Peach Ice-Cream

What do you do in hot weather, with a punnet of peaches that need to be eaten right now? A whole punnet being too many to eat, I made peach ice cream.
The recipe starts from my trusty cornstarch base. I usually make it with cream, but this time it was just milk (as I didn't have any cream in the fridge). Made the base a bit thicker than usual (slightly higher proportion of cornstarch to liquid), to allow for the fact that the peaches would thin it again slightly. It wasn't quite frozen when we had some, but I think the texture will turn out somewhere between ice-cream and sorbet. I don't think it was peachy enough, but Duncan said it was fine. If I try this again, I'll possibly add another peach, and maybe a few raspberries.

Peach Ice-Cream
300ml + 50ml milk
1/3 cup sugar
2 1/2 tbsp cornflour
1 tsp vanilla
Dash lime juice
2 peaches, peeled and pureed
1 peach, peeled and chopped small

Put the 300ml milk and sugar in a saucepan. Heat gently until it begins to steam.
Meanwhile, mix the cornstarch with the remaining 50 ml milk.
Once the mixture in the pan is steaming, add the milk/cornflour mixture.
Cook, stirring, until it starts to thicken.
Reduce heat to low and stir for about 5 minutes until thick.
Stir in vanilla.
Remove from the heat (I pour into a jug, for easier handling later) and leave to cool slightly.
Add the lime juice to the peach puree, then add this to the base. Mix thoroughly, then add the chopped peaches.
From here, follow your preferred freezing method - I transfer to my ice-cream maker, churn until mostly frozen, then transfer to a freezer box and freeze until set.

Sweetcorn Soup with Chicken

Leftover sweetcorn from Monday's dinner. Leftover chicken from last night. What to have for lunch? Sweetcorn soup with chicken. Inspired by Nigella.

Keep some of the sweetcorn aside, and put the rest in a blender, along with a chopped spring onion. Add a little stock, and blitz. Tip into saucepan, add a little milk and stock to thin. Heat. Add the rest of the sweetcorn, and the chopped chicken. Salt and pepper to taste.

Quick lunch for one.

Three Chimneys: Marmalade

First time making marmalade. Lots of boiling and slicing of peel. I'm not sure at the moment if it's actually going to set. Some of the jars still look a bit runny, and the peel isn't totally evenly distributed. Still, if it doesn't work I'm sure there's plenty I can do with it (there's enough for a good number of hot marmalade puddings, possible with some marmalade ice-cream on the side, and a marmalade cookie). And there's a few oranges left to try again. Or find something else to do with. What else can you do with marmalade oranges?

Three Chimneys: Celery, Apple and Chestnut Soup

Made as my contribution to Christmas dinner. Interesting. Made some adjustments to it as I as going - added a few more chestnuts than the recipe called for. I wasn't that happy with it - too much apple, not enough of the other ingredients. Still, everybody ate it.

Three Chimneys: Baked Stuffed Apples

Well, it's December so I start thinking about Christmas. This recipe needed mincemeat, so I bought a jar and made this and a batch of mince pies. Both were delicious. The recipe wanted the apples to be baked with sherry. Didn't have any, so I used dark rum instead.

Three Chimneys: The Famous Hot Marmalade Pudding

Had some home-made bread left over, and a jar of my dad's marmalade in the fridge. So hot marmalade pudding happened. Unfortunately, I used a too-big bowl to steam it in, so it was lopsided when I turned it out, but it still tasted wonderful. I'll be making this again, with my own marmalade (if that turns out!).

Three Chimneys: Pot-Roasted Pheasant with Cider, Apple and Chestnut Cream Sauce

One word: yum. This would probably be a good Christmas dinner for two.

Three Chimneys: Pears Poached in Green Ginger Wine

Served with a hot chocolate sauce. Required the purchase of a bottle of green ginger wine. After poaching and eating the pears, I wondered what to do with the leftover liquid. Put it back in the pan and simmered it down until very syrupy, then bottled it. Makes a good hot drink, diluted with some hot water.

