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Bits\'n Pieces

It's the heat - my brain feels boiled (headcheese anyone?). My muse fails me, so I will add bits of writing that I did this week. Sheep's brains - poached, cleaned, pressed a little, sliced and fried with crispy brown crumb&mustard coating, or simply sliced and heated in a rich and velvety mushroom sauce - scrumptious, scrumptious, scrumptious! A traditional dish that my mother cooked, but rarely appreciated these days, we simply called 'offal' (although good butchers still carry the necessary meats frozen in large containers). Lamb's trotters, tripe and split head - my mother would clean and clean and clean it with soakings and scrubbings in water with baking soda, even shaving it with razor blades to get the least trace of hair or anything else undesirable off the skin, a whole morning long, till it was white as snow, then the brain removed and carefully sewn into the smallest stomach - they have more than one, lucky sheep! - and all the meat carefully cut off the bones of the head (the bones used for stock to cook the rest in), and then boiled for hours with salt, pepper, some toasted coriander seeds and a smidgin of cloves, nothing else, till it became this rich gelatinous sauce with, I have to admit, some unidentifiable bits of meat and other, larger pieces (tripes, and the trotters - eaten off the bone, and the delicious chunks of meat that were the cheeks, and of course, the tender tongue). We used to fight over the little round bag of brains wrapped in tripe (like marrow, only better). (I will say nothing about the eyes). All the bones were carefully removed from the left-overs, which were then refrigerated to form head cheese, to be eaten sliced on brown bread, with a few drops of vinegar and some finely chopped onion. Heaven on earth! From the net: JAMES BEARD’S GINGERBREAD 1. Pre-heat the oven to 375°F, and have ready a 9 inch x 9 inch x 2 inch baking pan. Do not grease or flour the pan. 2. Measure 1 cup molasses, light or dark, with a glass (liquid) measuring cup. 3. Pour the molasses into a reasonably large bowl, perhaps 2-3 quart size. 4. Pour ½ cup boiling water into the now (mostly) empty glass measuring cup, and then into the bowl. This will help rinse the last of the molasses from the measuring cup. 5. Coarsely chop up 5 tablespoons butter and add quickly to the bowl; stir to help the butter melt into the combined hot water and molasses. 6. To the bowl, stir in ½ teaspoon salt, 1-2 teaspoons ground ginger (more ginger results in a spicier, "hotter" cake)(I use 1 tablespoon ginger, 1 teaspoon cinnamon and 1/4 teaspoon cloves), 1 teaspoon baking soda, and 2 cups flour, preferably unbleached. 7. Stir just until ingredients are mixed and moist; this is a job for a light hand with a wooden spoon, not an electric mixer. 8. Bake in the oven at 375°F for 25-35 minutes. 9. When the cake is done, it will pull away slightly from the pan and a toothpick inserted in the middle of the cake will come out clean. 10. Allow to cool briefly and, if desired, sprinkle powdered sugar on top. Best when warm, but entirely acceptable cool. Dead easy and fast. I adjust the spices to make it spicier, and I use English-style Golden Syrup instead of molasses. I find it eats best after at least two days in an airtight container: moist, chewy and flavourful. (Try some whipped cream with bits of candied ginger as an accompaniment). Or slice it reasonably thinly, butter lightly and spread with some good marmalade. Unsweetened Irish coffee goes well with it, too. I am undertaking another big job next week - baking sourdough bread, which I've never done, making a starter from scratch. From the sound of it I suspect I might have a loaf of sourdough bread today (Saturday) week, if nothing goes wrong. The hot weather will be great for the starter at least. In the meantime, I am content with the odd loaf of Irish soda bread which can be made very quickly - should be made very quickly, in fact. White Soda Bread with Onions and Caraway This recipe is based on a plain white soda bread recipe I found at epicurious.com. Sometimes I add ½ cup raisins to the salty onion bread, which goes especially well with butter and sharp Cheddar cheese. The onion could also be replaced with 1 cup of raisins, 1 – 2 teaspoons of cinnamon and 1 - 2 tablespoons of sugar for a sweeter bread. 4 cups cake flour ½ tablespoon caraway seeds (I find most American recipes for "Irish" soda bread use way too much caraway for my taste - this is already more than I would normally use in, say, a British seedcake) 1 teaspoon baking-soda 1 teaspoon sea salt 1 onion, thinly sliced and lightly caramelized in 2 tablespoons of lard/butter. 2 cups (about) buttermilk 1. Preheat oven to 425°F. 2. Lightly flour baking sheet. 3. Mix flour, caraway seeds, baking soda and salt in large bowl. 4. Stir the onions into 1½ cups buttermilk and stir this mixture into the flour to form moist clumps. Add up to ½ cup more buttermilk if necessary. [The proportion of liquid to dry ingredients is crucial, as different flours have different absorption limits. The dough should not be too moist, to hold its shape, but too dry becomes quite unpalatable once baked]. 5. Gather dough into ball. 6. Turn out onto lightly floured surface and knead just until dough holds together, about 1 minute. [The true secret of Irish soda bread, which I found in a Bon Appetit Special on Ireland years ago, is the age-old instruction that between mixing and baking the bread no more than 3 minutes should transpire]. 7. Shape dough into 6-inch-diameter by 2-inch-high round. [I like quite a roughly shaped ball to make the crust more interesting]. 8. Place on prepared baking sheet. 9. Cut 1-inch-deep X across top of bread, extending almost to edges. 10. Bake until bread is golden brown and sounds hollow when tapped on bottom, about 35 - 45 minutes. [Do not overbake]. 11. Transfer bread to rack and cool completely. Serves 6. Bon Appétit May 1996 [I wouldn’t be surprised if this were the issue in which I originally found the recipe!] It does not stay fresh very long but it makes great toast and French toast! I also rendered 3 kilos of minced pork fat for lard (to use in baking) and the delicious crunchy bits (cracklings?) left in the sieve after you have poured off the fat. A great starter for an informal kitchen meal with friends: crusty bread, creamy European butter (unsalted), sea salt, sharp knives and a bowl filled with radishes and ice. You butter the radishes, not the bread, sprinkle the salt on your buttered chunk of radish, and chomp it with a bite of bread. (A vegan friend of mine learnt this in Paris years and years ago).