Three Chimneys: Rumbledethumps

Simple but good. Basically, mashed potatoes mixed with shredded cooked kale. Well, that's the Three Chimneys definition of it. I've seen other ones. Sue Lawrence in A Cook's Tour of Scotland includes turnip in her version. However, F. Marian McNeill in The Scots Kitchen agrees with the Three Chimneys version. We had this with haggis and turnip. One thing I can never get right is mashed turnip. I think I need a better masher.

Pickled Beetroot

Duncan was given two carrier bags by a guy at work, and he of course brought them home for me. one contained potatoes, and one contained beetroot. Potatoes, no problem. Beetroot? How am I going to use up half a dozen beetroot? Well, they were free, I've got enough to play with, and some jam jars left over, I'll try pickling them.
So, I go searching, read a few recipes, and come up with something I hope will work.
First, cook the beetroot. I baked them rather than boiling them. Wash them thoroughly, cut of most of the root and leaves (but leave some on), place in a covered casserole dish and bake at about 180C for anything between 1 and 2 hours depending on the size.
Once the beetroot is cooked, leave it to cool slightly, until till hot but just cool enough to handle. While they're cooling, sterilise the jars* and make the pickling liquid.
From my reading of various recipes, the pickling liquid is basically vinegar with various additions. The vinegar can be diluted. I used 200ml of cider vinegar and 100ml water. To this I added some juniper berries, cloves, mustard seed and a little sugar. Place this over a medium heat.
While the pickling liquid is heating, slice the beetroot. My jars are quite small, so I quartered the beetroot before slicing them. once the beetroot are prepared, get the jars out of the oven and bring the liquid to the boil. Pack the beetroot into the jars, pour over the liquid - making sure the jars are full right up - and seal.
I unfortunately, didn't have quire enough liquid for the three jars. The beetroot was covered in all three before sealing, but not right to the top. I thought it would be OK, but either the liquid evaporates or the beetroot absorbs it. So it's now a 'fridge pickle', needing to be eaten quite soon. The one we opened on Thursday seemed to be fine, although a little sharp for my taste (more sugar needed in the liquid? Different type of vinegar?) We'll see how the other ones have held up when they get opened.

*Turn the oven down to about 150C, wash the jars in hot soapy water (rinse in very hot water to get rid of the soap - not a good addition to anything), and put upside down in the oven - the same process as sterilising the jars for jam.

Three Chimneys: Plums in Spiced Port Wine

Back to desserts this week, and something very simple - poached fruit. First prepare the poaching liquid. In this case, some ruby port, a little sugar, and some spices. Quite an interesting combination: cinnamon stick, bay leaf, cloves, juniper berries and cardamom. Bring to the boil, add halved plums and simmer until the plums are soft.
The plums sounded good, but they really need to go with something. One of the suggestions in the book was to serve with cinnamon ice cream. Well, if cinnamon would be good, how about adding chocolate and making a cinnamon chocolate ice-cream? So, out with my basic ice-cream recipe, and start playing.
The basic recipe is one I came across last year - it's the one I also used here. The good thing about this one is that it only needs a few ingredients, and doesn't involve making a custard using any eggs - so no fear of scrambling anything.
So, when heating the milk and cream at the start, I added a cinnamon stick to try to get some of that flavour infused in. I also added some very finely chopped chocolate which I wanted to melt in. When mixing up the cornstarch with the rest of the milk, I also added a tablespoon or so of cocoa powder. I didn't add the vanilla, thinking that it would either not go with or overpower the cinnamon. Once the mixture had thickened, I added a tablespoon or so of dark rum, partly for flavouring and partly because I'm sure I read somewhere that adding alcohol to ice-cream stops it getting too rock-hard in the freezer.
Well, I don't think I added enough alcohol to my mix, because the ice-cream did get very firm. But how did it taste? Not quite enough of all the flavours, but still very nice. And it went very well with the plums.

