November recipe: Butternut squash soup

Butternut squash soup

Butternut squashes are usually available in the late autumn and early winter.  I’ve previously posted a recipe for stir-fried chicken wings with butternut squash.

Butternut squash also makes a satisfying autumn soup.  With its warm colour, this soup helps to brighten up a cold grey day.  It can also be made with pumpkin if you don’t like or can’t get butternut squash.  This quantity serves 2 as a main meal with bread, or 4 as a first course.

Butternut squash soup

Approximately 1 lb (approx. 450 g) butternut squash

Half an onion

1 clove garlic

1 teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) ground cumin

1 teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) ground coriander

0.5 pint (approx. 300 ml) water

6 fl. oz (approx. 170 ml) milk

2 fl. oz (approx. 60 ml) single cream

1 teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) sage or parsley

Peel the butternut squash and remove the seeds.  Cut into pieces approximately 1 inch cubed (approx. 2.5 cm cubed).

Peel and chop the onion.  Peel and crush the garlic.

Fry the butternut squash and onion in olive oil over a medium heat for a few minutes until starting to colour and soften.

Stir in the crushed garlic, cumin and coriander.

Add the water.  Season with salt and pepper.  Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer over a low heat for about 20 minutes until the squash is soft.

Remove from the heat and liquidise the soup to a smooth consistency.  It will be quite thick at this stage; if it is too thick to liquidise easily, add some of the milk.

Stir the milk, cream and herbs into the liquidised soup.  Reheat the soup gently over a low heat until just starting to bubble.

Serve hot with bread.

November recipe: Spiced liver and bacon

 

Lamb’s liver is nutritious, delicious, quick to cook and (compared with most other types of meat), inexpensive.  I can’t think why it isn’t more popular.  Liver is traditionally partnered with bacon and onions.  This recipe adds garlic and spices for a dish to warm up a cold autumn evening. 

 

If possible, marinate the liver for several hours or overnight.  I usually put the sliced liver in the marinade while cooking dinner the previous evening and leave it in the fridge overnight.  If you forget or don’t have time, just skip the marinating step.  I think it makes the liver a little bit nicer, but it isn’t essential.  I prefer streaky bacon, but it works just as well with back or collar bacon. 

The spicy fried liver and bacon goes well with a plain green vegetable, such as chard, spinach or green cabbage, and creamy mashed potatoes.  If using chard, the central stalk can be cut out, sliced like celery, and fried along with the onions.

Spiced liver and bacon (serves 2)

5 oz (approx 125 g) lamb’s liver

1 Tablespoon (1 x 15 ml spoon) olive oil

1 Tablespoon (1 x 15 ml spoon) cider vinegar or wine vinegar

1 Tablespoon (1 x 15 ml spoon) milk
1 large onion

3 oz (approx 75 g) smoked bacon

1 large clove garlic

1 teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) paprika

1 teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) ground cumin

Cut the liver into thin slices.  Put the sliced liver in a bowl and add the olive oil, wine/cider vinegar and milk.  Season with salt and black pepper and stir thoroughly.  Cover the bowl and leave to marinate for several hours or overnight, if possible.

Cut the bacon into thin strips.

Peel the onion and slice thinly.  Peel and crush the garlic.

If using chard as the accompanying vegetable, cut out the central stalks and cut into slices.

Fry the sliced bacon in cooking oil over a medium heat for 2-3 minutes to brown. 

Lower the heat and add the sliced onion and chard stalk (if using). Fry over a low heat until soft.

Stir in the crushed garlic and spices.

Add a little more cooking oil, increase the heat to medium, and add the sliced liver and marinade.  Fry for 2-3 minutes until the liver slices are browned.

Serve immediately with creamy mashed potatoes and a green vegetable.

November recipe: Apple cake

I adapted this recipe from one for carrot cake, because I grow more cooking apples than carrots. I daresay it could also be made with eating apples, although you would probably need to reduce the amount of sugar. It’s a delicious cake, rich without being heavy. It’s also very easy to make, especially if someone will help you grate the apples.

Apple cake

For the cake
8 oz (approx 250 g) wholemeal flour
6 oz (approx 150 g) dark brown soft sugar
1 teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) baking powder
0.5 teaspoon (0.5 x 5 ml spoon) ground cinnamon
2 eggs
5 fl. oz. (approx 140 ml) cooking oil
Approx 1 lb (approx 450 g) cooking apples, after peeling and coring

For the cream cheese icing
1.5 oz (approx 40 g) butter
3 oz (approx 80 g) icing sugar
1.5 oz (approx 40 g) cream cheese

Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder and cinnamon in a large bowl.

