Aga cooking

Roasted pumpkin stuffed with risotto

16 Comments / pumpkin, rice /

We grew this little beauty.  It seemed such a shame to cut it up that I just popped it in the oven at 200°c, gas mark 6 or near the bottom of the Aga’s roasting oven covered in olive oil and roasted it until tender. Because it is quite small it took only twenty five to thirty minutes to roast.  Whilst it was roasting I made a risotto inspired by my recent fidget pie adventures using cider, sage, prosciutto, cream and a deliciously sweet apple from our tree. I stuffed as much of this risotto into the hollowed out pumpkin (removing the seeds but leaving the flesh intact) as I could and then roasted again for 15-20 minutes until bubbling.

It’s a wonderful celebration of autumn even if we are having a last fling with summer here in the UK this week. It’s a great dish to take whole to the table and let everyone dig out as much risotto and pumpkin flesh as they can.

This pumpkin served 2 hungry adults and 1 hungry child (and 1 child who said yuck – no surprise there though).

1 small to medium-sized pumpkin
Olive oil

25g butter
1 onion, diced
1 clove garlic, chopped finely
1 small apple, cored and sliced thinly (you can leave the skin on)
3-4 slices of prosciutto (reserve 1 slice to place on top for the final roasting)
5-6 sage leaves, finely sliced
120g risotto rice
300ml cider
250ml water
2 tbsp double cream
salt and pepper to taste

Method

Place the whole pumpkin in a roasting tin and drizzle with olive oil.  Roast in a hot oven, 200°c, gas mark 6 or the roasting oven of the Aga until tender when a skewer is pushed through to the centre.  How long this takes will depend on the size of the pumpkin. Mine took thirty minutes. Allow to cool a little and then slice off the top and scoop out the seeds. Place the hollow pumpkin back onto the roasting tray.

Make the risotto by frying the onion, garlic and sliced apple in the butter for a few minutes until the onions are translucent.  Heat the cider and water together in a pan and keep at barely simmering. Add the prosciutto and sage leaves to the onions and continue to fry for a minute or two.  Add the rice and stir until all of the grains are coated in the butter. Add a ladleful of the cider and water mixture and stir the risotto continuously.  Add another ladleful when the first has evaporated and continue in this manner until the rice is creamy and has only a tiny bit of resistance when you bite into it.  Add one more ladleful of cider and water and cook for a minute or so and then add the double cream, stir through. Season to taste and then fill the pumpkin with this mixture and place the reserved prosciutto on top.  Place back into the oven for 15-20 minutes until all is bubbling. Serve with crusty bread and parmesan grated over the top.

 

 

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Individual Apple Pies

12 Comments / apples, pastry /

I was picking up my youngest daughter from school (she started last week and is enjoying it so far, fingers firmly crossed that it stays this way) and there next to the door I fetch her from is a magnificent apple tree with lots lying on the floor.  I couldn’t resist.  I chose the best two I could find and came home and made these.

They don’t look like Mr Kiplings’ but that is part of their appeal.  They are very easy to make and require little dexterity – always a bonus.

200g plain (all purpose) flour
100g cold butter, diced
cold water to mix

about 3oog cooking apple, peeled, cored and sliced thinly (I used 2 medium sized apples)
demerara sugar (or other sugar would work just as well, I just like the crunch of demerara)

Method

Make the pastry by placing the flour and the butter in a food processor and pulsing until it resembles breadcrumbs.  Add enough cold water to mix (I find a small wine glass of water, so about 125ml, is normally about the right amount, but add gradually).  Pulse until the pastry just begins to come together.  If you don’t have a food processor then place the flour into a large bowl, add the butter and using the tips of your fingers rub the butter into the flour until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add the water and mix with a palette knife until it begins to come together.

Form the pastry into a ball and flatten slightly.  Wrap in clingfilm  and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.

I used a muffin tin for my individual pies.  Roll out the pastry and then cut out circles measuring 11.5cm – this is the size of my espresso saucers and so I used these to cut round with a sharp knife. I managed to get nine circles out of my pastry.  Push the discs into the holes of the muffin tin, using your fingers to carefully push the pastry to the bottom and up the sides.  This leaves some pastry overlapping the top.  Fill the pastry with apple slices and sprinkle a teaspoon of sugar over each.  You could also sprinkle cinnamon if you wanted to. Then wrap the overlapping pastry over the top of the apple.

