The Kitchen of a Stagnant Mind

Well, it's been a while since I wrote anything here.

About three weeks ago I made some cheese using some vegetable rennet I bought. I added chives and here it is. It not as firm as the firmest bits of cottage cheese but not as wet. It was good on crackers:




I'm not having much luck in the kitchen of late. I tried to make some coconut cream-based ice cream. I needed arrowroot, which I didn't have so used cornflour instead. It thickened the coconut cream but made my iced dessert a bit grainy in the mouth. Not good, especially since I spent age hand cranking it. YOU NEED ARROWROOT FOR THIS. DON'T TRY AND SUBSTITUTE IT. I'm going to defrost it and use it up in milkshakes and stir fries.

I bought a box of mangoes on Monday and thought I would try to rescue the ice cream by pulping one and streaking it through the ice cream. The fruit was a bit sour so I added too much sugar which totally robbed any mango-ey flavour from the pulp. I couldn't go in so instead used it to make a marinade for my tofu. Thank you Jo for the idea (someone - it could have been you - said that you used mango on tofu ages ago).

- mango pulp
- sugar (I had some palm sugar knocking about) OR if mangoes are out of season you can buy sweetened mango pulp in a can from South Asian grocery stores but it IS very sweet
- crushed garlic cloves
- soy sauce.
- grated ginger root (good with the mango)
- chilli powder
- chinese 5 spice mix

I think that was all. I left my tofu to bathe in this mixture for 2 days, hoping all the papain in the mango would tenderise the bean curd. I used it in a stir fry afterwards and the tofu pieces had a delicious delicate fruity flavour. But it was still tofu. I wonder what this marinade would be like on some kind of meat or whether the taste of the meat would simply over power it. Chicken would probably work best. But chicken is so boring! It's less boring than tofu, though.

In other news, Dan made a spinach, red pepper and white asparagus risotto here the other night. Ooh, I've just realised, all of the colours of the Italian flag! He used a can of tomatoes in it which I thought would be culinary suicide but it wasn't. It was lovely. I like tomatoes a lot. I've though of using them in stir-fries to bring out their flavour.

I kid you not.

Today, I went to Woo Sang oriental supermarket in Manchester, peeked in the freezer and saw CHEESE FLAVOURED ICE CREAM. It was made by Selecta which had the same logo as Wall's in the UK and is therefore part of Unilever's Heartbrand frozen desserts. It was made in the Philippines.

Thinking about it, I don't know why I'm so shocked. After all, I did encounter blue cheese ice cream in when I went to an ice cream parlour in Vancouver BC in 2006.

This is different, though. That parlour had all kinds of wacky flavours like porcini mushroom. I must have tried them and as I recall, they didn't taste too strongly of their names. The ice cream I saw today, however seemed garish. It looked like it was flavoured with cheese very orange, salty and bland, like American cheddar.

I wished I'd had my camera with me, but I did not. I'm glad I didn't have my camera, because I tried to find an image online of the product I saw today, and found out find that several companies make it, and someone loves them enough to dedicate web space to it. See it for yourself here.

I would try some of this quezo ice cream, because I am a bit sick in the head, but it only comes in 2 litre tubs. Does anyone want to go halves on it with me? Or maybe quarters. Eighths?

Cake-o-rama / a tardy rice dream

I have recently made two of these thingummies. Here is a fine coconut cake:



The cake itself was a very basic cake sponge with added desiccated coconut. What really makes it is the frosting, an indulgent mix of cream cheese, icing sugar, more desiccated coconut, a wee bit of fat and do you know what the magic ingredient is? The real kick? It's a dash of zingy lemon juice which cuts through the sweet fat rather nicely.

This is very late, but here are my pretty spring rolls from my rice paper / homemade seitan phase. Which may return. I don't know yet. The colour you see in the rolls is provided by nasturtium flowers and leaves, of which there was a sizeable glut last month.



The second cake, in case you were wondering, is lying dormant in a dark very cool place, waiting to be decorated. Picture soon.

And here it is:



I saw it once on a Nigella Lawson cookery programme, got very excited by the idea and thought that would be a good dessert for a special occasion. One makes it by mixing crushed biscuit, crushed cinder toffee, honey roast peanuts and chocolate / peanut butter chips with ice cream and freezing it in a spring form cake tin lined with clingfilm. You take it out, serve with warm chocolate sauce, and warm butterscotch sauce and what do you know? It's not unlike eating an ice-cream Snickers. I can't believe I made this for someone's birthday. The only thing I am proud of is that I honey roasted my own peanuts and made my own chocolate / peanut swirled chips because I couldn't find any.

