Hot & Sour Prawn & Pineapple Soup

If you like spicy, fragrant food, this soup is just for you. It is incredibly quick to prepare, it looks wonderful and it tastes absolutely delicious.  I love the combination of prawns and pineapple with a background note of spicy heat supplied courtesy of the red chillies that have been included.  I have recommended using 3 or 4 red chillies, but you can use two if you’re not as keen on a bit of heat in your food.

Tamarind paste gives the sour element of this dish and whilst you will definitely notice its presence, it is not mouth-puckeringly sour in the way that biting on a slice of fresh lemon would be. I have been using tamarind paste a lot recently and love the depth of flavour it gives to those dishes in which it is used. I remember when I first became really interested in cookery and how difficult it used to be to source certain ingredients; I found it so frustrating! Thirty years ago you wouldn’t have had a hope of finding tamarind paste for sale in an Irish supermarket or shop and yet these days, ingredients like these can be found in many corner shops! For the enthusiastic and experimental cook, this is great.

 

As with all my recipes, I encourage you to put your own stamp on the dish… always taste as you go along and adjust seasoning, spicing etc. as necessary. I find it amazing that so many people cook without tasting! It is the most important step when cooking. I season using sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, but I also keep a lemon on hand as I find a squirt of fresh lemon juice can often enliven any dish without making it taste lemony… try it out… it really works!

This dish could be served as it is, almost like a substantial soup, but you could also serve it with rice as a light curry; it depends on how hungry you are feeling and what you are in the mood for. I like to serve it accompanied by flatbreads, which also serve as a vehicle to mop up all the yummy sauce!

 

To make this dish, you need to firstly create a paste base for the soup, but this is easy with the aid of a food processor. If you don’t have a food processor, you could chop the vegetables into small pieces and pound them along with the shrimp paste to blend everything together. The paste does not need to be absolutely smooth but everything does need to be well combined and broken down, particularly, the often fibrous fresh ginger and the lemongrass.

 

I think it is perhaps appropriate that I say a quick word about shrimp paste… this stuff looks seriously unappealing and when you spoon it out of its jar/container, it smells… well frankly… horrible! However, when mixed with the other ingredients and fried off in the pan, it is transformed and creates the most wonderfully complex base for the soup. So, don’t be put off by the shrimp paste in the beginning despite any initial reservations which you may have!

Ingredients:

Paste base for the soup:
3-4 thin red chillies, chopped
4-5 shallots, chopped

1 lemongrass stalk, outer husk removed and chopped finely

25g fresh ginger, peeled and chopped

1tsp shrimp paste

1tblsp vegetable oil

Soup:

1tblsp vegetable oil

2tblsp tamarind paste

1tblsp palm sugar (or Demerara sugar)

1 litre of vegetable stock

400g raw prawns, peeled and deveined

150g fresh pineapple, cut into small chunks

Salt & freshly ground black pepper

To finish:

Some fine egg noodles, cooked

1 lime cut into wedges

Some very thinly sliced red chilli pepper

Fresh coriander leaves
 

Method:

Paste base:

1. Place all the ingredients into the bowl of a food processor and pulse to create a paste. Alternatively pound the ingredients together using a pestle and mortar.

Soup:

2. Heat the oil in a medium sized, heavy based saucepan over a moderate heat and add the paste base for the soup. Fry gently for 2-3 minutes until it deepens a little in colour, stirring regularly so that it does not catch on the bottom of the pan.

3. Add the tamarind paste and sugar and stir well and then add the vegetable stock. Increase the heat under the saucepan and bring the mixture up to the boil. Then reduce the heat and allow to simmer for 10- 15 minutes, uncovered.

4. Add the prawns and pineapple and simmer for a further 5-7 minutes until the prawns are just cooked.

5. Serve in bowls with noodles and wedge of lemon and a little of the sliced chilli and fresh coriander scattered over the top.

Serves 4-6.

 

Baguettes

I will admit that there are times when I do feel ridiculously pleased with the results of my various experiments in the kitchen. I am not professionally trained and have never been on any cookery courses (other than the bread making course that I recently went on); I am merely an enthusiastic amateur who loves eating and cooking tasty and interesting food to share with those that I love. That’s it at its simplest. Furthermore, I love writing and sharing my enthusiasm for food, so it seems natural that I would do that here, on this blog.

 

My love of cookery stems from my love of eating and a desire to experience new tastes and flavours and seeing how I can use and adapt these to create the types of dishes that I crave and want to eat.