Three Chimneys: Ham & Haddock Souffle

I made a soufflé. And it rose. Is there anything else I need to say?
I'm very pleased with this. Of course I was worried about making it - after all, soufflés have the reputation for being difficult things, tricky to get right, and liable to end up as pancakes if you get them wrong. But I had to have a go, and I'm glad I did.
After it had turned out, I went and read what McGee (On Food & Cooking) has to say about them. To quote:
"If you manage to get any air into the mix, an inexorable law of nature will raise it in the oven..."
So, no need to be worried about it rising then. Basic physics means it will (when air gets hotter, it takes up more space, so the air bubbles in the soufflé mix will expand and make it rise). Apparently this means they're a lot easier and more resilient than their reputation. Soufflé fallen a bit? Put it back in the oven!
Anyway, I'm sure it's not all quite that easy - it must still be possible for it to go wrong, or they wouldn't have that reputation, would they? However, this one turned out well, and I'll probably try at least one variation in future.

Three Chimneys: Whisky and Lemon Syllabub

I've never made syllabub. My mum makes it at Christmas, and I usually have at least part of one (no matter what other desserts there are). She makes the more classic (I think) one, using sweet white wine. So I was looking forward to trying this.
It's actually a pretty simple thing to make: another whisk-it-all-together dish. What I wasn't expecting was how quickly things would happen. Double cream (not the thick.extra thick stuff, which you wouldn't use for this) starts out fairly runny. But as soon as I added the whisky and lemon juice, it started to thicken. I didn't even have to use my whisk for this - it came together quite nicely just whipping with a fork.
So, how was it? I wouldn't want to eat a large amount of this on its own. But very nice combined with the strawberries, and I can see it coming out again.

Three Chimneys: Shortbread

I've actually made this recipe before. When I first bought the book, I wanted to try out one of the recipes. In need of some biscuits for the week, this is the one I chose. At the time , I didn't have the rice flour the recipe uses, so I used all plain flour (actually, type OO plain flour). They came out fine.
This time, I did have rice flour - although it was brown rice flour, not the white specified in the recipe. The butter was Graham's Gold - and the butter isn't just Gold in name. As the two main ingredients in the shortbread are the flour and the butter, I figured it was worth using a really good butter.
So how did they turn out this time? Well, I don't know if it was because the kitchen was warmer, or the butter was fattier, but I had more trouble with the dough. This time I had to chill it before I could roll it out and cut it cleanly. I slightly overfired the first tray. But the rest came out very well - light, crumbly, slightly flaky inside. Having had two successes with this, I think I might need to start experimenting with additions.

Three Chimneys: Summer Fruit Jam

Well, actually not-quite-Three Chimneys Summer Fruit Jam. Why? The recipe actually uses a combination of five fruits: strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, redcurrants and blackcurrants. Unfortunately, I could only get four of them. The fruit farm we went to hadn't had a very good season for gooseberries, and there were none left. We did manage to pick redcurrants and blackcurrants, and got some ready picked raspberries and strawberries. So I made up the missing gooseberry portion using the other four fruits in about the same proportion.
The one thing I was most worried about here was whether the jam would set. I know the principle of testing it - put a plate in the fridge so that it gets cold, then after the jam has been boiled for the right amount of time (this recipe said 15 minutes), drop a teaspoonful onto the plate. Allow it to cool for a bit, then push it with your finger. If it wrinkles, it's ready. So I tried. After 15 minutes, no wrinkle. Boil another few minutes, test again. Is that a wrinkle? Not sure, boil a bit longer. After a total of 25 or 30 minutes, I thought it was sort of wrinkling, and was worried about over-boiling it, so decided that was it ready to go into the jars.
So how did it turn out? I'd say not bad for my first attempt. Out of the 1kg total of fruit I made 6 small jars of jam. One of those is nearly finished, one is earmarked to go to my dad, leaving four to last until I can do it again. Next time with gooseberries.