Five times meme

Anna kindly passed her meme of fives onto me, so here are my answers:

Five Things in my Freezer

With a freezer and a half, it’s amazing how much stuff you accumulate (unfortunately no Edamame in my freezer though)
1. A jar of Lemonchello as its nicest cold
2. The best pizzadough every according to Heidi and Barry (as a true pizza fanatic) agrees with her
3. An emergency loaf of Irish bread
4. Lots of left over herbs
5. A tub of rhubarb ginger granita I made for this but never got the chance to post about

Five Things in my Closet

1. My ever growing collection of silly shoes (can a girl ever have enough?!)
2. Some nice bottles of wine, hidden for a party and now waiting for the perfect meal.
3. Lots and lots of belts and scarf
4. A growing collection of artsy skirts (my new project)
5. The rest of my clothes

Five Things in my Car

1.WD40, a savior when it comes to Dolly, our 15 year old Polo that has lots and lots of rusty bits
2. Change (mainly small) for crossing the bridge to Fife for summer berry picking and knitting trips
3. Decent plastic bags (not the flimsy supermarket ones!) and a cardboard box to not create more plastic waste when shopping
4. A miniature black camper van inherited from the previous owner
5. Lots of dust and mud as I’m very lazy at cleaning the car out and with walking trips it accumulates quickly

Five Things in my Purse

I have the loveliest green felted purse my friend gave me for my birthday. Unfortunately, there are not many compartments to put interesting stuff in

1. To many plastic cards
2. Lots of coppers that will eventually make it into the car for the bridge change
3. A small tub of Vaseline
4. Lots of receipts
5. Ibuprofen for my most recent ceilidh injury (don’t ask).

With that I’m off to Japan for the next two weeks (both conference and holiday)!! I can’t wait for all the wonderful food an will blog about it once I get back.

Sunday lunch with Sinatra

Every Sunday, during the summer months, various brass bands play at the bandstand on the green at the end of our road. We’ve been away many weekend so have missed it so far but last weekend we were finally here so I made a Japanese themed lunch in my lovely “new” lunchbox.

I bought it just before Christmas when we went to a local shop where everyone else bought decorations for on and presents for under their tree. However, I saw this lunchbox and fell absolutely in love with it. It reminded me of the bento’s they have in Japan. There, everyone eats their lunch from compartmentalized boxed that contain great goodies. At new year, the hearth is traditionally extinguished for tree days so before this happens, the women of the house prepare an elaborate meal that is kept in a big bento and eaten over three days. I was full of good intentions to prepare this but with all the holiday madness it never happened and afterwards it seemed a bit silly to do it at the inappropriate time.

So last Sunday it was finally christened with a variety of Japanese dishes. In the top layer, I put soba noodles I’d come across made according to a Nigella recipe accompanied by Takuan pickles (or the Korean variant, from the Chinese supermarket) and soy simmered mushrooms. This is a recipe I learned in my first Japanese cooking class and have been addicted to ever since. In the second layer, I made various shapes of sushi with the same sake-toro filling, which is easily made by mincing some fresh salmon, spring onions and a dollop of Wasabi finely with a big knife. In the final layer, there was some salmon sashimi with soy and leeks in a Miso-vinegar dressing. It all looked great, but threatening clouds were appearing so I quickly went into the garden, which was a good idea as minutes later, rain came pouring out of the skies so we decided to have our picnic at home instead. But once we had finished all the tasty bits, it had cleared up again so we decided to go down after all. There were a lot of people there and most were elderly. But as it started to rain it was the young ones that disappeared first while the older generation dried of the seats with their hankies and pulled out their umbrellas. The most remarkable was an old man, dressed top to bottom in waterproofs that wondered down the hill holding on to his zimaframe, to the chairs where he sat happily tapping his feet in the rain. I really hope that when I reach that age, I will still brave the heavy rain to come and listen to some Sinatra.

