Winter is Coming: Bacon Lattice Beef Pie

Winter is coming.

No it really is.  I know it's basically February already but after an unseasonably warm October-December I am finally getting the use out of my winter coat. The last few days the temperature has most definitely plummeted and the ice hail is decidedly unpleasant.

Winter is also coming in another sense though.  Game of Thrones is back soon-not-soon.  This is a time period that is far enough away that I shouldn't really be organising a gathering already in its honour yet here I am, organising away.  This may or may not have been inspired by the fact that RV bought me a copy of the Game of Thrones Cook Book, A Feast of Ice and Fire.  This cookbook was bloody difficult to get hold of but you can normally find copies floating around on Amazon these days.  For any fans of the book, or TV series, you will know that food and drink plays a huge part in creating the right atmosphere from the banqueting tables in the great halls at King's Landing to the cushioned tents on the plains of Essos . George R Martin even ensures that the type of food varies from region to region, from Mutton in Onion-Ale broth on The Wall to Poached Pears in Highgarden.  The cookbook is American and this means translating measurements and cooking temperatures but this isn't too much of an issue.  A bigger issue are some of the ingredients.  One of the most interesting looking recipes is Dornish Snake in Fiery Sauce but when it came to finding fresh rattlesnake in Kent I'll admit I was scuppered.  Numerous people suggested replacing it with chicken but for me that completely defeats the whole point of both the recipe and the culinary experience.

The authors of the cook book are the food bloggers Chelsea Monroe-Cassel and Sariann Lehrer who own Inn at the Crossroads.  The thing that sets this food blog apart from all the others out there is that Chelsea and Sariann spend time researching the recipes in Martin's books in crumbling and dusty old medieval cook books and manuscripts.  Hence the pasty I use in my pie is the recipe that can originally be found in A Propre New Booke Of Cokery, 1545.  How's that for authentic?  Most of the recipes they present are both the medieval version, and a slightly more modern day counterpart which may be a bit truer to how Martin originally imagined the dish in the books.

In preparation for the dinner party I road tested a couple of recipes, starting with the Bacon Lattice Beef Pie from Winterfell.  The recipe book shows the medieval and the modern day version, and I opted to make the modern day version as the medieval looked a bit more like a sweet beefy pork pie than a dinner pie.  I'll be honest -the bacon lattice lid just looked cool as well.

I have translated all the measurements to their UK counterparts.  Sorry if you are reading this from across the pond! These are very specific measurements - I got as close to them as my fairly non-precise scales would allow.

Medieval Pastry Dough:

Pinch of saffron
125 ml water
113g unsalted butter, room temperature
384g plain flour, seasoned with salt and pepper
2 egg yolks, slightly beaten.

As a note, my pastry is normally awful as I have hot hands.  This pastry works so well because the water is tepid when you use it, creating a warm dough.  Gently heat the water until warm (barely warm, not hot) and then take off the heat and dissolve the saffron in it (it will dye the water but won't actually disappear).

Rub the butter into the seasoned flour with your fingers until you end up with a crumb like consistency then add the egg yolks and the saffron water.  It doesn't look like there is enough liquid to make a pastry dough but there is.  Incorporate all the ingredients together to make a dough that is yellow in colour and smooth.  Wrap in clingfilm and leave to one side to rest whilst you get on with everything else.  When you do roll it out it will look like this. Make sure you leave a bit of an overhang.

Pie
12 strips of streaky unsmoked bacon
28 grams unsalted butter
1 onion, diced
1 carrot, peeled and cut into small chunks
1/2 medium potato, peeled and cubed
2 tablespoons plain flour
680g stewing beef
236ml good quality beef stock (I've upped this from the original 118ml as my pie was a little dry)
Salt and pepper
Large pinch thyme
Bay leaf

Pre-heat your oven to 200C

First of all, lay out your bacon in a lattice pattern on a baking dish, making sure it is large enough to cover the top of your pie dish.  If it is a little bit larger, that's fine.  Make sure your baking dish has a lip all around the edge or be prepared to clean up dripped bacon fat later.

Cook your bacon near the top of the oven for 15-20 minutes until crispy.  Set aside to cool, leaving the oven on for your pie.

Melt the butter in a pan over a medium heat.  Add the onion, carrot and potato and cook gently until the onion is soft and golden.  Toss the beef in the flour until each piece is covered and then add to the vegetables and cook over a low heat until browned all over.  Stir in any extra flour and cook for 1 minute longer.

