Breakfast with scones and lemon marmalade

Practically marmalade is bitter and sour jam made from oranges. Living in this country, which loves sugar so much, I found difficulty to buy decent raw material. I have been around farmer market, asking if there were Seville Oranges. Most of California's oranges, such Navel or Valencia were design for juicing.

Then someone gave us bag of lemon, fresh from tree. Idea to make marmalade from lemon comes up mixed with lime to add sourness. To create marmalade that locally grown is bit adventurous. The recipe below came from Allotment UK -community garden which probably straight forward. But for beginner, I recommend to look up at Simply Recipe along with pictures and detail how to make it.

The key is pectin, the ingredients that contains at seeds of lemon. Due the low contents of pectin at lemon, we reduced the water. It's better to leave the seeds, pips and pith soaked overnight with the cheese bag.

Marmalade best served with scones for breakfast. I managed to create British type scones at small round than triangle shape. (In North America, this is refer to buttermilk biscuit so don't get confuse). The buttery taste of scones and kick of lemon marmalade is perfect combination to start another hard day.


Lemon Marmalade

Ingredients:

• 2 lb (900 g) lemons (we added 2-3 limes)
  
• 6 pints (3.4 litres) water (Note : we reduce the amount of water into 3 liter)
  
• 1½ lb (675 g) sugar per 1 lb (450 g) pulp

1. Wash and dry the fruit. Cut in half and squeeze out the juice. Remove the pips, inside skin and pith. Tie these in a piece of muslin.
2. Cut the peel finely or coarsely, according to preference.
3. Put the peel in a large bowl with the bag of pips etc and the juice. Add 6 pints of water and leave to soak overnight.
4. Weigh the preserving pan and make a note of it. Put the soaked peel, pith and pips into it with the water and juice.
5. Bring to the boil and simmer gently until the peel is soft and the contents of the pan have been reduced to half its original bulk. This will take about 1½ hours.
6. Lift out the bag of pips and pith, squeezing it again the side of the pan with a wooden spoon.
7. Test for pectin.
8. Re-weigh the pan and subtract from this weight the original weight of the empty pan to calculate the weight of the remaining pulp.
9. Add 1½ lb (675 g) of warmed sugar to each 1 lb (450 g) of pulp, stir until all the sugar has dissolved.
10. Bring to the boil and boil rapidly until the marmalade sets when tested.
11. Remove the scum and leave to cool slightly.
12. Pot and seal whilst still hot.

Makes about 6 lbs (2.7 kg) of marmalade.

CREAM SCONES

Ingredients :

1 large egg
2/3 cup heavy whipping cream
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 Tbs granulated sugar
1 Tbs baking powder
¼ tsp salt
5 Tbs unsalted butter, cut into small pieces and chilled
¾ cup moist, plump currants (optional)

1. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment or a silicone mat.

2. Stir the egg and cream together.

3. Whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together in a large bowl. Drop in the butter and, using your fingers, toss to coat the pieces of butter with flour. Quickly, working with your fingertips or a pastry blender, cut and rub the butter into the dry ingredients until the mixture is pebbly.

4. Pour the egg, cream and currants over the dry ingredients and stir with a fork just until the dough, which will be wet and sticky, come together. Don’t overdo it. Still in the bowl, gently knead the dough by hand, or turn it with a rubber spatula 8 to 10 times.

5. Lightly dust a work surface with flour and turn out the dough. Divide it in half. Working with one piece at a time, pat the dough into a rough circle that’s about 5 inches in diameter, cut it into 6 wedges and place it on the baking sheet. (At this point, the scones can be frozen on the baking sheet, then wrapped airtight. Don’t defrost before baking- just add about 2 minutes to the baking time). Note : I created small round dough as British traditional scones.

6. Bake the scones for 20 to 22 minutes, or until their tops are golden and firmish. Transfer them to a rack and cool for 10 minutes before serving, or wait for them to cool to room temperature.

Yield: 12 small scones
Recipe Source: Adapted from Baking From My Home to Yours from Recipegirl

Festive Plum Pudding (Traditional Christmas Pudding) : American Version

The only indulgence during Christmas is great dinner and a special desert. In England this Plum Pudding served on the table and make an entertainment to whole family as the puds can be put on flame, created by burned liquor. This year we want to make our very own pudding, since we could not find this lovely cake in any supermarket in US.

The puds actually steam cake which rich with dry fruit and nuts. It took at least 5 hours to steam in steady or about significant shorter time if we do in pressure cooker. But unfortunately the one we've bought during Thanksgiving shopping frantic hasn't got low setting. So we ended up using as normal steamer.

The difficulty of this recipe remain on the key ingredients called suet or dehydrated fat. I have been around town to find traditional butcher, asked if they got fat left over from beef or lamb. But none of them got it as the Food Safety Authority said that any bits from animal should be go to garbage. I got the answer from local butcher that most of fat now went for producing biofuel.