Soy-simmered Dried Black Mushrooms (Shiitake no Umani)
Makes about 1/3 cup
3-4 dried shiitake
pinch of sugar
3/4 cup basic seastock
1/2 cup liquid left after softening the mushrooms
1 tbsp sake
1 tbsp sugar
3 tbsp shoyu

*Remove the stems from the mushrooms (they are very chewy but can be used to make a vegetarian stock). Soakthe caps for at least 30 min and up to several hours (or even days if you want to make this in advance) in warm water to cover. Adding a pinch of sugar hastens the softening process. You can weigh down the mushrooms with an otoshi-buta (dropped lid) but I generally use a small plate or glass to make sure the mushrooms are completely submerged.
*When the mushrooms have softened, strain to remove the gritty bits and resoak the capes in the stained liquid for 5-10 min (the caps should be fully reconstituted before cooking; I often skip this step as I'm not to fussy about little bits). Strain again and save the liquid.
*Combine 1/4 cup of the mushroom liquid (save the rest for soups) with half the dashi. Season with sake and bring to a simmer in a small saucepan.
*Add the softened shiitake caps and cook for 10 min maintaining a steady but gentle bubble, again trying to keep the mushrooms submerged. Skim away froth before adding the sugar.
*Add the sugar and cook 3-4 min stirring occasionaly, then add the shoyu and cook 4-5 min until the shiitake become glazed. Allow the caps to cook in the cooking pot and transfer them into a clean glass jar. They can be kept in the refrigerator for up to 5 days

Note: Dried mushrooms are not interchangable with fresh ones as they have very different flavours. The left over liquids can be used to make miso or noodle soup. The mushrooms are lovely on their own or cut into slices in salads.

Gourmet sailing

We’ve just had a mini holiday last week where for five days, we sailed on the North Sea with good friends as their boat needed to be transported from Shetland to Dundee. We missed the first few days of the expedition but took the ferry to the Orkneys and joined the expedition there. Orkney is full of Neolithic monuments and when we came off the boat we went to spend midnight at the ring of Brodgar, a huge stone circle that originally consisted of 60 stones. This is a truly magical place and as we’re still close to midsummer there was a constant sunset in the sky. It is really baffling how these people quarried and moved these huge slabs of stone with wooden and stone tools only.

Back to the boat for a few hours of sleep but before bed, we had a wee nip of Caol Ila (a lovely whisky and also the name of the boat) accompanied by a slice of citrus polenta cake. I had made this cake beforehand as I had lots of polenta to use up and was inspired after Keiko’s post on kumquats. The cake was very easy to assemble although I went slightly wrong caramelizing the fruit for the bottom layer as the pan wasn’t hot enough. But once I got past that, I ended up with this lovely moist batter (even though I added too much polenta). It travelled remarkably well and was very tasty but would have benefited from the vodka mascarpone in the original recipe (we solved this problem with custard in the following days).The next morning we explored the island, which included a guided tour of another beautiful Neolithic structure, Maeshowe and a few visits to the local fishmongers. We decided to have a seafood feast for Barry’s birthday and went all out with spoots (razor shellfish), scallops and lobsters. Then we set sail for about 4 hours to move a bit further south to a bay just off the Scapa flow. This was a magical spot where we anchored right next to one of the Churchill barriers, which was the perfect location for our dinner. We went for a plain salad and traditional scones to go with the meal as we didn’t want to detract from the great flavours of the seafood. We just boiled the lobsters and fried the scallops in garlic butter. The spoots needed a bit more effort as they needed to be left in water for about 15 min to get rid of all the sand. Then you pour boiling water over them to get the shells (I think this would have been the point to remove the stomachs, but we didn’t realize we had to do that and ended up with some added sand) to open and finally they were quickly fried with garlic butter as well. Everything tasted so lovely and fresh and we were all well stuffed towards the end of the meal. Finally we had another nightcap (this time Dutch bitter, which is what we used to have back on the boat in Holland) with Banoffi pie that was lovely and rich. The next morning we set off early for a 16 hour leg to Fraserburgh, but due to the lack of/southerly wind we had to motor all the way. The main distraction was watching puffins and guillemots trying to take off (but failing and just nose diving into the waves), swinging off the haliet and eating lots of nice food.

