Bake your own Dutch doughnuts

Posted on December 31, 2011 by bilrob

Bake your own Dutch doughnuts

It’s not yet New Year’s Eve, but already the Dutch are looking forward to baking and eating their traditional end of the year delicacy: oliebollen (literally oil balls). Around 130 million of these deep-fried balls of dough with currents and raisons are consumed every year. The tradition dates back many centuries.

Recipe for oliebollen or Dutch doughnuts

(Makes 20-25)

1 kg plain flour
75 gr fresh yeast (dissolve in lukewarm milk)
100 gr soft butter
1 litre lukewarm milk
4 tablespoons sugar
Juice and grated rind of 1 lemon
Pinch of salt
3 eggs
200 gr raisins
150 gr currants
150 gr grated apples

Mix flour with the milk, yeast, butter and eggs. Add sugar. When the dough is smooth, add the apples, raisins, currants, lemon juice and rind.

Cover the mixture with a cloth and let it rise in a warm place for 30 minutes. Mix once again. Leave it to rise for another 45 minutes.

Heat the fat in a deep-fry pan to 175 degrees Celsius. Take two large spoons and cover them lightly with oil so the dough doesn’t stick. Scoop a spoonful of dough from the bowl and hold it above the hot fat. Use the second spoon to slide the dough into the fat. When the oliebollen have turned golden brown after about 7 minutes take them out with a strainer spoon. Allow the fat to drip off.

Serve with a dusting of sugar.

With thanks to our Editor in Chief Rik Rensen for sharing his family recipe with us.

The oliebol is already mentioned in 1669 in one of the oldest cookbooks in the Netherlands, where it’s called oliekoek or lijnzaadkoek (oil cake or linseed cake). According to Ineke Strouken from the Netherlands centre for folkculture and intangible heritage, the term koek (cake) refers to the flat form.

“In those days they were baked in a flat frying pan on the fire and the dough could hardly rise.”

Although the first surviving recipe for oliebollen dates from 1669, the tradition itself goes back a lot further – exactly how much further back, we don’t quite know. At first the original oliekoek had nothing to do with the turn of the year.

Poor man’s food
The oliekoek was incredibly popular. According to Ms Strouken, it helped the poor survive the cold winter months. When there was no fresh food left, the oliekoek – which contained many calories and was made of ingredients that preserved well – was an important part of the staple food of the poor.

It was no more than a ball of fried dough, occasionally with some added candied fruit or ginger. Yet when times were really bad, many people couldn’t even afford this ‘luxury’, so a solution had to be found, explains Ms Strouken:

“Between 21 December (The Feast of St Thomas the Unbeliever) and 6 January (Feast of Epiphany) the poor were allowed to knock on the doors of the rich to give them their best wishes or sing a song. In exchange the gentry gave them food or fuel.”

New Year’s Eve
In the 19th century the stove was introduced into Dutch kitchens and the oliebol received its current, round shape. It also became more luxurious. Ingredients such as apple, cumin, currants and raisins were added. Later still, a top coating of icing sugar was sprinkled over it.

The connection with New Year’s Eve dates from the 20th century. In the old days, every family had its own recipe. But fewer people can be bothered making the rather time consuming dough or fancy their house smelling of fat for ages.

Nowadays professional bakeries have largely taken over the task. For a number of years daily paper AD has published the results of a national oliebollen test in the last week of the year. Everyone looks forward to it. The winner can expect a huge increase in its turnover.

Big business
The AD has calculated that this year the average price for an oliebol is 0.84 euro. The production costs are around 0.20 euro. Not bad! According to the paper, the Dutch eat an average of eight oliebollen per person, which amounts to a total of over 130 million oliebollen! Four out of ten households bake their own oliebollen.

A decent size oliebol weighs around 100 grams and contains 7.5 grams of fat and 261 calories. In order to burn off all these calories, somebody of average weight would have to go walking for an hour. Not exactly healthy! But although the reputation of the oliebol is in decline, it’s hard to imagine New Year’s Eve in the Netherlands without the traditional favourite.

(hs/as)

baking doughnuts with Bill & Sheila

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Seafood-rich gumbo to ring in new year

Posted on December 31, 2011 by bilrob

Seafood-rich gumbo to ring in new year

My friend Ciji Ware tells me that while doing research in New Orleans on her novel “Midnight on Julia Street,” she learned that many Southerners make gumbo on New Year’s Eve. As the story goes, while you stir the roux, you think of all the family members and friends that you love and send them good wishes for the new year.