 

Initially when I started this blog, I was going to write about ALL the different things that I had been trying to cook for myself, family and friends, even some of the less-than-successful recipes, but I soon realised that this was not what I wanted my blog to be about. We all lead such busy lives and are bombarded, on a daily basis, with so much information from so many sources, that the last thing we want to do is trawl through a recipe which at the end of, the writer declares to be unsuccessful. I think that it is far more useful to test, tweak, and perfect the recipes in my own kitchen before publishing them for others to (hopefully) enjoy trying out! I always try to include any variations and significant issues that I have come across, hoping that by sharing my experiences, others will feel more confident in trying out the recipes.

 

Recently, many of the recipes that I have been cooking and working on have been quite technical and a little complicated. The challenge has been to simplify these without sacrificing taste or quality, so that they can be attempted in a normal home kitchen like mine. After trying out new ingredients or new processes, there is something so reassuring about going back to basics and doing a bit of bread making. Although I love challenging myself in the culinary sense, I also like to return to the basics…and really, there is nothing more basic than bread!

 

The bread making course that I attended in the Firehouse Bakery in Delgany, County Wicklow a couple of months ago really awakened something in me and I have been baking my own bread with increased confidence since then, adapting basic recipes to include other ingredients along the way. I love feeling the changes in the bread dough as you knead it and seeing it spring to life as the yeast gets to work and the dough rises as it proves. The smell of freshly baked bread is one of the most amazing things and its aroma acts like a magnet drawing others into the kitchen in pursuit of some to eat whilst it is still warm.

 

I have wanted to make my own baguettes for ages, so finally decided to give it a go and mightily pleased I was with the results! The recipe that I used is one by Patrick Ryan of the Firehouse Bakery, with a couple of slight changes that I have made. The recipe that I used was originally published in Food & Wine Magazine… an Irish magazine published monthly and can be accessed here.

 

The recipe needs to be started the night before so that the poolish has time to develop. Patrick states that this recipe creates 6 baguettes, but I divided the dough into 8 rather than 6 baguettes and preferred the slightly thinner results.
 

Ingredients:

Poolish:
250g strong white bread flour

250ml water

3g fresh yeast

Dough:

675g strong white bread flour

10g fine sea salt

5g fresh yeast

500g poolish

330ml water
 

Method:

Poolish:

1. Place all the ingredients in a clean medium sized mixing bowl and mix together thoroughly with a wooden spoon to create a very wet and sticky dough. Cover the bowl with cling-film and leave to sit at room temperature overnight.

Dough:

2. Place the flour and salt into a large mixing bowl and combine together using your hands. Crumble the yeast into the flour and mix through with your hands until well distributed.

3. Add the poolish which should be very aerated and risen after its night’s resting and add the water. Mix everything together with your hands to create a soft dough.

4. Turn the dough out onto a clean work-surface and knead for 12-15 minutes until smooth and silky. As usual resist the urge to flour the work-surface – as you continue kneading the dough, it will stop sticking to the surface.

5. Place the dough into a clean, lightly oiled bowl, cover with cling-film and set aside to prove for 60-90 minutes until the dough has doubled in size.

6. Turn the dough out on to a clean work-surface and knock back. Divide into 8 equal portions (I use my electronic scales to measure exactly, though you can do it by eye).

Shaping the dough:

7. Firstly shape each portion of dough into a ball and then working one ball at a time and flatten out into a rectangle (approximately 20cms x 15cms) with one of the long sides facing you. Take the edge closest to you start rolling up into a tight sausage like shape about 15cms long, crimping the edges with your fingers along the seam at intervals as you roll.

8. Using the palm of your hands and starting in the centre roll the dough out working your hands from the centre to the outside edges until doubled in length and each roll has pointy tips.

9. Arrange the formed baguettes on a clean tea-towel, heavily dusted with flour drawing the tea-towel up to separate each baguette as they are placed side by side. Love the baguettes to prove for 45 minutes until well risen.

To finish:

10. Preheat oven to its highest setting and lightly flour two large baking trays. Place an empty roasting dish on the bottom of your oven and allow to heat up along with the oven.

11. Carefully roll each baguette onto the prepared baking trays (I put 4 on each) and slash each baguette 3 or 4 times diagonally along its length with a blade or sharp knife.

12. Throw some ice cubes into the roasting dish at the bottom of the oven and place the baguettes in the oven for 20-25 minutes until deep golden brown and cooked all the way through.