Make a well in the centre, pour in the beaten eggs and the oil. Mix well.

Peel and core the apples. Grate the apples using a coarse grater. Add to the cake mixture and mix well. It should be the consistency of thick batter.

Grease and line a 6 inch (approx 15 cm) deep cake tin, or a loaf tin about 6 inches x 4 inches x 3 inches (approx 15 cm x 11 cm x 7 cm). Pour in the cake batter and level the top.

Bake in a moderately hot oven, approx 170 C, for about 1.25 – 1.5 hours until the cake is risen, set and golden brown and a skewer comes out clean.

Cool on a wire rack.

To make the icing:
Sieve the icing sugar. (It is quicker to sieve the icing sugar first, rather than try to beat out the lumps later. Trust me on this).

Beat the butter into the sieved icing sugar until smooth.

Beat in the cream cheese.

Cut the cooled cake in half horizontally, and sandwich the two halves back together with the cream cheese icing. If you prefer, you can spread the icing on the top of the cake instead and decorate with walnut halves.

Serve cut in slices.

I expect to get 12-14 slices out of this (but that will depend how big a slice you like). It keeps for about a week in an airtight tin. The cake can be frozen without the icing.

November recipe: Braised red cabbage and pork

Red cabbage and cooking apples are both in season in late autumn and early winter, usually harvested earlier in the autumn.

The brilliant red-purple of braised red cabbage is a cheerful splash of colour as the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness gives way to fog and frosts.

Both red cabbage and apples seem to go particularly well with pork. This recipe works equally well with pork chops or pork steaks, either grilled or fried as you see fit.

Serves 2

Braised red cabbage with fried pork steak

Braised red cabbage
8 oz (approx 250 g) red cabbage
4 oz (approx 125 g) cooking apple
Half a small onion
About a teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) of butter
1 teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) granulated sugar
1 Tablespoon (1 x 15 ml spoon) white wine vinegar or cider vinegar
About 3-4 fl. oz (approx 75-100 ml) water

2 pork steaks or pork chops

Sauce
Half a small onion
About half an ounce (approx 10 g) butter
2 teaspoons (2 x 5 ml spoon) flour
About 0.25 pt (approx 150 ml) milk
1 teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) tomato puree
1 teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) ready-made mustard

Remove the outer leaves from the cabbage and cut out the tough stalk in the centre. Cut into shreds.

Peel and core the cooking apple, and chop into chunks. Peel and chop the half onion (put the other half aside for the sauce).

Cook the cabbage in boiling water for 3-5 minutes, then drain. At this stage the cabbage will look a rather unappealing blue colour. Don’t worry. In a few minutes you can perform some kitchen alchemy with vinegar and turn it red again.

Add the butter to the drained cabbage and cook gently over a low heat to melt the butter. Stir in the chopped apple and onion.

Stir in the sugar and vinegar. The acid in the vinegar will turn the cabbage a cheerful red-purple colour. Add the water, season with salt and pepper to taste, cover the pan and simmer over a low heat for about 30 minutes until the cabbage is tender. Stir from time to time to make sure it isn’t sticking to the bottom of the pan, and add a little more water if necessary. Only add a small amount of water at a time, because when it has finished cooking most of the water should have gone, leaving just a small amount of cooking juices.

While the cabbage is cooking, fry or grill the pork chops or pork steaks. I fry them in butter or cooking oil over a moderate heat for about 5-7 minutes each side.

To make the sauce, peel and chop half a small onion and fry gently in the butter in a small saucepan until softened and starting to colour.

Remove from the heat and stir in the flour, mixing well so that the flour coats the onion pieces. Pour in the milk.

Return the saucepan to the heat and bring to the boil, stirring all the time. When the sauce thickens, turn the heat down and add the mustard and tomato puree. Season with salt and pepper. If it is too thick for your liking, stir in a little more milk. Simmer over a low heat for 1-2 minutes.

Pour the sauce over the cooked pork steak or chops. Serve with the braised red cabbage and mashed potatoes.

November recipe: Fudge squares

There are lots of variations of this tea-time treat, under lots of different names. I have always known it as Fudge Squares, or sometimes Chocolate Caramel Shortbread, but I’ve seen something very similar called Millionaires’ Shortbread or even Billionaires’ Shortbread. Inflation being what it is, I suppose Trillionaires’ Shortbread is only a matter of time. Anyway, here is my recipe. If you want to make the caramel or chocolate layers thicker, just increase the quantity.



