Cornflower

The Flavour Thesaurus - reds

  

    A couple more brief extracts from The Flavour Thesaurus (see the posts below this for the full story). 

    Cherry and walnut: "The sort of partnership Alan Bennett might get wistful about. Poor walnut is in danger of being squeezed out by more newly fashionable nuts - macadamia, pecan, pine - and glacé cherries by overqualified, under-sweet fruits such as blueberry and cranberry. Make a cherry and walnut cake for old times' sake." (And why not?)

I'm including the following entry because this taste is a personal favourite -

Beetroot: "Beetroot's potting-shed flavour is attributable to a compound called geosmin, which can be detected in the smell of just-caught, bottom-feeding freshwater fish such as carp, and in 'petrichor', a term coined by two Australian researchers for the distinctive aroma released by rain on earth following a dry spell." Wonderful!

The Flavour Thesaurus - black and white

   

     Black pudding & egg:  "Terence Stamp and Julie Christie. Very English."

Blackberry: "Shop-bought or cultivated blackberries, tall as beehive hairdos, bright as spit-and-polished toecaps, may sometimes be pleasantly sweet but they never, ever have the countervailing intensity of sharpness, mustiness and deep spice that comes of growing in the wild. There are hundreds of different strains of wild blackberry, and a berry picked in one spot may taste quite different from another a few feet away. Look for notes of rose, mint, cedar and clove beyond the generic berry flavours. Some even have a shimmer of tropical fruit."

White chocolate & coconut: "Go ahead, make a coconut cake and give it an icing of thick white chocolate. But be warned, it's like being buried alive in frosting. Raspberries might be your St. Bernard."

From The Flavour Thesaurus (and see previous posts).

The Flavour Thesaurus - nutmeg

     Nutmeg: "The botanical name for nutmeg, Myristica fragrans, makes it sound like a Bond girl - appropriately enough for such an exotic, beautiful double-agent of a spice, apt equally to make sweet, creamy dishes less cloying and cruciferous vegetables less bitter...."

Nutmeg and apple: "... wonderful for perking up warm apple purée. Grate a light dusting over it and serve with vanilla ice cream. Like falling in love in the autumn."

From The Flavour Thesaurus (and see below).

Toothsome

    Here's a fascinating and unusual book about food: Niki Segnit's The Flavour Thesaurus has just arrived and I've done no more than dip into it as yet, but it's full of personality and verve and reminds me of the excellent Perfumes: The A-Z Guide with which the Cornflower readership had so much fun earlier in the year! This is "a unique compendium of flavour combinations", ninety nine different tastes arranged according to flavour 'family' - e.g. 'earthy', 'green and grassy', 'woodland', etc. - the notes you might detect in a wine, single malt whisky, or a fragrance.

Then each foodstuff is paired with possible compatible partners, some obvious, some not. Let's take chocolate, one of the 'roasted' flavours (along with coffee and peanut); it's matched up with almost forty other tastes from the familiar hazelnut to the less common blackcurrant: "Dark and heavy as Finnish Goth poetry. But not quite as popular ..."

     There are recipes, anecdotes, funny bits, a very impressive bibliography, but as Niki Segnet says in her introduction, what it adds up to is "a patchwork of facts, connections, impressions and recollections, designed less to tell you exactly what to do than to provide the spark for your own recipe or adaptation. It's there, in short, to get the juices flowing."

     While as Niki admits this is a subject which is inherently subjective, the kind of taste tutorial this book provides is an enormously interesting exercise in itself as well as being a route to creativity in the kitchen.

     To give you a flavour of The Flavour Thesaurus I'll be back later with some choice morsels from the book, but meanwhile if you'd like me to look up any foods or combinations, just say the word.

Outside in

     I've long admired Dan Pearson's work and his obvious sensitivity to the environments in which he creates his gardens - I've even had the pleasure of hearing him lecture on the subject - so when I saw that he had written a book called Spirit: Garden Inspiration, I was very keen to read it.

   Illustrated with his own photographs, the book is a lesson in looking. Showing Dan's 'view' of landscapes, gardens, buildings and even sculpture, the text describes what he perceives, how he responds to both the manmade and the natural, whether shaped and edited or left untouched, and how he interprets that in his own creative practice. 

 

     It's a contemplative book and a personal one, but it allows us to see through another's eyes, and that must surely make our own vision all the more acute.

Persephone books and cakes - 7

    Those poor Dunnetts! Pop over to Dovegreyreader Scribbles and Lynne will tell you their story, but from the victuals point of view The Children who Lived in a Barn is a sorry tale. They do their best, of course, but rations are meagre so there's a bit of reliance on bread and butter or dripping, the occasional egg, and then the famous haybox, the equivalent of the Aga's simmering oven, by which they manage a rabbit stew and overnight porridge.

    Village neighbours do help, for instance kind Mrs. Dew gives the children "a lovely golden brown cake with pieces of peel sticking up through the surface". I took her gift as my starting point, but went a step further and decided that Eccles Cakes containing peel along with the spiced currants might be just the thing for this month's Persephone tea, and had she had them to hand (and remembering always to 'eat fair'), Susan could have packed one or two to take with her when she went on strike and fatefully met Alastair Grant.

 

    The recipe I used was from The Ordinary Cook (do have a look at all the good things there), and they've turned out beautifully; 500g of pastry yielded fifteen, and there's some filling left over.