Makes 8.

 

Raspberry, Pomegranate, Rosewater & Pistachio Pavlova

Even though Valentine’s Day seems to be one of the most popular days in the year for dining out, I always think it’s far nicer to make something tasty at home for your loved one to eat! Don’t get me wrong, I love eating out and trying new restaurants, but personally I prefer not to do so on Valentine’s Day where it’s hard to get bookings and so many restaurants want to get you in, served and finished as quickly as possible so that they can accommodate another sitting.  I probably sound extremely cynical and a little grumpy, but believe me, I have experienced this more than once! In fairness, not ALL restaurants have this approach, but many do.

My other great complaint about dining out on Valentine’s Day is that many restaurants eschew their normal menus and offer so-called ‘Special’ Valentine’s Day menus. These menus are often predictable and contain dishes that are easy for stretched and stressed restaurant kitchens to prepare. Regular a la carte menus are often set aside completely for the night or are offered in a truncated form, again easier for busy kitchens to deal with!

I wanted to create a dish that was sweet and light but looked pretty and delicate and most of all inviting to eat; something elegant, a little playful and fun… which for me is what romance is all about.

After toying with a number of ideas, none of which was really grabbing me, I decided to make a pavlova. I must have produced hundreds of pavlovas over the years, but I don’t think I will ever tire of producing them because they are easy to make and people seem to love them! It’s hard not to… with their crisp exteriors giving way to a marshmallow-like centre they are already wonderful, but add cream and fruit and they are a perfect end to a meal, as witnessed by their almost universal popularity.
 

I’m not normally a fan of rosewater, but here it works really well. I erred on the cautious side when adding it, because I know from experience that if you are heavy handed with it, it can swamp the flavours of all other ingredients. Here, the rosewater is a gentle background note that delicately flavours the pavlova, working in harmony with the fresh raspberries, pomegranate seeds and chopped pistachios.

Because this is a layered pavlova, I have doubled the quantities given in my basic Strawberry Pavlova recipe, but have cut back a little on the cornflour and vinegar. Other than that, this is more-or-less the same recipe with a little added rosewater for flavouring. if you like you can fold in half of the chopped pistachios to the meringue just before you spoon it on to the baking trays, but I prefer to sprinkle them over the finished pavlova just before serving. This recipe will leave you with a number of egg yolks, but I have a few recipes coming up over the next couple of weeks that are great for using them up.

 

Ingredients:

8 large egg whites
500g caster sugar

1tblsp cornflour

2tsp white wine vinegar

1tsp rosewater

Filling:

500ml single cream, lightly whipped (flavoured with ½ tsp of rosewater if desired)

125g fresh raspberries

Seeds of 1 pomegranate

50 pistachios (unsalted) roughly chopped

To decorate:

Some crystallised rose leaves or fresh rose leaves (untreated with pesticides etc.)
 

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/Fan Oven 160C/Gas Mark 4. Line three large baking sheets with baking parchment which onto each you have drawn a 23cm circle on the underside. Set aside.

2. Place the egg whites into a large mixing bowl and using a hand-held electric mixer whisk the egg whites to the soft peak stage. Gradually whisk in the caster sugar, mixing well after each addition to create a glossy meringue which hold it shape.

3. Sift over the cornflour and add the vinegar and rosewater, mixing briefly so that they are just incorporated.

4. Spoon the mixture, dividing it evenly, onto the three prepared baking trays using the circles that you have previously drawn as a guide, making sure to keep within the edges. Leave aside a few tablespoons of the meringue mixture for the final meringue disc and place into a disposable piping bag fitted with a plain 1cm round nozzle. Use this to pipe little ‘mounds’ of the meringue over the top of this disc. This will be the top layer of your pavlova.

5. Place the trays into the preheated oven and immediately reduce the oven temperature to 120C/Fan Oven 100C/Gas Mark ½. Bake for 1 hour exactly and then turn off oven. Allow to cool completely in the oven before finishing.

To finish:

6. Carefully peel the baking parchment off the  baked pavlova discs.

Place one of the plain pavlova disc on your serving plate/cake stand and spoon over half the cream. Top with the other plain pavlova and spoon the remaining cream on top. Place the top pavlova disc on top.

7. Scatter the fresh raspberries, pomegranate seeds and chopped pistachios over the top of the pavlova. Serve with rose petals strewn around the pavlova with a few decoratively placed on top.

Serves 6-8 generously.