Italian Carrot Cake (Torta di Carotta) - Untested

https://ricette.giallozafferano.it/Torta-di-Carote.html

for a 22 cm mould

Carrots 300 g, grated

Flour 200 g

Almond flour 100 g

3 eggs (180 g)

Sugar 150 g

Sunflower seed oil 150 g

Orange juice (can use lemon juice) 80 g

Orange zest to taste (or vanilla extract)

Baking powder 16 g

1 pinch of fine salt

to decorate

Flaked almonds 50 g

Powdered sugar to taste

1. To prepare the carrot cake, first grate the orange zest and set it aside. Squeeze the juice and filter it. At this point, trim the carrots and peel them.
2. Break the eggs into a bowl, add the sugar and a pinch of salt. Work with an electric whisk until you get a light and frothy consistency.
3. When the eggs are well whipped, slowly pour in the seed oil and the orange juice. Then add the grated orange zest.
4. Still with the whisks in action, add the carrots. Mix until well incorporated. Now pour the flour and the sifted yeast into a bowl and almond flour. Mix the powders together with a spoon.
5. Turn the whisk on again and incorporate the powders a little at a time. Mix with the whisk at medium speed until you obtain a smooth mixture. Then transfer it into a 22 cm mould lined with baking paper.
6. Decorate the surface with almond flakes and bake in a preheated static oven at 180° for 55 minutes. Always test with a toothpick before removing from the oven. Let it cool completely, then unmold and decorate with powdered sugar. Your carrot cake is ready to serve!

You can store the carrot cake for 2-3 days under a glass bell jar.

Alternatively, you can freeze it whole or in portions.

Advise

Instead of orange juice, you can use lemon juice, plant-based milk, or semi-skimmed milk.

Langue braisée au vin rouge - Untested

Serves 6

Whole beef tongue 1420g

Lardons or diced smoked pork belly 180g

Onion, roughly chopped 225g

Carrot, roughly chopped 180g

Celery, roughly chopped 100g

Garlic cloves, lightly crushed 30g

Red wine (Burgundy, Côtes du Rhône, or similar) 750ml

Beef stock 500ml

Tomato paste 30g

Plain flour 25g

Butter 40g

Neutral oil (sunflower or grapeseed) 20g

Fresh thyme sprigs 10g

Bay leaves 4

Parsley stalks (reserve leaves for serving) 20g

Black peppercorns 10g

Coarse salt (for blanching water) 30g

Flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped, to finish 15g

1. Blanch and peel the tongue by placing it in a large pot, cover generously with cold water, and add the coarse salt. Bring to a boil and blanch for 15 minutes — grey scum will rise; this is normal. Drain and rinse under cold running water. While still warm enough to handle, use a small sharp knife to peel away the tough outer skin — it should come off in large pieces. Trim any excess fat or gristle from the root end.
2. To marinate, place the peeled tongue in a deep bowl with the red wine, onion, carrot, celery, garlic, thyme, bay leaves, parsley stalks, and peppercorns. Cover and refrigerate for at least 4 hours, ideally overnight but no longer than 18 hours. When ready to braise, lift the tongue out and pat it dry. Strain the marinade and reserve both the liquid and the vegetables separately.
3. Preheated the oven to 150°C and heat a heavy lidded casserole or Dutch oven large enough to hold the tongue, in it. Render the lardons over medium heat until golden and their fat has run. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside, leaving 2 Tbsps. of fat in the pan.
4. Add the oil to the lardon fat and raise the heat to medium-high. Season the tongue with salt and brown it on all sides — about 3 minutes per side. You want good colour here; it builds the foundation of the sauce. Remove the tongue and set aside.
5. Reduce the heat to medium and add the butter to the pan. Add the reserved vegetables from the marinade  and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 10 minutes until softened and beginning to colour. Add the tomato paste and stir it in, cooking for 2 minutes until it deepens in colour. Scatter over the flour and stir to coat everything — cook for a further 2 minutes.
6. Pour in the reserved marinade liquid and bring to a vigorous simmer, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Add the beef stock and return the lardons to the pot. Nestle the tongue back in — it should be roughly half-submerged. Tuck the thyme, bay leaves, and parsley stalks around it if you have fresh ones to spare. Bring everything to a gentle simmer.
7. Cover with the lid and transfer to the oven at 300°F. Braise for 3 to 3.5 hours, turning the tongue once at the halfway point. It is ready when a skewer meets no resistance at the thickest part and the meat has a slight wobble when you nudge the pot. If your tongue is on the larger side, allow up to 4 hours.
8. Lift the tongue out and wrap loosely in foil to rest for 20 minutes. Strain the braising liquid through a fine sieve into a saucepan, pressing the vegetables firmly to extract every drop. Discard the solids. Skim any fat from the surface, then bring the sauce to a brisk simmer over medium-high heat. Reduce for 10–15 minutes until it coats a spoon generously and has a deep, wine-dark colour. Taste carefully and adjust salt — the sauce concentrates significantly, so hold back until the end.
9. Slice the tongue across the grain into pieces about 12mm thick — the meat should be yielding and almost silky. Arrange on a warm platter or individual plates, spoon the sauce generously over and around, and scatter the chopped flat-leaf parsley over the top. Serve immediately with mashed potato, buttered egg noodles, or soft polenta, and something sharp alongside — cornichons, a good Dijon mustard, or pickled walnuts all work beautifully.

