Potato Scones

This is a great recipe for using up leftover mashed potato. The dough for the scones can be made very quickly and all-in-all this is an incredibly fuss-free recipe to make. From start to finish it takes about 25 minutes to whip up a batch.

I have mentioned before how my family are not big potato eaters, favouring rice or pasta based meals. However, there is a kitchen stampede whenever there are home-cooked roast potatoes on offer. My children also like to eat mashed potatoes but exert rigorous quality control and will reject without mercy any mash that contains lumps or is gluey in texture. Luckily I have a potato ricer – an invaluable piece of kitchen equipment, which ensures lump-free, silky mashed spuds!

I like to use a floury potato like a King Edward or a Rooster to make mashed potatoes and thereafter these scones when I have leftovers. Feel free to use whatever potato variety you prefer, the only caveat being to steer away from waxy or new potatoes as they will make your finished scones quite heavy.

The finished scones are surprising light to eat and this is in part achieved by using a floury potato, but also by handling the mixed dough as little as possible once you have mixed it up.

If you don’t have leftover mashed potato, you can of course cook some potatoes specifically for use in these scones. Rather that peeling and boiling the potatoes, I bake them and then scoop out the hot flesh and pass it through a potatoes ricer (you don’t need to add milk or butter – but rather use the potatoes as they are).

I have kept these scones simple; merely flavouring them with a little sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, but you can experiment and add fresh herbs or spices. I particularly like the inclusion of chopped chives or thyme and sometimes a pinch of ground cayenne pepper adds a certain piquancy, whilst the addition of caraway seeds creates an unusual scone that is perfect to eat with smoked salmon.

One final recommendation – if you are a butter lover as I am, you must have one of these scones as they emerge piping hot fresh from the oven, split and spread generously with butter… absolute heaven!!!

      

Ingredients:

225g self-raising flour
A pinch of sea salt and a little freshly ground black pepper

50g butter, softened

175g mashed potato

1 egg, lightly beaten

25 - 50ml milk
 

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 200C/Fan Oven 180C/Gas Mark 6. Lightly flour a baking tray and set aside.

2. Sieve the flour and salt into a large mixing bowl and add some freshly ground black pepper. Rub in the butter so that the mixture resembles breadcrumbs and there are no large lumps of butter remaining. (If you want to add other ingredients, by way of freshly chopped herbs or any spice, do it at this stage and mix through).

3. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and add the egg and enough milk to make a make a soft dough when everything is mixed together. (You may not need all the milk so add it gradually).

4. Turn the dough out on to a lightly floured work-surface, knead briefly and flatten with your hands until it is about 3cms thick. Cut out rounds from the dough using a 6-7cm round cookie cutter and place on the prepared baking tray. Gather up the off cuts and use to cut out some more scones.

5. Brush the top of the scones with a little milk and sprinkle a pinch of sea salt on top of each. Bake in the preheated oven for 15-17 minutes until well risen and golden brown.

Makes 6-8 scones.
 

Greengage Custard Tart

I have fallen completely in love with greengages – a variety of plum which possess a beautiful sweetness. Greengages are considered a dessert plum and can be eaten raw, but I find that they really come into their own when cooked or baked. This makes them perfect for using in cakes, tarts and a whole range of other recipes.

When cooked, greengages are still succulent and, as already mentioned, their natural sweetness is enhanced, but they don’t release excessive juice that adversely affects the cake or tart in which they are baked.

One of the most attractive qualities of greengages is their colour, which can range from golden yellow to an iridescent green, like the ones that I purchased recently and are in the photos accompanying this post.

Greengages are extremely popular in France, but can be difficult enough to get your hands on in conventional supermarkets in Ireland. Luckily my local farmers’ market had some, so not being familiar with them and feeling a little adventurous, I snapped up a large quantity. I can truly say that I was impressed with them and thought they had a refinement about them that ordinary plums don’t necessarily have.

Greengages thrive in temperate climates and can be grown very successfully in Ireland provided you have a sheltered spot. They don’t tend to be grown commercially on a large scale, but are more often found in a domestic setting.

With my newly discovered enthusiasm for this beautiful fruit, I think that I would definitely love to plant a few trees and a visit to a few garden centre and nurseries looks like it will soon be on the cards. Apparently greengage jams and compotes are incredibly delicious so rather than have to go on the hunt for the fruit when it is in season, it would be wonderful to be able to go out to my back garden and pick fruit from my own trees.

The recipes that I recently posted for financiers and friands used quite a large number of egg whites, which meant that I have had quite a few yolks left over. Keen to use up some of these I decided that for my first greengage ‘experiment’ I would make a custard tart into which I would set the greengages. To be honest, this is merely a variation of a custard tart that I often make using other stone fruits. I have successfully made it using peaches, plums, cherries and apricots, so rather than overcomplicate matters I opted to make a greengage version. It was absolutely heavenly. The silky, just-set custard with the baked greengages slightly caramelised at the edges on a crisp pastry base was one of the most delicious things I have ever eaten – it truly was!

