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Clifton Kitchen – Cooking Through The Seasons

Tag Archives: raisins

Cooking with Wine & Spirits

23 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by Kate Abbott - Clifton Kitchen in Baking, Desserts, Educational, Master Class, Wine & Spirits

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

baking, Chefs & Cooks, Clifton Kitchen, Cook Books, Cooking thorugh the seasons, Desserts, food and drink, Food Blogs, Lifestyle, liqueurs, Photography, raisins, recipes, Ricotta, Travel, wine

Article first published in SHOWCOOK http://www.showcook.com/2012/in-the-news/cooking-with-wine-spirits-kate-abbott/

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There are many wines, domestic and imported, which are both a pleasure to drink and reasonably priced for cooking. The wine used for cooking may be either white or red and for savoury food should be dry rather than sweet. There are in my opinion only a few instances when a touch of sweetness is not out of place in meat cookery, for example the Madeira sauce served with ham and tongue.

If you are not sure how to buy wine and spirits for cooking, the best step would be to find a good, trustworthy wine merchant. Beware of bargains in wine, and never use wine in cooking that you would not drink. Of course this does not mean marinating a shoulder of venison in a precious expensive vintage Burgundy which deserves rather to be enjoyed in a glass, where it can be fully appreciated.

Wine is added to foods to enhance natural flavour. Colour too is a factor. White wine is usual for fish and poultry dishes. Red wine will add dark colour to meat, gravy, or to coq au vin. When wine is cooked the alcohol evaporates, leaving only the flavour of the fruit, and provides subtleties and nuances of flavour, aroma and bouquet to a dish. However moderation is important in order not to overwhelm the food. It is best not to use more wine than specified in a recipe on the assumption that if a little wine is good, more will be better. Too much wine can spoil a dish irreparably.

Other than its use in dessert, wine has three major uses in cooking. First, it is used with herbs and spices as a marinade, to season and to tenderize meat before braising or long slow cooking. The marinade is used in the cooking as well and becomes part of the sauce. When cooking fish, wine often forms part of the liquid for poaching, and also becomes part of the sauce. In both cases the wine is subjected to considerable cooking and thus reduced. In this instance it need not be of the highest quality, although it should still be good enough to drink.

The second use of wine in cooking is to make pan sauces. In this instance the wine is used to deglaze the pan in which meat, fish or poultry was roasted or sautéed, to dissolve the tasty bits that cling to the pan, and incorporate any juices. The pan should be very hot when the wine is added as this hastens the deglazing and the evaporation of the alcohol. The sauce is then reduced and poured over the food. The quick cooking approach of deglazing does not cause the wine to lose its bouquet which is why when deglazing it is preferable to select a wine of a slightly better quality than what you would use for marinades.

The third use of wine in cooking is as a final flavouring agent, in which case it is added at the very end of the cooking process, or just before serving. The sauce is not brought to the boil after the wine is added. Wines for this purpose are usually fortified, that is, strengthened with brandy such as Sherry, Madeira, or Port. When used in this fashion they provide excellent flavour to the dish.

The remainder of a bottle of wine used in cooking can be served with the meal, or the bottle can be tightly corked and laid on its side in the refrigerator until it is needed again for cooking, but should be used within a few days as wine tends to turn to vinegar rather quickly once exposed to air. Should this happen do not worry, the ‘turned’ wine need not go to waist, instead use it for making salad dressings.

When using wine and spirits in cooking, certain ones are indispensable; it would be good to have these on hand. You will need two kinds of wine, reds for cooking dark meats and game and white wine for fish and poultry dishes. Both kinds should be dry wines. For flaming you should have Cognac or another brandy. A Sherry and Madeira of excellent quality are useful for flavouring everything from soups to desserts. Good options to have on hand for desserts are dark rum, kirsch, and one of the liqueurs, such as Grand Marnier, Cointreau or Curaçao.

Wines are less important than liqueurs in flavouring desserts because the small amounts that can be added as flavouring would have little effect compared with the intensity of flavour that can be derived from an equal amount of rum, brandy, or a liqueur. The simplest way to of using liqueurs to flavour desserts is to add them to puddings, sauces, or whipped cream, or sprinkle over fresh or cooked fruit or over ice cream or sorbets.

Too much liqueur added to an ice cream or ice mixture will prevent it from freezing; too much liqueur added to anything can make a dish taste of nothing but liqueur. Use liqueurs in cooking as you do wine, discreetly.

The French and the Italians are skilled users of wine and spirits in many of their dishes, from the simplest to the most elaborate, often combining the flavouring agents of wine or spirits together with citrus peel, citrus juice and fragrant flower waters.