I could probably make a much better ice cream cake, less chaotic, more structured and meaningful. You watch this space.

Dinner for one

I have been in Cambridge house- and animal-sitting for my sister and her husband since Wednesday. I tried to contact the one person I might know here but he hasn't responded to my e-mail, so what was I to but sit around cooking, eating and drinking? I can't get pissed though, I have furry and feathered responsibilities.

One is not fun, contrary to what Delia Smith said once, and it's even less fun in an unfamiliar kitchen. There are exciting things in the cupboards here such as pink peppercorns, slivers of mace, Amontillado sherry for cooking, hazelnut oil as well as some surprising ones (Oxo cubes? Come on! My brother in law is supposed to be something of an epicure, a gastronaut). However, I found no fresh ginger, no rice and no whisk. Not an electric one, not even a manual one. More about that later.

Since we've had a heatwave, I've continued on my ice cream tip and wanting to give Green and Blacks a run for their money made white chocolate ice cream with raspberries and meringue pieces. Here's a picture. Honestly, I need a food stylist and a steadier camera hand:



The ice cream itself tasted good good good, the tart raspberries provided a nice contrast to the sweet ice cream but they are little hard bits frozen raspberry - I did crush them first so they aren't whole blocks of raspberry-sized and flavoured ice. Note for next time: put raspberries through and sieve before adding, but definitely add them. They contributed such a delicious pink girly colour to the dessert.

I added meringue pieces to the mixture because I had four egg whites which I didn't know what to do with. I had to beat the whites using a fork and the strength of my arm, but I think my worn out arm gave up before the whites were stiff enough. My meringues were the palest brown when they came out of the oven and they were still squidgy in the middle. I broke the crunchy bits off and folded into the ice cream. The squidge I tried to recook in the oven. It changed the texture and not for the better, and tasted a bit like Sugar Puffs. Never mind.

This evening for dinner I had a splendid warm salad of brown rice, with tarragon, chopped tomato, onion and garlic fried in olive oil with some torn mozzarella pieces stirred in. Topped with Parmesan. It was lovely, the tomato had just the right tang to it.

I have never had tarragon before and in tonight's dinner it was just using up last scraps. I put it in a buttery lemony dressing for prawn salad the past few days. It has a nice pine-scented flavour. I'd use it again. If I had a big kitchen garden, I would grow it.

Finally, some graphics.

My birthday celebrations continued, and yesterday a picnic was taken to the Greater Manchester Museum of Transport. I took some roasted vegetables, some ful medames from a can which I had seasoned insufficiently and this:



I found some arame seaweed in the cupboard which I soaked in water. I then simmered tofu in the soakwater with added salt, vinegar and soy sauce until most of the stock had gone. Draining the rest off, I stirred in the seaweed. It wasn't the most amazing tasting thing I have ever made, but at least it wasn't the only thing I had to eat.

My elderflower champagne is now ready, and quite a bit more potent than the bottle I was given by Jo for my birthday. It tastes a lot dryer too. I think it's because I put too much yeast into it (One teaspoon for two litres of water. Possibly even two teaspoons!). You can even see a yeasty sediment at the bottom. I added the yeasts because the natural yeasts in the blossoms did not seem to be powerful enough to kick start the bubbling process. With my first batch I thought the water I added was too hot, thus killing off the yeast, so with my second batch, I made thoroughly sure that the water was blood heat, doing all but testing it with my elbow. Still no action. I have added a subtle one teaspoon yeast to 4 litres of water for my second batch and hope this will be less dry and sedimenty. Here it is:



And finally to my first attempt at a custard-based ice cream. I had wanted to make White Chocolate ice cream, possibly streaked through with raspberries. But I shopped in a rush and found no white chocolate. I opted for 70% cocoa dark instead.

Flaws:
- I didn't constantly stir the custard when thickening it because I was busy breaking up the chocolate. I think this caused tiny tiny lumps. Happily, it did not affect the texture of the ice cream.
- Perhaps this was because I used too much chocolate! You may think there's no such thing, but I really should have used a dark chocolate recipe rather than substituting the white for the dark. This did affect the texture I think, it was a little less smooth than it could have been. And too chocolatey if that is indeed possible.
- I heated up fresh cherry pieces with minimal water and a bit of sugar. I let this cool completely before adding to the ice-cream. The syrup seemed to melt the ice-cream a tad, so I anxiously started my stir and freeze process to rescue it
- I tried to balance the excessive chocolate out with the 100ml remaining cream I had and didn't stir it in properly. You will see bits in the picture if you look closely.

Fortunately, it tastes all right and there are fans of the ice cream in the house as the following will testify to: