Riding Out The Storm - Spicy Sausage Patties

Here is why Andy is my most favourite person in the world.  On Friday night, when the city was being cruelly and mercilessly battered by Mother Nature, in the worst storm since 1968 (200km wind!), when we were holed up in our house with what must have been the best view in the house of the ravaging seas, instead of being miserable and scared, he suggested we make the most of the opportunity and turn it into a mid-winter feast for two, of the sort we normally indulge in around Christmas time.

Thus Mulled Wine (Andy’s ultimate recipe, through years of dedicated and selfless testing, will be coming soon), Charcuterie, many, many cheeses, Pringles, crisps, dips and nuts were on the menu, and for viewing – what else would do in such circumstances but Home Alone?

I made the dip from an old favourite recipe, and to accompany all these picky delights, I made another picky delight, turning, as I do with extraordinary regularity, to Nigella Lawson.  These Spicy Sausage Patties are from her book ‘Kitchen’, a book which resonates so loudly with me with its talk of the pivotal role of the kitchen in a home.

I haven’t yet had my dream kitchen, my warm room that takes up the entire lower ground floor of my dream home and is the first place that everyone stops when they visit our house, but I will, one day, and I will know it the second I see it.  In fact, I know it will be a replica of the kitchens in those exquisite granite houses on The Chanonry in Old Aberdeen, which I used to shuffle past, a frozen and unhappy university student, and wonder at the pangs that those lamp-lit, warm vignettes I glimpsed through the windows created deep within me.  Already I was lingering, unwilling, on the route to a so-called respectable law degree that was meant to lead to a so-called respectable career; already I was delighting in the distractions of food and all the wonderful trappings that surround it.  Warmth.  Light.  Family.  Home.

So no, I haven’t yet had my dream kitchen.  But with a husband who will see the potential joy in any situation, wants to experience life to the full, and who, on the stormiest night that Wellington has seen in 45 years turns our home into a candle-lit place with food and wine and laughter, then I can do no more than count my blessings at the miracle of our haven while the storm swirls around us.

Well, that and make food for the journey.

Spicy Sausage Patties
Adapted from Nigella Lawson*, Kitchen

500g good quality sausages
1 inch piece grated fresh ginger
1 green chilli, chopped
1 red chilli, chopped
2 teaspoons English mustard
1 garlic clove, peeled and finely grated
1 large spring onion, finely chopped
2 teaspoons chopped fresh coriander stalks and leaves
2 tablespoons olive oil
Approximately 10 iceberg lettuce leaves
2 limes, cut into wedges

Squeeze the sausage meat out of the sausage skins, and put in a bowl with the ginger, chillies, mustard, garlic, spring onion and coriander.  Mix well.

Use a tablespoon to measure out each patty - take the mix from the spoon, form it into a mini burger shape, and put on a plate.  Cover with cling film and leave to rest for an hour.

When you are ready to serve, heat the oil in a frying pan over a medium heat.  Cook the patties for about 3 minutes each side, until cooked all the way through (you will need to do this in batches unless you have a giganto-pan).

To eat each patty, squeeze lime over and wrap in a lettuce leaf.

*Like everyone, I am more than aware of the horrible situation Nigella Lawson is currently in.  Others have expressed my thoughts on the matter far more eloquently than I could; so I will just say I hope she is safe, I hope she is with people who love her, I hope she can take some comfort from the outpouring of love and admiration for her from strangers such as myself, I hope she finds peace soon, and I hope some good can come of this.  I wish her strength.

Violet! You're turning violet, Violet!

Do you believe in fate, kismet, meant-to-be?  Cynical old me would not, normally, indulge in such matters.  We are all just wandering round this planet, no plan, making our own choices and seeing where they take us.  And yet sometimes, just sometimes, something happens that makes me wonder.  Take, for example, my husband.  Before we met, we know for a fact that we were both in the same place at the same time at least twice - in two different countries.  We were both, at the same time, considering buying an apartment in the same block in a city that neither of us were living in.  We finally met in a hostel in Sydney, on a day that neither of us had planned to be there.  So, I don't know.  Maybe it is fate.  Maybe it is coincidence.  Maybe you could take most people in the world and figure out the same kind of connection.

But then, how do you explain this - when I used the brilliant gadget that Dom at Belleau Kitchen had given us to choose our Random Recipe this month, and after I'd dutifully counted my depleted stock of cook books and plugged the parameters in, and it gave me number 24, Nigella Lawson's Kitchen, and from there it gave me page 244, Blueberry Cornmeal Muffins, and it just so happened that I had every ingredient necessary sitting right there in my kitchen - well, tell me you don't believe in fate now.

OK, I know, tenuous link, but still, fate or not, take it from me that you should make these muffins, right now.  Go on, stop reading, go and look, and see if fate has delivered these ingredients for you too.  I know the world doesn't need another blueberry muffin recipe, but the differential here is the cornmeal.  Truth time: I'm not a fan of polenta, but used in baking I think is where it comes into its own.  These were, in the best possible way, unlike any other blueberry muffin I've ever eaten - and, let's face it, there have been many.  The cornmeal adds the most delicious texture, nubbly and homely and not at all dry - and on the top granular and chewy, akin to what happens when you sprinkle sugar on the top of cakes.

I had some warm, and I had some cold (in the interests of research, naturally) and can report they are definitely better warm, even if it means warming them through in a warm oven for a few minutes, or nuking them in the microwave for 20 seconds or so.  Oh, and just be warned too that the blueberries, as they bake, burst and when this mixes with the yellow cornmeal, can produce a couple of slightly alarming greenish patches.

Anyway, whether you want to hear it from me, or whether you want to hear it from fate, make these now.  They are your destiny.

Blueberry Cornmeal Muffins

From Nigella Lawson, Kitchen

150g plain flour

100g cornmeal

2 teaspoons baking powder

0.5 teaspoon baking soda

150g caster sugar

125ml vegetable oil

125ml buttermilk or plain yoghurt

1 egg

100g blueberries

Preheat the oven to 200C,

Mix together the dry ingredients - so flour, cornmeal, baking powder, baking soda, and sugar.

In a separate bowl, mix the wet ingredients - stir together the oil, buttermilk or yoghurt, and whisk in the egg.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry, stirring until just combined (with muffins you really don't want to aim for a completely smooth mixture), and stir through half the blueberries.

Line a 12-hole muffin tin with muffin cases, and divide the mixture equally between them.  Take the remaining blueberries and put them on top of the muffin mixture - aim for about 3 per muffin but this is, obviously, not an exact science.

Bake for 15-20 minutes (they only took 15 in my furnace of an oven) - try a cake tester and it should come out clean.  Leave to cool for 5 minutes in the tin before moving them to a cooling rack.  

Makes 12

The English Patient

There is nothing duller than reading about someone else's ailments, so I'll keep the dullness brief: the cold and fever I'd mentioned last week took a bit of a turn for the worse, and for a couple of days there I was really out of it, full on can't-get-out-of-bed feel bad.  I'm still woozy but as the doctor's haven't been open over the weekend and I'm so cheap and British I resent paying for a medical service (Go NHS! Whoooooo!), I'm self diagnosing and putting up with it, with only minimal whingeing.

After a couple of days flolloping around I was ready to eat something, so Andy made me my all time favourite, roast chicken with lots of lovely roast veg and gravy.  Heaven.  After a couple of days more, I was able to stand unaided and made this pie, which is my favourite thing to do with leftover roast chicken.  Originally from Nigella's How To Eat, I studiously ignore the fact that it is in the feeding children section.

This pie was so popular when I made it years ago for my friend EA that he asked for it for a Christmas present, and I am so unimaginative that I made it for him for years, until I moved to the other side of the world to avoid making the pie again.  The secret is in the sauce - adding extra savoury flavour to the white sauce really does make a difference.  And I've since seen Marco Pierre White doing it, so it must be true.  MPW wouldn't lie to us.  You do actually need a stock cube or liquid stock concentrate for this, rather than just stock, so make sure it's the best you can get hold of.

Usually I just make it with chicken and throw some frozen peas or sweetcorn in (or both, if I'm feeling especially rakish) depending on what I've got in; this time I made it using some ham from the freezer up as well.  Standing up and using up freezer items - I am quite the winner.

Chicken Pie

Adapted from Nigella Lawson, How To Eat

Pastry

200g plain flour

100g cold butter, diced

1 egg yolk

Filling

1 tablespoon butter

1 tablespoon flour

1 chicken stock cube or 1 tablespoon liquid chicken stock concentrate

400ml milk (preferably full fat but I don't keep this in so used semi-skimmed)

1 tablespoon grainy mustard

Fresh nutmeg, grated

200g cooked chicken

200g cooked ham (or an extra 200g cooked chicken)

Handful frozen peas or sweetcorn, defrosted (optional)

1 tablespoon milk

Make the pastry: either rub the butter into the flour until it looks like breadcrumbs, stir in the egg yolk and add just enough ice cold water to combine, or in a processor blitz the flour and butter, add the egg yolk, and with the motor running, drizzle in some cold water to just come together.  Put the pastry on a layer of clingfilm, put another layer over it, squish it out into a flat disc, then put in the fridge while you make the filling.

In a heavy-based pan, melt the butter over a medium heat.  Crumble in the stock cube, or stir in the stock concentrate.  Add the flour and cook, stirring, for a few minutes.  Gradually add the milk, starting with a splash at a time, until it turns into a thick sauce, when you can add it a bit quicker.  Keep stirring, bring to a simmer then lower the heat, stirring regularly.  Stir in the mustard and give a good grating of nutmeg.

Stir in the chicken, ham, and vegetables if you are using them.  Taste for seasoning.  Set to one side.

Preheat the oven to 190C.

Split the pastry into two pieces, one twice the size of the other.

Take the larger piece and roll out on a floured surface, until it is large enough to fit your pie dish.  Drape it over your rolling pin and lay it out over the dish, pushing down gently.  There should be some extra pastry hanging over the sides.

Put your filling in the dish.

Roll out the remaining pastry until it is big enough to fit as a lid.  Place it on top, pinching the sides to seal the edges.  Trim off the extra pastry and, if you are so inclined, use these trimmings to decorate the top.

Make a few small slits in the pastry (mine were cunningly disguised just underneath the letters), and brush the top with milk.

Bake for 45 minutes, until the filling is hot and bubbling.

Eat while lying down, thoroughly exhausted (ok, I was lying when I said the boring whingeing would be brief).

Serves 4

Swedish Midsummer Cake

Midsummer has such a lovely ring to it, doesn't it?  So heady, so optimistic, such a promise of things to come - a real celebration.  The second, usually better, half of the summer is waiting, within a fingertip's reach.  The sounds and smells and blinding light of summer envelop you, pressing pause on otherwise hectic lives.  My lovely Uncle Anthony was a Midsummer baby, born on 21st June and so I've always associated him with the equinox, whether in the UK, or here in NZ, when I now remember him in December.

Although Midsummer passed us some time ago in New Zealand, and right now the darkening nights seem to be beating a steady path to Autumn's door, and the fruits are overflowing with late summer ripeness, the fact that we now celebrate Valentine's Day in the height of summer seemed like a perfect time to make a Midsummer Cake - after all, all the things I love about midsummer, the optimism, the perfection, the promise, all seem to hold true, especially for this Valentine's Day, the first we have had since we got married in December.

