lunch for nana’s birthday

My mother-in-law turned 85 yesterday, & tomorrow we’ll be having lunch with her & Poppa. While they’re both getting on now (Poppa is 93 & very frail), they’re still in their own home & enjoy pottering in the garden, watching sport on TV, & cooking for themselves & any visitors they might have (ell, these days Nana does most of the cooking). But tomorrow, I’m providing the birthday lunch.

I had to think carefully about what to cook, because Poppa prefers soft food these days. In the end, I decided on a smoked salmon roulade – because she loves fish, with new potatoes, steamed brocolli florets, & lemon thyme hollandaise. And a chocolate mousse to follow (they both love puddings 🙂 ).

Some salmon roulade recipes are basically a cream cheese mix rolled in strips of smoked salmon, but I knew neither of the old people would enjoy that version. So I made a thick bechamel sauce, starting by melting 50g of butter & stirring in about 1/2 c of plain flour. You need to stir this for a minute or so once the flour & butter are combined, over a gentle heat, as the flavour of the sauce is much better. Then, with the pan still on the heat, whisk in 500ml milk – I usually do this a bit at a time as it seems to minimise the lumps – & continue to stir until it’s very thick. Remove the pan from the stove, season the sauce, & let it cool for about 5 minutes before beating in 4 egg yolks. Finally, beat the egg whites until stiff & dry, & fold them into the mix before pouring it into a swiss roll tin that’s been lined with baking paper, & bake at 180 degree C until golden & set. After which, turn the sponge out onto foil or baking paper on a cake rack, & let it cool. Which is what’s happening at the moment 🙂

Then I’m going to spread the top of the sponge – leaving an inch or so at one short end – with cream cheese that’s had a cup or so of finely chopped herbs blended into it: chives, garlic chives, lemon thyme, & parsley. And on top of that will go 200g of flaked smoked salmon. Next I’ll roll it tightly, beginning from the other short end & using the baking paper to help, put it on a pretty dish, & refrigerate until an hour or so before lunch, as I think it’ll be nicer at room temperature.

The mousse? That’s already in little glass serving dishes in the fridge. I bought a 520g block of Whitakers 72% dark ghana chocolate, when I did the grocery shopping this morning, & melted about 400g in a glass bowl in the microwave. (I know the books all say this should be done over hot water, but I find the microwave works just fine – you just have to be careful to heat in short bursts & stir well each time.) Into the molten chocolate I stirred 50g of butter, a couple of tablespoons of Grand Marnier, and about 100ml of cream, before stirring in the yolks of 4 eggs. The final step was to fold the stiffly beaten egg whites through the mix, before dividing it between the serving dishes & hiding them in the fridge to set.

And warning the husband Not to Touch, or else There’ll Be Trouble!

memories of cheesecakes

When I grew up in the 50s, Mum & Dad both cooked – I suspect this was rather unusual for the times. Dad was always involved in cooking dinner, & he was a dab hand at shortbread, lovely light sponges, and apple shortcake. He always did the breakfast porridge too. Mum was into biscuits & cakes as well, and I have very fond memories of her cheesecakes. Although, even back then, I used to wonder why they were called ‘cheesecakes’ when there was absolutely no cheese in them 🙂 Instead, little flaky pastry cases contained jam & a topping of sponge – some of you might recognise these as bakewell tarts (although the ‘proper’ recipe for them uses shortcrust pastry & has an almond-y topping).

Back in the day Mum used to make the flaky pastry by hand, so these were time-consuming little cakes to make and as a result used to be kept for those special times when ‘ladies a plate’ was required. She used to tell the story of a recent immigrant (well, one more recent than herself; she came out from the UK in 1953), unfamiliar with the Kiwi idiom, who duly turned up at one such function with a plate – and was surprised and, one suspects, more than a touch embarrassed to discover that the plate was supposed to come with food on top.

I also remember that Mum baked her cheesecakes in metal patty tins that had nice little patterns – grapes, & maple leaves – embossed on the base. Alas! they are long gone. But I have my own (plain-bottomed) tins from the local pantry shop. The daughter & I did try making the cakes in silicon pans, but the pastry just doesn’t come out the same.

Mum was probably using the tried-&-true recipe from her copy of the Edmonds Cookbook; I started out with that but these days vary the recipe as it suits my fancy (& the contents of cupboard & fridge). Spices & blueberries go very well in them.

• Preheat oven to 200 degrees C.
• Thaw 3 sheets of frozen flaky-puff pastry (yes I am a lazy cook) & cut out 24 discs to line your patty tins (grease/spray these with oil first)**
• Cream 250g butter with 1c sugar & then beat in 4 eggs.
• Sift together 2c flour & 2tsp baking powder – at this point I often add spices: ground coriander or cardamom are good. If using them, a bit of orange zest in the creamed mixture is also rather nice 🙂 Desiccated coconut – 1-2 tbsp – is a nice alternative.
• Fold the dry ingredients into the egg-y mix.
• Put a little jam into each pastry case OR – and I rather like this variation – a few nice plump ripe blueberries. I haven’t tried it with raspberries but they should work well too, & given the size of our pending raspberry crop I should have ample opportunity to find out!
• Divide the sponge mix evenly between the pastry-lined patty tins & bake for 15-20 minutes until risen & golden.

They don’t last long round our place!

** Mum always used to use the paper from a block of butter for this – she’d save the buttery papers until she needed them. As they were stored in the cupboard where she also kept the cake tins, I guess they must sometimes have got a touch rancid. Can’t say I ever noticed though.

a berry nice crumble

We’re lucky in Hamilton to have several great farmers’ markets within easy reach: Tamihere, the one in Hamilton itself, and now the market at Gordonton. One of my regular market purchases last year (often carried home in my bicycle panniers along with eggs, long sweet red peppers, and macadamia nuts, was lovely, luscious fresh blueberries. I adore blueberries! Some we ate straight away, and others I froze for later. But the frozen supplies ran out a month or so back, and so I was rapt last Sunday morning to find the first of the new crop in the Monavale stall at the market. Because now I can buy more and (along with more macadamias) make what my friend Annette christened ‘a berry nice crumble’.

I originally made it for a dinner where one of the guests was gluten-intolerant, but the gluten-free mix is easily replaced by standard flour. Because it’s a crumble (& because I made it up on the hoof) there’s no hard-&-fast quantities to this – something else that the daughter finds infuriating 🙂

• turn the oven on to heat to 180 degrees C
• put 500g fresh or frozen blueberries in an oven-proof dish. If frozen, you might put them in the oven as it warms up, to thaw them.
• finely chop (or blitz in a blender) about 100g of macadamia nuts.
• put them in a bowl with a cup or so of GF baking mix (or standard flour) & a cup of sugar (I used raw sugar because I like the flavour).
• melt about 100g of butter and mix this into the dry ingredients – it should end up like rough crumbs.
• for that extra ‘yum’ factor, chop 50-100g of good dark chocolate & stir this into the crumbs 🙂
• sprinkle the crumbs evenly over the berries & bake the crumble for about 20 minutes, or until the topping is golden & the berries are bubbling.

We didn’t have any leftovers 🙂