29 August 2008
Autumn Cooking Plans
So, as documented last year, autumn is when my interest in cooking starts to rise again. This year is just the same, and possibly more so, since I’ve become more interested in the actual food ingredients as well as the cooking process.
Last weekend, I constructed two pies - one vegetarian, and one with the same filling, but added pork steak, for seven people, and they were very favourably received. The secret ingredient, it seems, is breadcrumbs; they soak up stray juices from the other fillings that might otherwise result in soggy pasty, and fill out the gaps very nicely. During the week, I made soda bread (on which a detailed post, with pictures, will follow), and Nina roasted a pork steak with apples and pears in a gravy made with port, honey, black pepper, fresh rosemary and fresh bay leaves. The rosemary and bay were straight in from the garden. It was incredibly good.
I have plans for more pies - apple, since I think we’ll have access to some good cooking apples this year, and possibly blackberries, if this year’s crop ever gets to ripen properly. I’m chasing up on various leads to get us other organic fruit at prices a bit less than the occasionally rather ludicrous ones in supermarkets (blackberries coming in around 20 cents each!), and I’ll see what can be done with those. I am finally going to get around to making a proper pork pie, something I’ve been intending for years now.
I’m going to make more bread, too. Experiments have shown that yeast cookery doesn’t work as well in the Irish climate as on the continent, but I’m not about to let that stop me - I’ll create a continental climate in a very low oven or something, if I have to. In the meantime, the soda bread was excellent, and I found it particularly good for breakfast - it’s a combination of slow-burning solidity and ease of preparation that even I, in my stare-at-the-wall morning state, can handle. And the raspberry jam from the Real Irish Food Company that I like to have with it is both very good, and comes in under all Pollan’s Rules. It would be nice to be able to make bread that will toast well, though; soda bread is not so great when toasted.
After that, well, I’m interested in refining some of my basic skills. I can boil an egg, but I can’t decently poach one, so that’s something I’d like to work on. I’ve only recently got the hang of omelettes at all, so that could do with some work. My baking skills, bread aside, are under-exercised, so various kinds of cakes may appear. I have one good risotto recipe, but I’d like to expand that. I can’t yet do a really good lasagne, so I might try for that too. And I need to try out a bolognese recipe I got from an Australian friend.
I would really like to try wine-making, but equipment and storage room aren’t really sortable yet in the new place, so that may have to wait until next year. Sloe gin, assuming I can find sloes, may be in for some trying, and the fruit liqueurs made from a vodka base are also of interest. We own a smoothie maker, and an inherited food processor, so both of those might see use.
I reckon, though, that if we can get good meat (and I think our local butcher is pretty good), this might be the Autumn of Roasts. Chicken, pork, beef, venison, ham… not to mention rabbit, if I can get it, and pheasant and pigeon. Soups are another thing I’m planning to get to grips with. And of course, there’s always the good old Irish Stew, which I should make again soon.