Notes

• On the wine. Use something you'd actually drink — nothing expensive, but nothing undrinkable. A young, fruity red works best. Avoid anything heavily oaked or very tannic, as it can turn bitter on reduction.
• Make ahead. This dish is genuinely better the next day. Cool the tongue in its sauce, refrigerate overnight, then skim the solidified fat from the surface, reheat gently, and slice. The meat firms up and slices more cleanly, and the sauce deepens overnight.
• On the sauce. The reduction in Step 8 is where the dish earns its keep — don't rush it. You want it thick enough to coat the back of a spoon and leave a clean line when you draw your finger through it.

Langue de porc braisée au vin rouge - Untested

A farmhouse Burgundy braise — pig's tongue slow-cooked in red wine

Pig's tongue 410 g

Coarse salt (brine) 18 g

Cold water (brine) 1000 g

1 onion (150 g) chopped

200 g Carrot, chopped 

100 g Celery, chopped 

3 bay leaves

25 peppercorns

12 whole cloves

Red wine 750 g (Pinot Noir, Gamay, or BC Okanagan red)

Garlic 12 g, smashed

6 sprigs thyme

3 bay leaves

Lardons / bacon 75 g

Unsalted butter 40 g

Plain flour 18 g

Stock 300 g

Another 12g smashed garlic

3 bay leaves

6 sprigs fresh thyme

Pearl onions or shallots 100 g

Mushrooms 125 g quartered

Flat-leaf parsley 8 g

Day 1 

1. To start the brine, dissolve the coarse salt in a liter of cold water in a bowl or container large enough to submerge the tongue. 
2. Cover and refrigerate for roughly 4 days. This extended brine will give the tongue a lightly cured, petit salé character that works beautifully in this dish.

Day 4 

1. To prepare for the first poach, remove the tongue from the brine and rinse well. 
2. Place in a pot and cover generously with cold water. 
3. Add the onion, carrot, celery, bay leaves, peppercorns, cloves and thyme sprigs. 
4. Bring to a boil, skim any grey foam thoroughly, then reduce to a gentle simmer. 
5. The tongue is done when a skewer meets no resistance at the thickest point. For small tongues this can take 1:30hrs and for larger ones up to double that.
6. Peel the skin off the tongues while they're hot (the skin bonds back to the meat as it cools).
1. Lift the tongue out of the poaching liquid (strain the liquid and save as broth, adjust seasoning to compensate for the salt in it). 
2. While still hot (use tongs and a cloth), peel off the thick outer skin starting from the tip — it should come away in large strips. 
3. Trim any gristly root bits. 
4. Work quickly.
7. Place the peeled tongue in a bowl with the red wine , the first round of garlic cloves, smashed, thyme sprigs and bay leaves. Cover and refrigerate overnight — at least 12hours but not exceed 24 hours or the wine acid will begin to degrade the surface texture.

Day 5

1. In a heavy casserole (cast iron is ideal), cook the lardons over low heat until the fat has rendered and the pieces are golden. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside. Leave the fat in the pan.
2. Remove tongue from the wine marinade and pat thoroughly dry — reserve the wine. 
3. In the lardon fat over medium-high heat, brown the tongue on all sides until deeply coloured. Don't rush this; 6–8 minutes total. 
4. Remove and set aside.
5. Reduce heat to medium and add the butter to the pot. When melted add remaining 12 grams of garlic cloves and cook 1 minute. 
6. Scatter over the flour and stir into the fat to make a rough roux. 
7. Cook 2 minutes, stirring, until it smells nutty. 
8. Pour in the reserved wine from the marinade, scraping up all the browned bits. 
9. Add the pork or chicken stock. Tuck in remaining bay leaves, thyme sprigs, the browned lardons and the tongue. The liquid should come about halfway up the tongue.
10. Bring to a bare simmer, cover tightly and cook in a 300°F. 
11. Turn the tongue once halfway through. Start checking at the 75 minutes.