Microwaving the roux turns it the proper dark brown in a quarter of the time it needs to cook on the stovetop. The roux continues to cook as the vegetables soften and will become very dark.

I like to serve the gumbo in bowls with a scoop of rice in the center. I also offer warm, crusty bread to soak up the sauce.

Seafood gumbo

Prep: 30 minutes
Cook: 50 minutes
Servings: 8

Note: May be prepared up to three days ahead through step 3, covered and refrigerated. Reheat gently; add the seafood, sausage and file powder when the gumbo is simmering. Serve on a bed of rice if you like.

Ingredients:
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup flour
1 large onion, chopped
1 each, seeded, diced: red bell pepper, green bell pepper
2 ribs celery, diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1 can (14 1/2 ounces) diced tomatoes with juice
2 tablespoons tomato paste
6 cups chicken broth or fish stock
2 bay leaves

Fish & Seafood – Gumbo with Bill & Sheila

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Cure for the common cold?

Posted on December 31, 2011 by bilrob

Cure for the common cold?

What’s the story with echinacea? Many herb teas contain it, and many people swear by it as a cold remedy. But I’ve also seen headlines saying that the herb has no medicinal value whatsoever. Can you set the record straight?

Arlene Hixson

Portland, Maine

Echinacea, also known as purple coneflower, has gained popularity in recent years as a nutritional supplement that proponents believe is helpful in staving off the common cold and shortening its duration. But given the variation between dosages and formulations-such herbs are not regulated as medical drugs by the U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and so makers have little incentive to standardize-it’s hard to get definitive answers as to echinacea’s effectiveness.

Historically, Native Americans relied on the root of echinacea to numb toothache pain and treat dyspepsia as well as snake, insect and spider bites. While some modern day folks rely on echinacea just based on this anecdotal evidence, scientific studies have verified that the herb can be effective. To wit, a 2008 University of Connecticut review of 14 different clinical trials of echinacea use found that taking the supplement reduced the chances of getting a cold by 31 percent, and helped people get over cold and flu symptoms a day and a half earlier than those who didn’t take it.

Researchers initially thought echinacea’s effectiveness was due to its immune-boosting traits, but they now believe instead that the herb works more as an anti-inflammatory agent. A 2009 University of British Columbia study found that typical commercially available echinacea preparations are effective in reducing the body’s production of inflammatory proteins in human bronchial cells. In layman’s terms, this means that echinacea can help lessen the annoying symptoms of common colds, the flu and other respiratory ailments. Furthermore, the study found that echinacea is just as effective in reducing bronchial inflammation whether it is consumed before or after a viral infection sets in, indicating that taking moderate doses on a regular basis during cold season can help prevent some bronchial irritation if and when cold symptoms begin.

Interestingly, though, a 2010 study of 719 participants in Wisconsin focusing on illness duration and severity found that the duration of the common cold could be shortened by taking a pill of some sort, whether echinacea or a placebo with no active ingredients. But this study merely underscored the importance of psychological factors in fighting illness and did not say that echinacea isn’t effective.

Given the lack of FDA oversight of herbs, different formulations may contain vastly different amounts of echinacea. A 2004 evaluation of 19 different echinacea brands by the non-profit Consumers Union and published in Consumer Reports found that the amount of echinacea actually present in supplements varied considerably from brand to brand-and even in some cases from bottle to bottle of the same brand. The magazine recommended a few brands as “best picks,” including Spring Valley, Origin and Sundown, all which featured high concentrations of echinacea and reliable dosage amounts from pill to pill.

Before taking the echinacea plunge, beware that the herb can cause allergic reactions in some people and may interact negatively with some common medications. Researchers warn that anyone with autoimmune disease or a handful of other illnesses should not take echinacea without first consulting with their doctor.

EarthTalk® is written and edited by Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss and is a registered trademark of E – The Environmental Magazine (www.emagazine.com). Send questions to: [email protected]. Subscribe: www.emagazine.com/subscribe. Free Trial Issue: www.emagazine.com/trial.

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Serving With Saddam's Soup Ladle

Posted on December 31, 2011 by bilrob

Serving With Saddam’s Soup Ladle

The eBay listing: Saddam Hussein Palace Christofle Soup Ladle Malmaison. Starting price: $100.

The French-made silver serving piece had already racked up six bids. Its handle was stamped with Saddam’s eagle and Baathist slogan. The item, according to the eBay seller in Alabama, had been found in the lost luggage of an American soldier, lifted perhaps during a 2003 palace raid, or sold to the soldier by an Iraqi looter. The auction would end in 32 minutes. My family, though, had just launched into a long evening of blessings and chicken soup. I scanned the bid history, now up to $150. I placed a bid of $157 and ran downstairs.