This typical Mediterranean Ricotta cake is airy, soft, and at the same time a little moist. Grand Marnier, orange flower water, and citrus zest intensify and perfume the cake with gorgeous flavour. It can be served as is, or with soft fruits, or with a dash of yoghurt flavoured with citrus juice, and or flower water and a little icing sugar to taste.

Sicilian Ricotta cake

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Serves 6-8

Ingredients

1 tablespoon castor sugar for dusting the baking pan

1 tablespoon orange juice

1 table spoon Grand Marnier

1 tablespoon orange- flower water

55g seedless raisins

75 g unsalted butter

130 g caster sugar

2 large eggs

Orange zest from 1 orange

Lemon zest from I lemon

3 tablespoons flour

1 ½ tsp. baking powder

Pinch of salt

450 g Ricotta, drained and lightly mashed using a fork

Icing sugar for dusting

Method

Preheat the oven to 180C

Lightly butter a 20cm spring form tin and dust bottom and sides with some castor sugar, discarding any excess.

Place the orange juice, Grand Marnier, and flower water in a small pan and heat to just warm. Add the raisins and leave to soak soften and absorb the liquid.

In a bowl cream the butter and sugar until well combined. Add the eggs and whisk till combined. Add the zest, flour, baking powder and salt and whisk to combine. Add the ricotta and whisk to incorporate. Fold in the raisins and their soaking liquid.

Scrape the mixture into the prepared baking pan and place in the middle of the oven, bake for about 60 minutes. Test for doneness after about 55 minutes by inserting a skewer in the middle of the cake. It is ready when the skewer comes out clean. Leave to cool on a wire rack.

Turn out onto a plate. At this point the cake may be dusted lightly with some icing sugar.

Tip: if the cake starts to brown too quickly, cover loosely with some aluminium foil for the rest of the baking period

Options: the raisins may be replaced with peeled and finely chopped apple or pear, cinnamon.

Christmas Temptation

23 Friday Dec 2011

Posted by Kate Abbott - Clifton Kitchen in Baking, Christmas Food Gifts

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Buttery biscuits, chocolate, Christmas Biscuits, Cocoa, Cook Books, currents, Festive season, food blog, Food Writing, lemon zest, Life, News, Photography, raisins, recipes, Spices, travel Writing, Vanilla essence

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Buttery Christmas Biscuits

It’s a nice quiet day and a perfect time to quickly put a batch of cookie dough together which I will keep in the freezer to ensure that fresh cookies are always available when friends pop in over the next few days. It’s a nice, simple recipe which can be embellished simply by adding nuts, currents, raisins, cocoa, bits of chocolate, essence, lemon rind and spices. And of course it stores well in the freezer.

As it is the festive season it is also nice to wrap the biscuits in either cellophane paper tied with a pretty bow, or packed into a pretty box and hand them out as little Christmas gifts.

Ingredients

250 g butter

125 g icing sugar

1 egg

350 g plain whole flour

Method

Cut the butter into small pieces, place in a food processor together with all the other ingredients. Process until the dough comes together in a ball around the blade.

Roll the dough into a long sausage shape, wrap in baking paper and refrigerate for 2 hours. Once the dough has chilled, cut the dough into thin slices. Place the cookies on a baking sheet lined with baking paper. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 200C for 6-8 minutes.

Remove biscuits from oven and cool on wire rack, then store in an airtight biscuit tin.

Note: when adding essence, cocoa or spice, add together with all the ingredients prior to processing.

To add nuts, chocolate, zest, raisins or currants; do this by gently kneading the ingredients into the dough prior to rolling into a sausage shape.

The Christmas Cake I Bake the Most Often

30 Wednesday Nov 2011

Posted by Kate Abbott - Clifton Kitchen in Baking, Christmas Food Gifts

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Alomonds, baking, Books, Books for Cooks, Brandy, Candied orange peel, Cape Town, Chefs, Christmas, Christmas cake, Christmas pudding, Cooks, Currants, Food Blogs, Food Writing, Life, Photography, raisins, recipes, Sultanas, Travel, Writing

Of the many Christmas cake recipes under my sleeve, this one I enjoy making the most often. It is moist, not too dark or overly rich and always a pleaser at family gatherings. For me it also doubles as a perfectly lovely Christmas dessert.  An added bonus is that it is also very easy to make. The cake is delicious served with coffee, tea or sweet wine.

