A pie for my love

Gareth loves a pie. He welcomes a pie from the oven like a lover in a new dress - a little whistle, a side look of lust. I never trust my ability to make pastry; sometimes my pies look more like an ill-fitting op-shop frock than designer threads, but none the less, my husband still pays his compliments for the effort sincerely made.

But! This time it really, really worked and she was so beautiful I had to take a photo of her.

Gareth bought me the Rick Stein's Spain cookbook as an anniversary gift (the gift that gives back) and so I made an empanada last week. My connection to Spanish cooking is long and impassioned - from the volatile year I spent working in the kitchen of the restaurant owned by my Spanish boyfriend with his mother - to my time cooking with the lovely Diana at her gorgeous tapas restaurant in Melbourne, De Los Santos.

Both experiences brought out what I called my inner mamma. I felt that the food of Spain required in the cooking a kind of inherent spirit, a Latin passion that guided your hands in the measuring and cutting and theatre of the kitchen. In these two all-female kitchens, we talked about love, we cried about the past, we sang to the radio, we sweated and cursed and laughed and worked our arses off. I loved it. I loved the food, which was a revelation of flavours to me, my experience so far being mostly of Italian and South-East Asian flavours. I was astounded at the mix of roasted squash with cumin, of squid with orange, of thick creamy butter beans with slow-cooked rabbit. I made potato tortilla everyday at  De Los Santos and could never resist eating a wedge warm with a slice of our home made bread.

So, anyway, perhaps it's no surprise that my empanada worked (and was admired and devoured by Gareth) - here's the recipe:

Empanada of tuna with tomatoes, peppers and pimenton
(Adapted from Rick Stein's Spain)


310g plain flour
3/4 tsp fast-action dried yeast
1/2 smoked paprika
125ml warm water
60ml olive oil
1 good egg, beaten to glaze
salt

For the filling:


3 tablespoons olive oil
1 onion chopped
2 garlic cloves crushed
1 red pepper seeded and chopped
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 400g can chopped tomato
250g best-quality tinned tuna in olive oil (I use Italian tuna, not the horrible grey mush from most supermarket brands)
A handful of green olives
Pepper

Method:

Make your dough by sifting the flour, yeast and paprika into a large mixing bowl, make a well in the centre.
Dissolve the yeast in the water and add to the dry ingredients untill a dough is formed.
Knead on a floured surface for 5 minutes until smooth.
Return to a clean bowl, cover and leave somewhere warm for 1 hour to rise.
For the filling, fry the onion, garlic, red pepper and pimento on a low heat for a long time (15 mins) until soft and sweet but not burnt.
Add the tomatoes and cook gently for a further 25 mins until the sauce is thick, not watery.
Add the tuna and olives to the sauce and turn off, allowing to cool slightly.
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees celsius.
Grease a baking tray (I used a flan tin) with some butter.
Bring out the dough and cut the ball in two - one piece slightly larger than the other.
Roll out the larger piece to fit your tray, and place in tray leaving about 1cm overhanging.
Spoon the sauce into the tin and sprinkle over the remaining olive oil.
Roll the second piece of dough out and brush the edges of the pastry in the tin with the egg before laying the lid on.
Pierce the top with a fork and brush with egg.
Bake for 30 mins or until golden.
Serve with love!

Sexy Spanish mushy peas and urban kitchen wonders

The end of summer and rain in England.

A recent holiday back home to Australia ( http://www.takethefamily.com/features/long-haul-family-holidays-byron-bay-australia )  left us cashless and marooned in Manchester for the long six weeks of school holidays. One week - bare shoulders, properly warm and jubilant - I bought a paddling pool for the kids. It was the last day of sun. All the next week it rained and the grey blanket of sky wrapped us in a dreary embrace.