Sprinkle a little more sugar over the top and place in a preheated oven at 200°c, gas mark 6 or in the Roasting Oven of the Aga for 15-20 minutes until golden brown.

This was a very satisfying way of using a couple of apples that would have rotted otherwise and the girls enjoyed them.

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Madeiran Custard Tarts – Pasteis de Nata

10 Comments / eggs, pastry, The Ordinary Cook /

These custard tarts are very Portuguese ( Madeira is a Portuguese Island) and very delicious.  They put the English custard tart to shame with their egginess and deliciousness.  The many bakeries in Madeira are the best place to buy them, should you find yourself on the island any time soon. The tarts available in the supermarkets (Pingo Doce and SA) are just not as good. But if you find a good bakery then these little treats are divine – crusty flaky pastry filled to the brim with sweet unctuous egg custard and caramelised on top.

I was determined to have a go when I got home so I searched blog sites and YouTube and found this video.  I watched it, tried my best to translate it, and then halved the mixture (because even I can’t eat 24).  I then had a go on Monday afternoon, trying to memorise what she did.  Needless to say I got it wrong.  I forgot the boiling the sugar part and just added the sugar to the milk.  I also didn’t note that she was just using the egg yolks and so I added the whole eggs.  The result tasted pretty good but it wasn’t the same as I had when in Madeira.  So today I watched the video again, took more note of what she is actually doing and then made them again. I am pretty pleased with the result.

I used a lot more pastry than the lady in the video does but then I am a big pastry fan.  You may want to be more light handed with your pastry than I am and make the bases a little thinner.

500g puff pastry or Delia’s Quick Flaky Pastry (recipe below)
250ml milk
A good sized strip of lemon peel (removed using my vegetable peeler)
1 cinnamon stick
30g plain (all purpose) flour
250g sugar
125ml water
4 egg yolks

Method

Place the flour in a small bowl and use about 50ml of the milk to make a smooth paste.  Pour the rest of the milk into a saucepan, add the lemon peel and cinnamon and heat to boiling point.

In the meantime, pour the sugar into another saucepan and add the water.  Place over a gentle heat and stir until the sugar has dissolved.  Stop stirring, turn up the heat, bring to the boil and let it boil for three minutes.

When the milk has come to the boil stir in the flour and milk paste and using a whisk keep whisking until smooth.  Cook for a minute or two, stirring all the time, to cook out the flour.  Once the sugar syrup has boiled for three minutes, carefully (because it will be very hot) and gradually add the sugar syrup to the milk mixture, whisking all the time.  When it has all been added allow to boil for a minute.  Then strain the mixture through a sieve to remove the lemon peel and cinnamon stick.  Allow to cool whilst you put the pastry into a muffin tin.

If you are using ready made puff pastry roll it out into a rectangle and then roll up into swiss roll shape and slice into 12 even sized pieces.  If you are making Delia’s Quick Flaky pastry then form into a long sausage before chilling.

Take each piece and mould, using your thumb and fingers, into the hole of a muffin tray ( if you watch the video you will see what I mean).

Now add the egg yolks to the custard mixture and whisk in well. Make sure that the custard mixture is not still hot or the egg yolks will scramble. Pour this mixture into the pastry moulds and cook in a preheated oven at 250°c for about 15-20 minutes.   (I cooked mine in my Aga which does not reach 250°c, so I cooked them on the floor of the roasting oven for ten minutes to cook the base of the pastry cases, then moved to near the top of the roasting oven for another fifteen minutes before they were cooked to my liking and nicely caramelised on top.)

For Delia’s Quick Flaky Pastry:

When I made these tarts on Monday I followed Delia’s recipe word for word but the pastry only stretched to fill nine muffin holes so I made 1½ times the mixture today which yields nearly 700g of pastry.  This is more than enough for 12 and a bit left over for jam tarts or cheese straws depending on how the fancy takes me later.