“Come in peace, crown of God!” They were singing in Hebrew as I dropped back onto the family room couch. “Come with joy and cheerfulness!” Baghdad was a cheerless, fearful place back in July 1990, when I went there to visit my friend Howard, an intern at the American Embassy. Evidence of the regime’s brutality had so undermined Howard’s sense of security that my 6-foot-5 friend was sleeping with his bedroom lights on.

“It is He, our King,” my kids were now mumbling their prayers, hungry. “Delivered us from the grasp of all tyrants, avenged us.”

I couldn’t concentrate. Was I winning?

I ran upstairs and saw the message from eBay: “You’ve been outbid! Don’t let it get away.” I had expected to quietly buy the memento for $100. I had stumbled across it by accident, while looking for silverware. A regular Christofle ladle retails for $390. How much was dictator kitchenware worth? I remembered my nights in Baghdad, the shattered sleep, the shrieks of signal whistles every hour from the uniformed men in khaki caps biking around our neighborhood, spying for Saddam. Saddam, the president who tortured opponents, who executed his sons-in-law, who invaded Kuwait, who rained missiles on Tel Aviv, who seized Americans as human shields, who gassed Kurdish children….

“Mommy!” my 7-year-old called. “We need you.” I increased my bid to $175 and ran down.

My family was now gathered around the dinner table. My husband began to chant from Proverbs 31, the weekly hymn exalting wives: “A good wife, who can find? She is worth far more than rubies. Her husband trusts in her.” I checked my watch. Thirteen minutes left. There was time to bless and kiss each kid. Quickly. But when my 9-year-old daughter proudly dragged out the Kiddush over her goblet of trembling grape juice, I felt my eyebrows climb my forehead.

“I’ll be back,” I called, hurrying upstairs during the ritual washing of hands. Outbid! I countered with $183. Down the stairs, for my youngest son to thank God for challah bread. Then up again, palms sweating, too expensive. This would count for my next four birthdays, I reasoned, typing $207.50. I wondered who my competitors were, their names encrypted. Two of them dropped out. It was down to me and the mysterious a**i. I pictured him — a**i — as Saddam’s son, not the murderous Uday or Qusay, who both died in a gunfight in 2003, but the rumored third son, living in hiding, hunched over, shades drawn in a Swiss hotel, reclaiming his inheritance by clicking on eBay.

My own motives were less noble. I wanted the spoon because it would bother Saddam. Even dead, he would hate the idea of Americans using it to scoop matzo balls. He would be hanged, buried and irritated.

Six seconds to go, a**i and I went to war. At $222.50, I won.

“Where were you?” my 11-year-old son demanded when I came back to the table.

My cheeks felt red: “Working on the soup.” No one mentioned that the kitchen was in the next room, not upstairs.

The box arrived from Alabama a few days later, but by then I was battling buyer’s remorse. I thought the purchase would amuse my husband, but he recoiled: “Uch, that’s like eating off Hitler’s silver.” I Googled Saddam and Christofle and discovered that, indeed, Saddam chose the French pattern because it was a favorite of Adolf Hitler’s. When no one was looking, I picked it up and sniffed it. The cupped lip smelled like dog saliva.

We immersed the piece in a pot of boiling water, a process that renders flatware kosher. But every Friday, at soup time, I left it in the drawer. At first I blamed the menu — carrot ginger soup felt all wrong. The next week I blamed the company — my mother was too cheery, too Kansas City, to drink from the ladle of hate. When I considered bringing it out to feed my children, what I’d thought would be empowering turned out to be off-putting: what if Saddam’s black mustache had slurped that thing?

Finally, one evening an Israeli diplomat named Dan came to dinner. I didn’t know him well, but after we cleared the first-course plates, I stammered: “Um, would you like me to use this here ladle from Saddam Hussein’s royal palace to, uh, serve your soup?”

“O.K., sure.”

Just like that, Dan dug into a steaming bowl of crushed Moroccan lentils, while discussing his Middle Eastern neighbors. Iran’s nuclear threat. Syria’s political killings. Egypt’s Islamic resurgence. Dan licked his lips and smiled without a trace of complication: “I’ll have seconds.”

I had none. I reached for a glass of filtered water instead. I wondered what I was thinking when I tangled with Saddam. I had started something I couldn’t satisfyingly finish. I didn’t have the stomach for it.

Laura Blumenfeld is the author of “Revenge: A Story of Hope.”

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Vegan at Risk for Heart Attacks and Strokes

Posted on December 31, 2011 by bilrob

Vegan at Risk for Heart Attacks and Strokes

Doctors continue to remind us of the increased cardiovascular risk factors from eating red meat and other animal based products, and suggest we eat more vegetables to maintain good health. Environmentalists inform us how large production cattle ranches wreak havoc on the quality of our air and water, and urge us to go vegetarian. Animal rights activists protest the mistreatment of animals from dairy cows to egg laying chickens, in a concerted effort to promote total veganism.

With all of this anti-meat and animal rights campaigning, one might think eating animal products was just wrong, but new research suggests people who follow a vegan diet are at risk for developing blood clots and atherosclerosis, which are two conditions that can lead to a heart attack or stroke.

The vegan diet is completely free of any kind of animal products. That essentially means a vegan ingests absolutely nothing that comes from or is produced by an animal. Never are eggs, butter, sushi or chicken broth soup for the soul found on the diet list of a vegan. A diet of nuts, seeds and vegetables sounds like it could top the list of what is healthy to eat, yet this type of diet tends to be lacking in several important nutrients. Iron, zinc, vitamin B-12 and omega-3 fatty acids are difficult to acquire on a vegan diet, and these are key nutrients in helping to lower the risk of cardiovascular disease. In addition, a vegan diet is very low in fat and, as a result, these strict vegetarians tend to have higher levels of homocysteine and lower levels of HDL, the good cholesterol, both of which also contribute to the risk of heart disease.

All of these findings, which have appeared in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, suggest that to maintain a healthy heart, a vegan must at least increase their dietary consumption of omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin B-12. Good sources of these nutrients can be found in nuts, but are more prevalent in meat and oily types of fish like wild salmon and mackerel. While vitamin and mineral supplements do contain everything we need, health experts suggest it is best to derive nutrients from the source.

For most vegan people of average health, eating a little meat and a lot of veggies makes sense. As for the environment, there are sustainable ways to raise fish, beef and pork without harming our precious natural resources. And for the animal rights activists, it is a seriously tough call. Your heart may break when you take that first bite of fish, but at least it will be healthy.

Also Read:

Eight Heart Disease Risks You Can Control

Coffee and Tea Drinkers at Less Risk of Heart Disease

Vitamin Guide from A to Zinc: Vitamin B-12

Vegetarian, Raw food and Vegans with Bill & Sheila

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Eat Raw Food To Lose Weight, Cooked Food Contains More Calories

Posted on December 31, 2011 by bilrob

Eat Raw Food To Lose Weight, Cooked Food Contains More Calories

We’re often encouraged to get into the kitchen and prepare more home-cooked meals. In fact, nutrition experts suggest that this strategy could go some way toward a healthier, thinner nation. But, if the results of a study published last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences is anything to go by, we should be encouraging people to cook less, or rather, to eat more raw foods – especially if they have a few extra pounds they need to shift. The reason? Harvard scientists responsible for the research, found that cooking food increases the amount of energy or calories that it provides to your body.

This disparity between cooked and raw fodder is due to the fact that the body uses more energy in digesting raw food than it does cooked food; that more of the energy available from raw food is lost to bacteria in our gut than is the case with cooked food, and that the body expends energy fighting off pathogens that are more prolific in raw food than in cooked.

The unique study which lasted 40 days, relied on 2 groups of mice that were fed a series of diets that consisted of either cooked or raw meat or cooked or raw sweet potatoes. Over the course of the study, the researchers tracked changes in the body mass of the mice, controlling for how much they ate and ran on an exercise wheel.

The results clearly demonstrated that both the cooked protein and cooked starch-rich tuber delivered more energy to the mice than raw variants of both.

“The starting energetic value of a food is based on the composition of that specific food, and that’s not going to change by cooking,” says Rachel Carmbody, the lead researcher on the study. “What cooking alters is the proportion of the energy that our bodies absorbs versus what is lost to gut bacteria, and what is excreted by our bodies. Specifically we believe that cooking reduces the energy that we use up in digestion, while increasing the amount that we absorb.”

“Because cooked food has been processed before it entered the body, some of the work in terms of breaking down that food has already been down so it saves our digestive system from working as hard. Basically cooking externalizes part of the digestive process.”

When it comes to the cooked meat, the heating process gelatinizes the collagen in the muscle and causes the muscle fibers to loosen and separate. This not only makes it easily to chew the meat, but it also increases the surface area exposed to digestive enzymes and gastric acids. As for the cooked sweet potato, here heat gelatinizes the starches and transforms semi crystalline structures into loose, amorphous compounds that are readily broken down or hydrolyzed into sugars and dextrins.

Part of the the gastrointestinal tract also includes a whole host of bacteria, and those bacteria metabolize some of our food for their own energy needs. The small intestine is where most chemical digestion take places. It’s in this 7 meter long tube, that energy for the “human” is absorbed. What remains, passes into the large intestine, and here huge volumes of gut bacteria draw energy from it. “The cooking process allows food to be almost completely metabolized by the time it reaches the end of the small intestine. This means that the body has extracted nearly all of the available energy, leaving little for the bacteria” explains Carmbody. In the case of cooked meat, heating denatures the proteins which unwind from their tightly bound structures and take on a random coil configuration that makes them more susceptible to the enzymes in the small intestine. This ultimately serves to increase the proportion of the protein digested by the body compared to what is digested by gut bacteria in the large intestine.

With raw food, on the other hand, this isn’t the case, and there’s more energy available for the gut bacteria which uses it to carry out a number of functions. For example, energy is used and lost through the production of combustible gases. Also, undigested polysaccharides (fiber) are metabolized by the bacteria through fermentation to produce short-chain fatty acids which are in turn consumed as fuel by the bacteria. “The more energy that’s leftover for the bacteria, the fewer the calories absorbed by the human being,” continues Carmbody.

So what does this all mean, then? Quite simply: If you want to absorb less calories, you should cut down on the cooked portion of your diet, and consume more raw foods. While there is currently no formula to calculate the actual difference in energy absorbed by the body from cooked and raw food, what this study has made clear, is that the existing system of calorie measurement isn’t accurate.

This system, known as the Atwater system, has been used for over 100 years. It measures the calories absorbed by the body by taking the gross calorie measurement of a food and subtracting an estimation of the calories that the body passes out as waste. “It’s basically calories in minus calories out,” explains Carmbody. “But this ignores the differences in how our bodies metabolize cooked and raw foods, and doesn’t account for the energy used in digestion, by gut bacteria, and by the immune system to fight off pathogens.”

Despite the catch-all figure on nutritional labels, you would gain more calories from cooked carrots, spinach or broccoli, for example, than you would if you ate them completely raw as a salad. Of course, if you slather them in Ranch Dressing, well that’s a different story altogether.

Vegetarian, Raw and Vegan with Bill & Sheila

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Cassoulet a good Crockpot dish

Posted on December 31, 2011 by bilrob

Cassoulet a good Crockpot dish

Crockpots are miraculous things. They enable you to walk into a fragrant home after a long day at work and dine as if a chef had been labouring over the stove all day. They also let you use cheap cuts of meat and make them taste luxurious.

Last Thursday one of the ladies in the Bible study I attend said she would like a new Crockpot recipe — and please, no beef stew! Well, Nancy, here you are: Cassoulet is a rustic French dish made with white beans and meat and/or fowl. The meat combination depends largely upon the region where the cook resides. If you don’t like my choices, you can mix and match your own; a good butcher can help you make your selections.

Chop all the vegetables the night before and place them in a sealed bag in the fridge. You can cut up your raw meats too, and refrigerate them in plastic bags with paper towels to absorb moisture. Put the beans in a bowl of water on the counter to soak. Put all your non-refrigerated ingredients on the counter as well. Then, when you stumble out of bed in the morning you have only to brown the meat and vegetables and dump everything into the Crockpot.

The dish is garnished with fresh rosemary and thyme. If widely available in the grocer’s freezer section. And because they are precooked, all you need to do is fill and heat them.

About that filling. Because the cups are small, the filling needs to be simple. So I stuck with carrots, peas and chicken. For the creamy base, I opted for cream cheese (use low-fat if you prefer) thinned with just a bit of egg white.

The result is deliciously creamy and totally do-ahead. To get a jump on things, make the filling up to a day in advance and refrigerate. The cups can be filled a few hours before the party, then quickly popped in and out of the oven as needed (bake them a dozen or so at a time so you always have a fresh batch coming).

Cook while you go out

One of the items on my Christmas list this year was a new crockpot. I put it to use the same day I unwrapped it, preferring to let dinner cook while I was enjoying time with family instead of spending all day in the kitchen.

Slow-cookers can come in handy, especially during winter months when hot dinners are desired. Start cooking the dish on low heat before you head to work, and by the time you’re home, dinner’s ready.