So I watched Rick Stein's Spain and yearned for the Mediterranean. The reliable heat: hot and hotter hours of long days. Finding that groove of holiday where everything tastes better and the light illuminates in a more flattering manner. I seem to cook better and look better in the Med. A stall of sunrich tomatoes and courgettes is enough to inspire a meal. I dress more simply - like my cooking, I need less faffing. It takes a week, but by week two, my husband Gareth and I  imagine ourselves to be kindred locals.

A local served up a great dish of broadbeans with mint and ham to Rick that got me cooking. Broadbeans have just come out of season, so use frozen if there is none to be found, just take their skins off after defrosting in some cold water. To keep things seasonal, I don't see why you can't use runner beans or french beans cut into 2cm lengths. I altered the recipe from the Spanish meat-medley - it had hock and black pudding - which I replaced with panchetta cubes as I never like to mix meats in one day let alone one dish. He used fresh garlic and included the green top part of the bulb - I found fresh garlic at the organic grocer - it's subtly different in flavour but has a really different texture, the cloves covered in a moist skin.

It was the technique of  cooking the beans down in stock with mint that I was curious to try. It was amazing, like sexy mushy peas all silky and minty and we mopped it up with toasted sourdough drizzled with some extra virgin olive oil.

Broadbeans with panchetta and mint
(Serves 2 for a rustic dinner)

2 tbs olive oil
150g panchetta cubes
2 white salad onions roughly chopped
3 big cloves of garlic chopped
2 cups of podded, skinned, fresh broadbeans (blanch the fresh beans for a few minutes then peel off the outer skin)
2 generous sprigs of mint
2-3 cups of veg or chicken stock
sea salt and  black pepper

Method:

In a heavy-bottomed fry pan fry the panchetta on a medium heat in oil till golden, then add the onion and cook till softened before adding the garlic.

When the garlic has released it's scent and softened but not browned add the broadbeans and stir to coat with the flavours of the oil.

Pour in the veg or chicken stock, add the mint and season (be careful with the salt as panchetta and stock can be very salty already). Turn the heat to high and let bubble for a minute before turning the heat to the lowest temperature and putting on a tight fitting lid (or covering with foil).

Let cook for about 20 minutes unitill the broadbeands are really soft and almost collapsing. Serve hot on toasted sourdough brushed or drizzled with oil and a crispy salad and/or fried potatoes.

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I am amazed at how much food is growing in Manchester. It's like being pregnant and suddenly so is every other woman - once I saw one tree groaning with apples in a neighbours garden - I began to see fruit and food growing everywhere. Rosemary, apples, pears, wild mushrooms sprouting in moist parks, cabbages in council planters, green tomatoes destined for chutney.

Gareth and the kids love scrambling around the garden of the abandoned house next door to us. They usually come back screaming from bramble pricks or ant bites or nettle stings, but last week they came bearing a bucket of mottled skinned pears. River, our four year old boy, ate them peeled and cut up, one after another; loving them perhaps in that way that eating something you have grown or picked or even just seen growing makes the experience richer, better, fascinating - so removed from the source are we normally.

Eventually, he tired of pears and so I decided to make a cake. It's an Italian recipe and can be used with plums too. Speaking of plums, I MADE JAM!

In my effort to be more like Jane, I used the bag of damsons we picked from her tree at Rushall House and made my first ever jam. It was easy: cook the plums, strain the flesh from the stones, add equal quantities of sugar to fruit and cook again with some lemon zest till it's thick enough to resist sliding down a plate...nice.

Italian pear cake

About 5 pears peeled and quartered
150g melted butter plus some for greasing
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
150g castor sugar
250g plain flour sifted
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup milk

Method:

Heat oven to 180 degrees Celsius.
Grease a springfoam cake tin with butter.
Put eggs, vanilla and sugar in a bowl and whip until voluminous, pale and fluffy, pour in melted butter and fold in.
Add flour and baking powder and mix gently with a wooden spoon to incorporate.
Put half the pears on the bottom of the tin, scrape cake mix over them, top with remaining pears.
Bake for about 1 hour or until golden and set.
Serve with pouring cream.