Bun in the Oven

It has been an embarassingly long time since I posted anything here, but I have been busy doing a different kind of baking. In May 2021, the Meat and 2 Veg and I welcomed our first baby, Oliver, into the world. 

I had grand visions of using my maternity leave to get back into blogging and finish the enormous task of moving this website to a new platform. Well if you are a parent you will know how foolish that was. Babies don't give you a whole lot of 'me' time.

I still hope to finish it one day, but I now have more realistic expectations and timescales. None.

So consider this a holding post. It's bye for now, but certainly not forever.

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Edmonds Ginger Crunch

This was one of my favourite biscuits growing up. It is one of 3 that I made on rotation from the cookbook, Edmonds, a staple of any NZ family kitchen. The other two, in case you’re interested, were Afghans and Anzacs. While I still make Afghans regularly and Anzacs at least once a year for Anzac Day, these had fallen off my radar. I decided to revisit Ginger Crunch recently as I thought they’d make a nice festive gift for family and friends. 

The recipe below is has more ginger in it than the original. I remembered adding plenty more ground ginger as a kid and now I am going a step further and adding fresh ginger too. I think it is safe to assume that if you are making ginger biscuits, then you love ginger. I’ve also added an instruction to use salted butter and added some Maldon sea salt flakes to the icing, because who doesn’t like salted caramel? 

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Green tomato chutney

If, like me, you have a glut of homegrown tomatoes that aren’t ripening, this is a great way to use them up. My crop this year was really high yield and there was no way the ones on the lower trellises were going to ripen with all the seasons we are having at the moment, so I removed them.

I am new to gardening, but I have read that at the end of the summer in the UK, you can encourage the remaining trellises to ripen by being quite ruthless with the plants. As well as removing lower hanging fruit, you should also remove any new flowers, small fruit that haven’t developed yet and any diseased leaves or leaves that are blocking the sun. This encourages the plant to put all its energy into the remaining tomatoes. You can also reduce the watering schedule – this stresses the plant and again encourages it to put its energy into producing ripe fruits for reproduction.

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Recipes for lockdown: Elderflower cordial

My first attempt at making elderflower cordial a few year’s ago didn’t go very well. I followed the key piece of advice I had been given, namely, to pick the flowers right at the beginning of the season just as they start opening. I was on the lookout every time I walked or ran along the Parkland Walk in Finsbury Park and, as soon as the little white flowers started blossoming, I started foraging.

I also took care to inspect the flower heads for insects and discarded any that looked like they might have a little colony. I then poured boiling water over them and leftover night to infuse. The next day I strained, added sugar and lemon juice and simmered to dissolve the sugar. The result was… sugar syrup. Not a hint of elderflower. I ended up using it as a sweetener for cocktails and thought no more about it until last year…

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Recipes for lockdown: Nasi Goreng

Early in lockdown I went to the mahussive Asian supermarket near me, Wing Yip, and was surprised to find everything fully stocked and no one in there. This was when chicken breasts and thighs were hard to come by. You could get enough chicken to feed all of Joe Exotic's big cats at Wing Yip, and then some.

I wondered whether this was a sign of COVID-induced racism. I heard horrible stories about Chinese restaurants closing down in Sydney because people were afraid to eat there. I mean, really? How stupid are the general public? A Chinese Australian is just as likely to spread the virus as any other Australian, no more, no less. It’s about contact. But you know all that...

Anyway, I didn’t buy any chicken, cause I didn’t need 10 kilos, but I did stock up on all sorts of delicious condiments and sauces to get my Asian cook on. 

One thing I had been wanting to make for ages was nasi goreng, but the two key ingredients aren’t always easy to come by in London: ketjap manis (Indonesian sweet soy sauce) and properly stinky shrimp paste. Yes, really. The version you can get in Tesco or Sainsbury's isn’t quite right. It's been dulled down for Western palates. I don't understand this – if you are buying shrimp paste it is surely because you have eaten good Asian food and want to make something similar. When I found properly stinky shrimp paste it transformed my dishes. They tasted like the real deal. If you don't have an Asian store near you, then you can order a decent one online; this is the one that I found at Wing Yip and I'd recommend it.  

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