Christmas cake and roses  3

Christmas Cake

Serves 12

Prep time 30 minutes. Cooking time 5 hours plus cooling

Ingredients

Part 1

500 gm. sultanas

500 gm. raisins

250 gm. currants

250 gm. chopped candied orange or dried orange peel

180 ml brandy

Part 2

200 gm. blanched almonds

400 gm. butter

450 gm. brown sugar

9 eggs, lightly beaten

450 gm. plain flour

½ tsp. baking powder

Method

Start the first part of this recipe the day before. Combine the dried fruit, candied orange and brandy in a large bowl, cover and leave to macerate overnight.

You will need a 23cm square cake tin for this recipe. Line the base with a double layer of brown paper, and then line the sides with four layers of brown paper. Cut a further layer for the top of the cake. Lightly grease and snip a few holes in it and set aside while you mix your ingredients for the cake.

Preheat the oven to 130C.

Finely chop about 150gm of the almonds, reserving about 100gm to decorate the top of the cake.

Beat the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy; add the egg mixture a little at a time, beating well after each addition. Then stir in the fruit and chopped almonds, add the flour and baking powder, stir until well combined.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared pan. Smooth the top and decorate with the reserved almonds.

Cover the cake with prepared brown paper and bake on lowest oven shelf for 5 hours. Turn off the heat and cool in the oven overnight.

This cake makes a lovely Christmas gift.

Seed, Date & Raisin Loaf

19 Monday Sep 2011

Posted by Kate Abbott - Clifton Kitchen in Baking

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

baking, Blogging News, Books, Bread, Bushmans Kloof Wilderness Reserve, dates, Food Blogs, health breads, honey, Life, raisins, recipes, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, Travel, Writing

My trip to the Cederberg mountains  and Bushmanskloof Wilderness Reserve was wonderful. Everywhere you looked there were carpets, and carpets of the most beautiful display of wild flowers, the rock formation of the mountains were equally breath taking (see pictures below recipe).  And today is Sunday, the weather has closed in once again and it is pouring with rain, so I am heading for the kitchen to make bread and to try out a new chicken liver pate idea as well as start the oxtail for tomorrow evenings dinner menu.

The bread is dead easy to make, is also wonderfully healthy and stays fresh for a week if it lasts that long. It also makes excellent toast.

seed loaf wp 5 seed loaf wp sliced jpg

Seed Date & Raisin Loaf

You will need two bowls in which to place dry ingredients A and the wet ingredients B. you will also need a 1 litre capacity bread tin rubbed with butter and dusted with flour.

Set oven temperature to 180C

Ingredients A

250g whole wheat flour

100g oats

75 g shelled sunflower seeds

50 g All bran flakes

50 g seedless raisins finely chopped

50 g sesame seeds

50 g wheat germ

50 g cornflower

50 g dates, pips removed and finely chopped

Ingredients B

500 ml Bulgarian yoghurt

3 tablespoons sunflower or olive oil

3 tablespoons honey

1 tsp. bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp. sea salt

2 tablespoons molasses

Method

Mix all the ingredients listed under A together and in a separate bowl all the ingredients listed under B. Add part B to part A and mix through well. Put the mixture into the bread tin and sprinkle the top with a little sunflower and sesame seeds.

Place the bread into the oven set to 180C and bake for 20 minutes. Reduce the heat to 150C and bake for a further 1/12 hours. Remove from oven and leave to cool in the tin before turning out.

This loaf cuts best when using a seated knife.

 

Bushmans Kloof Wilderness Reserve

BKL 1aBKL 2

Lunch For One–Lightly Poached Salmon Served With Fig & Raisin Chutney

12 Tuesday Jul 2011

Posted by Kate Abbott - Clifton Kitchen in Fish

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

chutney, cooking, farmed salmon, figs, fish, food, home made bread, Olive oil, Oregano, organic, raisins, salmon, Seasoning, wine


Steel grey in colour the choppy waves capped with white foam, heave and churn wildly below my garden deck, it is as always quite an awesome site. It’s raining too and I am pleased that I shopped for food yesterday.

Tomatoes cut in half lightly drizzled with olive oil, topped with a smidge of Demerara sugar, a light sprinkle of Greek oregano and salt and pepper, are roasting off in the oven. It should take about an hour and half at 180C to reduce them to a concentrated richness. When done I put them in a pot, add some chicken stock, correct the seasoning and simmer for about 5 minutes then blend the lot together. Sometimes I will strain the soup, most times I prefer not to. By roasting the tomatoes you get a rich unctuous creamy textured soup yet it has no cream, served with some crusty homemade bread and a good bottle of wine it makes a perfect light dinner or a starter.

But for lunch; a nice piece of fresh farmed salmon seasoned and gently poached in about two table spoons of the fat, skimmed off the top of the stock from last night’s coq au vin, it adds another layer of subtle flavour. I serve the salmon with some fig and raisin chutney which compliments the fish beautifully.

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Kate Abbott

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