Add the stock, salt, pepper and herbs and mix well.  Turn the heat down and simmer for 20 minutes until the gravy has thickened.  Taste and check the seasoning now and adjust if required.  Let the meat mixture cool.

Grease your pastry dish with butter.  Roll out your pastry so it is big enough to line the dish with an overhang and press into the pastry dish, making sure it sits smoothly.  Fill your pasty case with the meat filling and then place the bacon lattice top over the top of it.  If you have any bacon hanging over the edge or spare just break it off, crumble it over and pop it into the pie.

Fold the overhanging dough back over the bacon top, sealing the pie and bake for about 40 minutes or until the crust is golden.

Serve wrapped in furs, with steaming cups of ale served in pewter goblets and wolves lying by the fireplace.

Coconut and Pistachio Baklava

I have always loved baklava.  The sticky, flaky, honeyed pastry treat that so many different countries lay claim to, from the alabaster marble sheathed temples of Greece to the snow capped pointed domes of Armenia, has long been one of my favourites.

Steve and I were recently out for dinner at an Italian-Moroccan (it's a thing and a thing that works surprisingly well) restaurant in Canterbury and we ordered the platter of baklava for dessert; 6 minatures in total with three of each variety.  It came out with your usual orange flower and rose flavours, and then we both picked up one, popped it in our mouths and simultaneously closed our eyes and groaned with pleasure.  It was a coconut baklava, a flavour I have never had before in this context and it worked incredibly well.

I have been attempting to recreate it at home and, while not quite the same yet, this is not too far off.  As you can prepare it 24 hours in advance it is the ideal dinner party dessert.  Serve it languidly, reclining on deep cushions with incense scented air and mint tea if you want to go truly authentic but whatever you do, don't supply napkins.  This will encourage the inevitable finger licking caused by this saccharine bite sized pastry.

Interestingly, the traditional ingredients of honey and pistachio were considered by the Turkish Sultans to be aphrodisiacs and the spices, cardamon for men, cinnamon for women and cloves for both, were supposed to balance and bring harmony.

Regardless of any truth behind this belief, this dessert is still a truly tempting treat for anyone.

You will need:

For the baklava
Baking tray - square shaped, perhaps 20cm and a few centimeters deeps
80g unsalted butter (melted)
270g packet filo pastry.  You should have about 12 sheets in total; if it comes in the packet with 6 large sheets just cut them in half.
100g dessicated coconut, plus extra for sprinkling
100g unsalted pistachios, coarsley chopped or blended.  The rougher the better so don't spend ages trying to get them evenly chopped!
70g sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon ground rose petals (available from Seasoned Pioneers, just grind the whole petals)
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cardamon powder
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

For the syrup
200g honey
Juice of half a lemon
100ml water
1 teaspoon green cardamon pods
1 cinnamon quill
2 tablespoons rose petals

Preheat the oven to 180C

Mix the pistachio, coconut, spices and sugar in a bowl

Butter the base of the tray and layer 4 of the 12 sheets (1/3 of them) onto the tray, brushing each individual sheet with melted butter before layering the next sheet on.

After layering 4 sheets, spread half of the coconut and pistachio mix onto the pastry evenly.

Layer another 4 sheets of filo on top of the nut mix, brushing each sheet with butter again.

Spread the last of the nut mix and then layer the final 4 sheets of filo, brushing with butter a final time.  Make sure the last few sheets drape slightly over the edge so that as you brush with butter the filling is completely sealed in.

Carefully carve the baklava into triangles and then bake in the oven for 20-30 minutes until golden brown.

In the meantime, heat the honey, water, lemon juice with the cinnamon quill (snapped into pieces), most of the rose petals and the cardamon pods (cracked open - put the pods in a small bag and hit them with a rolling pin.  Very theraputic)!

When hot, turn off and allow the spices to steep into the syrup.

When the baklava is cooked, strain the syrup over the still hot baklava and sprinkle the remaining rose petals and dessicated coconut over the top.

Allow to cool then carefully remove from the pan and store in an airtight container.  Unless of course you want to eat them all at once.  Don't worry, I won't tell on you! 

Pasteis de Nata

Pasteis de Nata are little Portuguese egg custard tarts originating from Belem, Lisbon.  Unlike British custard tarts these are light and fluffy with a really soft and subtle custard flavoured with vanilla and cinnamon in a bed of puff pastry.

