Squeeee-DINK!

Soundtrack to the day: Steph MacLeod and Sam Williams (both well worth a listen!)

Well yesterday I returned to an old friend...

Ah, decaf americano, how I have missed thee.

Suitably refreshed, I bought my mystery ingredient:

Can you guess what it is?

No?

The clue's in the title: it's squid ink!  Or, once it's gone through the D:Team perception filter, squee-DINK!

Now what might I possibly want that for?  Well, I've been making my own pasta lately, so some is destined for that (but not until I have gloves; don't fancy ending up with blackened, squiddy mitts).  I also bought some squid, and a little goes a long way with squid, so much of it is in the freezer now.

Incidentally I also had the most expensive haircut of my life.  It was fine, but not worth THAT much.  I was in shock.

But yesterday I made...

Arroz Negra!

Or black paella as it's also known.

Delicately fishy and ever so easy to make as well as being cheaper than you might think, it was a bit of a winner.  And it goes like this (for two greedy people):

1. Fry plenty of garlic and some spring onions
2. Add 300g paella rice and stir around for a few moments to get nicely cooked in
3. Add 450ml fish stock and the contents of the squid ink sachet.  Do not get it on your hands/clothes/cat/children
4. Mostly cover and leave at a gentle simmer for about 15 minutes
5. Check on it, remove the lid and add more water if needs be
6. Once the rice is pretty much done and is sticky with very little sauce, get going with the squid
7. Fry the squid rings in a really hot pan for just a couple of moments.  Err on the side of undercooked to avoid getting rubber rings
8. Serve.  Try to avoid getting cat hair in it.  Ahem.


Which was very exciting and paved the way for today nicely - fish being brain food and all.

D:Team were given the choice of what to study this term from a carefully selected list and went for Proverbs, so we kicked that off this evening.

Let it not be said that I waste time on unnecessary graphical flim flammery.  Ahem.

Reading Proverbs is like wandering around a town of cartoon characters; one moment you're chatting to the fool, the next you're listening to the voice of the Woman Wisdom or spotting the sluggard hiding behind his door (the lions! The lions!)  Each person in Proverbsville is listening to the voice of one of two people:

Either you're listening to the Woman Folly, in which case you will end up on the path of folly which leads to... death!  Or you're listening to the Woman Wisdom whose words lead you onto the path of wisdom which leads to... life!

Over the next few weeks we will be looking at some of these characters as they make their way through Proverbsville and find out who they're listening to and what effect that has had on them.

Step-by-Step Fish Pie!

I found myself with a glut of parsnips, plenty of leeks and some unspecified white fish.  It might be pollock.  It might not.  For illustrative purposes only, here is a pollock.

We caught these on a fishing trip off Tresco a couple of years ago and had them barbecued for tea.  The fish for the pie came, rather more prosaically, from Asda.

And so, to the pie:

1. Make sure every pan you own is available for use and that the dishwasher is empty.
2. Poach fish in milk with salt, pepper, ground mace and a bay leaf.
3. Remove fish to a plate, use poaching milk to make white sauce.
4. Cook leeks in butter.  Abandon pretence at this being a health food.
5. Boil parsnips until soft (to a given value of softness; these are parsnips after all.)
6. Mash parsnips in food processor with plenty of butter and milk until creamy.  Think not about your waist line.
7. Put fish and leeks into baking dish, pour over white sauce.
8. Pipe parsnip mash on top, sprinkle on parmesan cheese.
9. Put in oven on timer to be ready for tea time.
10. Hope for the best.

Now I can sit down and have a think about things that are coming up while the kettle boils.

This afternoon I need to come up with some exciting ideas for camp, re-outline some Proverbs stuff for D:Team and write a talk about Ehud for Enigma.

Ehud was one of the judges of Israel, found, (strange enough to say) in the Bible in the book of Judges.  Judges tells us of the time between Israel settling in the land God gave them and the time of the last judge, Samuel, whose responsibilities included announcing the selection of the new King.

The judges were not people in the legal profession, but rather simply leaders who took charge in some or all of the nation of Israel, and their time in charge follows a very particular pattern; a downward spiral.

First off, the people would forget God and rebel against him, often by abandoning him and worshipping the gods of the surrounding nations.

God's response to rebellion against him is that of any good parent - he meters out punishment to show his children where they have gone wrong.  He allows the people that surround Israel to come in and overrule them.  They prove invariably to be harsh masters who make life hard and difficult for Israel.

After an amount of time (in the case of the story of Ehud, 18 years!) the people would finally cry out to God for help.  God is not a petulant father, he always hears the cries of his children, and so he would act...

... and raise up a rescuer, or judge, to save the people.  Hurrah!

The judge would bring peace to the region for the remainder of their days.
But on their death the people would abandon the LORD again and the whole thing would start again, only worse.  Worse rebellion, followed by punishment. They eventually cry to God and he rescues them with a judge and all is well until the death of the judge.

