I attended the Real Food Festival this month (as I have done since it begun). And as always happens there is more there I want to buy than my bags will allow. This year I also took my camera. I want to highlight a few of the products I did successfully capture. The first is Avlaki olive oil. The oils are single estate, organic, unfiltered and from the 2010/11 harvest. The estates are located on the Greek island of Lesvos and owned by Natalie Wheen and Deborah MacMillan. There were two oils that caught my attention: the first from the Agatherí groves, at 600m above sea level (‘mountain oil’) and the second from the Avlaki groves, just above sea level. I opted for a bottle of the Agatherí estate oil (but would have bought both if I had had a donkey to assist with the carrying). It’s a lovely, peppery but very light olive oil. By way of example, I drizzled some over a tomato, mozzarella and herb salad.
Avlaki Olive Oils at the Real Food Festival 2011Tomato, mozzarella and herb salad with Avlaki olive oilDetail from tomato, mozzarella and herb salad
The salad is very simply to prepare. I found a good selection of tomato varieties at one of the two fruit and vegetable stalls in Oxford’ Covered Market; sliced them; sprinkled with sea salt; added slices of Mozzarella di Bufala Campana DOP purchased from the Oxford Cheese Shop (just opposite the vegetable stall); sprinkled with roughly chopped or torn fresh herbs from the garden (parsley, oregano, chives), and drizzled with the Avlaki olive oil.
Sorrel soup, with a fresh lemon and subtle sour taste can be made from either wild or garden sorrel (we have both). You don’t need much sorrel and I usually pair it with something else green (spinach, for example, or in this case, asparagus). For even more substance, serve the soup with side offerings of chopped boiled new potatoes, chopped boiled egg and sour cream.
Sorrel and asparagus soup
1 white onion, chopped
1 courgette, chopped
2 sticks of celery, chopped
2-3 garlic cloves, crushed
Sprig of fresh thyme
1 bay leaf
100ml white wine
Bunch of sorrel leaves — separate any thick stalks from leaves; chop the stalks and rip the leaves
Bunch of asparagus — trim and roughly chop. Vegetable stock (approx 0.5-1 litre; if making for this soup, use asparagus trimmings) Seasoning
Sauté the chopped onion, courgette, celery, sorrel stalks and garlic in a little oil until softened. Add thyme and bay leaf. Add the white wine and raise the heat to evaporate the alcohol. Add sorrel and asparagus. Add stock just to cover the vegetables. Season. Lower heat to gentle simmer. When asparagus cooked, remove thyme and bay leaf. Blend the soup to preferred texture. Add more stock if too thick. Let cool slightly and serve.
There’s nothing like boxes of overflowing local asparagus to confirm that spring is starting to turn to summer. The fresher the better. To serve with a leg of hogget this Easter I prepared two dishes: a raw asparagus salad, and a sauce of asparagus and mint. The raw asparagus salad was derived from a recipe published in Antonio Carluccio and Gennaro Contaldo’s Two Greedy Italians (Quadrille, 2011). The sauce just seemed the natural thing to do.
Asparagus Salad
350g fresh local asparagus (or a good couple of handfuls)
A few wild or garden sorrel leaves (optional)
Squeeze of lemon juice
Drizzle of olive oil Salt and pepper
Generous shavings of Parmesan cheese
Remove tips from asparagus stalks. Trim the stalks of any really thick parts or tough skin. Slice stalks length-ways into four or more thin strips and halve. Arrange tips and asparagus matchsticks on dish. Dress with a squeeze of lemon juice and a drizzle of olive oil (you really want the taste of fresh asparagus to dominate). Sprinkle on some torn sorrel leaves (if using). Season. Grate a generous serving of parmesan shavings. Serve.
Asparagus salad
Asparagus and mint sauce
200ml vegetable stock (I actually used a couple of ladles of stock from cooking beans)
200g asparagus
Handful of mint leaves, chopped Salt and pepper
Cook asparagus in stock until tender (approximately 8 minutes). Remove from heat. Mix in mint leaves. Roughly blend the mixture. Season to taste. Leave to cool and serve.
Although I don’t claim to be particularly religious, I do like the surviving private (as in ‘within the home’) rituals associated with food. The day before Lent, Shrove Tuesday, for example, is the day when we blend together milk, eggs, and flour into pancakes (which we then eat with savoury and sweet fillings). So, the end of Lent, Easter, is marked with dishes that bring back (in rather large quantities) those foods we were not supposed to be eating during Lent. Pascha is one such dish, comprising cheese, eggs, cream, butter, sugar and decorated with dried fruits and nuts. Traditionally it is eaten with its own bread, kulich, but we usually just serve it with a similar Italian Easter bread (Colomba Pasquale, which I don’t make myself). Whilst I don’t own a traditional pascha ‘mould’ (I use a stainless steel conical colander that has lost its handle), I do retain something of the religious signage in the decoration.