I first learned how to make these a few years ago when the recipe was delivered through my door in my Spice Box from The Spicery.  I'm going to dedicate a whole post to this wonderful company as they have completely broadened my cooking horizons!

These little tarts are a favourite of my husbands and I made two batches of them for his godsons' naming ceremony this weekend.  When I checked back at the end of the buffet there was not one left!

It is believed that these tarts were originally made before the 18thC by Catholic monks at the Jeronimos Monastery at a time when the convents and monasteries produced huge quantities of eggs as the egg whites were used for starching clothes (such as the nun's habits) and in wineries.  There was a large quantity of egg yolk left over and so the monks and nun's invented these sweet pastries as a way to use up the leftovers!

For 12 tarts you will need:

300 ml Jersey milk (or really good quality whole milk if you can't get Jersey)
4 medium eggs
130g caster sugar
15g cornflower
2 sheets ready rolled puff pastry (make your own if you really want to impress!)
2 cinnamon quills
1 bourbon vanilla pod (or 1 tbs vanilla bean paste)
1 tsp ground cinnamon
A muffin or yorkshire pudding tin
A pastry cutter

Pre-heat the oven to 220*C / gas mark 9

Grease your muffin tray

Cut the pastry into rounds, slightly larger than the diameter of the moulds and press the pastry to cover the sides and the base

Pour the milk into a saucepan and add the freshly scraped vanilla seeds and the empty pod if you are not using paste.  Note here - I recently discovered vanilla bean paste.  It's pricey at £7 a bottle, but there are a huge amount of servings in it, with 1 tbsp being the equivalent of 1 vanilla pod.  Seeing as a vanilla pod is about £2 these days a bottle of this stuff is far more economical if you use them a lot!  DO NOT use vanilla essence or extract, it will not have the same flavour!

Break the cinnamon quills into small pieces and add them to the milk and vanilla.  Add the sugar and  gently heat the whole lot to dissolve the sugar.  The moment it starts to boil take it off the heat and leave it to cool.

Put the cornflower into a jug and strain in a splash of the milk mixture to make a really smooth paste.  Strain in the rest of the milk, stirring continuously (it is sometimes easier to strain the milk first and then add it to the cornflower if like me you struggle to juggle a jug, a spoon, a sieve and a saucepan with only two hands!)

Separate the eggs and beat the yolks.  Hang onto the whites if you fancy starching your nun's habit (or making pavlova).

Pour the milk and cornflower mixture into the egg yolks, stirring continuously.  There should be no lumps!  Fill the pastry cases to just below the top and carefully place in the top of the oven.

Bake for 12-14 minutes until the pastry around the top is crisp and brown.  Sprinkle the ground cinnamon over the top.

They will keep for about 2 days...if they last that long!

I had a lot of pastry and custard left over after making my batches.  I thought I would give a giant version of these tarts a go.  It was an unmitigated disaster.  The custard caramalised and burnt, the edges of the pastry caught and blackened while the middle layers of the pastry were still raw.  I'm determined to crack it though!

Broodnodig - Part 3

Amsterdam is not renowned for its culinary delights but there are some goodies that it does very well.

Broodnodig means "as necessary as bread".

I think you can't have bread without cheese though.  Great wheels of cheese, golden yellow and smooth, lurid green and sharp with pesto or wasabi or sweet and warm, speckled with herbs and chili.  Shops are stacked floor to ceiling with discs of fragrant and sometimes downright stinky orbs of the stuff.

The Dutch also have a notoriously sweet tooth.

Sara's Pancake House does legendary pancakes with hundreds of different toppings.

Steve had his with warm cherries, ice cream, cream, chocolate sauce and powdered sugar, mine came with warm William pears. I ended up scraping most of the ice cream and cream off as there was simply too much!

These are Poffertjes, small puffy pancakes served warm and doughy made with yeast and buckwheat flour and presented with a choice of toppings.  We kept it simple with lemon and powdered sugar.

Chocolaterie's sell a dazzling array of chocolates, pastries, cakes and doughnuts.

Argentinian steakhouses are immensely popular, as are Italian and New York pizzerias, while Chipsy Kings' serve queues of hungry punters, local and tourist alike with paper cones stacked high with dutch fries known as Patat or Vlaamse Friet all smothered in mayonnaise.

Food needs drink.  Coffee and beer in leafy squares watching the world go by helps you to forget about  footsore legs.  If you are lucky you may even catch a street dance crew to entertain you!