Fudge Squares

Biscuit base:
6oz (approx 150 g) plain flour
2 oz (approx 50 g) light brown soft sugar
3 oz (approx 75 g) butter
0.25 teaspoon (0.25 x 5 ml spoon) bicarbonate of soda (if you can’t measure a quarter of a teaspoon, you’re not alone. I treat this as “a smidgeon”)
1 egg, beaten

Fudge topping:
2 oz (approx 50 g) butter
2 oz (approx 50 g) light brown soft sugar. If you like a really rich treacly flavour, use half dark muscovado sugar
6 dessertspoons (approx 60 ml) milk

Chocolate topping:
2 oz (approx 50 g) plain chocolate.

Grease a shallow baking tin about 7” (approx 18 cm) square.

Rub the butter into the flour, sugar and bicarbonate of soda until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

Stir in the beaten egg and mix to a stiff dough.

Press the dough evenly into the base of the greased baking tin. This is easier if you lightly dust your hands with flour, as the dough tends to be sticky.

Bake at about 180 – 200 C for about 25-30 minutes until set and light golden brown. Cool in the tin.

Put the ingredients for the fudge topping in a small saucepan, and heat gently, stirring with a wooden spoon, until the butter has melted and the sugar dissolved.

Increase the heat and boil gently, STIRRING ALL THE TIME, for 6-7 minutes until the mixture thickens and starts to look like fudge.

Remove from the heat and pour evenly over the biscuit base. Spread the fudge using a table knife into a roughly even layer over the top of the biscuit base. Leave to cool.

Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of simmering water. Pour evenly over the fudge topping, using a table knife to spread the chocolate if necessary. Leave to cool.

When the chocolate has set, loosen the edges of the biscuit base from the tin using a blunt knife. Put a flat board over the tin and invert it so the fudge square falls out of the tin and onto the board chocolate side down. Remove the tin. Cut into 12 pieces. You can cut it up in the baking tin if you like, but I find it easier to cut up if it is turned out chocolate side down.

Keeps in an airtight tin for a week or so.

November recipe: Coffee and walnut cake

There should be plenty of nuts in the shops at this time of year, and if you were lucky enough to pick fresh walnuts back in September they should be nicely dried out by now. Coffee and walnuts seem to be two flavours made for each other. Here’s a recipe for an attractive sponge cake that’s luxurious without being too heavy, before we all turn to hefty fruit cakes in the run-up to Christmas.




Coffee and walnut cake

Sponge cake
4 oz (approx 120 g) butter
4 oz (approx 120 g) light brown sugar
2 eggs
4 oz (approx 120 g self-raising flour
1 teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) instant coffee, dissolved in 1-2 teaspoons of boiling water
2 oz (approx 50 g) walnuts, chopped

Filling and topping
3 oz (approx 80 g) icing sugar
1.5 oz (approx 40 g) butter, preferably unsalted
1 teaspoon (1 x 5 ml spoon) instant coffee, dissolved in 1-2 teaspoons of boiling water
Walnut halves to decorate

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy
Beat in the eggs
Stir in the flour, dissolved instant coffee and chopped walnuts, and mix well.
Divide between two greased and lined sandwich cake tins, about 7” (approx 20 cm) diameter. Spread the mixture evenly in each tin and level the surface.
Bake in a hot oven about 180 - 200 C for about 20 minutes until the sponge cakes are golden brown, springy when touched, and beginning to shrink away from the edges of the tins. If in doubt insert a thin skewer into the middle of the cake; if no cake mixture sticks to it when you pull the skewer out, the cake is done. (You don’t really need the skewer test for a sandwich cake because the cake is quite shallow, but it can be reassuring if you aren’t quite sure).
Turn the cakes out of the tins, remove the lining paper, and cool on a wire rack.

Sieve the icing sugar into a large bowl. (Yes, I’m afraid you really do have to do this. If you don’t, the icing will be full of little hard lumps of congealed icing sugar that you’ll spend ages trying to beat out, and you still won’t get rid of them all. Sieving is quicker in the long run – trust me on that).
Cream the icing sugar and butter together until smooth.
Beat in the dissolved instant coffee and mix well.
Spread half the mixture on one of the sandwich cakes. Put the other sandwich cake on top. Spread the rest of the icing on top, and decorate with walnut halves if liked.

Serve cut into slices. The cake will keep a week or so in an airtight tin if it gets the chance. You can freeze the sponge cakes before they are iced. I’ve never tried freezing the icing.

Blotmonath (November): 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 eleventh month of the year, corresponding approximately to the Roman and modern month of November, was called Blotmonath, “blood month”.

Bede, writing in 725, tells us:

Blodmonath is “month of immolations”, for then the cattle which were to be slaughtered were consecrated to their gods. Good Jesu, thanks be to thee, who hast turned us away from these vanities and given us to offer to thee the sacrifice of praise.

