Is There Any Need To Make Your Own Pate?

There are so many different pates available to buy at such a reasonable cost that you would be forgiven for wondering just what the point is of going to all the trouble and expense of making your own.  Certainly there is quite a lot of work involved and you might be forgiven for wondering if it was worth it.

My opinion is that it sometimes is.  First of all you have absolutely no idea exactly what constitutes the meat element in a factory made pate and while I know that food standards are very high these days I prefer the certainty of buying my own raw ingredients.  Then there is the matter of spicing the mixture, and this can be quite a personal thing.  If you make your own you can do what you like.

The other very good reason for making your own is that the more exotic recipes don't seem to make it into everyday shops, at least not in the same form, and they are just as easy to make.  For example, mass produced game pate is likely to be of one texture whereas a homemade version could contain fillets of meat layered with minced meat and wrapped in bacon.

There are two main ways of making pate.  In the first method various meats, mostly livers of some sort but also pork, veal and game, are mixed together in varying proportions.  Egg, cream and brandy go into most of them along with other ingredients depending on the recipe and then the mixture, very well seasoned, is placed in a bacon lined loaf tin or terrine.  The top is covered with more bacon and the terrine is cooked slowly in a tray of water in the oven for at least three hours. 

When it has finished cooking it is weighted down with something heavy on a plate while it cools down.  This kind of pate can be smooth or coarse and that is decided by the consistency of the raw meat, so if you want a very smooth finish you puree rather than mince.

The second kind of pate is made with cooked meat or fish, pounded to a paste (you can use a machine) seasoned appropriately and mixed with butter and cream.  This is the preferred method of making a fish pate, smoked salmon, tuna, smoked mackerel etc. and is also a very good way of using up small amounts of leftover chicken or game.  It is particularly delicious served with Melba toast.

Tips For Jam And Marmalade Making - You Will Need These Soon

December, January and February are the marmalade-making months as this is when Seville oranges are in season so you will need to get ready soon.

It is much easier to make jam and marmalade if you use the right equipment, although perfectly good results can be achieved with ordinary thick based pans provided you remember to allow a little extra time for simmering the fruit.  Most saucepans are not as wide as a preserving pan and so present a smaller surface area.

Heavy stainless steel or tin lined copper preserving pans are the best and they should have a thick base in order to prevent the jam from sticking and burning.  The sides should be deep enough to allow the fruit to bubble without splashing all over the cooker and a wide top is necessary for good evaporation.  The overall size will depend on how much jam you want to make in one go.

Lovely old unlined copper and brass preserving pans can be used provided they are really clean and tarnish free.  However the finished preserve will contain less vitamin C and you must not allow the mixture to stay in the pans any longer than absolutely necessary.  Vinegar will react with these metals so don't use them for pickles or chutney.

A slotted spoon for removing stray stones and a wide funnel for filling the jars are both useful but not strictly essential and if you need to use a sieve it should be made from nylon and not metal.

Start collecting jam jars well in advance of your project and ask your friends to save theirs for you too.  Just make sure they are in perfect condition and scrupulously clean.  A sterilizer is handy here. 

Apart from apples, gooseberries, damsons, red or black currants, oranges, lemons and limes, most other fruit will need extra pectin in order for it to set firmly.  Fruit that is lacking in natural pectin must have it added and this can be in the form of lemon juice or apple or gooseberry extract.

You can make this extract at home by boiling about two pounds of cut up fruit in one to one and a half pints of water for about an hour and then squeezing the pulp through a jelly bag.  Alternatively you can buy pectin in a bottle and then follow the manufacturer's instructions.

The right amount of sugar is also vital.  Granulated sugar is the sort most commonly used in jam making and it is easily obtainable.  If you can get lump sugar and preserving crystals there will be less scum to skim from the surface but otherwise the results will be the same.  Unfortunately there is really no substitute for sugar.  Glycerine and glucose are not as sweet and honey or treacle will change the taste noticeably, but they can make up half of the sugar content if you wish.

The best way to be sure that the jam is ready is to use a sugar thermometer but if you haven't got one put a drop onto a cold plate and push it around a bit.  It should wrinkle and feel a little rubbery.  Take the pan off the heat while you do this.  When it is ready remember to pour the jam into warm jars so they don't crack with the sudden heat, then put a waxed disc over the jam and put the lids on quickly so that you get a good seal.

 Now you have this information you are ready to find a good recipe and start making jam and marmalade!

Then all you need is some good bread and a toaster.

Is The Dessert Trolley A Health Hazard?

Dessert, pudding, sweet, afters – all very inadequate names for the glory that comes before the coffee and for some of us it is the very best part of the meal, the part worth waiting for, the reason we are there.  There are some for whom it is the only part worth having and in a restaurant their eyes constantly stray to where it sits in all its tempting lusciousness.