We replaced suet with vegetable shortening which is actually even made this pudding vegetarian (the only animal trace would be eggs) and totally organic. We were bit exciting about making the puds and decided to double the recipe sent by Jean.

I have to admit we've already eaten some puds even before Christmas coming. Guess who did it?




Corbridge Festive Plum Pudding

Dry and fresh fruits
100 gr dry cherry
100gr dry cranberries
150gr golden raisin
150gr raisin
200gr dry figs
200gr dry dates
200gr prunes
200gr mixed apricots & jumbo california peaches
(Cut all those fruits in small piece)
3 little carrots, peeled and grated
2 cooking apple, peeled cored and cut in small cubes
2 bananas, peeled and cut in small cubes
Grated rind of 1 orange and 1 lemon

Flavor (options but taste good if you put it)
50ml gr Grand Marnier
100ml gr Brandy
200ml Oatmeal Stout (or any dark Stout like Guinness)


Dry ingredients :
230gr plain flour
2tbs baking powder
1 teaspoon each of salt: mixed spice; ground ginger; ground cinnamon; grated nutmeg.
230gr fresh breadcrumbs
460gr shredded suet (or vegetable shortening)
230gr dark brown sugar
30gr mixed peel (candied fruit peel -we were using citrus and lemon)
60gr shredded almonds

Wet ingredients (In a separate bowl mix)
230gr black treacle ( we mixed 150gr corn molasses and the rest is maple syrup)
8 eggs
a teaspoon vanilla essence
juice of the orange and lemon.


How to do :
1. Mixed together all the dry fruit and fresh fruit in large bowl with the flavor mix for several hours to let the liquid absorbed by fruits. Covered with clear film and put in the fridge.

2. Mixed the dry ingredients until well mix.

3. Beat eggs with molasses and maple syrup one in a time then add the vanilla essence and the lemon juice. Add into the dry ingredients.

4. In the biggest bowl you can have, take the drunk fruits from the fridge, together with the mixed ingredients. I suggest to add it little by bit to see how the consistency is. The level we were looking for is moist, but still having the texture.

5. Prepare the pudding basins (we use several pyrex bowl) with butter then pour the mix into the bowl. Leave the room to expand.

6. Covered with the aluminum foil to stop the water getting into the basin. Tied with string (we used rubber bands -not recommended).

7. Steam steadily for 5 hours. Let it rest and wrap for further store.


The step by step method of making Christmas pudding can be viewed at Flickr Set from minor9th

How to serve Plum Pudding :
Reheat the pudding by steaming at least 3 hours. Put cream or brandy butter on the top. This video show how to make brandy butter.

Jean's Special Muesli

This recipe of home making muesli exists 20 years ago when The Corbridges lived in a farm house in Wales. It was because the current muesli on the market –Alpen had so many sugar contents on it so Gordon decided to investigate ingredients of muesli, then Jean worked it out how to cook it.

Muesli is always consumed for breakfast served with generous milk as we do with cereal. Sometimes Gordon made with prunes cooked with brown sugar to give natural sweetener.

Most of the ingredients quite easy to find in UK. You can go to Julian Barretts or any Organic Food that sells dried fruits, seeds and flakes. The three are basic which some being toast first, while the other just need to chopped in small pieces.


Ingredients

Seeds
250 gr Sunflower seeds
125 gr Pumpkin seeds

Nuts (non salted)
250 gr Hazel nuts
250 gr Brazil nuts
250 gr Cashew nuts
100 gr Walnuts
200 gr Baby Pine nuts

80 gr of Dried Skimmed Milk Powder

Flakes
1.5kg Flakes (usually portion as barley 25%, wheat% and oats 50%)
500 gr Malted barn flake
500 gr Wheat germs

Fruits
250 gr Raisin
250 gr Apricots
60 gr Apple
100 gr Cranberries (sweetened)
Cut in small pieces, then set aside. Don’t put any dried fruit that too moist such as dates.

Tools
big plastic container for mixing
several flat tray for toasting
mash potatoes to crush nuts
your hands



Directions :

Toasting

1. Put wheat germs (the only flakes that need to toast) on the flat tray and toast first. Set the oven at medium heat 175C and toast for about 20minutes or so.
   
2. Crush Malted barn flakes into reasonable size then put into mixer plastic box with the rest of flakes.
3. Sprinkle with dried skimmed milk powder
4. Lay the hazel nuts and brazil nuts at the same flat tray to toast. Put in the oven 5 minutes after the wheat germs
5. Take another tray and lay the cashew nuts along with walnuts. These two tends to cook quickly, so always put last.
6. Another tray for sunflowers and pumpkins seeds. Their likely just about light cooking.
7. If all done just set aside to leave it cold, and for nuts it need to crush into small piece.