In Fraserburgh we lost half our crew due to other commitments and to much seasickness :-( , which was a shame as the next day we finally got to sail properly and saw a big whale playing in the waves!! I looked over and noticed this huge white and black shape clearing the water, at first I wasn’t sure if I’d seen it right but then there were a few spouts of water and the whale jumped up two more times. It was truly amazing and we were just soooo excited for a long time after. So to celebrate that evening we decided to go for a scrumptious 8 course meal consisting of crayfish tails in a sweet chilli sauce, parcels of pepperoni, sun dried tomatoes and rum soaked cashew nuts (a variation on Johanna’s wonderful skewers), battered and fried squids, rolls of pastrami filled with grated carrot and spring onion dressed with soy, Portobello mushrooms stuffed with parsley, cashews and blue cheese, Emma’s excellent broccoli with ginger soy and marmalade (!), a perfect fillet steak and finally, crepe suzette (although not lit as that would be a bit risky.) This was all accompanied by some G&Ts, Chablis, pink and red sparkling wine and a great singsong.

Needless to say, the next morning was a bit of a struggle but we had to get up early to make it to Arbroath in time. We didn’t get quite so far and moored in Montrose where Barry came to pick us up. Utterly exhausted and pretty land sick (everything was moving sooo much) we had a final farewell dinner with everyone in Dundee and then went off to bed to get rid of all the moving motion in my head. But it was a really wonderful experience and hopefully we’ll do it all again very soon….

Pottery, Pies and Picnics

Work is a bit hectic at the moment and I’m afraid the blog has been suffering from it the most. After a long day of writing papers and grants, the last think I feel like is sitting down behind the computer again. But last weekend, we managed to escape to the far north of Scotland to celebrate the Summer Solstice (which is actually today). This was a real trip down memory lane for me as we went to Achmelvich, which is the first place I visited outside of Dundee when I moved here the first time in 2000 as an undergraduate student. I came here for 7 months to work in one of the labs, fell in love with Scotland, came back the next year to do a PhD and haven’t left since (although the end is in sight)….this is one of my fabourite parts of Scotland and I love coming here. This time, Barry came with me as he had never been and I wanted to show him this area before we move....but I digress.

So last Friday we drove up with friends and pitched the tent next to the sea. Saturday morning we woke up to the sound of rain so stayed in the tents for a while, had breakfast and around 11, when it dried up wondered over to Lochinver, a village about 4 miles away. We visited the Highland pottery shop, which has stunning pottery but quite pricey. So I was sooooo chuffed when I found a seconds serving platter, which was perfect on top but had an ugly mark on the bottom (nobody will ever know!) half price (pics will follow soon). We then went to this amazing shop I’d been told about a long time ago but never had a chance to visit (even though I’ve been in the area five time already). It’s the Lochinver Larder and they sell lots of wonderful pies. There were so many different varieties that it took us a long time to make up our minds but in the end we shared a venison and cranberry pie, a wild boar, port and prune pie and rounded it off with a strawberry/rhubarb pie for dessert.
The pies were heated for us but we took them outside where they made a perfect picnic whilst looking out towards the see. The pies were really moist and full of flavour, the fruit was perfectly balanced with the meat and the pie crust had a nice bite to it. After this, we wondered back and the rest of the weekend was spent walking beaches, swimming (for some...way too cold for me!), playing rugby on the beach, building dams in sand, having barbeques and roasting marshmallows and wondering along the cost. I can really recommend this area if you’re ever this far north. It’s a beautiful rugged part of the country with lots of sheep and little people but everyone is really friendly and the food is great. There are a lot of wonderful seafood restaurants and at this time of year the light is really fabulous, it’s so far north that it doesn’t even get completely dark and we sat up with a bonfire till the early hours.
Now back in Dundee with the piles of papers, I find myself staring at the mountain scenery on my new plate and contemplate ordering some pies by post soon, unless I find the time to make one….

When you can't make ice cream...