Cold puddings, hot puddings, fruit puddings, steamed pudding with treacle or jam, pecan pie, apple pie, sorbet, custard.  Desserts made from cream and meringue and chocolate, ice cream with hot fudge sauce, pineapple cheesecake and chocolate mousse – chocolate anything really.  Gateaux, profiteroles, trifle and soufflés; pancakes with every conceivable topping, hot chocolate cake, brownies.  Enough, enough. 

It's a funny thing but the chocolate desserts are usually the first to go – can't think why!

For others though, those fortunate or unfortunate depending on your point of view, to have been born without a sweet tooth, the wonders of the dessert trolley hold no appeal.  They can ignore it, treat it with disdain, never glance in its direction.  It has no power over them and they are strong.  They are also usually men.

Now this is not to say that men don't like pudding because they do of course, at least some of them do, but in my experience if anyone out of a group is going to opt for either cheese or nothing at all, it will generally be a man rather than a woman. 

Is the dessert trolley a health hazard?  Well, in some ways it probably is as puddings by their very nature tend to be sweet and sugar is without doubt one of the enemies of a healthy diet and a trim figure.   Pastries, pies and puddings contain fat and flour and they are not far behind sugar in being something to approach with care.   Also, by that stage of a meal we have probably had sufficient food so any extra is just that – extra.

But it is also life enhancing in so many other ways, the taste, the texture, the absolute chocolaty creaminess of it, and a little of that, in moderation, can't be all bad.

And to help you achieve it with minimum calories try using a milk frother for thick creamy froth - the effect without the guilt.  Chocolate optional.

How Much Do You Know About Cake?

Probably the most important ingredient for making any kind of cake is the flour and while most people rely on just one, self-raising flour, for most things, there are lots of others to choose from.  It might surprise you to know that there is a right kind of flour for everything and that the choice of which to use for what largely depends on the amount of gluten the flour contains.

Gluten is the substance which makes all the difference to the finished result of your baking.  Flour roughly divides into two types, high gluten, which is strong flour and low gluten, which is soft flour.  High gluten strong flour is usually known as bread flour and is used for most yeast based dough where high-raising, water absorbing qualities are needed.

For cake making soft, low gluten, flour works best as such a high rise is not needed and it gives a closer, finer texture to the finished product.  Biscuits and shortbread need even less rise and that is why corn flour or rice flour is often added to the ordinary flour.

Most people who are making a cake for their family will probably just use self-raising flour from a packet they have bought during the weekly household shop and this will normally produce a perfectly satisfactory result.  If, however, you get really into baking you will discover that there is lots and lots to learn about flour, the various types, which sort works best for which recipes, the different combinations, when to add a raising agent – I could go on and on – and there are many excellent books on the subject.

The other ingredients necessary for making cake are a fat of some sort, butter, margarine, lard or oil, eggs and probably the most important, especially for sponge cakes, sugar. 

Caster sugar is the most commonly used but each of the other sorts of sugar, granulated, icing and the brown sugar family, can be used to good effect in the right recipe.  Syrup, treacle and honey all have their place, as do spices, essences, fruit, nuts and peel.

A word of warning – unlike quite a lot of the culinary arts cake making is fairly precise and weights and measurements should be taken reasonably seriously, as should oven temperatures and cooking times.

It's fun to bake and it is quite easy for it to become a serious pastime.  Homemade cake tastes just wonderful and the smell of something baking is one of the most evocative – right up there with bacon, coffee, frying onions and toast!

It's Easy To Make Cola – Isn't It?

Well, actually no, it is not that easy to make at home although it is apparently possible, with quite a lot of trouble, to make something that tastes very similar.  But why would you want to bother to do all that work when you can buy such great cola in the shops? 

The answer is that you probably would rather leave cola to the experts and concentrate on making delicious citrus fruit based drinks in your own kitchen, which taste just as delicious, if completely different, and which are much easier to make.  They also will have the great advantage of being pure and free from additives, with as much or as little sugar as suits your palate.

I'm talking about lemonade, lemon squash, orange and grapefruit squash, lemon or grapefruit barley water, elderflower cordial and a host of other drinks that your Grandma might have made but which have gone out of fashion as a home produced delicacy.  Of course you can buy some of these ready bottled but as with most things, nothing quite beats the taste of something you have made at home.

If you live in the country and grow your own fruit or if you have access to a market, you can take advantage of the seasonal glut of fruit and of the free food from the hedgerows, elderflower for example.  But everything you need for most standard citrus based drinks is easily obtainable in most supermarkets.

Fresh old fashioned still lemonade is one of the easiest of these to make and it is one of the most refreshing things you can drink on a hot summer day.  Best of all as it's only made with lemons, sugar and water you will already have everything you need.