Make this on Easter Saturday (i.e. the day before Easter). Use organic ingredients where you can.
500g tvorog cheese (sorry, I don’t have a recommended substitute — visit your local Russian delicatessen)
2 egg yolks
1 egg white
50g unsalted butter
100g caster sugar
150ml double cream (whipped)
1 tbsp mixed peel
1.5 tbsp almond flakes
1 cheesecloth
1 conical mould that allows for drainage (I use a colander; others seem to use well-scrubbed flower pots…) Raisins/sultanas, mixed peel, glacé cherries, blanched almonds for decoration
Whisk egg white until soft peaks are formed. Whisk egg yolks with half the sugar until light in colour. Beat butter with remaining sugar until fluffy. Combine egg-sugar mix with butter-sugar mix. Beat in tvorog. Fold in whipped cream. Fold in egg white. Fold in mixed peel and almond flakes.
Line the mould with the cheesecloth. Spoon the pascha mixture into the mould. Fold over the cheesecloth to protect the top of the pascha. Place the mould into a suitable dish to allow for drainage. Place saucer or other suitable disc on the top and then add a weight (I use a small but heavy marble mortar). Place in refrigerator and allow to drain overnight.
On Easter Sunday morning remove the weight; the jug with any water; and unwrap the cheesecloth from the top of the mould. Place a decorated plate over the top and carefully flip the mould and place upright. When you remove the remainder of the cheesecloth you should have a white, firm conical-shaped pascha which you can now decorate. It is traditional for the pascha to be marked with the cyrillic letters X and B (abbreviation for Христосъ Воскресe, “Christ is risen!”). Since I don’t have a traditional pascha mould, I do this with raisins or sultanas (this year, soaked in rum). The rest of the pascha is lightly decorated with peel, glacé cherries, and blanched almonds in the Byzantine fashion.
It is our tradition to consume (actually, battle with) dyed eggs for Easter Sunday breakfast. These are eggs naturally dyed in the Orthodox tradition using only onion skins. Although I don’t claim to follow lent in any other way, it is a useful period, after pancakes, in order to collect onion skins; sufficient for dying 15 eggs. I don’t know how many onions we consume over that six week period but there always seems to be enough (even this year, when a week of lent was spent away from home). I mix both red and white onion skins, storing them in a plastic bag next to the kitchen compost bin (the skins don’t go mouldy if only dried skins are retained). As you can see the resulting eggs are a lovely mahogany colour (especially after being polished with a little olive oil).
15 organic eggs Onion skins from around 15 red and/or white onions
2 tbsp vinegar (helps to prevent the eggs cracking) Olive oil (for polishing)
Put 15 eggs in a single layer in a wide-bottomed pan, set aside (and allow to reach room temperature if they’ve come out of the fridge). Put the onion skins and vinegar in a separate pan and cover with water. Bring to the boil and simmer for 30 minutes. Remove pan from the heat and let cool. Effectively you want to let the dye cool to a temperature where the eggs will not crack when bathed. Pour the dye (and skins) on to the eggs. bring back to the boil and simmer very gently for up to 20 minutes. Remove from the heat. Find and remove the eggs with a slotted spoon and place in bowl of cold water (this makes peeling the eggs easier when you come to eat them). If the eggs have not been sufficiently dyed, return them to the pan of onion dye. Do not re-heat but leave in the dye for an hour or so. Remove eggs. Dab a little olive oil on to a paper towel and polish each egg. Arrange on a plate and consume when cold.
I am rather lazy about baking hot cross buns. I have used the same bread machine (Panasonic SD253) since December 2004 for much of my bread-making, including dough for buns. In fact, I haven’t bought a supermarket loaf of bread since 2004 (though I do occasionally buy real bread from the Oxford farmers market and elsewhere). Also, after the closure of Palms Delicatessen in Oxford’s Covered Market, I haven’t found an alternative source for fresh yeast (one day I will do it properly with a sourdough starter…). So, for hot cross buns, into the bread machines goes organic strong wholemeal flour (250g), dried yeast, a little organic sugar, salt, organic olive oil, cinnamon, mixed spice, water and as much organic dried mixed fruit as the bread machine’s raisin dispenser will hold. The resulting dough is divided into eight buns, proved for 25 minutes, brushed with a cross paste of wholemeal plain flour and water, and then backed for 12 minutes at gas mark 7. The finished buns are glazed with a demerara sugar and water syrup. We ate today’s buns with clotted cream…