OPTIONAL BUT RECOMMENDED

Cool overnight by removing from oven, allow to cool, then refrigerate tongue and sauce together overnight. The sauce will tighten, the fat will solidify and lift off cleanly, and the flavour will deepen considerably. This is the ideal approach — Thursday becomes a simple reheating job.

The Sauce

1. Glaze the pearl onions and mushrooms for about 10 minutes by melting a knob of butter (about 20g) in a wide pan over medium-high heat. 
2. Add the onions or small shallots, peeled with a pinch of sugar and cook, shaking the pan, until golden — about 10 minutes. Remove. 
3. In the same pan, turn up the heat, add another small knob of butter and sear the mushrooms until golden. Season. Set both aside.
4. If possible, remove as much fat as possible from the surface of the cold sauce (easier if refrigerated the day before). 
5. Transfer sauce to a wide saucepan and reduce over high heat until it coats a spoon — about 10 minutes.
6. Taste for salt. 
7. Add the glazed onions and mushrooms to warm through.

Final steps

1. While still cold, slice the tongue on a slight diagonal into 1cm thick pieces (easier to cut nicely when it's cold).
2. Lay slices in the sauce and warm gently over low heat with a lid on for a few minutes. Do not boil. 
3. Arrange on warm plates, spoon sauce, onions and mushrooms generously over the top, and scatter with the parsley. 
4. Serve with egg noodles, boiled potatoes, or crusty bread.

Notes

Thursday timeline: The braise happens Wednesday evening after the overnight wine marinade. Thursday is just glazing the onions and mushrooms (10 min), reducing the sauce (10 min), slicing the cold tongue and warming through (10 min). Dinner is essentially ready in 30 minutes.

The sauce volume: With a smaller piece of meat but full sauce quantities, you will have generous sauce — which is a good thing. Any leftover sauce freezes beautifully and is excellent with pasta, pork chops, or as a base for another braise.

Wine: A BC Okanagan Pinot Noir is a natural choice and would be very much in the spirit of using local ingredients throughout.

Mushrooms: If you have access to any wild mushrooms from the island, use them here — chanterelles or hedgehogs in particular would be exceptional.

Winter Minestrone - Test 1

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/nov/24/winter-minestrone-soup-recipe-celery-soffritto-rachel-roddy-

1 - Yeah! This turned out well. It's a very good vegetable soup, and I like the rustic feel of it. I didn't use cavolo nero, but instead some young red kale leaves and the flower buds of various brassicas I harvested before cutting down the plants this spring. Yeah, it was good. And the few alterations I made worked nicely. I will say though I used the Rouge Vif d'Estampe pumpkin and it's too mild and watery for this soup. A more dense pumpkin would be better, something with a finer grained flesh. I will try the Musquee de Provence next. Regardless, I have no other grand changes other then what I've indicated so this can graduate to Test 1 right away.

Serves 6

500g cavolo nero (try Mustard Greens)

1 large onion (10oz/285gr) diced

3 ribs of celery (4–5oz/120–150g) with a few leaves, diced

6 tbsp olive oil

Salt and black pepper

400g pumpkin/squash flesh, bite-sized dice

1 potato (8oz/215gr) bite-sized dice

400g cooked white beans

1.5 litres of water or bean broth (or a mix of both)

A parmesan rind (if you have one)

A small sprig of sage, minced

1. Wash the cavolo nero, strip any particularly thick stems from the leaves and roughly chop, roll the leaves and shred thickly.
2. Heat the olive oil in a large heavy-based pan and slowly fry the onion, celery and a pinch of salt for the soffritto, until soft, which will take about 8 minutes.
3. Add pumpkin and potato to the pan along with the cavolo nero stems and a tiny pinch of salt, stirring to prevent sticking, until each chunk glistens with oil. Add half the cavolo nero leaves, half the beans, the water and the parmesan rind.
4. Raise the heat so the soup nearly boils, and then reduce to a simmer for 30 minutes or until the potatoes are tender. 
5. Five minutes before the end of the cooking time, add the rest of the cavolo nero and beans. Taste, and add salt and pepper as needed.
6. Add the sage and allow it to sit for 5 minutes, then serve, passing round a bowl of grated parmesan for anyone who wants it.

