A is for Absinthe

Absinthe - a famous, or infamous liqueur, absinthe takes it's name from the aromatic plant which contains an alkaloid used since ancient times as a tonic. Wormwood is the principle one of the 14 herbs which are macerated in grape spirit, but hyssop and mint are included. It is famous for it's green colour. 

I meant to post this entry a few weeks ago, but got distracted.  Having purchased an Absinthe miniature a couple of months ago, I used a couple of tablespoons of it to cook with and gave the rest to a university friend, who was broke and facing an evening of being sober and sociable.  Technically I haven't seen her since, but I hear she's fine. I did not try the Absinthe in it's uncooked state - to me, it smelled and looked just like "Difflam Oral Rinse", a mouthwash designed to cure sore throats and mouth ulcers. Useful stuff, but I'd never be inclined to cook with it. 

To fulfil this entry in Larousse, I made Candied Pears in Absinthe. (Actually, I admit they were meant to be Poached Pears in Absinthe, but due to a happy accident with sugar-to-water ratios they ended up partly candied, so I thought I may as well keep going and fully candy them). I love candied fruit and until now never realised quite how easy it is to make.

(My apologies for the lack of photos currently in this post - I do plan to remake this in order to provide photographic guidance - originally the pears were eaten before they could be photographed. )

Candied Pears in Absinthe
Notes:  (Please read before you commence cooking!) 

The pears which you use to make this must be very under-ripe. Completely rock hard and inedible, to be honest. This means that the pears will have the strength to survive the prolonged cooking, without disintegrating. Also, ripe pears would contribute a lot of liquid to the "sugar syrup" which the pears are poached in, meaning that the syrup would have to be cooked far longer to achieve the required concentration of sugar-to-liquid.  

Small pears work best for candying, since they take less time to become fully saturated with sugar syrup then a larger pear would - hence there is no time for the fruit to accidentally rot, or begin to ferment. I used a bag of Tesco value pears for this, which turned out the be perfect for the purpose.


I have not used a saccherometer (a hydrometer used to determine the concentration of sugar in a solution) for candying, since I do not have one. I appreciate that this does mean some accuracy is lost when attempting to replicate a recipe, however I personally think that I really good result can be achieved by using visual cues rather than measuring degrees Brix.  All pears are not created equal, which cannot be controlled for, so sometimes it seems meaningless to be "over-controlling" over one element of the recipe, such as the concentration of the sugar syrup, when the other element is equally variable. Furthermore, hobs, pans and sugar are variable, as are saccherometer's (to a certain extent), so why complicate matters further by adding Brix readings? At least, that's my reasoning. 


- 7 or 8 small pears 
- 2 cups granulated white sugar
- 1 cup of water
- Juice and zest of one lemon
A glug of Absinthe, to taste. 

(I appreciate that it may irritate some people that I've used "cups" rather than a weight measurement. This would normally irritate me slightly. However in this case it's the "ratio"  of sugar to water which is important, not the weight in itself. A mug will do, it does not have to be a specific measuring cup. This way, it's also far easier to scale up or down the recipe as required).  


1. Peel the pears and slice in half vertically. You may want to take the time to remove the seeds and stringy bits at this point (using a melon baller is the best way) but it's not completely necessary.  

2. Add the water, lemon juice, lemon zest and sugar to a pan, place over a medium heat and bring to the boil, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Add the absinthe. Add the pears to the pan and simmer without a lid on, until the pears are reaching a stage of "translucency" around all the outer edges. (At least 15 minutes, maybe up to 30). 

3. Remove the pan from the heat and pour the entire contents into a large Tupperware (sealable) box.  Leave at room temperature to go cold - it is during this time that the pears will absorb the sugar and become "saturated". 


(If you have done this in the morning, wait until evening and "reheat" according to the instructions below. If you have done the above in the evening, wait until the next morning and "reheat" as below). 


The reheating process - this ensures that the entire fruit is candied, not just the layers near the surface.
4. Place the contents of the Tupperware box (pears, syrup and all) into a pan and bring to boil for 5-7 minutes.  This prevents the fruit from fermenting, or going mouldy during the "cooling off/saturating time".  It also helps the saturating process. 


5. Pour the mixture back into the box and leave to cool at room temperature, again. 





To store, you can either sterilise glass jars and pour in the pears with the syrup (reheating once more in order to do this in a sterile fashion), or take the pears out of the syrup and roll in granulated / other decorative sugars.

