May recipe: Asparagus quiche

Asparagus comes into season in May.  Not only is asparagus a sublime vegetable when lightly boiled or steamed, it can also be used as the basis for other dishes, such as this colourful quiche.

You can vary the herbs and vegetables according to taste and availability, or add a rasher or two of chopped bacon (fry it along with the onion) if wished.  The quiche goes well with bread and a green salad on a hot day, or with new potatoes and salad or vegetables (more asparagus?), as you choose.

This quantity should serve four.

Asparagus quiche

For the shortcrust pastry:

4 oz (approx 100 g) plain flour

1 oz (approx 25 g) butter

1 oz (approx 25 g) lard

For the filling:

Half a small onion, or 3-4 spring onions

4-6 oz (approx 100 – 150 g) asparagus spears

One red pepper

2 oz (approx 50 g) mushrooms (optional)

3 oz (approx 75 g) cheese

Approx 1 Tablespoon (1 x 15 ml spoon) fresh parsley or oregano (or 1 teaspoon [1 x 5ml spoon] dried)

1 egg

5 fl oz (approx 140 ml) milk

To make the pastry:

Grease a flan dish approximately 7 inches (approx 18 cm) diameter.

Rub the butter and lard into the flour until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

Gradually add cold water to mix to a soft dough. If it is floury, you need a little more water, if it is sticky, you have added too much water and need to add a bit more flour.  Or you can use ready-made pastry if you prefer.

Roll out the pastry to a circle big enough to line the greased flan tin.  Line the flan tin with the pastry and trim off any surplus.

To make the filling:

Peel and chop the onion.  Remove the seeds from the red pepper and cut into dice about half an inch (approx 1 cm) square.  Peel and slice the mushrooms, if using.  Wash and chop the fresh herbs.

Grate the cheese.

Wash the asparagus.  Cut the top 3 inches or so off each spear and set aside.  Slice the remaining asparagus stalks.

Fry the chopped onion in cooking oil over a medium heat for a few minutes until softened. Add the sliced asparagus stalks, diced red pepper and sliced mushrooms (if using) and continue frying for a few more minutes until the vegetables are softened and starting to colour.

Remove from the heat and stir in the chopped herbs. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Spread the vegetables evenly in the bottom of the flan case. Sprinkle the grated cheese on top.

Arrange the reserved asparagus tips in an attractive pattern on the top of the flan, like the spokes on a wheel (or any other pattern you choose).

Beat the egg into the milk, and pour the mixture into the flan case.

Bake in a moderately hot oven, about 180 C, for about 25 – 30 minutes until the filling is set and golden.

Serve hot, warm or cold with bread or new potatoes and a salad or vegetables of your choice.

The quiche will keep in the fridge for a day or two, or can be frozen.

May recipe: Stir-fried pork with asparagus and bean sprouts

The succulent green spears of asparagus are always welcome, appearing in May and June to herald the beginning of the summer vegetable season. Asparagus is usually cooked by boiling for a few minutes or steaming. You can also cook it in a stir fry, especially if using fairly young shoots.

Bean sprouts work well in stir fries, and are especially useful in spring when many vegetables are not yet in season. You can grow your own in a jam jar in a warm place, like the airing cupboard. They take about a week, and a tablespoon of seeds will produce about 4 oz of bean sprouts. If you haven’t planned that far in advance (!), some shops sell bean sprouts in packets, or you could use mushrooms instead.

Stir-fried pork with asparagus and bean sprouts

Serves 2

7 oz (approx 200 g) boneless pork steak
7 oz (approx 200 g) asparagus
Half a red pepper
Half a small onion
4 oz (approx 100 g) bean sprouts*
1 piece root ginger, approx 1” cube (approx 2.5 cm cube)
1 large clove garlic
2 Tblsp (2 x 15 ml spoon) light soy sauce
1 Tblsp (1 x 15 ml spoon) dry sherry or rice wine

Cut the pork into thin slices.

Wash and trim the asparagus, and cut into sections about 2” (about 5 cm) long. Halve the stalk sections lengthwise, leave the tip sections whole.

Remove the seeds from the red pepper and cut into strips. Wash the bean sprouts.

Peel and chop the onion. Peel the root ginger and shred into fine strips. Peel the garlic

Heat approx 1 Tblsp cooking oil in a wok or large frying pan.

Add the pork strips and stir-fry over a medium heat for approx 1 minute.

Add the chopped onion, ginger and asparagus stalks and stir-fry another minute.

Add the asparagus tips and chopped pepper. Crush the garlic and stir in. Stir-fry another 1-2 minutes until the meat is cooked and the vegetables soft and starting to colour.

Add the bean sprouts and stir-fry for about half a minute. Stir in the soy sauce and sherry and mix well.

Serve immediately with rice or noodles.


*If you can’t get or don’t like bean sprouts, you can substitute mushrooms. Peel and slice the mushrooms and add them along with the red pepper.

