Hasselback potatoes

How's that for an incentive?

This week, I have mostly been working from home - wading through a giant stack of undergraduate exam papers. I feel that this kind of task is best met not in an office full of people, but in velour joggers* on a large sofa, with tea on tap and access to periodic 'incentives' (such as this morning's elevenses - a slice of my yummy Christmas cake).

Anyhoo, earlier this week as a little reward for getting through the first batch, I decided to act on a colleague's tip about Booth's supermarket. I'd never heard of it before, but when she painted it as a paradise of obscure and wonderful culinary delights, I knew I'd have to take the trip out there. It would have been nice to get out of the house anyway, but the whole trip took on the air of pilgrimage when I made what I consider to be one of my most significant foodie discoveries ever... Vegetarian Parmesan, by Bookhams. It comes in a lovely big hard wedge, unlike the 'free from' powdered version. They can't actually call it Parmesan due to European rules, so it's called Vegetarian Pasta Cheese instead - made with vegetarian rennet.

Now of course this discovery deserves a fancy-schmancy application, probably courtesy of Hugh F-W's River Cottage Veg cookbook. And that will come in a few days.

But in the meantime, let's go back to basics with a Mary Berry recipe that basically cooks itself, leaving you free to sit trundling though stacks of essays to your heart's content. This comes from Mary Berry's Complete Cookbook. I was introduced to the 2003 edition by my old friend the jazz trumpeter and have never looked back. It's a brilliant reference work of pretty much every well-known recipe you could want to make, from Cinnamon buns to Teriyaki and Nasi Goreng to Vegetable terrine. The new edition is currently available for pre-order on Amazon, so if you don't yet own a copy - go out and buy it at once!

*Yes, velour. I simply couldn't part with them after the ill-advised velour tracksuit phase of about ten years ago, so now they come out as a guilty pleasure at marking time. Judge if you want.

Hasselback potatoes

Allow one large potato per person as a side dish, or two as a main meal with a side salad.

Ingredients:

large potatoes (as many as necessary)

one knob of butter, melted per each two potatoes

salt and pepper

Parmesan cheese, grated - enough to sprinkle over each potato

Method:

1. Cut a thin slice of the bottom of each potato so that it will sit flat on a baking tray. Push a skewer through the potato length-wise, a quarter of the way up the potato.

2. Make vertical cuts, three-quarters of the way through the potato, at roughly 5mm intervals. You can just cut all the way down to the skewer without worrying about not accidentally chopping all the way through. Remove the skewer and prepare the rest of the potatoes in a similar way.

3. Put the potatoes on a baking sheet, and brush with the melted butter, making sure that it goes down all the cracks. Season with salt and pepper.

4. Bake in a preheated oven at 220 degrees celcius for about 40 minutes, then sprinkle the parmesan on top and bake for another 10 minutes.

5. Serve at once!

The Fake British Bake-Off (Mary Berry's Tarte Au Citron)

A few weeks ago, a friend sent me a message with a wonderful TV viewing tip - The Great British Bake-Off, featuring my all-time culinary idol, Mary Berry. I have to admit to hearing of her greatness rather late in life, when, in 2007, I moved into a shared house with a very fun jazz trumpeter, who was the proud owner of her “Complete Cookbook”. Together with our other lovely housemate, Messner, we threw ourselves wholeheartedly into ‘Mary Berry Mondays’, when we’d take it in turns to try out some of her recipes.

But I digress... what with Belarus, wedding cakes, and a couple of conferences to prepare for, I managed to completely forget about the series until it became the primary topic of conversation over lunch with an old school friend this week. It was definitely worth the wait. We jumped in at episode 2 – pastries – a topic I must admit to having little expertise in. The competitors had to make their own interpretations of particular pastry types, including a classic quiche, and some sweet tartes. After that, came the technical challenge - to recreate Mary Berry’s Tarte au Citron. As I watched, I could feel my mouth beginning to water uncontrollably. Since moving out from the trumpeter and Messner, I have acquired my own copy of Mary Berry’s Complete Cookbook, so here’s my take on her delicious lemon tarte.

Mary Berry’s Tarte Au Citron

 

Ingredients:

9 eggs

300ml (1/2 pint) double cream

Grated zest and juice of 5 large lemons

375g (12 oz) caster sugar

Icing sugar for dusting

Lemon twists or zest to decorate

Pastry:

250g (8 oz) plain flour

125g (4oz) chilled butter, cubed

60g (2 oz) caster sugar

1 egg

28cm (11in) loose-bottomed fluted flan tin

Baking beans

Method:

1. Make the pastry: rub butter into lour in a large bowl, until it reaches the consistency of breadcrumbs.

2. Stir in the caster sugar, then bind together with the egg to make a soft, pliable dough. Wrap in cling film and chill for 30mins.

3. Roll out the dough on a lightly loured surface and use to line the flan tin. Prick gently then bake blind for 10 minutes at 200 degrees Celsius. Usually I use dried chick peas on top of tin foil when I bake blind. However, this flan is very large and my chick peas barely made an impact, so instead, I weighted the pastry down with a few small ramekins.

4. Remove the baking beans (or ramekins!) and foil, then bake the pastry shell for another 5 minutes until it had dried out (no soggy bottoms for Mary!)

5. Remove the pastry case from the oven, and reduce the temperature to 180 degrees Celsius.

6. Beat the eggs in a bowl and add the cream, lemon zest and juice, and caster sugar. Stir until smooth, then pour into the pastry shell.

7. Bake for 35-40 minutes until the lemon filling has set.

8. Leave to cool a little, then decorate with icing sugar and lemon twists or zest.