractively through the pink and leave to set. Just when you are ready to eat the cake, mush up the raspberries with the caster sugar. Whip the cream until fairly stiff and then mix the raspberry slump into the cream. Spread this through the middle of the cake and put the top back on. Keep in the fridge if you aren’t eating it immediately and eat within 1 day of making.
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Albondigas – Spanish meatballs
A wonderful thing about Spanish cuisine is its versatility; that and the fact that it’s just made for sharing. Make these little lovely meatballs ahead and you can serve them as part of a tapas spread, serve them in a roll like a meatball sub (perfect, says writer-son), or as a main course alongside a hefty portion of patatas bravas and a simple salad. I’ve had these in many a tapas bar in Spain. I think the very best were in the old market in Malaga. After marvelling at the counters of fish, we failed to find a seat inside and sat on a street corner next to the roaring traffic. We tucked into meatballs in rich spicy tomato sauce, jamon, croquetas, olives and some great bread. Albondigas are warm with paprika and cumin; the texture is quite firm as you are supposed to be able to pick them up with a little fork without them disintegrating. They’re friendly little things to eat, perfect for enjoying with loved ones and a dry sherry or a Spanish beer. This recipe makes quite a lot – 60 meatballs, although they are small. It’s worth making a large quantity as they freeze really well, so just pop half of them in the freezer before frying and you can bring them out in a month or so with most of the work done. The sauce can also be divided and frozen for later. Makes 60 little meatballs – about 8 portions. Timings: 30 minutes for the sauce, 30 minutes for the meatballs, then 30 minutes in the oven. All can be done ahead and re-heated.
First, start the sauce, as it needs time to cook down and meld all the flavours. Gently fry the onion in vegetable oil until softened. Add the cumin seeds, oregano and the garlic and stir to cook. Add in the powdered spices and stir again. Tip in the tomatoes, passata and red wine. Cook gently over a low heat for about half an hour – test the seasoning and add salt and pepper as needed. For the meatballs: combine all the ingredients in a big bowl and mix with your hands, work thoroughly to make sure it’s all mixed properly. Make small balls of the mixture – a bit smaller than a ping pong ball. Roll the balls in the seasoned flour and put them on a tray. At this stage you can freeze the ones you don’t want to use straight away – put them in the freezer on a tray until hard, then put them in a plastic bag and seal up. Heat 1cm of oil in a frying pan and fry the meatballs until browned all over – they aren’t very big so it only takes about 5 minutes. Scoop them out and place on kitchen paper. Now you have your cooked meatballs and your sauce – they can be kept for up to a day in the fridge before finally cooking. Preheat your oven to 180°C. Combine the meatballs and sauce in an oven proof dish and place in the oven, covered, for about half an hour to warm right through. If there are leftovers, unlikely, I know, but it sometimes happens, you can warm them up again in a pan with a little additional water. They go beautifully in a bread roll for a hot lunch, maybe with a little melted mozzarella in there as well to add that salty curdy backnote. Crispy Chilli Squid
Although happy to eat calamari in a restaurant, we can be wary of cooking squid; it’s unfamiliar and quite expensive. But it is very easy, there are two rules: fast or slow, but nothing in between. If you cook it fast and hot, deep fried, you get that lovely chewy texture with a crisp coating and a subtle flavour. If you have a good fishmonger, you can get fresh Cornish squid, which is sustainable and low environmental impact. Tastes great and good for the planet, how can you get better than that? Just watch out with the frying – the squid can spit in the hot oil, so I use a splatter shield on my frying pan, as I don’t have a deep fat fryer. Serves 2 as a light lunch Timings: 10 minutes preparation, 5 minutes cooking
Clean up the squid, removing any membranes. Dip the squid into the egg and then into the breadcrumbs, patting them on. Place the pieces on a baking tray to dry slightly – they can be left like this for an hour or so. Heat up the oil. I use a deep sided frying pan and have about ½ cm oil in it – you need to get all the pieces of squid in one layer if possible. If you are cooking for more people, then cook in batches and keep the cooked squid in a warm oven until the final batch is done. When the oil is shimmering, add the spring onions and chilli pieces, stir, then add the squid. Add the rings first, give them a minute and turn them over, then add the more tender tentacles. Fry for another 2-3 minutes turning the pieces over and watching out for the spitting oil. Scoop out onto kitchen paper and serve straight away with some nice bread, garlic mayonnaise, a lemon quarter to squeeze over and a simple green salad. |
Some Changes - April 2022
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