350g plain flour
250g butter
pinch of salt (if you are using unsalted butter)
cold water to mix ( I probably used about 1 large wine glass full)

Method

Place the butter in the freezer for 30 minutes.

Put the flour and salt in a bowl. Grate the butter over the flour and mix with a palette knife.  Add water and continue to mix with the knife until it starts to come together.  Then quickly use your hands to bring it into a sausage shape.  Wrap in clingfilm or a food bag and chill in the fridge for thirty minutes.  The key is to handle it with your warm hands as little as possible to keep it flaky.  When you are ready, take golf ball size pieces of pastry and mould into the muffin holes.

 

 

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Sticky ribs

10 Comments / meat, The Ordinary Cook /

The photo doesn’t really do these ribs justice.  They are sticky, savoury, sweet and just delicious.  A friend made something similar for a party a few months ago and they disappeared very quickly indeed.

This recipe is loosely based on one of Hugh F-W’s in his Everyday recipe book. I have added cumin and rosemary to add a bit of an edge and instead of honey I used maple syrup.  I used my medlar jelly, but you could use redcurrant, bramble or any other fruit jelly you may have in the cupboard.

If I had more patience I would have cooked them a little bit longer so that they were really caramelised but we were hungry and I couldn’t wait any longer.

I would definitely recommend having lots of paper cloth to hand as you will need it to mop sticky fingers and chins.

Enough for four hungry people.

1.5 kg pork ribs

6 tbsp medlar, or other fruit jelly
2 tbsp maple syrup
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 tbsp finely chopped root ginger
½ tsp crushed chilli flakes
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp fresh rosemary, finely chopped

Method

Mix all the ingredients for the marinade together.  Place the ribs in a single layer in a shallow oven proof dish.  Pour the marinade over and cover the ribs well by turning them over in the marinade.

Place in the fridge for a few hours (as much time as you have) turning the ribs a couple of times.

Hugh F-W recommends covering the dish with foil, cooking in a preheated oven at 170°c, gas mark 3, for 45 minutes.  Then turning the oven up to 190°c, gas mark 5, removing the foil, turning the ribs over, and cooking for another 35 minutes.

I, of course neglected to read any of this.  I put my ribs (without foil) in to the baking oven of my Aga (about 180°) for about 1 hour and 20 minutes (whilst I took the girls swimming) and then moved them into the roasting oven (about 200°c) for another 15 minutes when I got back.  They might have been stickier with another 5-10 minutes in the roasting oven, but we were all hungry.  This worked out well, so it’s up to you if you want to try the advice of a professional or my more slapdash approach to cooking dinner.

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Chicken Nuggets

14 Comments / chicken /

My eldest daughter is quite taken with the chicken nugget.  She has had them at parties and has started to ask me for them at home.  Now, I am not completely militant about what they eat, they consume more than their fair share of sweet things (don’t tell the dentist) but I don’t like to put food that has most likely come from ill-treated animals, is likely to be the worst bits of those badly treated animals covered in E numbers and other nasty things that we don’t need to eat, in front them for their dinner. So, I don’t mind them having them at parties (no kid wants to seem different from the rest), but I am not going to serve them for an evening meal.

This garbled philosophy of mine – give them good things to eat but try not to make them feel different – came to a head at the weekend when we were driving past a McDonalds.  My children are aged 6 and 4 and I have managed to not take them to a McDonalds yet. I know that McD has attempted to clean up their act and provide healthier food, but it still doesn’t make me want to take my children there to eat.  There are lots of independent cafes and restaurants that we go to regularly so I have never felt the need to sit them down to a Big Mac and fries.

Well, on Sunday as we were driving past the golden arches, the eldest said “What is McDonalds?  Everyone at school talks about it and has been?”, she said this in a voice which suggested that everyone at school might have been a bit shocked to hear that she had never been and she didn’t know what it was.  Oh, the parental guilt flooded over me.  Poor kid. I fear it might not be too long before I have to darken the door of our local McD.

Anyway, in the meantime and as a strategy for keeping that moment a little further in the future I made some chicken nuggets.  These ones are made from organic free-range chickens, who I hope had happy (albeit short) lives.