May recipe: Fishcakes with asparagus

I was never terribly keen on fishcakes as a child. They mostly came pre-packaged and frozen, flattened discs of an indeterminate starchy substance powder-coated in fluorescent orange particles. Sometimes they were shaped like a child’s drawing of a fish, which presumably meant either that the manufacturer had just hired a new marketing manager with whimsical tendencies or needed a foolproof way of separating the fishcakes from the otherwise indistinguishable potato croquettes. I daresay it didn’t help that I once found half a beetle in one. Half a beetle, please note. I sincerely hope that the other half was still somewhere in a field and not in the previous forkful. So it is perhaps not surprising that I’d been cooking for a couple of decades before I finally learned to make proper fishcakes.

When I did, of course I wondered why it took me so long. They have been a fixture in my repertoire ever since, mainly cooked in spring or autumn when maincrop potatoes are available. Crushed new potatoes tend not to stick together in the same way as mashed maincrop potato does, so I don’t think new potatoes would bind properly, though I haven’t tried it to find out.

Here’s my recipe:

Fishcakes

Serves 2

8 oz (approx 250 g) assorted fish pieces, e.g. salmon, cod, haddock, smoked haddock, skate, according to taste and availability, skin and bones removed. If you have some left over from making a fish pie, that’s ideal.
8 oz (approx 250 g) maincrop potatoes
1 Tablespoon (approx) chopped fresh parsley, or about 1 teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) dried parsley
Milk or cream to mix
Plain flour for coating

Peel, boil and mash the potatoes. Stir in some butter to taste if liked, but careful not to get the mash too sloppy or the fishcakes won’t bind.
Cut the fish into small pieces, about 0.25 inch (approx 0.5 cm) across. If the fish is already cooked, e.g. if it was left over from making a fish pie, flake it into pieces.
Mix the mashed potatoes, fish and chopped parsley in a bowl, and season with salt and black pepper. Add a teaspoon or two of milk or cream if needed to make it all stick together. The mixture should be firm but not sloppy.
Shape the mixture into four rounds (or any other shape you fancy) and flatten them to about 0.5 inch (approx 1 cm) thick.
Coat the rounds in plain flour.
Shallow-fry the fishcakes in cooking oil in a wok or frying pan over a medium heat for about 5 minutes until the underside is crisp and golden-brown, then carefully turn them over and fry another 5 minutes on the other side. The times are approximate, as it will depend on the heat, the thickness of the fishcakes, and the depth of the oil in the pan, so use your judgement.
Serve with mashed or new potatoes and salad or a green vegetable of your choice. I like them with asparagus.

May recipe: Custard Tart

In honour of the Old English name of the month, Thrimilchi, it seems appropriate to post a dairy recipe for May. So here is a recipe for traditional custard tart. If you have always been terrified of trying your hand at egg custard because of fear that it will curdle and be ruined (as I was for about twenty years), don’t worry. You don’t have to go through all the palaver of beating the eggs and milk for several days over a pan of water that must never boil for this recipe – just mix them, put the tart in a moderate oven, and it will sort itself out. At least, it always has so far :-)





Custard Tart

Shortcrust pastry

4 oz (approx 120 g) plain flour
1 oz (approx 25 g) butter
1 oz (approx 25 g) lard

Custard filling

2 eggs
1 Tablespoon (1 x 15 ml spoon) demerara sugar
0.5 pint (approx 250 ml) milk
Pinch of grated nutmeg
1 Tablespoon (1 x 15 ml spoon) dark rum (optional)

Rub the butter and lard into the flour until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs.
Mix with a SMALL amount of cold water until it just sticks together to form a dough. If it is crumbly add a few drops more water, if it is sticky add a bit more flour.
Roll out on a floured work surface and line a 7” diameter (approx 18 cm) flan ring or flan tin.
(Or you could buy ready-made pastry or a ready made tart case if you prefer).

Beat the eggs and sugar together in a heatproof jug or bowl.
Heat the milk until it is not quite boiling. If it does come to the boil, just take it off the heat and wait for the bubbles to subside before proceeding.
Pour the hot milk slowly onto the eggs and sugar, beating continually with a wooden spoon as you add the milk.
Stir in the rum, if using.
It will probably look like slightly eggy milk at this stage and won’t have thickened noticeably. Don’t worry. Pour it into the flan case and sprinkle with grated nutmeg. It doesn't expand noticeably during cooking, so you can fill the flan case nearly to the top without fear of it boiling over.
Bake in a moderate oven approx 170 C for about 30 minutes until set.
Serve hot, warm or cold, with cream if liked.

You can also bake the pastry case blind, if you wish. In which case, bake the pastry case blind for about 10 minutes in a hot oven approx 200 C, then pour the custard mix into the cooked pastry case and bake in a moderate oven approximately 160 C for about 30 minutes. Either method works well.


I expect to get 6 or 8 slices out of this recipe, but that depends on your appetite. It will keep quite happily in a fridge or at room temperature (provided it isn’t too hot) for two or three days.

Thrimilchi (May): the early English calendar

Before they converted to Christianity and adopted the Roman calendar, the early English (‘Anglo-Saxons’) reckoned time using a system of lunar months. Each cycle of the moon, probably from full moon to full moon, was a month. The year began at the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. There were two seasons, summer, when the days were longer than the nights, and winter, when the nights were longer than the days (See my earlier post for a summary of the early English calendar.)