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

As a good Christian, Bede clearly disapproved of animal sacrifices to heathen gods. There is another famous reference to cattle sacrifice in Pope Gregory’s advice to Bishop Mellitus on how best to approach the conversion of the English to Christianity:

And because they have been used to slaughter many oxen in the sacrifices to devils, some solemnity must be exchanged for them on this account, as that on the day of the dedication, or the nativities of the holy martyrs, whose relics are there deposited, they may build themselves huts of the boughs of trees, about those churches which have been turned to that use from temples, and celebrate the solemnity with religious feasting, and no more offer beasts to the Devil, but kill cattle to the praise of God in their eating.

--Bede, Ecclesiastical History, Book I Chapter 30

When the grass stops growing in the late autumn or early winter, the supply of food available for cattle falls dramatically. It is still possible to pasture a few animals outdoors, provided they are hardy enough to survive the winter weather, but the number will be limited because the vegetation that is already there has to last them until the new growth starts again next spring.

Keeping any larger number of cattle over winter requires the provision of winter fodder. This was traditionally hay, long grass cut in the lush days of summer and dried in the sun for winter storage. But hay is time-consuming to make, and in a wet summer it can be difficult (if not impossible) to dry it properly. The hay supply is also limited by the supply of grass available for cutting in the summer. All of this means the supply of food available for livestock during the winter would be a lot less than that available during the summer. Demand could be reduced to some extent if the cows went dry in the winter, as a cow needs less food when she is not producing milk. But even so, the number of cattle that could be kept in good health over winter would be limited.

Rather than let the surplus animals starve slowly to death, it would make sense to kill them while they were still in good condition, when some of the meat could be eaten fresh and the rest salted, smoked or dried to be eaten over winter. Hence an annual cattle slaughter in the late autumn would be required for sound agricultural reasons, and could provide a convenient opportunity to honour the gods (and have a big feast) at the same time. The god(s) might change, but the agricultural imperative stayed the same.


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

November recipe: Cinnamon apple pudding with hot fudge sauce

England probably has more varieties of apples than any other country in the world. The National Collection at Brogdale in Kent has 2300 different varieties, including cooking apples, easting apples and cider apples. Apples come in all shapes, sizes, colours, textures and flavours – see Lucy Ann White’s recent post for some examples.

Probably the apple is the basis of more hot puddings than any other fruit. Apple pie, apple crumble, Eve’s pudding, baked apples, apple dumplings – all of which have almost as many variations as there are cooks. Here’s a recipe for a steamed apple sponge pudding that’s simple to make and ideal on a cold day. I generally make it with cooking apples, but it will also work with eating apples.

Cinnamon apple pudding with hot fudge sauce (serves 4)

2 oz (approx 50 g) butter
2 oz (approx 50 g) caster sugar or light brown soft sugar
1 egg
4 oz (approx 100 g) self-raising flour
1 tsp (1 x 5 ml spoon) ground cinnamon
Milk to mix
4 oz (approx 100 g) apple, after peeling and coring

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy (I use a wooden spoon and a bowl; you can use a food processor if preferred).
Beat the egg and mix in.
Stir in the flour and cinnamon.
Add about one tablespoon (approx 1 x 15 ml spoon) of milk and beat in. The mixture should have a soft dropping consistency (i.e. if you pick up a spoonful of the mixture then hold the spoon vertically, the mixture will slowly fall off the spoon). If it’s too stiff (i.e. if it won’t fall off the spoon) add a little more milk. Yes, this is very approximate, so don’t worry too much about getting it just right.
Grate the apple or chop it finely, and stir into the mixture.
Put in a greased pudding basin, cover with foil, and steam for about 1 hour.
Turn the pudding out of the bowl and serve hot with custard or hot fudge sauce.

Hot fudge sauce (serves 4)

2 oz (approx 50 g) butter
2 oz (approx 50 g) soft brown sugar
Few drops vanilla essence (optional)
2.5 fl. oz (approx 70 ml) single cream

Put all the ingredients in a saucepan over a low heat and stir until the butter has melted and the sugar dissolved.
Bring to the boil, and boil gently for two or three minutes.
Pour over the sponge pudding.

If there is any pudding and/or sauce left over, both can be reheated the following day. The pudding can be frozen.

There are any number of variations. Here are a few you could try:

Variations
Apple and sultana pudding: Add 1-2 oz (approx 25-50 g) of sultanas to the sponge along with the apples.
Apple and almond pudding: Substitute 1 oz (approx 25 g) of ground almonds for the same amount of flour, and miss out the cinnamon. Add a few flaked almonds as well if you like.
Spiced apple pudding: Substitute ground mixed spice for the cinnamon.