...as you don't have an ice cream maker and you can't go out and buy one as you will be moving by the end of the year and you have to move your vast quantity of kitchen paraphernalia again....you make granita! I've been restraining myself from buying an ice cream maker but with the warm weather there is nothing like some frozen comfort but I have found the solution to my problem....granita's! They're somewhere in between a sorbet and a slush puppy but so much better then the horrible synthetic tasting ones we get here (I mean turquoise for raspberry flavour!). They are very easy to make (and quick, which is a big bonus at the moment as work is hectic) as you just boil a sugar syrup and can then add anything you fancy to thin the liquid out, preferably with some alcohol. The liquid is then frozen in a shallow tray and scooped out as a crystallite mixture. Lovely on its own, with fruits or cakes, the possibilities are endless.

I've previously made a mulled wine granita and this time went for a lemon one with the lemons we got from our organic citrus box. I took the rind off the lemons and boiled this with the sugar syrup. The syrup was strained and water and alcohol (in this case Corenwyn; a Dutch version of gin) was added. This was then frozen and had been sitting in my freezer for ages until we ate it last night. I had baked some lemon and poppy seed cookies to go with it from the parcel Marie-Laure sent me for EBBP4. The cookies were great and their crunchiness contrasted nicely with the fresh, tart and slighlly boozy taste of the granita...the perfect summer dessert!

Some random food...

...that we've been eating over the last week or so. I'm very busy at work at the moment so don't have that much time to write posts but I thought I'd share these pictures with you as I like them. First up, a summer salad of mixed leaves with Beluga lentil and goats cheese crostinis which we enjoyed in our garden on a Sunday afternoon (the weather has been absolutely fab here the last week).

Followed by some daikon and roast beef rolls from the Japanese feature in this month's Delicious. These were very easy to make, just grate some daikon, squeeze out the juice, add some chopped spring onions and roll them up in a slice of roast beef. The dipping sauce was made off soy (4 tbsp), sesame oil (1 tbsp) and some finely sliced garlic. The whole thing took about 5 min to assemble and was very tasty....great finger food for entertaining.

Finally, we had some pork burgers (mince, onion and garlic mixed with ground coriander, cumin, tumeric and chilipowder) with some steamed runner beans and these lovely ceci with garlic and sage. They are a bit of an effort to make but very much worth it, crunchy and with a bit of a kick they make a lovely snack or part of a full meal. So hopefully I'll have more time to write a proper post soon but first we're off for a weekend of walking on the westcoast...fingers crossed we'll keep the nice weather!

Something old and something new

One of the souvenirs I brought back from my recent skiing trip in the Savoie (France) was a bag of Crozets. This pasta was introduced in the Savoie in the 17th century. The pasta is made from a mix of plain and wholewheat flour or buckwheat flour that is cut into little squares and is a good example of hearty mountain food. I bought a bag of buckwheat crozet as I like their nutty flavour. Traditionally, they are prepared in a Croziflette (a tartiflette made with crozets in stead of potatoes) in which they are paired with bacon and Reblochon. This is a tasty and filling dish, just what is needed after a day on the piste or perhaps whilst having lunch on the piste.

A few months I already made the traditional version, but with spring finally here and summer fast approaching; it was time to use them in a new combination. So I decided to use the crozets in a fresh summer salad. After boiling them, I paired them with some lovely organic mixed leaves we got from our organic veggie bag delivery. I also added some slices of roasted kabotcha pumpkin, a few bits of gorgonzola and some slices of Parma ham. This combination was great, lots of strong flavours that combine well. The crozets stay pretty al dente so have a nice bite to them and as the mixed salad contained mizuna, shungiku, tai sai, cress, rocket, raddicio and little gems it was crisp and spicy. The sweetness of the roasted kabocha pumpkin combined nice with the Gorgonzola, which started to melt slightly with the pumpkin and the Parma ham finished all this off beautifully. A very pleasant lunch indeed and I think this new combination is at least as good as the old one!

