Lamb shanks in red wine with mashed potatoes

After a Sunday spent entirely out of the kitchen, it's back to the stove on Monday. The fridge was full of odds and sods after Saturday's marathon, so I tried to use up what I could to make a proper meal. I bought a couple of lamb shanks from the butcher's to provide the protein. I thought they looked a bit big as a single portion, so I put one in the freezer. One lamb shank at around 600g provided just about enough meat for two people.

1 lamb shank
handful of small onions (the squashed ones that look like flattened shallots)
3 sticks celery
3 cloves garlic, crushed
250ml chicken stock
250ml red wine
handful of mushrooms
sprinkling of dried rosemary
1 tbs wholegrain mustard
salt and pepper

The inspiration for this recipe comes from Nigel Slater's very evocative Kitchen Diaries, although I have modified it to take account of the ingredients I had.

I cooked the meal in our large copper pan, which comes with a lid. It's one of the best things in the world to cook in. I love it. I covered the meat in a generous dose of salt and pepper, then browned it on all sides in a little bit of very hot oil, then I put the meat on a plate. I chopped the onions and celery into chunks and browned those for a few minutes in the pan. Then I added the garlic for a minute or two

I added the rosemary, the wine, the stock and a bit more salt and pepper, put back the lamb, and brought the whole thing to a rolling boil. In the oven with the lid on at 160C for 35 minutes, after which I stirred in the mustard and turned the lamb over before giving it another 40 minutes or so.

The end result was very pleasing. The lamb was nice and tender (could have done with another 20 minutes or so, I think, without coming to much harm) and the sauce full of interesting flavours. I strained the sauce, returning the mushroom and some of the onions to it afterwards, then reduced it quite a bit on the stove top.

Notes for next time: the dried rosemary really needs to be removed at the end as it's a bit inedible. So maybe fresh rosemary or ground rosemary or even rosemary wrapped in cheesecloth for easy removal. And a spot of creme fraiche to make it a bit richer?

Mashed potatoes were ideal with it, because there's lots of sauce to be soaked up. Two large baking potatoes, peeled and chopped into chunks, were just right for two. The best way to mash them is, in my experience, to add butter and lots of soured cream, and then have at them with an electric mixer.

Pork with lemon potatoes; treacle sponge

Saturday night - good but exhausting day. Another guest coming for dinner so yet one more meal to cook. My enthusiasm levels had waned, and the meal rather reflected that. I bought a loin of pork - tied without bone. About 1.5kg, which I surrounded in the roasting tin (having first browned the meat on the hob) with halved small potatoes and quartered lemons.

Twenty minutes at 220C followed by an hour or so at 200C. Bad result all round. The potatoes cooked - or rather charred - much too quickly, so I had to take them out of the oven and let them get soggy while the meat continued to cook. And I overcooked the meat - so it was dry and uninteresting. The only saving grace was a tub of shop-bought apple sauce. The lemons added an unattractive sour note. Not my finest culinary hour.

Next time? Not sure there will be one on this particular combination - but I would try to be less nervous about undercooking pork, and would definitely be a bit more watchful about roasting potatoes.

Pud was a bit more of a success. An old-fashioned British steamed sponge, complemented by the ice cream I made the other day. I'm a huge fan of traditional recipes, and this one is a winner. The first thing to remember is that all the ingredients must be at room temperature.

1 tbs molasses (in place of black treacle, which I could not find)
3 tbs golden syrup
175g self-raising flour
1 rounded tsp baking powder
175g butter
3 large eggs
175g light brown sugar

I started by buttering a 1.4 litre Pyrex dish - it should really have been a slightly smaller dish, but needs must. I poured the golden syrup into the bottom of the dish. I whisked together the rest of the ingredients until the flour had all disappeared - just a few seconds with an electric mixer. Then I just piled it all on top of the syrup.

The only tricky part is covering the dish. A sheet of greaseproof paper and on top of that a sheet of foil. Put it over the dish, fold down the edges and tie it firmly into place with string. I discovered at the last minute that we were out of string, so a piece of rather weedy thread had to suffice.

I put about 6cm of water in our largest saucepan (the one I use for pasta), and put the steaming insert from our rice maker at the bottom. I stood the pudding dish on that, brought the water to the boil, put on a lid and let the whole thing steam for two hours. Checking perhaps more often than was needed that the water had not all boiled away.

I love the comforting taste of this pudding, and it combines well with the creaminess of the ice cream. But its size, especially after a substantial meal, is a bit daunting, not to say off-putting when presented on a serving dish - almost like half a football. So I think I'll try making it in individual pudding basins or ramekins next time. Not sure what that will mean for the cooking time. And perhaps a little vanilla and/or lemon would give it a different lift. We'll see.