Most slow-cooker recipes are for meaty dishes, like the one for chicken below.

But with a little invention, you can adapt almost any dish to cook in a crockpot.

Slow-cooker chicken Ingredients

3 pounds chicken pieces, bone and skin on, patted dry

Coarse salt and ground pepper

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 large onion, halved and thinly sliced

6 garlic cloves, peeled, halved

2 teaspoons dried thyme

1 cup dry white wine, such as Sauvignon Blanc

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

Directions

Season chicken with salt and pepper. In a large skillet, heat oil over medium-high. In batches, cook chicken, skin side down, until skin is golden brown, about 10 minutes. Turn and brown on second side about 5 minutes.

Combine onion, garlic and thyme in a 5- to 6- quart slow-cooker and season with salt and pepper. Top with chicken, skin side up, in a tight layer.

In a small bowl, whisk together wine and flour until smooth and add to slow-cooker. Cover and cook on high until chicken is tender, about 3½ hours (or 7 hours on low).

Makes four servings.

Crockpot / Slow Cooker with Bill & Sheila

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How to jazz up your Christmas pudding

Posted on December 31, 2011 by bilrob

How to jazz up your Christmas pudding

By Samuel Muston

Christmas pudding divides people like a festive game of Monopoly. For some, the steamed mound of dried fruits and brandy is the embodiment of the festive season.
Nothing can match its extravagant booziness, its weightiness, and its entrance, aflame, to the dining table. It is, to them, a bells-and-whistles dessert.

For others, and I count myself among them, it is less inviting. It is simply an excess on top of an excess, like putting icing on top of a cream cake. After a lunch consisting of pâté or soup as a starter, turkey and all the trimmings, roast potatoes and a small reservoir of bread sauce, why would you eat a Christmas pudding so dense that you can cook it with a coin in the centre without it having any discernible ill-effects?

So I put up with the arctic cold to visit Gü desserts’ development kitchen in Walthamstow, North-east London. For today I will be creating my own Christmass dessert. With the help of Gü’s head chef, Fred Ponnavoy, formerly of Cecconi’s in Mayfair, I will be whipping up a special version of Gü’s new Christmas dessert: a festive chocolate bauble. A strange confection consisting of a football-sized perspex sphere filled with chocolate and all things indulgent, which Ponnavoy has been working on in his kitchen for 11 months.

The idea came to Ponnavoy at the Gü Christmas party last year. “I’d filled all the baubles on the tree at the party with chocolates and sweets for people to take away at the end of the night. Everyone loved it. So I thought, “why not go one better and create a Gü alternative to Christmas pudding and why not just put it in a bauble?”

The result, sitting before me on the stainless steel worksurface, is half way between a trifle and a bombe. Multi- layered, with 65 per cent cocoa chocolate ganache giving way to dark mousse with an inch-thick base of raspberry or cherry compote. It is decadent and rich but not heavy, which is exactly what Gü wanted. Today, though, it won’t be the standard product we’ll be making.

This afternoon, Ponnavoy and I will be tweaking the recipe slightly. Creating 10 special edition, never-to-be-remade Independent Gü Christmas baubles, signed by me and yours for the winning if you take part in the Gü competition on this page. But, the question is, what should the Independent bauble have in it? It needs to be unusual – independent, even – but still gooey enough to be Gü. So out goes the raspberry compote and in comes my own personal fruit favourites: Alphonso mangoes and passion fruit. Both fruits are mixed and made into a zesty compote.

Now what to put on top of that? We rule out a layer of chocolate sponge as a little jarring. A version made from desiccated coconut, however, seems to strike the right tropical note. The mousse has to be milk chocolate, dark being overwhelming for the mango – so an inch of it forms our third layer. At the moment with it’s cloud-like, airy surface it looks like a chocolatey trifle. What’s really missing is the layer of Gü chocolate ganache on the top – so on it duly goes. The five Christmas trees that stick up from the top are the crowning touch, rising from the surface like a coronet’s rays.

It looks, if I do say so myself, pretty. And the taste – gooey, chocolatey and with alternating treats on every level – is as indulgent as you’d hope a Christmas dessert to be, but without the Christmas-pudding heaviness that makes you take to your bed post-lunch. As Ponnavoy points out it’s fun, a conversation-starter. “We want the baubles to be a treat, something fun. What we didn’t want was for it to be heavy and stodgy like a Christmas pudding. It is something you can enjoy even after Christmas lunch, and yours, I think, will be especially light.”