Three uses for Katsuo-bushi

A few weeks ago I got a very nice surprise as I received a parcel from Anna at Baking for Britain. Anna was my allocated person for EBBP4 and I some of the ingredients I sent her were for making Japanese food including dashi (seastock). However, my ingredients were incomplete and contained no bonito flakes as just can’t get everything in Dundee. These flakes are made from the dried flesh of the bonito (skipjack tuna) which has been repeatedly smoked. This is then shaved into flakes and mainly used for adding a smoky, fishy flavour to stock or as garnish for a variety of dishes. Anna very kindly found some in for me in London and this was the parcel that arrived, 5 precious little bags of bonito flakes (or katsuo bushi as Anna discovered from the Japanese shop owners).

So I wanted to make something a bit more special then just stock and decided to make okonomiyaki. Okonomiyaki is what they sometimes call Japanese pizza, as you can vary the topping but it’s more like an overly filled omelette. The first time I had one was years ago when one of my Japanese colleagues in Dundee organized a pot-luck dinner party, Her contribution was an okonomiyaki and I remember being amazed at the topping. The omelette is garnished with katsuo-bushi and as the flakes are so thin, they seem to “dance” on top of the omelette as they sway in the hot air.

Then whiles living in Japan, we would sometimes go to restaurants specialized in okonomiyaki. These are very fun places as all the tables have a hot plate built in and you order the premixed ingredients but get to cook the whole thing at your own table. However, after dinner there, you are definitely in need of a shower as you stink of frying but it’s well worth it.


So I got the recipe from the book Untangling my Chopsticks, a book I absolutely love and recommend if you are interested in Japanese food and the culture involved. The recipe is very simple, you just chop and grate all the veg and meat (or you can of course make it vegetarian, mix everything and then start frying them. You only use one egg, which doesn’t look like much, but it gets it’s lovely creamy golden texture from the grated taros (also known as Japanese mountain yams or satoimo). To eat, you garnish with okonomiyaki sauce, mayonnaise, katsuo-bushi and nori (seaweed) flakes and pickled ginger. Okonomiyaki sauce is actually based on Worcestershire sauce so you can use this as a replacement. Worcestershire sauce came to Japan in the second half of the 19th century but the flavour has been made milder to suit the Japanese palate. I couldn’t find the right pickled ginger so used gari (that you use for sushi) instead which doesn’t really matter flavour wise, although the other one does taste a bit stronger. I’d also run out of mayonnaise. As I had to make dashi for this recipe, I used one of the bags for that and then “recycled” the used bonito flakes by dry frying them with some soy…this makes a great sprinkle over rice. The rest of the dashi I used for making miso soup the following day. When frying the omelettes, the smells made me all nostalgic about Japan. Once again, the fish flakes danced on top and the taste was perfect.
Okonomiyaki (makes 2, serves 4)
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp (0.5) tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp coarse salt
1 1/2cup dashi
1 large egg
1 cup grated taro’s
2 cups coarsely chopped green cabbage
1 cup fresh bean sprouts
1 medium carrot, peeled and shredded
1 bunch scallions(±6) trimmed and thinly sliced
2 tbsp vegetable oil
4 ounce boneless, skinless chicken breast, thinly sliced into small pieces
10 medium shrimp, peeled, deveined and sliced lengthwise in half

for garnish
mayonnaise
okonomiyaki sauce (can substitute with Worcestershire sauce)
shredded red pickled ginger
dried bonito flakes (katsuo-bushi)
shredded nori

Mix flour, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. In a smaller bowl, whisk together dashi and egg, then add the grated taro’s. Add this wet mixture to the dry, whisk until the batter is smooth and add all the vegetables. Heat a non-stick skillet on medium-high, brush a tablespoon of oil on the surface and, when hot, put half the mixture in the pan. Spread this out till about 8 inch wide, scatter half of the chicken and shrimp on top and press them into the surface. Reduce the heat to medium-low and cook the pancake for about 4 minutes until the top edges appear cooked and the bottom has stiffened. Turn the pancake and cook for 3-4 more minutes until the other side is golden. Repeat this process with the remaining oil, batter, chicken and shrimp.

Cut the pancake into wedges and let people garnish their individual wedges. First spread creamy mayonnaise on top, followed by okonomiyaki sauce. Next, scatter some ginger shreds, bonito flakes and finally add a generous pinch of nori on top.

What’s For Pud?...Summer!!