A is for Accolade, En.

En Accolade - a technique of arranging two pieces of meat or poultry, by leaning them against each other. 

I have accidentally left my copy of Larousse at university, so the above definition is not a quote, more of a "what I can remember" from the definition.  To cover this, I made Ballotine of Chicken en Accolade.  "Ballotine" being the technique of wrapping the chicken around a filling, forming into a "sausage" shape by wrapping in cling-film and poaching in chicken stock to cook.

The ballotine is stuffed with  ricotta, spinach and nutmeg mixture, served on a bed of crushed potatoes (home grown, I might add. I think these were the best bit) with caramelised fennel, balsamic tomatoes and potato gnocchi. The sauce is a mixture of basil pesto and white wine.  Presentation was never my strong point, but maybe one day I'll get the hang of it.

It was OK. I personally don't think the result was worth the amount of time spent making it. The chicken was dry, although it was interesting to work out how to make a ballotine. And it needed more of a sauce.  But it's all good cookery practise.

Also, I thought I'd share with you the baked Spaghetti Squash successfully grown in my back garden last year.

Looks fine, baked fine, but tasted a bit... foul, really. This one was baked with a knob of butter, brown sugar and nutmeg.  I've never gotten the hang of how to bake squash - they always have a bitter aftertaste whenever I try it. This one, like so many others, was no exception to the bitter aftertaste. Not sure where I'm going wrong.

Yes, it's the Christmas Holidays. Two weeks at home. (Yay!) Revising for January exams. (Gulp). I currently feel very far behind with revision. Partly thanks to the increased baking opportunities of being at home. Also, partly because I have spent the past couple of weeks drooling over Pierre Herme's Ph 10 book, which my parent's kindly bought me as a joint birthday/Christmas gift. 600 pages, written entirely in French and weighs a tonne. I can't wait to try it out.

A is for Amaretto

Amaretto di Saronno - an Italian liqueur flavored with almonds, apricot kernels and aromatic extracts.  Larousse p13.

They forgot to mention that Amaretto di Saronno also delicious.

I adore Amaretto, hence skipping ahead slightly  to this entry.  It brings a whole new dimension to baked goods and also makes a lovely addition to coffee.   This entry coincides with my friend M's belated birthday (their twenty-first birthday was late September when very few people were available to celebrate, hence it's being celebrated again, in style) which inspired me to make a batch of di Saronno and Almond Brownies, as an alternative to a belated birthday cake.

  One day I will work out how to do food photography.... In real life they looked less messy.

I have also been experimenting with sorbets and gelatos recently; the picture below is Strawberry and Amaretto Granita.

This is based on the recipe for Vegan Strawberry Ice cream by David Lebovitz, the only difference being I used 1 1/2 tablespoons of Amaretto as the in place of kirsch/vodka/Grand Marnier, and golden syrup in the place of honey (I was out of honey).  It was yummy.  However I would not personally consider this "ice cream" (which actually has a strict definition) - it is vegan (depending on whether you use honey) and is not "rich" in any way. I think it an ice cream maker was used, it would have the consistency of sorbet. Whereas I went with the "freeze and stir hourly" method, which resulted in a granita/sherbert consistency. Wonderful, nonetheless.


I have also had two attempts at ciabatta in the past two days. Both attempts were failures.  Looked like ciabatta on the outside, but on the inside the crumb was invariably dense and sticky. And a little too salty. Hoping that the next attempt will be more successful; I think the first couple were under-proved. Number 1 I mistimed; it would have been fully proven when I was in a lecture.  So I baked it early, hoping for some oven-spring. None happened.  It was a brick.   Attempt two was marginally better, but still peculiar.

Today, I learnt not to cook ciabatta before it's proved.  I also learnt that the amount of numbers between 0 and 1 is the same as the amount of numbers in the set of all real numbers.  And that if two groups are infinite, you can assume they contain the same amount of elements (even though infinity doesn't exist).  How long is a piece of string? Why, it's length l.

How to make popcorn in a pan.

This pretty much ticks the entry of "Popcorn" on Larousse page 812.  Many years ago I attempted to make popcorn in a pan on the stove, deemed it impossible (due to burning) and brought a popcorn machine.  But today I'm at uni, the popcorn machine is at home, and I thought I'd have another go, since Popcorn seemed the idea solution of "what-can-I-take-to-friends-party's-to-look-like-a-decent-guest-but-which-isn't-too-expensive" dilemma.   The final attempt proved perfectly successful, so I though it appropriate to share the technique with you all. Enjoy!