White chocolate chip cookies

More cooking to catch up on from yesterday. The afternoon saw many people coming and going, so I baked a batch of classic American cookies to keep people happy through the packing, the hellos and goodbyes. This recipe comes, again, from Ina Garten, a US cookery writer, although I have slightly reduced the amount of white chocolate she calls for (for no better reason than simple lack of chocolate).

110g butter
100g light brown sugar
100g granulated sugar
1tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg
30g unsweetened cocoa powder
140g plain flour
Half tsp bicarbonate of soda
Half tsp coarse salt
300g white chocolate

The first thing was to make sure that absolutely everything was at room temperature, ie, that the butter was nice and squidgy. Otherwise making the batter is nigh-on impossible. Then I chopped the chocolate into squares - anything between 0.5cm to 1cm. This was easier than I had thought.

Then I beat the sugars and the butter together with an electric mixer until the mixture quite fluffy and the colour of very milky coffee (two minutes or so). I had to press little lumps of the brown sugar down with a spoon every now and then, as they seemed unwilling to get incorporated into the mixture.

Then I sieved in the cocoa powder and mixed until it was combined. Then in went the flour, bicarb and salt. I mixed here just until the flour had disappeared into the mixture - any more and there's a risk the batter will get too tough. Then the mound of chocolate squares, again mixed until just combined.

I had two baking sheets ready, one lined with greaseproof paper, and one with a sheet of Silpat, a French invention I bought recently which is a kind of reusable baking sheet liner. The results were quite different - the cookies stuck to the paper and glided off the Silpat, so definitely worth the modest investment.

I put the batter onto the sheets using an ice-cream scoop, which produces large golf-ball size blobs. I then wet my fingers and patted the batter down just a little. These cookies expand astonishingly on cooking, so I put no more than six cookies, well spaced, on each sheet (I got ten in all). Into the oven at 180C for exactly 15 minutes. At this point, they looked scarily undercooked, positively liquid. However, having cooled for a few minutes on the sheets, then transferred to a cooling rack, they are lovely, squidgy and chocolate-y. They are also the size of large saucers, so not for the faint hearted.

To my taste, they were a little on the sweet side. But the general view was that the sugar level was just right. This morning, I tried one that was left over. Not as moist and tender, but still perfectly respectable. This recipe will be tried again - perhaps with plain chocolate chunks next time.

Cranberry and orange scones

Another mixed success this one. I like scones, and was tempted by the American practice of adding double cream to the mixture. But the result was a bit cakey for my liking, and the baking powder seemed not to have cooked through, giving a bit of a chemical aftertaste. Also, the size I chose, 7.5cm, was a bit too big. I'll try again soon with a more classic British recipe - omitting the cream. But the American one is still a good option, but I'd cut back on the baking powder, and reduce their size.

300g plain flour
50g granulated sugar
1tbs baking powder
1tsp coarse salt
zest of one orange
100g cold butter, cut into small pieces
120ml double cream
60g dried cranberries

Mix the flour, sugar, zest, baking powder and salt. Then rub in the butter until it looks like messy breadcrumbs. Add the beaten eggs and cream, then mix in the cranberries. Move quickly, because the dough does not like being warmed up.

At this point, I put the dough in the fridge, wrapped in cling film and in a plastic bag, overnight. It didn't seem to do any damage. This morning, I rolled it out into a 2cm-thick circle, and cut out seven 7.5cm circles (in future I think I would do more like 5cm circles and 2.5cm thick). I brushed with egg wash (a beaten egg with some water added) and put in the oven for 23 minutes at 200C. They could possibly have done with an extra few minutes, but they looked good, so I took them out.

I'm not sure the egg wash is worth wasting a whole egg on, so I'll just brush with a little milk next time.

This recipe is my tweaked version of one by Ina Garten, a tv chef here.

Hollandaise sauce

The flat is full of people - some staying, some just stopping by for an hour or so. The weather is autumnally dreadful. The rain and the wind clearly want me to stay indoors. So a real cooking marathon today. We start with eggs Benedict for breakfast, with hollandaise sauce, only the second or third time I've ever attempted it. The results are mixed. I use Delia Smith's recipe for a foaming version of the sauce that will keep in the fridge over night.

2 large eggs, separated
2 teaspoons white wine vinegar
2 teaspoons lemon juice
100g butter
salt and pepper

I put the egg yokes with some salt and pepper in a liquidiser and added the vinegar and lemon juice which I had brought to a boil in my very smallest saucepan (which was still too big). Do this while the liquidiser is running on low - as I discovered, high is not a good idea as the whole thing just splatters.

