All posts filed under: Spring Recipes

Hot Cross Buns

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This is the third of my traditional British recipes for patriotic Remainers who see the future of our country in the sunny uplands of the European Union. My first, the Great British Remainalade was a huge hit. My second recipe, a traditional English Christmas Cake reflects of our nation’s unusual love of dried fruit and booze – but for this one I’ve turned to Easter and Hot Cross Buns. Good Friday seems a good day to put this recipe up on Master in the Kitchen. Few outside of the UK are familiar with these plump, spiced, fruit buns. The United Kingdom may be a far more secular space these days but when these little buns first made an appearance Britain was first and foremost a Christian country and this recipe is a reflection of that heritage; the cross a symbol of Christ’s sacrifice during Holy Week. Like Remainalade and Christmas Cake these buns have their fair-share of dried fruit, grated orange and spices. They taste delicious straight out of the oven when they are still …

Chilled Rhubarb Juice

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Rhubarb juice is highly prized in our house-hold – especially when chilled and served with one or two raspberries and a slice of lemon. The juice I make is a by-product of making rhubarb jam and compote.  Since rhubarb is so seasonal enjoy it while it lasts. Soon the tastes of summer will replace those of spring and our enjoyment of rhubarb will fade into mere memory. Once again no measurements – you the cook decide how much you want to make. Ingredients Rhubarbs, strawberries, sugar. Method Slice the rhubarb into 1 cm thick pieces. Hull and cut the strawberries and mix together with the rhubarb. Add as much sugar as you like the taste of. Add plenty of water – at least 3-5 cm over the top of the rhubarbs and strawberries. Bring to the boil. When it has reached boiling point leave the rhubarb to simmer for 30-40 minutes on a low heat. When the fruit has stewed for long enough, pour the stewed rhubarb over a sieve resting on a deep pot. Bottle the …

Raw Strawberry Cheese Cake

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In catholic Belgium May is a month for weddings, communions and confirmations. With unusual serendipity a four day week-end break coincided with a sunny and clement spell of weather. Over this period we celebrated a wedding anniversary, an 18th birthday party, a communion and mother’s day! So many celebrations call for a special, festive cake and I think this raw, strawberry cheese cake ticks all the right boxes! Tip: don’t skimp on the gelatine. The strawberries add quite some juice and the gelatine is necessary to hold it all together. Agar works as well but, to my mind, delivers a less pleasing texture. Ingredients Suitable for 23-26 cm sprung tin. For the base 250 gr of dry biscuit[1] (digestive, shortbread, speculaas) 80 gr. melted butter For the filling 300-400 gr. home-made cream cheese 250 ml. cream 500 gr. strawberries 5 eggs (separated) 3 packets powdered gelatine 120 gr. sugar Seasonal berries to decorate Method Day 1 Prepare the cream cheese. 1 lt. of yoghurt renders approx. 300-400 gr. cream cheese depending on how much whey is expressed. Day …

Traditional Fruit Tart

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J. turned 18 last week. He requested a strawberry cake for his birthday celebration. I was not in the least bit surprised – it’s what he’s asked for since as long as I can remember. Strawberries and raspberries are an old favourite and his birthday happily coincides with the appearance of the first home-grown strawberries. You can always replace strawberries with blueberries, or raspberries or apricots or gooseberries …. Below is the basic recipe – you decide what fruit to use. This recipe is suitable for a shallow, 24 cm loose-bottom tin.   Ingredients For the base 180 gr. plain flour 100 gr. chilled butter 90 gr. muscovado sugar 2 egg yokes  For the custard filling 3 eggs 80 gr. sugar 100 ml. cream 150 ml. milk Vanilla essence or a vanilla pod. Method For the sweet pastry base In a mixing bowl rub the butter and flour between the fingers and thumb until it resembles fine bread crumbs. Stir in the sugar and add the egg yokes. Combine the ingredients together until the dough …

Beef, spinach and ricotta pie

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This pie tastes great either warm or cold. Serve it with a fresh salad and with condiments such as pickles, sauerkraut or chutneys. It is probably not a dish for a quick evening meal but is fun to make over the week-end in preparation for a relaxing spring or summer picnic. I used suet for the pastry which works well with the beef but you can use lard or butter or a mixture of all three if you prefer. The meat in this pie derives from beef shin – a relatively cheap cut of meat since unlike veal shin, which is tender and delicious, beef shin is lean, tough and sinewy reflecting the beast’s age and working life. A cut or two of beef shin can be made to good use by turning it into a nutritious and delicious brown stock. The left over meat from the shin is too dry and tasteless for stew but is great when shredded and used for this kind of pie. Precisely because it is lean and tough it …