The fifth month of the year, corresponding approximately to the Roman and modern month of May, was called Thrimilchi. Bede, writing in 725, tells us:

Thrimilchi was so called because in that month the cattle were milked three times a day; such, at one time, was the fertility of Britain or Germany.

--Bede, On the Reckoning of Time, Chapter 15. Translated by Faith Wallis.

This might be literally true. As far as I know, lactation is a continuous process so presumably a cow could be milked three times a day instead of the usual two if that happened to be convenient. It might also be a variant on the “Lost Golden Age of Far Away and Long Ago” which humans have a tendency to look back on with longing, regardless of whether it really existed. Nostalgia never goes out of fashion.

However, the month name might reflect the sudden availability of fresh pasture and fresh dairy products after the long months of winter. In lowland areas of Britain the grass usually starts to grow by April – which end of the month depends on latitude, local climate and weather – and is getting quite lush by May.

In areas with upland grazing, May corresponds to the time of year when livestock can be moved up to hill pastures. In the Lake District, Pennine hills and North York Moors the snow has gone even from the summits by May in most years and the vegetation is starting to grow strongly enough to withstand the attention of hungry sheep and cattle. Even in the Scottish Highlands, further north and higher altitude, the snow has melted and the grass started to grow again by May in all but the highest corries. This frees up the low valley fields to be cropped for hay (or, these days, silage). It has been suggested that cows grazing outdoors on fresh grass produce milk with higher nutritional content than cows fed on silage and concentrate, and anyone who's ever been into a French cheese shop will have noticed that cheese such as Beaufort produced "a l'Alpage" (from cows grazing on upland pastures) carries a noticeable price premium over the same cheese produced during the winter when the cows are living indoors (I daresay this is partly just marketing, but it does taste nicer too).

After the long dark months of winter, when people had been living on probably limited and almost certainly rather dull supplies of dried or salted produce, the sudden appearance of milk, butter, cream and cheese must have been a most welcome addition to the diet. Not so surprising if it was commemorated in the name of the month!

References
Bede: The Reckoning of Time. Translated by Faith Wallis. Liverpool University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-85323-693-3.

May recipe: Plaice rolls with asparagus

Asparagus has been used in the kitchen at least since the 3rd century AD, when the Roman writer Apicius included it in his cookbook. Apparently it’s the source of the name of the amino acid asparagine. I never knew that, even though I used to be able to draw asparagine's chemical structure; there are some things they don’t cover in biochemistry courses.

May is the height of the asparagus season in Britain. We have a row in the garden, nicely mature now after being planted about 10 years ago, and as asparagus spears can grow at an amazing rate when the weather is warm, we have rather a lot of it at this time of year. Luckily there never seems to be a problem eating it all. I particularly like asparagus with delicate dishes, such as fish, omelettes and quiches. Here’s one fish dish that goes very well with asparagus and the first of the season’s Jersey new potatoes. If you don’t like or can’t get asparagus, substitute another vegetable of your choice or a green side salad. I imagine the rolls would work equally well with any thin white fish fillets, though I always use plaice.

Plaice rolls (serves 2)

2 plaice fillets
2-3 oz (approx 50-75 g) mushrooms
2 large spring onions
1 tablespoon (1 x 15 ml spoon) chopped fresh herbs of your choice, e.g. parsley, chervil, chives, tarragon (or dried herbs if fresh herbs aren’t available)

For the cheese sauce:
0.5 oz (approx 15 g) butter
0.5 tablespoon (0.5 x 15 ml spoon) flour
5 fluid oz (0.25 pint, or approx 140 ml) milk
1 oz cheese, grated, crumbled or chopped into small pieces. The only requirement is that it should melt in a reasonable time. I generally use an inexpensive medium Cheddar, but any hard or semi-hard cheese of your choice will do.

Chop the mushrooms and spring onions.
Fry gently in butter until softened.
Remove from the heat, stir in the herbs and season with salt and pepper to taste.
Spread half the mushroom and onion mixture on each plaice fillet, and roll each fillet up like a Swiss roll.
Put the plaice rolls in a buttered ovenproof dish.

To make the sauce:
Melt the butter in a small saucepan.
Remove from the heat and stir in the flour.
Gradually blend in the milk a little at a time, stirring thoroughly after each addition to remove the lumps. (Despite the dire warnings of school cookery teachers, a few lumps aren’t the end of the world, so don’t worry if your sauce isn’t perfectly smooth. As long as you don’t slosh in all the milk at once it should work well enough).
Return the pan to the heat and bring to the boil, stirring all the time. The sauce will thicken as it starts to boil. Reduce the heat, stir in the grated cheese, and simmer for a minute or so until the cheese has melted. Remove from heat and season to taste with salt and pepper.

Pour the cheese sauce over the plaice rolls.
Bake in a moderately hot oven, about 180 C, for 25-30 minutes until the plaice is cooked and the sauce is bubbling and just starting to brown.
Serve with asparagus (or other vegetable of your choice) or salad, and new potatoes or rice.