Rebellion, punishment, crying out, rescue, death

Worse rebellion, punishment, crying out, rescue, death

Yet worse rebellion, punishment, crying out, rescue, death

The rebellion gets worse and the personal qualities of the judge deteriorate likewise.  The downward spiral starts with Othniel, and makes its way through the suspicious cowardice of Gideon, the frank immorality of Samson and ends with borderline civil war and the indictment of the end of the book: that everyone did as he saw fit.

Doesn't it just make you ache for a leader, a judge, who will not be a moral dirtbag, but even more than that, who will not be held by the power of death.

Now who might that be, do you think?

Honey Biscuits, or manna in the desert

Soundtrack to the evening: History of the Brain podcast.

The lack of recent posts has been due not to a lack of material, but to a lack of time to get any of it down on paper (as it were).

Tomorrow is Holiday Club Reunion, and we'll be looking at God's grace in looking after his people in the desert with the provision of quail and manna.  According to Exodus 16, manna tasted a little like wafers made with honey.  Well!  That's a challenge not to be resisted, so some honey biscuits were definitely the order of the day (as well as quail made of funky foam, but more of those another time, perhaps).  This recipe is adapted from one given to me by my lovely friend Kathryn.

Cream together 75g butter (I try and remember to take it out of the fridge at least an hour before trying to cook with it) and 3 tablespoons of honey.  I used set honey because, to be honest, it was on the reduced counter in the co-op.

Add 1 cup of sugar, I used light brown muscovado, and cream again.

Chuck in 1 1/2 cups plain flour and beat in.

You could take the whole lot out and knead it a little, but I just kneaded each little bit in turn.  About 1 rounded tsp of mixture to a cookie.  I made two batches and they both came out at exactly 20 biscuits, which annoys me because I like multiples of 6 when I'm cooking.

Knead the dough briefly until it stops crumbling, then shape into a flattened round.  Put onto a baking sheet lined with greaseproof.  Put them further apart than shown here or they'll run together.

Bake for 10-12 minutes.  Mine took up two baking sheets per batch, so I did 8 minutes, swapped them around and gave them a further 3 1/2 minutes.

Allow to cool before attempting to remove them from the greaseproof.  They will come out of the oven quite poofey, then settle down into a golden, chewy mass.  Mmm, mmm, mmm!

All I need now is a nice roast quail...

Mrs Banks' Treacle Toffee

Soundtrack: Radio 4.  What else?

I was moodling about on the internet the other day and came across a mention of treacle toffee.  I had one of those moments so beloved of food writers: a childhood flashback.  In my case, to sitting around the kitchen table wrapping pieces of treacle toffee in squares of greaseproof paper and popping them in a paper bag while simultaneously trying to snaffle as many pieces as possible without Mum noticing.  I suspect I was more successful in the snaffling than the sneaking.  It's the ultimate autumn activity for me, and the best thing to have for bonfire night.

Any who, after a quick phone call to Mum this morning for some expert tips and to get her recipe, I made a start.  The recipe came originally from Mrs Banks, a lady who went to our church when I was a child and Mum reckons it's the best, and she should know, being an expert in things like how to boil sugar properly.

Start by buttering the life out of a tin about 10 x 7".

I used my silicone one.  The mixture is going to get to around 150C.  My silicone tin can take 250C so was fine.

Melt the main body of your butter (or hard marg, but not the spreading stuff!) over a low heat.

Add the rest of your ingredients (I gave myself 10/10 for oiling my spoon before putting it in the treacle) and heat them really gently until there are no sugar crystals left.  This took at least half an hour, so do be patient!  I also changed implement for a silicone spatula which scraped the sides better.  I remembered to clean the wooden spoon straight away with hot water, so well done me again.  I used some of the time to empty the dishwasher and let the cat in and out, remembering to stir the mix regularly.

Only once there's no gritty sugar left can you raise the temperature and boil it rapidly for 5 minutes.
Test what stage it's got to using some cold water.  I had been a bit of a scaredy cat over the boiling, so I gave it a minute or two longer.

Pour it into the waiting tin.  You might want to put the tin onto the draining board because the metal will dissipate the heat better than the worktop will (another top Mum hint there).
As it cools, mark it out into squares.

Once it's cooled, break it up.  I started trying to cut it and then tried hitting it with the heel of my knife which worked well.  I like my toffee at the stage where it's quite hard and then goes chewy and sticks your teeth together.  If you do it less hard, you might find it easier to chop up.  Keep the pieces fairly separate.

Put something good on the radio, like the episode of In Our Time about the moon (if the link has expired, try the In Our Time Archive.  Many happy hours await you) and wrap each piece up in a piece of greaseproof paper.

For proper authenticity, put them into a paper bag.  As you can see, this will take a while.  Try not to eat all the toffee.
If any bits are really small, put a few together into one little packet, they'll fuse together in no time.

Take to your bonfire party and enjoy!

If you'd like a copy of the ingredients, leave me a comment including how to get in touch.

Now, back to Melvin Bragg, then on to write LARS advent sessions.  Hurrah for autumn!