Then drizzle in the melted butter as slowly as you can with the engine running. When it's ready, put it in a bowl and fold in the egg whites, which should be whipped to the soft-peak stage. I made this last night, and reheated it this morning in the bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. I was not quite careful enough, though, and there were definitely gobbets of scrambled eggs by the time the temperature was hot enough. The taste was okay, but not really luxurious enough - the egg whites make the whole thing pallid and more diluted. And the lemon and vinegar was a bit much, making the sauce a little bit too sharp.

In future, I shall make this sauce just as it's needed, rather than the night before, and add maybe just the tiniest squeeze of lemon juice and leave out the vinegar. And I need to be a bit more generous with the pepper. Of course, the chance of me going to all this bother more than once or twice a year are slim.

Vanilla and brandy ice cream

Somewhere just on the right side of smug is the feeling one gets from preparing something that most of the time is bought ready made, like bread, jam or ice-cream. An ice-cream maker does make the job rather disappointingly easy, but still quite worth the minimal effort. And this recipe, an adaptation of one I saw on telly here recently, is easier than most, as it involves no eggs or custards.

750ml double cream
140g granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
seeds of 1 vanilla pod
75ml brandy

Just put the cream, sugar, vanilla extract and seeds in a small saucepan and heat until the sugar has totally dissolved. This happened much quicker than I had expected; the cream was hardly warm at all. To check, I just rubbed a (clean!) finger and thumb against one another in the liquid to make sure there was no sandy sugar feeling. Then, strain it into a bowl and leave to cool completely - several hours covered in the fridge did the trick. Finally stir in the brandy and churn for half and hour or so in the ice-cream maker. Because of the uncooked alcohol, the ice-cream remains much more liquid than most - more like thick milk shake (although it does firm up afterwards in the freezer).

The ice-cream has a good texture and, unlike most home-made versions, can be served pretty much direct from the freezer without softening first. But for my taste it was a little too sweet - so next time I shall try it with just 100g of sugar. The vanilla seeds add a depth of flavour and those pleasing little black flecks. But, to be quite honest, I'm not sure they're worth their astronomical price. They pretty much double the cost of the ice cream.

One US-specific comment. Double cream is known as 'heavy cream' here - and seems to me a little runnier than its British counterpart, which is often verging on the buttery. So back in the UK, I might try this with whipping cream instead, or at least make sure that the double cream was of a good pouring consistency.

Why fresh muesli?

Well, I had to give it some name. And fresh muesli sounded as good as anything.

But the inspiration comes from a small hotel we stayed at in Switzerland over the summer, where every morning we were served with fresh muesli. Not anything I'd ever eaten before, and something of a revelation. Smooth and creamy, without being too heavy. And sumptuous enough to keep us going until the afternoon.

I found a recipe for fresh muesli in a French recipe book called Cuisiner sans stress - but the list of ingredients it gave was daunting, and I doubted I would have the stamina to prepare this in the groggy hours of the morning. So, I drastically simplified the recipe, and was surprised to discover that it really hit the mark. It's very simple, very wholesome, and you can prepare it in one large batch to last quite some time. So here goes:

270g rolled oats (I use Quaker oats)
1 large (400g or so) carton Greek yoghurt
500ml orange juice

Just put everything in a big tupperware box and stir it around to combine. It takes quite a bit of stirring to get rid of all the big clumps of yoghurt. Now, and this is crucial, leave it in the fridge for at least 12 hours. If you try to eat it straight away, you'll probably never eat it again unless you have a fondness for cardboard. But overnight it transforms into a wonderful, unctuous, almost porridge-y delight.

In the morning, I put it in bowls and add a splash of milk just to thin it a little. You can then add fresh fruit, such as sliced banana, or, my preference, raisins and sliced almonds. Best not to add these the night before, as they tend to get soggy.

The quantities above yield six very generous portions. I've tried it with plain yoghurt, which also works, but Greek has the edge. Eat it and your insides will love you.

Starter course

So, here I go with a blog about cooking. I love writing and I love cooking, so it seems to make sense to combine the two.

Cooking is one of the things I enjoy doing the most. Although on average I cook for about an hour a day, there are many days when I don't cook at all, just as there are lots of occasions when I spend luxurious amounts of time in the kitchen creating things. Cooking for me is about receiving and giving joy, about home, about comfort. About family and friends, about love and nurturing. Cooking can both bring back memories and create them. It defines the time of day, the time of year, the time of life.

This blog will help me record the way I cook - the things I get right and the things I get wrong. It will stop me from repeating my mistakes and from losing the ability to recreate those dishes that hit the mark. And it will also say a thing or two about the life of a foreign food lover in Manhattan.

If anyone else reads this and gets some pleasure, then all the better.