It is hard to be precise about quantities, particularly of the breadcrumbs as it depends on how thick you like your coating to be.  I double dipped mine, i.e flour, egg, breadcrumbs, back into the egg and then more breadcrumbs.  You will need a thick layer of breadcrumbs on a plate. Sorry I can’t be more accurate.

One good-sized chicken breast makes about eight nuggets.

1 chicken breast
About 3 tbsp flour
salt and pepper
2 eggs
breadcrumbs

Method

Chop the chicken into small chunks (two bites per nugget is about right).

Spread the flour onto a plate and season with salt and pepper.

Crack the eggs into a bowl and beat together.

Spread breadcrumbs in a thick layer on a plate.

Take a nugget and coat in the flour, tap gently to get rid of any excess flour.  Dip into the egg, making sure it is well coated and then roll in the breadcrumbs.  You can then double dip if you prefer a crunchier nugget.  Dip back into the egg and roll again in the breadcrumbs. Place on a plate. Repeat with the other pieces of chicken.  You can now refrigerate these until you are ready to cook.

Lightly grease a baking tray and place the nuggets onto the tray.  Sprinkle lightly with oil.  Place in a preheated oven at 200°c, gas mark 6 or towards the bottom of the Roasting Oven of the Aga for about 15 minutes until the chicken is cooked through and the coating is golden.  Serve with a salad and hope that your children forget about burger restaurants.

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Chicken Korma

18 Comments / chicken, curry /

Blimey, it has been a busy week.  Blogging has had to slip down the list of priorities.  Family members and several friends foolishly signed themselves up four months ago to take part in the local am-dram performance of Aladdin and this week is the week of the performances. So out of a sense of comradeship I foolishly signed up to help with doing the stage make-up.  This has been good fun and a lot of trial and error (poor old Widow Twanky) but it has meant snatched meals and quite a bit of forethought has been needed to make sure that the children and my husband haven’t felt neglected in the evening meal department.

Last night I prepared this Chicken Korma, it is an adaptation of several recipes that I read and I am not even sure if it qualifies for that name or if I should just call it Spicy Chicken.  I was really pleased with the way it turned out.  I have written before about how my curries are usually a bit disappointing and so I tend to rely on Patak’s pastes for my curries.  Whilst Patak’s do make delicious pastes, it has always frustated me that I can’t manage to make a tasty curry of my own.  Well, finally my goal has been achieved with this one.

It is great if you are busy because you can leave it to marinate, then spend a few minutes cooking the onion and tipping the marinated chicken into a pan and then leave it to cook gently until you are ready to eat.

Serves 2

4 chicken thighs, skinned and deboned
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
juice of ½ lemon
1 tsp root ginger, finely chopped
1 red chilli, chopped finely (with seeds for heat)
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp coriander seeds
seeds from 6 cardamom pods
150g natural yoghurt

1 onion
25g ground almonds
5 fl oz (¼ pint) water

Flaked almonds, to serve

Method

Place the cumin, cardamom and coriander seeds into a saucepan and place over a medium heat for a minute or so until their scent is released.  Grind until fine in a pestle and mortar.

Slash the chicken thighs several times with a sharp knife to allow the marinade to penetrate into the meat and place in a non-metallic bowl. Add the garlic, ginger, chilli, lemon juice, spices and the yoghurt and mix well so that all is combined and the chicken is well covered.  Leave to marinate at room temperature for one hour, or all day in the fridge.

Chop the onion finely and fry in a little oil until translucent.  Tip in the chicken and the marinade and cook for a minute or so, then add the ground almonds and the water.  Bring to a simmer and simmer gently for about 45 minutes until the chicken is tender.  If you have an Aga then place it in the simmering oven and you can leave it in there simmering away until you are ready to eat.  I left mine in for three hours and then placed it back onto the simmering plate to bubble away and thicken the sauce before serving with plain rice.

To toast the flaked almonds, place them in a dry pan and toast over a medium heat for a minute or so until lightly browned.  Sprinkle over the Korma just before serving.

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Chicken pie

17 Comments / chicken, pastry, pie /

We had the leftovers from a roast chicken in the fridge and I needed a dinner that could be prepared ahead and then put in the oven half an hour before we wanted to eat.  This chicken pie was the result.  It was rich and creamy and delicious and probably the best chicken pie I have made yet.