Also, Andy REALLY loves strawberries.  This came at the end of a pretty-near perfect meal; scallops and chorizo to start, followed by Andy's main course of loin of pork with garlic and fennel (and possibly the most delicious gravy anyone has ever tasted in the whole history of the world)

This is not a pretty cake, by anyone's standards, but it is truly delicious.  And it seems that somehow the point of it is to be lovely and homespun-looking.  That's what I'm telling myself, anyway.  The sponge has no added fat, so no butter, no oil, which results in a light, airy cake with a surprising sturdiness, that proves the perfect vehicle for the other elements.  For, let's be straight here: the sponge has no extra fat, but the in-between layers part certainly makes up for that, with vanilla custard, whipped cream, oh, and plenty of strawberries.  Nor is it a cake you can churn out at a moment's notice, for a forgotten bake sale, unexpected guests, or just because you have the baking itch.  This takes planning, should ideally be started a day in advance, and is fiddly, or as my Welsh husband would call it, 'potchy' (no, I don't know either, but I like the sound of the word and it seems quite onomatapoeic).

This is my first entry into the Sweet New Zealand blogging event, hosted this month by Shirleen at the gorgeous blog Sugar & Spice, and a fellow Wellingtonian.

The recipe comes from Nigella Lawson's 'Kitchen', which, like most of her writing, I have found eminiently readable and useable, and have only had successes when I've cooked from it. Oh, and in the book it is just called 'Summer Cake', but Nigella talks about these types of cake being cooked all over Scandinavia to celebrate Midsummer, hence my use of the prefix. 

Swedish Midsummer Cake
From Nigella Lawson

For the custard:
2 egg yolks
2 tablespoons caster sugar
2 teaspoons cornflour
250ml full fat milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Ideally you would do this stage the day before you want to serve the cake.  Put everything except the vanilla extract in a pan over lowish heat, and stir constantly until it thickens; by my clock this was about 5 minutes.  Whatever you do, don't let it boil or the texture of the custard will be ruined and it will split.  When it is thicker, take it off the heat, beat in the vanilla extract, transfer the custard to a cold bowl, and stir until it is cool.  Cover with plastic wrap, so it touches the surface of the custard to prevent a skin forming.

For the cake:
3 eggs
250g caster sugar
90ml water from a recently boiled kettle
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
150g plain flour
butter, for greasing

Preheat the oven to 180C.  Line the bottom of a 23cm round springform cake tin with baking parchment, or do as I do and use re-useable silicone liner, cut to size, and grease the sides of the tin.

Whisk the eggs and sugar together until pale, moussy, and just about tripled in volume.  This is easier if you have some gadget to help such as an electric whisk or KitchenAid, but would definitely be possible with some effort and a hand whisk.  Plus it would negate the need to visit the gym.  Still whisking, add the hot water.

In a separate bowl or jug, mix the flour and baking powder together and gradually add to the eggs and sugar, stirring well to make sure there are no lumps.  Put the mixture into your prepared tin, and cook for about 30 minutes, until it is golden and well-risen.  A cake-tester should come out clean at this point.

Let the cake cool in its tin on a rack for 10 minutes, before unmoulding it and letting it cool completely on the rack.

For assembly:
500g strawberries
2-3 teaspoons caster sugar
500ml cream

If you are cack-handed, like me, this part is the most fiddly bit but, honestly, it's not the sort of cake where precision matters.  Using a bread knife, cut the cake into three layers.  The cake is surprisingly sturdy and I managed this without disaster, but it would be very easy to patch a layer together and bury it in the middle should you need to.

Take about three quarters of the strawberries, hull them, half or quarter them depending on size, and leave them to macerate in the caster sugar.  This can be done anything between 10 minutes and a few hours before you need them; either way, they will be delicious and start to surrender their beautiful ruby juices up to the syrup created.

Put the bottom layer on your serving plate.

Whisk the cream until it is sturdy enough to hold its shape.  Take one third of this cream and fold it into your prepared vanilla custard.  Then put half of this mixture on to the bottom layer of the cake on your serving plate.  Spread half the macerated strawberries on top of the custard.

Repeat this with the middle layer of the cake; custard, strawberries.

Finally, place the top tier of the cake in place.  Spread the remaining whipped cream over the top and arrange your reserved strawberries over the top of that, leaving them whole, or halving them as you wish.

Serve, and bask in the reflected glory in your delicious, not-a-beauty-queen cake - but who needs a beauty queen hanging round on Valentine's Day, anyway?