•  The pan you use must have a lid.  This is imperative, since attempting to contain popping popcorn in a pan without a lid would be disastrous. Also, the lid prevents hot popcorn kernels from leaping from the pan and splattering you, causing burns etc...  A clear (glass) lid is useful, since this allows you to check that your kernels are not burning. 

• The pan needs to be big enough to allow plenty of room for popcorn expansion.  However, it also needs to be light enough for you to swirl it around on top of the stove. (Since popcorn must be cooked with a lid on the pan, the pan must be swirled around to prevent the kernels from burning. You cannot take the lid off and stir the contents.) 

• Don't overfill the pan. At most, the popcorn kernels should cover half of the base of the pan (in one layer).  (I used a 2 litre pan and 2 tbl popcorn kernels. It made enough to fill 4-5 cereal bowls full).  Overfilling the pan will either result in many unpopped kernels, or burnt popcorn.  If you want to make a lot of popcorn, make it in batches rather than using a huge pan/huge quantities of kernels. One batch takes around 3-5 minutes.

• Your popcorn kernels should be plain (unflavoured) for cooking in a pan. Microwaveable varieties with added coating/flavourings will burn if you cook them in a pan. 

• Never take the lid off and peer into the pan to see how it's cooking.  If you must take the lid off the pan during cooking (or within two minutes of turning the heat off), e.g briefly to see if you've burnt it, keep the pan at arms length, tilted away from you. However, if it smells burnt, it probably is burnt, so stop cooking it and begin again. 

To cook the popcorn: Coat the inside base of the pan in a thin layer of sunflower oil (approx 1/2 a teaspoon), or another neutrally flavoured oil which will survive a high temperature. Don't use butter or butter/oil blends since they will burn.  (You may be able to pop the kernels in a dry pan, however I have not tried it.)

Place the pan on a high heat, let it warm for a minute or two : you want it to be warm-hot, not smoking hot. (Otherwise there's a risk of burning your popcorn, and also a risk of the kernels exploding the second you drop them into the pan, which is both inconvenient and dangerous. i.e you want the pan to be hot, but not yet hot enough to pop the kernels.)  

Add your popcorn kernels to the pan (enough to half-cover the base, or fewer) and immediately place the lid on it.  Frequently swirl the pan over the heat to ensure that the kernels will not stick/burn to the base of the pan.  The kernels will change to a "golden" hue before they pop; this should not be taken to be "burning". 

(However any dark brown/black patches, or smell of burning does mean that they're burnt. Burning occurs when the outside of the kernels are heated greatly before the inside has heated enough for it to pop. This is prevented by not "super heating" your pan to begin with. If burning occurs, whether before or after the kernels have popped, discard the batch and begin again, with the pan less hot.  Another advantage of making small batches is that if you burn one you haven't wasted all your kernels.) 

Maintain the heat and swirling until approximately 1/4 - 1/3 of the kernels have popped (around 1-2 minutes after going into the pan).  Now either turn down the heat to it's lowest setting, or turn it off altogether, leaving the pan on the residual heat of the ring (e.g if you have an induction hob). This is enough heat to sustain the popping, but minimises the potential for burning.  Maintain swirling the pan until the popping has pretty much stopped, to further prevent burning.

Remove the pan from the heat, but keep the lid in place for another minute or so.  This gives you time to prepare any coatings/ flavourings for the popcorn. 

A "recipe" for one of my favourite popcorn coatings: Make a dry caramel (add granulated white or unrefined sugar to a pan, carefully cook until mid-golden). In the meantime, sprinkle cinnamon and nutmeg over the dry popcorn, along with 1/4 teaspoon of salt.  To the pan of golden caramel, add some toasted flaked almonds.  Drizzle the caramel over the popcorn, stirring the popcorn as you go, in an attempt to get it evenly coated. Yummy. 