For the pastry top:

75g (3oz) cold butter
150g (6oz) plain, all purpose, flour
3-4 tbsp of very cold water

For the filling:

Glug of olive oil
1 onion, diced
3 sticks of celery, diced
4 carrots, peeled and diced
1-2 rashers of bacon (optional)
The leftovers from a cooked chicken ( I used the meat from a leg and about half a breast worth off the carcass, but this was a big chicken from the butchers to begin with)
2 tbsp plain, all purpose, flour
glug of sherry or madeira (optional)
350ml stock
100ml cream
1 tsp dried mixed herbs
salt and pepper

Method

Make the pastry by placing the flour and butter in a food processor and whizzing until it looks like breadcrumbs.  Add the water (you may need less or more, so take care) and whizz until it just comes together.  Be careful not to overmix.  If you don’t have a food processor, place the flour in a bowl and add the butter in cubes.  Rub the butter and flour together using the very tips of your fingers and lifting the flour up high to incorporate air. When it looks like breadcrumbs mix in the water using the blade of a knife and then form into a ball when it starts to come together.  Try not to handle the pastry too much.

Wrap the pastry in cling film or a plastic bag and chill in the fridge.

Fry the onion, carrot, celery and bacon (if you are using it) in the olive oil until the onion is translucent, the celery and carrots are tender and the bacon is cooked.  Add the chicken and then the flour and stir to mix well.  Leave to cook for a minute or two to cook the flour and then add the sherry or madeira if you are using it and stir well.  Add the stock gradually, stirring all the time to incorporate the flour and prevent lumps.  Let this bubble away for five minutes.  Add the cream and stir well to combine.  Add the herbs and salt and pepper to taste.

Put this mixture into a pie dish.  Wet the edges of the pie dish.  Roll out the pastry to fit the dish.  Seal the pastry with your fingertips all round the edge of the dish.  Make a hole in the centre with a small knife to allow steam to escape and brush with milk or egg wash.  Cook in a preheated oven at 200°c (gas mark 6) or the Roasting oven of the Aga for about 30 minutes, until the pastry is golden brown all over.

You could serve this with a green veg, but it is not really necessary.

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Croissants and pain au chocolat

26 Comments / breakfast, chocolate, The Ordinary Cook, yeast cookery /

I have wanted to make croissants for ages but it seemed like it might be too much mither. Well, last night I decided to take the bull by the horns and just give it a go. It was quite a bit of work, but actually not as much as I was expecting and the results are more than worth the effort.  You just need to do a bit of preparation the night before, leave the dough to rest in the fridge and then finish off in the morning.

In fact I was quite excited this morning about it all and I was really pleased when they turned out to taste just as good as I hoped. I made some croissants and some pain au chocolat – what a treat!

I used Rachel Allen’s recipe from her book Bake (ISBN 13 978 0 00 725970 0) which if I could have found a link online I would have just pointed you in that direction as I am dreading writing all this down, but here goes. (Bake is well worth seeking out, I have used it a lot since I bought it and Rachel Allen’s recipes always work).

I got some early morning help from my two girls this morning so they appear in some of the pictures.

Makes 18 croissants

275ml milk
25g sugar
1 sachet of easy bake fast acting yeast
450g Strong white bread flour
275g salted butter, softened (but not too soft)

For the egg wash:
1 egg beaten with 1 tsp milk

If you want to make pain au chocolat you will need a dessert spoonful of chopped chocolate for each pain au chocolat that you wish to make. I made 12 croissants and 6 pain au chocolat.

If you want them for breakfast then I suggest you start the night before with the following steps.

Heat the milk until warm. Rachel Allen suggests rubbing in 50g of the butter into the flour but I just put it into the warm milk so that it half melted.  Place the flour, sugar and yeast in a large bowl. Add the milk and butter and bring the mixture into a soft dough.  I used my KitchenAid freestanding mixer with the dough hook attached and mixed it for 5 minutes.  If you haven’t got a freestanding mixer then this doughy is sticky and you will need lightly floured hands to knead it by hand for ten minutes until it is soft and elastic. Make it into a ball and place back in the bowl.  Cover with a large plastic bag or clean tea towel.  Rachel Allen suggests putting it in the fridge for two hours but I just left it in a cool place in the kitchen.