But what if you don’t win a bauble, have a chef with Michelin-star experience and half a hundredweight of chocolate to hand? Well, to see you through the festive period Fred and his staff have created three Christmassy treats that are long on wow factor and short on heaviness. Check them out below; you won’t find a sixpence anywhere.

DELICIOUSLY DIFFERENT CHRISTMAS DESSERTS
COCONUT SNOWBALL PROFITEROLES

18g water
185g whole milk
160g butter
5g salt
5g caster sugar
210g flour type 45 (or plain)
7 eggs
200g whipping cream
20g caster sugar
1 tin of coconut milk
Dessicated coconut to dust

Bring to the boil water, milk, butter, salt and sugar. Add flour and stir to a paste with spatula. In a mixing bowl using the spatula incorporate the eggs bit by bit until the mixture forms soft peaks. Pre-heat the oven at 230C. Form them into profiteroles on a baking tray, place in the oven then it switch off for 10-12 minutes. Then switch back on again at 160C for around 10-15 minutes. Keep in an airtight container.

To make the chantilly cream, whip the cream with the sugar until it forms soft peak consistency.

For the coconut snow, open and pour the liquid coconut milk into a container. Freeze. When needed, pass through a food processor to create the snow.
Serve straight away or keep frozen and serve when required

To assemble, cut the choux pastry in half, place the bottom of the choux on a plate. Using the back of a spoon, spread the Chantilly cream on the top part of the choux, coat with dessicated coconut.

Pipe some coconut snow on top of the bottom part of the choux, place the top half on top and press gently. Serve at the table and pour some warm Gü chocolate ganache all around it.

EXOTIC SNOWBALL MERINGUES WITH FRUIT SALAD

2 egg whites
100g caster sugar
100g icing sugar
1 mango
Half a pineapple
2 passion fruit
Mango sorbet

To make the meringue, whisk the egg whites on a low speed to create an even structure. Add the caster sugar gradually until the mixture resembles shaving foam. Using a spatula, incorporate the icing sugar. Spoon the meringue inside a dome mould (Flexipan) making sure to create a cavity. Cook at 95C for 50 minutes. Leave to cool and carefully demould. Store in an airtight container.

Peel and cut the pineapple and the mango into small cubes. Cut the passion fruit in two and squeeze them on top of the pineapple and mango. Keep refrigerated until needed. To assemble, place a dome of meringue on to the plate and fill with some of the fruit. Using a piping bag with a nozzle, pipe some mango sorbet into another dome of meringue. Place it on top of the other dome to close the snowball. Serve straight away and pour some mango coulis around it at the table in front of your guests.

MULLED WINE GRANITA

1 bottle of red wine
2 orange peel
2 cloves
1 cinnamon stick
1 vanilla pod
Sugar

Cut and grate the vanilla pod, mix all the ingredients together and bring to simmer. Cool down, sieve and pour into a dish. Freeze. Agitate into a granita just before serving. Would go well with Gü’s hot chocolate soufflé.

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Carrots in the Christmas pud: How wartime cooks made do

Posted on December 31, 2011 by bilrob

Carrots in the Christmas pud: How wartime cooks made do

Carrots and potatoes and even gravy browning were key ingredients in wartime recipes for Christmas pudding. And when people couldn’t get turkey, they had “murkey” instead.

The shortages and rationing during World War II, which persisted for years afterwards, meant that households had to be imaginative and resourceful in the kitchen.
For today’s families, there’s the choice of luxury supermarket puddings or home-made versions which can be packed full of dried fruit and nuts, with plenty of sugar, treacle, eggs and sweet spices. In wartime most of these ingredients were in short supply.

‘Make do and mend’

Canny cooks preparing for Christmas would start early, saving dried fruit from their rations throughout the year. But sometimes there just was not enough and the wartime spirit of “make do and mend” found its way into the kitchen. The family Christmas was almost a sacred ritual according to Terry Charman, senior researcher at Imperial War Museum. “They did their best to make it special, even in 1943 and 1944, when shortages made life particularly grim,” he said.

Cook and food historian Monica Askay spent the weekend before Christmas at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford, introducing visitors to the festive food of the 1940s.
Wearing a pinny and headscarf, she dished up wartime Christmas cake, made without eggs and with less flour, less fruit and less fat than its modern equivalent. The marzipan was a mix of semolina, sugar, water and flavouring.