Three Chimneys: Whisky Fruit Loaf

I'm always a bit worried when I attempt loaf cakes and fruit cakes. There's always that slight worry over whether or not they're fully cooked. Every year, when I make my Christmas cake, there's that worry - worse, because I try to do a different recipe each year - over whether I got the timing right, whether that tester really was clean when it came out of the cake, did I just miss the massive uncooked section in the middle? The fear that, on Christmas day, when Dad and I both cut into our cakes (to swap bits of it), mine will collapse into a gooey mass of uncooked batter.
Still, that hasn't happened to me yet, and this isn't a Christmas cake. It has most of the same ingredients as one - dried fruit, chopped peel, glace cherries, a bit of spice, and some alcohol. It almost tastes like one. I suppose, cooked in a round tin instead of two loaf tins, fed with more whisky, then marzipanned and iced, it could be one. I'm not sure how well it would keep - but it tastes so good, I'm not sure how long it would need to keep.

Three Chimneys: Roast Crown of Grouse with Beetroot and Blackcurrant Gravy

First find your grouse. I suppose you could go and shoot it yourself, but I don't know of any shoots round here, and I'd probably miss anyway. No game dealers locally (well, none that I could find anyway), so I resorted to the internet. Shamefully, my grouse were English. I'll try to make my next ones a bit more local...
Having had my grouse arrive (along with a rabbit, which was supposed to be already jointed but wasn't - in the freezer to be dealt with another time), the first step in the recipe was to turn these little birds into crowns. The 'crown' is just the breasts attached to the bone, so you have to remove the legs and base bone. Luckily grouse bones seem to be quite small - I was able to achieve the task with just my big knife and a pair of scissors (and no loss of any important bits of me).
Having separated the legs, crown and base bone (binned), next start preparing the gravy. As with the lamb, the gravy involves lots of chopping, a long time simmering, straining and further heating. This time, I started well in advance of the time I planned dinner for, and didn't get into quite so bad a state. The gravy uses the grouse legs, various vegetables, and copious quantities of alcohol (red wine and port). The book also calls for game stock. Not having any, I substituted a combination of lamb and vegetable - I'm sure it gave a different taste, but it seemed to be acceptable.
I decided to do skirlie potato cakes with this, so prepared those while the gravy was having it's hours-long simmer.
With everything prepared - gravy done, grouse crowned and bacon-covered, potato cakes made - the dish comes together quite quickly. The grouse need browned in a frying pan, then 10 minutes roasting and another 10 minutes resting in the bottom of the oven. The potato cakes take 10 minutes in the oven, so they can be cooking while the grouse is resting.
Once everything is done, it's just a matter of making it look good on the plate - a task at which I still fail most of the time.

Three Chimneys: Autumn Pudding

This didn't quite work out. I think there were a number of reasons
- I didn't use enough syrup in the pudding
- The bread was thick sliced
- There was too much bread for the amount of fruit I could fit in the ramekins I used

Still, it tasted good. I'll have to try these again.

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.

Three Chimneys: Gooseberry Meringue Tart

Think lemon meringue pie, but green. Crumbly pastry underneath, thinly golden crised meringue on top, soft gooseberry curd mixing into just cooked meringue in the middle.
This was the second attempt at making and using a sweet shortcrust pastry, and while it worked out, I'm still not that happy with it. More practice needed, I think. It's a shame gooseberries have such a short season.

Three Chimneys: Warm Salad of Scallops and Venison

This was supposed to be a warm salad of scallops and duck, but the recipe did say that you could use many different combinations. I had hoped to use smoked duck, but ended up with smoked venison instead. The scallops unfortunately weren't fresh ones, but the frozen ones seemed to be fine. I did try to make sure they were well dried before being cooked.
I don't usually make dressings to go with my salads, but since this salad was acting as the whole meal, and the book required it, I used the orange, honey and grainy mustard dressing. It's mixed with hazelnut oil, and the whole combination is really delicious. Might have to start making dressings for salads in future.