After two hours, place the remaining butter between two large sheets of clingfilm and, using a rolling pin, beat and roll it until it is about 8mm thick and measures roughly 10cm x 20cm.

Take the dough out of the bowl and place onto a lightly floured surface and roll it into a rectangle measuring 20 x 40 cm. Place the butter onto one half of the pastry.

Fold the other side of the pastry over onto the butter.

Roll the dough out until it again measures about 20 x 40cm.  Fold one third over, then fold that over and then fold again. Cover the dough with the large plastic bag and place in the fridge to rest for 30 minutes.

Take the dough out of the fridge and place it with the open ends facing towards you. Roll out the pastry again to a similar size as before, then fold in three again.  Place the dough back into the bag and put in the fridge overnight.

In the morning it will look something like this, having begun to rise:

So the next morning, take the dough and roll out again into a rectangle and then fold over three times again.

Roll out the pastry until it is about ½ cm thick and measures about 35cm x 55cm.  This takes quite a bit of effort as the dough is cold.

Now I wanted to make some pain au chocolat and some croissants, so I sliced off one third of the dough and then cut this into six pieces.  On each piece I placed a spoonful of chopped good quality chocolate and then rolled up firmly like a swiss roll.

For the croissants I cut the remaining dough in half lengthways and then into thirds widthways and then each rectangle into a triangle. This resulted in 12 triangles.  Starting from the widest edge roll the pastry tightly, then tuck the tip underneath and shape into a crescent shape.

Place on a baking sheet (you will need two) leaving space for them to rise and brush gently with egg wash.

Leave to rise in a warm place for 30-40 minutes.  I put mine on top of two tea cloths on the warming plate of my Aga.

When they have risen, brush gently with egg wash again and then place in a preheated oven at 220°c, gas mark 7, or the roasting oven of the Aga for 10 minutes and then turn the oven down to 180°c, gas mark 4, or move them to the baking oven of the Aga for another 10 minutes until golden brown all over.  Place them on a wire rack to cool just a little.  They are best eaten warm, with lashings of butter and jam (or lemon curd, or marmalade) on the croissants.

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Aga Marmalade

40 Comments / breakfast, oranges, preserves, The Ordinary Cook /

I adore marmalade.  I really enjoy the bitterness of the orange peel in contrast with the sweet jam.  In fact, I just had to get up to make some toast so that I could have some marmalade because writing about it made my mouth water.  Well, between you and me, I made two pieces and spread the other one with lemon curd. I think it is a well established fact that I am greedy, and now there are crumbs on the laptop.

This is the time of year for making marmalade as it needs to be made from Seville oranges and these are only available from markets in January and early February. The Seville orange is incredibly bitter and not at all one that you want to eat freshly peeled. But when mixed with a ton of sugar they make one of the best things that can be spread on toast. The lady who runs my local market tells me every year of the tale of the woman who was naughtily mixing her bag of oranges between the normal and the Seville.  The Seville is usually a bit dearer and this lady thought she was going to get herself a good deal. The market owner thought it appropriate that she let her get on with it and have fun at home playing orange roulette.

Seville oranges freeze very well, so buy them when you see them and put them in the freezer for making marmalade throughout the year.  In fact, I used frozen for this recipe as I mentioned to my mum that I was off to get some Sevilles and she still had some in her freezer from last year so I used those up. Use them from frozen.

I used Mary Berry’s recipe from The Aga Book. In this recipe she recommends that you simmer fresh fruit for 2 hours and frozen fruit overnight.  This makes me feel better as I missed that instruction and was planning to simmer them for two hours but fell asleep watching telly and went straight to bed having forgotten all about my oranges. You see, things always work out in the end.

This recipe made loads, about 10 jars, so unless you have friends and family who are marmalade fiends too you may want to halve the recipe. You will find another marmalade recipe of mine here.