She reported that many visitors really liked the semolina marzipan, even people who did not like normal marzipan, though the cake itself was very dry.
“Reactions to the idea of savoury ingredients being used in the pudding were mixed. Some people were sceptical, but others said: ‘Ooh gosh, my mum used my grandmother’s recipe for Christmas pudding and that had carrot in it,’” said Ms Askay.

Economical and healthy

The carrots and potatoes were added to Christmas pudding, mainly to add moisture, but they also added sweetness and texture, she said. “Wartime food shortages forced people to adopt new eating patterns.” – Dr Laura WynessBritish Nutrition Foundation.

Other sweet root vegetables added to Christmas cake could include beetroot, parsnips and turnips.

Turkey was often very difficult to get, so housewives were advised to cook “murkey”, which was stuffed mutton. The stuffing was largely made of breadcrumbs. No-one threw away a stale loaf in those days. The word murkey was coined by cockney comedians Elsie and Doris Waters, whose alter egos, Gert and Daisy, were stars of the BBC radio programme The Kitchen Front. The programme came on every weekday after the 8am news and was full of household tips and suggestions of how to make food go further.

Macon sarnie anyone?

Terry Charman, said: “It was an enormously successful programme with five million listeners. The Ministry of Food used it to push out the messages they wanted to get across. “So if there was a glut of carrots, there would be a feature on Dr Carrot.”

“An earlier attempt to popularise mutton was a bacon substitute called ‘macon’ which appeared in 1940 just as rationing came into force.” For most people today, including gravy browning in a cake would be a step too far – but there are plenty of less extreme, 1940s tips on how to economise this Christmas.
The 1940s cook prepared everything from scratch and made more use of seasonal food. For example they might use raw in-season vegetables like beetroot, carrots, cabbage and even parsnips and turnips in salads if there were no conventional salad vegetables available.

The diet was actually healthy as well as being economical according to Dr Laura Wyness, of the British Nutrition Foundation: “Wartime food shortages forced people to adopt new eating patterns. “Most people ate less meat, fat, eggs and sugar than they had eaten before, but also, people who had previously consumed a poor diet were able to increase their intake of protein and vitamins because they received the same ration as everyone else. “Many people ate a better diet during rationing than before the war years and this had a marked effect on the health of the population – infant mortality declined and life expectancy increased.” Ms Askay, who has researched the food of the period, says modern households have much to learn from the frugality and creativity of the 1940s cook

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The Best Hot Chocolate Mixes

Posted on December 31, 2011 by bilrob

The Best Hot Chocolate Mixes

Hot chocolate may be one of the best things about winter. While you can drink hot chocolate year round, a warm, steamy cup of hot chocolate is best served when watching your favorite holiday film by the fire. Of course, hot chocolate is also the perfect dorm room drink — particularly a necessary companion to finals studying! One of the best things about hot chocolate is that it is easy and convenient to prepare with the abundant array of mixes that are available — simply add water or milk and microwave.

We’ve tested brands to find the best packs to keep around — read on for our verdicts!

**SKC’s Picks**

Best Marshmallow Mix

The perfect addition to hot chocolate: marshmallows! This Swiss Miss Marshmallow Lover’s mixmakes for a convenient drink – easy to prepare in a dorm room microwave, add the separate packet of marshmallows and voila, marshmallow heaven.

Best Frozen Hot Chocolate Mix

Recreate Serendipity’s famed frozen hot chocolate drink at home with this mix. All you need is milk, ice and a blender. And maybe a toasty fire to sit by while you sip this frosty concoction. {Bonus: this makes a great gift for roomies and friends.}

Best Flavor-Infused Mix

A classic mug of hot chocolate is hard to beat, but hot chocolate flavored with peppermint or salted caramel is all the better. Willams-Sonama’s peppermint and salted caramel hot chocolate mixes make for extraordinarily good drinking. This too could be gifted, preferably to a generous friend so you can also taste the deliciousness.

Best Mexican-Style Mix

Nestle’s Abuelita mix is reasonably priced and available at most grocery stores. The Abuelita Mix is infused with real cinnamon for an authentic Mexican drink. Perfect to serve at your next fiesta with friends!

Best Splurge
Jacques Torres’ hot chocolate mix is a little on the pricey side, but Mr. Chocolate doesn’t use cocoa powder – only real chocolate – so you are in for a rich, decadent treat. Serve this drink in lieu of a traditional dessert at a holiday dinner.

— Caroline Ariail for Small Kitchen College
Caroline Ariail is a senior at the University of Georgia where she studies journalism. She prefers hot chocolate with lots of marshmallows and whipped cream!