What a wonderful day we’ve had yesterday! We’ve gone straight from winter into summer up here in Scotland so the only fitting English dessert to make for What’s For Pud was Summer pudding. This was my first attempt at any kind of bread pudding as I have a great dislike of soggy and I was pleasantly surprised. It was very easy to assemble just boiling the fruit, sugar and water, lining the mould with bread and putting the fruit mixture in there, then leaving it in the fridge over night. The taste was really good, the juices sweetened the bread and even though the bread was slightly wet, it wasn’t soggy and the fruit inside was still intact. We had our first barbeque of the year and had the pudding for dessert. Thanks to Becks&Posh and Jamfaced for organizing this, it made me discover a great dessert and I’ll definitely make this more often, specially once it gets to picking season and you can pick your own berries at the farms around.

What's For Pud? and St George's Day

Liquor used at long last

This Sugar high Friday is hosted by Chandra at Lick The Spoon and she picked a drunken dessert, preferably not rum….so I had the perfect recipe for this that I’ve been meaning to use since I bought my very first silicon mould (sigh). It was a cold November Sunday, I’d spent the weekend in Edinburgh and was on my way home. The last few months I’d been reading more and more blogs and had been reading about this new baking product called a silicon mould. Everybody seemed over the moon with these moulds and they did sound good but I’d never spotted one in the Dundee shops.

So little unexpected me was wondering in and out shops on the way to the train station and suddenly found myself in the Jenners (it’s a bit like the Scottish Harrods, but not quite so grand and without the foodsection) cooking department where I was greeted by a table full of lovely baby-pink Fauchon silicon!! So I ages to decide but finally settled on a mould with nine small rectangles (very practical) as I figured buying the pink mini heart-shaped moulds would give him a hart attack.

When I finally sat down on the train, I unwrapped my lovely new mould (there’s nothing quite like getting something just for you wrapped as a present anyway) and found another bonus: there were two recipe cards included with the mould. One was for vegetable mini cakes and the other for miniature pear cakes. Both sounded appealing but I’m definitely sweets person so I started plotting this recipe. I wouldn’t be able to get pear liquor in Dundee I would have to make some and I had just the bottle for it.

My parents have this habit of giving us presents and then not remembering so giving them again. This way we’ve steadily been building up a collection of Corenwyn (only in Dutch I’m afraid). This is almost like a Dutch combination of vodka and whiskey, distilled from grains but matured in oak casts for three years it has a high alcohol percentage and a sharp taste and I’m not a big fan of it as a drink. But as the taste isn’t very pronounced it can easily be used for cooking.

So when I got off the train, I bought some pears, made the liquor using equal quantities of sugar, fruit and alcohol and left it in the cupboard to rest……for about 6 months! For all my initial excitement, I never actually got around to making the cakes until now so this was a great motivator. The batter was very straightforward to prepare although I could really have done with braising the pears earlier but I left everything till the last minute, so they weren’t quite cold when they got mixed into the batter (and still had quite a lot of juice with them). Another thing that worried me was that there was no use of rising agent but the dense consistency worked quite well once the cakes were soaked. Once cooled, the cakes were really nice and moist, the flavour of the alcohol wasn’t to overpowering but gave this subtle hint that there was a little more than just pears in there. It was great for dessert as it was still all warm but even better the next day when all the flavours mixed.

Miniature pear cakes (makes nine)
165g caster sugar
3 eggs
165g butter
2cl pear liquor/brandy
165g flour
165g diced pears
17g butter
33g honey
Pear punch:
40g sugar
6cl water
3cl pear liquor/brandy

Braise the diced pears in the honey and butter; cool and set aside in the fridge. In a bowl beat the eggs and sugar until the mixture forms soft peaks. Blend one third of the mix with the melted butter and brandy, add the flour to the other two thirds of the mixture. Then mix these two together. Fill each miniature cake tin with the mix and the diced pears. Bake at 160C for 35 min. Mix the sugar, water and pear liquor to make a pear punch and heat it for a few minutes. Leave the miniature cakes to cool for 3-4 min; then soak them in the hot pear punch for 30 sec.