Traditional Asparagus Soup

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The best way to make asparagus soup is to keep it simple. Four ingredients and a food mill is all you need. I use a chicken stock since it complements the light, delicate flavour of asparagus. If you buy asparagus from the market you may find the farmer or trader has sorted some of the fatter, bent and otherwise ugly spears from the more elegant, pristine ones and is selling them at a cheaper rate since they are too fibrous and woody to eat as a vegetable. These are real stars – packed with flavour and cheaper than the show models. Last week 1 kg of asparagus cost EUR 10 – but 2 kg of the woody, fatter spears cost only EUR 6. As is usual with soup recipes I don’t give exact measurements and amounts. Decide how much you need for the people you are preparing the soup for. Any uneaten soup can always be frozen. Ingredients Older asparagus being sold off cheaply Chicken stock An onion Butter Potatoes (optional) Salt and Pepper Chives Directions …

Ol’ Limey Honey and Coconut Cheesecake

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I have a feeling this raw cheese cake would appeal to the Royal Navy of yester-year since it is full of fresh lime juice to keep the scurvy at bay and one can only imagine the mariners of old eating plenty of coconuts as they landed in paradise on their way to discovering new lands. For those of you who abhor anything grain based you’ll also be pleased to know this recipe doesn’t rely on biscuits to form the base but almonds and coconut. I used honey as a sweetener which is a very mild way to sweeten a cake. I loved it – but some members of the family protested that it wasn’t sweet enough, so depending on how puritanical you’re feeling you might want to add some sugar alongside the honey to give this cake an added boost. You can also replace lime with lemon if you prefer  – and if you don’t like coconut use cream instead of coconut milk. This recipe fits a 23 or 26 cm tin. Ingredients For the …

Basic Cheese Cake

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Cheese cake can be eaten either raw or baked. Although different they are equally delicious. The one difference between the two is that raw cheesecake is brimming with beneficial LABs from your home-made cream cheese whilst the heat from baking kills off the micro-organisms present in the cream cheese should you decide to bake the cake. I prefer to work with yoghurt for my cheese cake since it is the most tangy of all the cultured milk products and works beautifully when off set by some fresh fruit and the added sweetness of  sugar or honey. This recipe is good for a 26 cm tin. Try and use a springform tin since it makes it easer to release the cake when ready. Ingredients For the base 250 gr of dry biscuit[1] (digestive, shortbread, speculaas) 80 gr. of butter – or a good pat of butter. For the cake 1 lt. or 1 pt. of home-made yoghurt cream cheese 250 ml of fresh cream 150 gr of sugar 6 eggs (the yoke separated from the whites) 1 tsp. of vanilla …

Asparagus Tips

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The flavour of asparagus is concentrated in the delicate spear-heads whilst the base of the asparagus tends to be milder – and depending on the age of the asparagus – can be woody and fibrous. I was, therefore, pleased to see the farmer selling just the asparagus tips on the market at a reasonable price last Friday. We ate them alongside some lemon chicken drumsticks. They were delicious! Some of the left-overs I added to a potato salad the following day. Ingredients 1 kg of asparagus tips Butter Salt & pepper Juice of ½ a lemon Directions Rinse the asparagus tips underneath some cold water and leave them to soak in cold, salted water for ½ hour. Drain and rinse before proceeding to the next step. Add around 5 cm of salted water to a wide pan. When it comes to the boil add the asparagus tips and leave to cook for around ten minutes. At this point the asparagus should still be hard not completely softened. Turn the heat off, put a lid over …

Whey

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Whey is the liquid by-product from the production of cream cheese or any other fermented dairy produce. Authentic, traditional Italian ricotta is made not from milk and lemon as many recipes now suggest – but from gently heating whey together with an acid such as lemon or vinegar and stirring until the whey coagulates into ricotta. Most modern, industrialised manufacturers of cultured diary products consider whey an unfortunate waste product and have problems getting rid of all the whey produced. One modern application of whey is to dry it and sell it, powdered, as a fitness product for sport fanatics. Other than in Germany I have never seen a shop sell fresh, liquid whey. If you have any left-over whey from making your own cream cheese it can be used as an inoculant for fermented fruit chutneys. It also tastes very refreshing chilled and combined with some freshly squeezed lime juice and a tsp. of honey. It is a great health tonic, packed as it is, with wild microorganisms that are great for feeding our …