Although I have made a classic custard, simply flavoured with the seeds of a vanilla pod, other flavours could be added. I think that ginger would work particularly well with the greengages, so the next time I make this tart, I think that I will infuse the custard with a little preserved stem ginger or alternatively I might use some ground ginger in the pastry.

I served the finished tart completely cooled, but not chilled – this meant that the custard was velvety smooth and had a subtlety of taste that still remained but would have been lost had it been served chilled. This tart is better eaten on the day that it is made, but if you do want to store it in the fridge I strongly recommend that you allow it to come back up to room temperature.

I chose to serve the tart as it was, without any accompaniments, as I really felt that it was rich enough without adding whipped cream or ice-cream on the side.

Ingredients:

Pastry:
175g plain flour

50g icing sugar

100g butter, cubed

1 egg yolk

1tblsp water

To grill the greengages:

8-10 greengages, halved and stoned

2tblsp caster sugar

A little lightly beaten egg white to seal the pastry

Custard:

1 large egg + 3 yolks

50g caster sugar

The seeds from 1 vanilla pod or 1tsp of vanilla extract
250ml double cream

100ml milk
 

Method:

Pastry:

1. Sieve the flour and icing sugar into a large mixing bowl. Add the diced butter and using your fingertips, rub into the flour until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs.

2. Make a well in the centre and add the egg yolk and water. Using a fork, mix everything until it comes together into a dough. Turn out on to a lightly floured work surface and knead briefly to form a smooth ball. Wrap in cling film and place in the fridge to rest for at least half an hour.

To blind-bake the pastry:

3. Preheat the oven to 190C/Fan Oven 170C/Gas Mark 5.

4. Roll out the pastry thinly to a thickness of about 4mm and use to line a 23cm round x 4cm deep tart tin with removable base. Place on a large baking tray.

5. Prick the pastry several times with a fork and then place some crumpled non-stick baking parchment on the pastry. Fill with baking beans and bake in the preheated oven for 20 minutes.

Remove the baking parchment and baking beans and brush the pastry with some of the beaten egg-white. Return to the oven for a further 10 minutes.

6. Remove the blind-baked pastry base from the oven and set aside to cool. Reduce oven temperature to 140C/Fan Oven 130C/Gas Mark 1.

To grill the greengages:

7. Put the temperature on your grill up to the highest setting.

8. Place all the greengages, cut side up on a small baking tray and sprinkle over 2 tablespoons of caster sugar. Place under the grill for 5 minutes until the sugar melts and is starting to caramelise on the greengages. Remove from the grill and set aside to cool.

Custard:

9. In a medium sized mixing bowl and using a hand-held electric mixer, beat the eggs, sugar and seeds from the vanilla pod together until pale and creamy and the sugar has dissolved. Slowly add the cream and milk. Pass through a sieve into a clean jug.

To finish:

10. Place the grilled greengages, slightly overlapping and cut side up in the blind-baked pastry shell. Carefully pour in the custard and bake in the preheated oven for 45-55 minutes.

11. The tart is ready when the custard is almost set, but still has a very slight wobble in the centre (it will continue cooking as it cools). Remove from the oven and allow to cool. As the tart is baked at a low temperature, the custard will barely colour and will merely be a cream colour

Serves 8.
 

Chicken Pie with Stuffing Dumplings

This is definitely pie weather. I love the advent of autumn, when the leaves begin to turn brown and the evenings start lengthening. I love the smell of autumn and the crisp mornings that give way to often beautiful afternoons when the sun shines through the fantastically coloured leaves that still cling on to the trees branches before they eventually give up their struggle when winter sets in. Most of all, I love the foods that are available in autumn. There just seems to be a real sense of bounty and abundance as the growing season stutters to a halt and everything is harvested.

Apples, pears, plums, blackberries, mushrooms, game... the list is endless and the opportunities for the cook, equally so! In particular, I equate autumn with comfort food; food that is warming to the belly, body and soul – food that is…well… just comforting to eat! I love the freshness and vitality of the foods that are available in spring and summer, but these are not really the seasons of comfort food.

Pies are perfect food for this time of year. I often prepare the filling in advance and then, just before it is required, I top it with buttery pastry and then bake it so that it emerges golden brown from the oven with some of the gravy or sauce juices bubbling up around the edges of the pastry and the savoury aromas tempting you to sample its glories. I defy anyone to exercise restraint when presented with such a wondrous thing!

Pies don’t have to be fancy things… and really, any casserole or stew mixture can be tumbled into a pie dish, topped with pastry and called a pie. Pies can be made from the leftover meat from roast dinners or can be made from scratch. Often when I’m making a stew, I make double the quantity so that I can make a pie for the next day’s dinner.

In this recipe I have poached a whole bird as I prefer the meat cooked this way rather than roasted in advance when making a chicken pie. Poaching the chicken also has the added advantage of creating a beautifully flavoured stock, some of which is used to create the gravy for the pie and the remainder can be used as the basis for a well-flavoured soup either a chicken noodle soup or my favourite when I have a good homemade stock – minestrone!