Mixing
1. All the flakes will be mix first with dried milk powder
2. Then pour the chopped dried fruits (apple and apricots), the rest fruit just as it was
3. After that all seeds and crushed nuts
4. Mix with your hands until well distributed.
5. Let it cool, put the tea cloves to cover before put in air tight storage

Pictures
Top left : barn flakes
Top right : Flakes (barley, wheat and oats)
Bottom left : Dried apricots
Bottom middle : Hazel Nuts and Brazil Nuts
Bottom Right : Sunflower and Pumpkins Seeds

Membandingkan buku resep selebritis

Saya membandingkan beberapa buku resep yang ada di perpus. Kesimpulan saya : buku yang baik adalah memberikan diskripsi lengkap dengan bahasa yang mudah. Saya akui tidak setiap resep bekerja dengan baik karena beberapa faktor. Salah satunya adalah menjelaskan proses dan kondisi itu cukup menantang. Menurut saya makin detail dan kemungkinan kesalahan disebutkan makin baik.

Itulah kenapa saya kurang begitu suka buku Martha Steward, Nigella atau ibu Delia Smith (catatan : buku loh ya, bukan website atau acara program teve). Walau secara food photography buku Delia itu paling inspiring. Bukunya yang terakhir cukup bikin heboh karena berisi bagaimana "cheating" dalam memasak. Buku-nya Jamie mesti photonya juga cakep dan acaranya asik, tapi kok mencoba resepnya butuh kekuatan besar.

Buku Dorie ini baru saya punya beberapa minggu tapi saya sudah ketagihan. Bahasanya simple banget dengan logika pembuatan yang masuk akal. Yang saya suka adalah ia memberikan ruang untuk mencoba dengan bahan lain (dia memakai "playing around") dan juga bagaimana menyimpan dan ketahanan kue setelah dibuat. Photonya juga terkesan "rumahan" banget dengan tata cahaya seadanya dan piranti dapur yang udah dipakai bertahun-tahun. Kliatan lebih rustic dan sederhana. Ngga heran jika orang sini membandingkan head-to-head dengan buku Martha.

Saya akui kekuatan photo/ilustrasi cukup membuat saya memutuskan mencoba atau tidak. Tapi tingkat kesulitan dan juga kompleksitas memasak menjadi pertimbangan berikutnya. Sebagai pemula, saya memilih yang gampang atau sedang. Disisi lain saya juga pengen belajar dari bawah, memahami basic cooking dengan baik dan benar. Apalagi saya punya rasa gamang jika gagal.

Seperti photography, cooking dan baking ternyata berjalan mirip. Semakin banyak latihan semakin terasah. Semakin memahami tiap material semakin kita bisa berimprovisasi. Kok jadi inget material kayu, baja, besi, beton yah. Masing-masing punya kelemahan dan kelebihannya. Satu pas untuk ini, yang satu lebih bagus buat itu.

Soal buku Dorie, nampaknya saya belajar banyak dari logika dia. Dan itu pas banget dengan style saya yang ngga terlalu ketat atau sebagai pemula di negeri ini. Tidak terlalu menggurui tapi lebih sebagai partner memasak.

Hingga sekarang saya lebih suka mencoba lewat buku. Entahlah, mungkin karena saya hobi baca. Resep di internet saya cari jika untuk membandingkan hasilnya. Atau udah kebelet pengen dapet tapi ngga jamin jadi. Mencoba lewat acara TV? big NO NO NO. Saya ngga bisa konsen. Saya lebih suka lihat teknis2 seperti Jamie yang mengajarkan memasak di oven alami di luar rumah ala Itali. Bukan pengen masaknya tapi pengen membuat oven dari lempung atau batu bata.

Ada dua lagi buku resep dari Inggris (bawaan) yang saya lihat yakni River Cottage-nya Hugh Fearnley dan Food Heroes-nya Rick Stein. Keduanya saya suka acara di teve, tapi bukunya tampil beda. Hugh isinya seperti kitab, tebel banget dengan detail yang luar biasa. Bahkan kadang cerita tentang kehidupannya di peternakan organik. Sedang Rick Stein mencoba lebih lokal, yakni mencari bahan terbaik yang ada disekitar kita.

Buku Direktori Food Heroes berisi para penghasil bahan memasak dari peternakan Scotland hingga Irlandia. Style-nya betul2 homemade. Salah satu signature yang membedakan adalah Rick Stein ini suka banget memasak seafood. Jadi emang pas dengan kami yang penghobi ikan. Sedang Hugh sangat bergaya peternakan alias makan apa aja termasuk kelinci, burung pheasant, burung puyuh atau kalkun.


Cuma itu tadi, selebriti chef belum tentu menghasilkan buku resep yang oke. Itu sih tergantung gaya mereka memasak dan juga bagaimana cara pengerjaan dan logika pembuatan juga lingkungan (negara, environment) dimana mereka dibesarkan. Di US sini ada Rachel Ray atau Barefoot Contessa. Banyak sekali pengagum Rachel, karena gampang dan cenderung fast-food style yang jelas beda banget dengan saya.

Well, kembali ke kitanya. Enak dilihat dan ditonton itu beda dengan enak dibuat in my perpective as beginner cook.