1½kg (3lb) Seville oranges
Juice of 2 lemons
3 kg (6lb) sugar
2 litres (4 pints) water

Method

Put the whole oranges in the Aga preserving pan and squeeze in the lemon juice. Cover with the water and bring to the boil.  Once boiling, place the pan carefully in the simmering oven and leave to simmer until the oranges are tender (2 hours or so for fresh fruit, overnight for frozen). Remove the oranges and leave to cool. Once cool enough to handle cut them in half and scoop out all the pulp and pips and place these back into the water.  Bring to the boil and boil for 6 minutes.  Strain this liquid into a large bowl through a sieve and, using a spoon, force the pulp through the sieve.  It is this pulp which contains the pectin that will set the marmalade. Pour the liquid back into the preserving pan.

Cut the peel of the oranges as thinly or as thickly as you like your shreds to be and add these to the liquid, along with the sugar.  Bring the whole lot up to a rolling boil and boil until setting point is reached.  You can test for this with a sugar thermometer (105°c) or have a cold saucer ready and when a little is allowed to cool on this saucer it should wrinkle when pushed with your finger.

Allow the marmalade to cool a little (this will help with the distribution of peel through the jar rather than it all sitting at the top) and then pour into sterilised jars.

To sterilise your jars, wash in warm soapy water and rinse with hot water, then place on a baking tray in the simmering oven for twenty minutes.

May 2014: I have been requested to link to Aga Living as this is a recipe from Mary Berry’s Aga Book.

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Shropshire Fidget Pie

35 Comments / apples, ham, pastry, potato /

Shropshire Fidget Pie is, I have to admit, something I became aware of only a few years ago.  It seems it went out of fashion for some time.  The interest in eating local food has revived its fortunes and I finally got to taste a fidget pie a couple of months ago at our local National Trust property.  The National Trust cafes tend to serve superb local food and this one serves food that is harvested on site from the walled garden and the farm.  Fortunately for me one of the cooks at this property is also a family friend so when I saw her just before Christmas I grilled her for the recipe.  She told me what made up the filling.

Anyway,  as a true Salopian I thought it was about time I made a Fidget Pie.  (For those unaware, a Salopian is someone born in Shropshire.  The county was previously known as Salop, goodness knows why they felt the need to change the name).  Some of you might be aware that I am very proud to be a Salopian and a Midlander so to cook something that hails from the county makes me very pleased.

Our friend’s advice and a search around the internet has led to this version.  It is a combination of several recipes.  At the National Trust they make it in a pasty shape but it is also made like a pork pie in some recipes or as a topped pie as I have in this version.

It was a total success.  Mr OC was a bit dubious when he heard what was in a Fidget Pie, but he was certainly won over tonight. The combination of cider and apples really deliver a tasty punch.  This is a pie that comes highly recommended by me and Mr OC.

Serves 4

For the pastry:

8 oz plain white flour
4 oz cold butter
4 tbsp cold water

For the filling:

1 bramley apple, cored, peeled and sliced
2-3 potatoes, peeled and finely sliced
1 onion, peeled and finely sliced
250g (10oz) ham or gammon
1 tsp brown sugar
salt and pepper
1 tsp dried sage or 4-5 fresh leaves finely chopped
2 tsp cornflour
150 ml (¼ pint) double cream
300ml (½ pint) cider

Beaten egg for brushing over the top of the pie.

Method

Start by making the pastry.  Put the flour and cold butter into a food processor and whizz until it is the consistency of breadcrumbs.  Add the water (you may need more or less) and whizz until it forms a ball.  Put the pastry into a plastic food bag or wrap in clingfilm and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.

For the filling, boil the potatoes for 3 minutes and then add the onions to the water and boil for another 2- 3 minutes.  Drain well.

Using a dish that measures 23cm x 30cm layer the apples, potato, onion and ham into the dish, season with salt and pepper and sprinkle over the brown sugar and the sage.

In a  jug stir together the cornflour and the cream until combined and then mix in the cider.  Pour this over the filling.

Roll out the pastry to the size of the dish and then cover the dish, pressing down well around the sides. Make a hole in the top of the pie. I used my blackbird as a steam vent. Brush with the beaten egg.

Place in a preheated oven at 180°c, gas mark 4 or the baking oven of the Aga for about 1 hour until the pie is golden brown.

The fidget before pastry
My eldest helping with the pastry and egg wash

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