5th attempt at croissants

Ta-daaaah! Chocolate croissants. They're almost beginning to resemble croissants now. (Sorry there isn't a photo of one cut in half - I tried, but they all blurred). These are based on the same recipe used in my fourth attempt, here. However this time I used President butter - it's French and unsalted, so I assumed it would be great for croissants. I was wrong - this butter softens really quickly at room temperature, making it inconvenient for use in laminated doughs (although probably great for all other forms of baking). This meant that a lot of the butter leached out of the croissants early in the cooking process. (Other reasons for this happening are underproving, however I'm 90% sure this batch was completely proved).  I'm still searching for the perfect butter - until I began making croissants, I failed to realise just how much variation there was between butters. 

Still waiting for my Absinthe and Amaretto to arrive, but in the meantime I have amassed a variety of interesting flours, so I'm aiming to complete a few more of the Larousse bread-based recipes soon.

White Bread

After an overnight rise of around sixteen hours at room temperature, knocking back and then shaping and baking, the White Bread (p135) came out like this:

 I'm quite happy with this, since I've never gotten an overnight rise to work before. (They always ended up over fermented). Even though the crumb is quite dense, the texture is surprisingly delicate. I assume that's due to the long rising period.  I think this will prove a useful recipe in future - it's very low maintenance yet gives a good result.

(However I still need practice at shaping, slashing and guessing when it's proved. The crumb looks a little underproved, however I was impatient to bake it!  I think underproving is also the reason for the air-bubble under the crust, visible on the "sliced-up" photo.)

Overnight Rising White Bread (adapted from Larousse Gastronomique p135)

400ml room temperature water (I actually needed a tiny bit more than this, but it may have just been the brand of flour which I used).
1 1/2 teaspoons dried active yeast 
1 teaspoon white or unrefined sugar
675g Strong white flour
15g unsalted butter
2 teaspoons salt
 
Dissolve the sugar in the water. Sprinkle  in the yeast and allow it to dissolve over ten minutes.  (The yeast will not "froth" in ten minutes since the water is not warm, however the time allows for the yeast to hydrate properly). 


Place flour and salt in a large mixing bowl,  rub in the butter. Now pour in the liquid yeast mixture, combine and knead until smooth. (The standard ten minutes of kneading).  


Allow to rest at room temperature for 12-16 hours. By this time it will have doubled in size.  (It may have even sunk a little, like mine did, however the dough still proved to be perfectly usable. )


Knock back the dough, and shape. Allow to rise again (I left mine about an hour, but it was still a little underproved).  Preheat your oven to 210 degrees C and apply slashes to your dough, to allow for even rising.  Apply any glaze which you require.


Bake for approximately 40 minutes. (For one large loaf). Additional tray of water in the oven is optional; I used a very small tray of water, for fear of breaking the uni oven.


Note: These timings are for an English kitchen at room temperature in the autumn. If your kitchen is likely to be significantly warmer, decrease the amount of yeast in the recipe -up to half a teaspoon less, and/or use fridge temperature water. Or you could just let the dough have it's first rise in the fridge overnight, but I was trying to avoid this due to minimal fridge space. 


If your kitchen is likely to be colder than mine, warm up the water as necessary. You could also add a little more yeast - up to half a teaspoon more.

Update

Due to a lot of maths, baking has been sadly neglected lately.  However I have ordered a miniature of Absinthe and Disaronno Amaretto, which will enable me to tick of at least another two items (once I've baked something with them). At the moment I'm planning to use the Absinthe in Paul A. Young's recipe for Absinthe Truffles.  The Disaronno? No firm plans as yet. Potentially going to soak some dried apricots in it, then puree and use the resulting mixture as a filling for croissants. However I have no idea how this would work out, due to the risk of sogginess and whether it would seep out during the final rise.  And whether it would even be thick enough to get an adequate amount into the centre of a croissant. It's a work in progress.

At the moment, there is a batch of Larousse "White Bread" (page 135) rising in the kitchen, ready for use tomorrow. I did adapt the recipe slightly, in order to (hopefully) achieve an overnight rising dough; removing half a teaspoon of the (dried) yeast and mixing with cold water, straight from the tap. Currently I'm wondering whether not warming the water at all was a mistake - nothing seems to be happening to the dough. But we'll see in the morning.

There is also a poolish fermenting in the kitchen, in preparation for attempt five at croissants. However this time I will be freezing them just after shaping (without letting them rise).  Supposedly, if you defrost them overnight at room temperature, they will be fully risen in the morning. Just in time for breakfast. Not that I'll be eating them, but it sounds like a useful method for when you have guests staying.