Wash and thinly peel three lemons – a potato peeler will do the job perfectly well – and put the rind into a large jug with six ounces of sugar.  Pour on about a pint and a half of boiling water and cover the jug and leave it to cool, stirring occasionally.  When it is cold squeeze the lemons and add the juice to the jug, strain the lemonade and serve chilled.

Quick And Easy Supper Plan

When my children and their friends were young and played in each others houses quite randomly, I never knew very far in advance how many to expect at mealtimes.  It was quite normal for another two or three or four to join us at the table without much prior warning or even to have none at all and as a busy working woman, albeit from home, I had as little free time as everyone else.  Being firmly of the opinion that home cooked food is best whenever possible, and certainly for growing bodies, and wanting to be able to be spontaneously hospitable without spending too much money, a plan was clearly needed. 

I therefore got into the habit of making very large quantities of certain basics which I would freeze in portions, say enough for two or four in a tub, and stack my freezer with a week's supply – enough to feed a couple of dozen children.  This gave me a great advantage when faced with the unplanned arrivals and allowed me to agree to the request with peace of mind and the knowledge that I would not have to take everyone out for pizza.

Very young children are notorious for not liking some vegetables, or even any vegetables at all, at least mine were, while they will happily wolf down pasta and potato (which for some reason doesn't count as a vegetable) with meat sauce - as long as there are no lumps.  Once I had taken this on board the rest was easy and one of my basics was born - mince.  Now I know this does not sound very appetizing but wait…

The first thing to do is to make sure that the meat does not have too much fat in it and that it is minced finely.  Then for every two pounds of meat allow an onion, red or Spanish are kinder to the eyes, a carrot or two depending on the size, some finely chopped spinach (you can buy this frozen – use about four spheres) and a medium tin of whole plum tomatoes or a jar of plain passata.  If you want to you can add other vegetables as well.

Proceed in the normal way – chop and sweat the onion, add and fry the meat, grate the carrot and put in the spinach and tomatoes together with two tomato tins of water.  Season lightly and cook gently for at least four hours.  This sounds like a long time but it is crucial.  Stir the pot from time to time, quite vigorously to break up the vegetables, and don't let it boil dry or the mixture will stick to the bottom and burn.

It is ready when you have a thick homogenous mass.  Allow it to cool, check the seasoning and then distribute amongst your portion-size tubs and freeze.  You can make as much of this as you have room to store or will fit into your biggest pan.

With this as a starting point you have at least four fairly instant meal possibilities - spaghetti Bolognese, shepherds pie, lasagne and chilli con carne - which can be put together really quickly.  With the addition of a little garlic and red wine for the pasta and spices, vinegar, sugar and beans for the chilli, you can have a totally different taste in minutes, and it's not just children who like it!

Is There A Problem With Fish?

Some people really have a problem with fish.  Of course an allergy problem is one thing and can't be helped; this kind of problem is usually caused by shellfish and the effects can range from a mild rash or sensation of nausea right up to a life threatening condition.  Indeed it can often be extremely dangerous for the sufferer especially if they are not aware that they are allergic.

The other sort of problem is possibly more common and is to do with fish itself, the taste, the smell and most of all the bones.  This is a shame really as fish is a good source of protein and in addition oily fish are rich in vitamins A and D and Omega 3. 

Fish as food roughly divides into categories, sea and freshwater, white and oily, with some crossover between the groups.  Shellfish don't fit into any of these and are classified separately.  With the exception of salmon and trout most of the fish usually found in the shops, especially pre-packed, are saltwater varieties and the popularity of some species, cod for example, has led to overfishing and worries about sustainability.

Another problem people have with fish is how to cook it.  Although it is just as easy to cook as meat it requires a lighter touch and if you are starting from the beginning with a whole fish or a piece with skin and bones still attached there is quite a lot of preparation to be done first.

Fortunately supermarkets and food manufacturers have come to our rescue and most varieties of popular fish are now available either packaged with sauce or a coating and ready to cook or pre-prepared for our own recipes.

One of the easiest of fish dishes to prepare and eat is fish pie and it has the advantage of being suitable for all ages.  The other advantage of this is that it can be made in advance and frozen and just heated up when it is needed.  Just be sure it is really hot right the way through before serving.

 It is best made with firm white fish, poached gently in water (take off the skin and remove the bones if any), combined with a veloute sauce and topped with potato, sliced or mashed, or sliced tomatoes.  You can add chopped hardboiled egg, spinach, mushrooms or prawns if you like. 

The sauce is made by adding the cooking water to a roux of butter and flour and stirring until it has thickened.  You then adjust the seasoning and add a little cream if you wish.  Alternatively use a cornflour paste instead of the roux.