Books and 'cakes' - 29

 
      I hope no-one will feel hard done by if the refreshment to go with the Cornflower Book Group's My Cousin Rachel today is not a cake (there has been food enough on here over the last week, after all); instead, may I offer you a .... tisana!

     Unlike Ambrose or Philip, you may drink this safe in the knowledge that it hasn't been near a laburnum seed, for it is just a lemon and ginger infusion such as Rachel might have offered to Sam Bate up at the East Lodge when his cough was bad. Guaranteed to soothe and restore.

Baking - from the earnest to the frivolous

     Two last things, for now, from the newly released Sarah Raven's Food for Friends and Family   (though I haven't shown you the succulent salmon dish I made earlier in the week or the very tasty red onion, Parmesan and rosemary tart ...); but here are two items from the baking sections, one worthy, the other pure fun!

 

The Quick Spelt and Mixed Seed Bread is very quick - no kneading and just an hour's rise before baking - very seedy, as it contains three kinds in generous quantities, and a very good keeper, apparently, as the recipe says it will stay good for two weeks if kept in the fridge in a plastic bag, though it didn't get the chance here as it was all gone within a day.

  

The Raspberry Cupcakes with Mascarpone Frosting contain ground almonds and are more moist and flavoursome than many cupcakes I've tried. I used frozen rasps as I happened to have some, and the mascarpone frosting - which you can pipe fancily or spread roughly as here - makes a welcome change from the usual icing.

    

   As you've no doubt guessed, I'm so enjoying this book I shall be turning to it often; it's a comprehensively lovely collection of recipes both for everyday and special occasions.

The smallest baby carrot in the world

    'Sarah Raven week' continues with the smallest baby carrot in the world (3/4"!), a constituent part of the really excellent  

 

and another triumph for the book.

    I made vegetable stock for this, then steamed tiny sweetcorn, beans, mangetout, asparagus and the miniature carrots, but you could just use whatever you have to hand, really. The risotto is put together in the usual way with onion (red) and garlic being softened in butter and oil, the rice added, then a generous quantity of white wine, and then the stock going in ladle by ladle, stirring all the while. The vegetables are thrown in at the end to warm through, and that's that - a lovely fresh, summery dish which I wouldn't have thought of making, tending as we do towards 'single flavour' risottos (risotti?) such as mushroom.

Cardamom and poppy seed ice cream

     As you may have noticed, Sarah Raven's Food for Friends and Family is my vade mecum this week, and an excellent one it is. The weather has warmed up a bit, so ice cream was on the menu yesterday, an unusual version made from a mixture of mascarpone and natural yogurt, flavoured with cardamom and toasted poppy seeds. I substituted lime juice and zest for the lemon specified - see below at the mixing stage -

 

and it turned out beautifully: pleasantly sharp but very well-flavoured, the seeds giving texture as well as taste, and all who tried it give it a very enthusiastic thumbs-up.

     As further testimony to the success of this recipe I might add that Mr. C. helped himself to an enormous serving after having dined on the London train last night, and that was only partly down to greed (he would argue that we could class this as a health food, given all the yogurt in it ....).

Herbidacious

    Who remembers The Herbs? Parsley's song? I digress (or regress to childhood) but the greenery in that picture (parsley, basil and mint) went into the most delicious soufflé-like dish, Ricotta al forno, from Sarah Raven's Food for Friends and Family.  

     In a food processor you whizz together the herbs, ricotta, cream, eggs and Parmesan, mix in some toasted pine nuts and olives and bake for around 20 minutes. It's so easy and makes something rich but light and very tasty (though not terribly photogenic!). We had it with good bread and a salad of baby plum tomatoes, red onion and mint.

 

Caramelised sesame shortbread

     Here's what I'm having with my coffee this morning: caramelised sesame shortbread from Sarah Raven's Food for Friends and Family (see the two previous posts).

It's delicious - a melt-in-the-mouth shortbread base topped with a mixture of sesame seeds and pine nuts (plus a few other things), baked 'til golden. Lovely combination of textures, not too sweet, and great flavour.

To satisfy

 

      "To fulfil needs, desires and expectations."

 

    I've known for a few months that Sarah Raven had another cookery book in the offing, and loving her earlier ones (you'll find her cited often on this site) I've been looking forward to the new one. Well here it is, and it's glorious!

     Food for Friends and Family will be in the shops soon, but I'll be cooking from it a lot over the coming weeks to try it out. With four hundred recipes arranged according to season and then in categories from snacks and canapés to soups and salads, fish, meat and vegetarian dishes, then on to puddings, cakes, preserves and drinks, there is a huge amount to choose from. As with Sarah's other books, the photography is by Jonathan Buckley, and it's lavishly illustrated so it is visually arresting and inspiring - it has quite a wow factor, but in an achievable, comfortably homemade sort of way!

     I hope to be able to give you a taste of it in the next few days, and as the first item from the book has just come out of the oven, my family are gearing up to be critical testers.

To tantalise

"To tease or torment someone 

by keeping something they want 

just out of reach."

More on this object of desire soon ....

Spring version

    I'm not quite sure why but I rather like the picture in this post from last October. Seven months on, and after heavy rain last night I went back to the flagstones this morning to snap some more wet leaves - the spring version.