Classic chicken pies combinations are chicken and mushroom or chicken and leek pie, but here I wanted something that included something a little bit more substantial. I toyed with the idea of adding some parboiled potatoes, but felt that these would probably disintegrate when completely cooked and make the overall pie very stodgy and a little laborious to eat. I also didn’t want a very thick creamy sauce but wanted the intense flavours of the stock to come through without the addition of cream.

In the end I decided to make little stuffing balls or dumplings as I have called the. I made these out of breadcrumbs, sweated onions, lemon zest, herbs and sausage meat and browned them lightly before adding them to my pie mixture. They were absolutely delicious and struck a perfect balance between giving the pie a little more substance but without being heavy to eat.

 

The pastry that you top your pie with is very much a matter of choice and preference. Shortcrust pastry can be used but I favour the use of puff pastry. Although, I do make puff pastry every now and again and despite the fact that it is not difficult, it is time consuming, so for something like this pie and for convenience I would recommend using store-bought puff.

 

Ingredients:

To poach the chicken:
1 whole free-range, ‘oven-ready’ chicken
2 onions peeled and halved

3 or 4 sticks of celery chopped into large chunks

3 large carrots, peeled and chopped into large chunks

3 garlic cloves, peeled and bruised

2 bay leaves

1 large sprig of thyme

8 peppercorns

Stuffing balls:

25g butter

1 small onion, peeled and chopped finely

150g fresh white breadcrumbs

½ tblsp fresh sage

1tblsp fresh thyme, finely chopped

1tblsp fresh parsley

Finely grated zest of 1 lemon

100g sausagemeat

1tblsp vegetable oil

Sauce:

25g butter

1 onion, peeled and finely chopped

125g smoked lardons or smoked bacon sliced into lardons

400ml stock in which the chicken was cooked

A squeeze of lemon juice

Salt & freshly ground pepper

2 carrots, peeled and sliced into rounds about ½ cm thick and parboiled for 10 minutes

To finish:

300g puff pastry

1 egg, beaten
 

Method:

To poach the chicken:

1. Place the chicken along with all the other poaching ingredients into a large saucepan and cover with cold water to just cover. Place on the hob and bring up to the boil. Place a lid loosely on top of the saucepan and reduce the temperature so that the chicken is simmering gently. Allow to simmer for an hour.

2. Once the chicken is cooked remove from the stock and set aside to cool slightly before picking off the meat. Try not to break up the meat too much, but rather cut it into bite-sized chunks. Set aside.

3. Meanwhile throw the carcass back into the stock that you have created and allow everything to simmer away whilst you get on with making the stuffing balls. Do not cover saucepan this time as you want to intensify the flavours, by letting them reduce slightly.

Stuffing balls:

4. Heat the butter in a frying pan and sweat the onion for about ten minutes until soft and translucent in colour. Do not allow to colour. Add the breadcrumbs and stir gently with a wooden spoon so that they take on the buttery pan juices and the onion is well mixed in.

5. Transfer to a mixing bowl and add the chopped herbs and mix through again. Set the mixture aside and allow to cool slightly. Add the sausagemeat and mix in. I find it easier to use my hands to do this. Once everything is thoroughly mixed together, use your hands to roll little balls of the mixture, about the size of an unshelled walnut.

6. Heat the vegetable oil in a small frying pan and gently fry the stuffing balls on all sides until they are a light golden brown colour. Remove from the frying pan and place on some absorbent paper to mop up any excess oil.

Sauce:

7. Heat the butter in a small saucepan and once gently bubbling add the bacon lardons and allow to cook for 4 to 5 minutes over a moderate heat before adding the chopped onion. Continue to cook for a further 5 minutes.

8. Sprinkle over the flour and stir in using a small wooden spoon. Add a ladle of the chicken stock and allow to bubble before adding another ladle of stock, mixing all the time. Gradually add the remainder of the 400ml of stock. You will have quite a light sauce. Finally add in the cooked carrots add the lemon juice and season well, adjusting to taste.

To finish:

9. Preheat oven to 200C/Fan Oven 180C/Gas Mark 6.

10. Place a large pie dish on a baking tray. Place the reserved chicken and stuffing balls in the pie dish and pour over the sauce, making sure that everything is well coated. Brush the rim with a little beaten egg and set aside.

11. Roll out the pastry into a rectangle about 25cm x 20cm and approximately ½ cm thick.

12. Cut a thin strip the width of the rim of your pie dish from the edge of the pastry. Place this strip, bending it to shape around the rim. Place the rest of the pastry sitting on this rim, covering the top of your pie encasing the filling. Trim around the edge and crimp the edges if you wish. You can also use pastry off-cuts to decorate the pie if you wish. Brush the top of the pie with a little of the beaten egg and bake in the preheated oven for 35-40 minutes until the pastry is well risen and golden brown. Remove from the oven and serve.

Serves 6.