Celery Soup - Testing

1 - I got a bunch of aging celery from Ally who wasn't going to use it, and I thought I should figure out a soup to make with it. So here it is, a bit of a Frankenstein with a lot of my own ideas in there, so no links to anyone else. I discovered it is a classic UK recipe, and I got from Mrs Beatton's book that it's seasonable from September to March (well, in the UK)! Fun!

1 tbsp Olive oil

1 onion, large chopped

3 garlic cloves, minced

2 lbs celery, see instructions

1 lb potatoes, chopped

4 cups vegetable stock

1 tsp salt

1/4 tsp pepper

OPTIONAL dash of nutmeg

Handful fresh parsley

1. Heat the oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until soft and translucent, about 5–7 minutes. Toss in the garlic and cook about 1 minute, until the sharp aroma softens.
2. Meanwhile, separate the tougher outer celery branches and chop about the same size as the potato. Reserve the tender inner branches (how much?) to chop into small dice to add later.
3. Throw in the celery and potato, let it sweat for a minute or two before adding the stock. Simmer until tender, about 10 to 15 minutes. 
4. Run the veg through a sieve and put the veg in a food processor and process until perfectly smooth.
5. Add the small chopped tender celery along with the salt, pepper and nutmeg and simmer for half an hour. 
6. Seasonable from September to March. 
7. Garnish with parsley if desired.

Boozy Fruit Crumble - Test 1

1 - I've adapted the Berry Crumble to include the boozy fruit that's leftover from when I make liqueurs. Not bad, I must say. The apple worked really well to soften the alcoholic edge of the boozy fruit, but I felt like it was a bit dry. It could be the King apple varietal I used that isn't very juicy after languishing in the refrigerator all winter. I'm curious about a couple of things - what if I mixed in half fresh/frozen blackberries, substituting half the apple for it? Also, or maybe instead, what about adding a couple of tablespoons of the actual liqueur to the fruit layer?

2 - Much better. Chopped the plum, substituted half the apple for frozen blackberries, removed the flour to allow for juiciness. Everything else the same. I want to reproduce this.

½ cup (1.8oz/50g) walnuts or hazelnuts, toasted and finely chopped

Crumble Filling

¾ cup (6oz/170g) boozy plums, pitted and chopped

¾ cup (6oz/170g) boozy blackberries

¾ cup (6oz/170g) apple, peeled, cored and chopped

¾ cup (6oz/170g) fresh or frozen blackberries

1 Tbsps. lemon juice

Crumble Topping

1½ cups (180g) flour

½ cup (110g) brown sugar

2 Tbsps. (25g) granulated sugar

½ tsp. Poudre Douce

½ tsp. salt 

½ cup + 1 tbsp (4.6oz/130g) butter, melted

1. Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a 9" glass baking dish and set aside.
2. While the oven is preheating, put the nuts on a baking sheet to toast, about 15 minutes.

Prepare the Filling 

1. Combine the plums, blackberries and apples with the flour and lemon juice in a medium bowl and stir to combine. Allow to sit for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.
2. Spread evenly into the bottom of the prepared dish.

Prepare the Crumble Topping

1. Melt the butter.
2. In a medium bowl put the flour, brown sugar, granulated sugar, cinnamon, salt and nuts and give it a quick stir.
3. Add the butter and mix together until completely combined.
4. Sprinkle the crumble topping on top of the fruit mixture in the prepared dish spreading it evenly.
5. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes until bubbly and golden. 
6. Let cool for at least 15 minutes to allow the filling to thicken.

Pâté de Campagne - Untested

https://raymondblanc.com/recipes/pate-de-campagne-country-pate/

To compare with:

https://www.splendidtable.org/story/2005/12/17/p-t-de-campagne

https://www.whats4eats.com/appetizers/pate-de-campagne-recipe

250g Boned pork shoulder, cut into 3cm dice

250g Boned belly of pork, cut into 3cm dice

250g Smoked streaky bacon, cut 3cm dice

300g Pig’s liver, cut into 3cm dice

1 Medium organic or free range egg

6 pinches Salt

1 pinch Freshly ground black pepper

4 Juniper berries, crushed

2 pinches Five-spice powder

1/2 tsp Fresh thyme leaves, finely chopped

50ml White wine, boiled 30-40 seconds to evaporate the alcohol

2 tbsp Cognac

20g hazelnuts

1 Fresh bay leaf

2 sprigs Fresh thyme

1. Chopping the meats: Pre-heat the oven to 160C.
2. In a food processor, using the pulse button, chop the pork shoulder until you have a coarse mince texture.
3. Using a spatula, transfer the meat from the food processor to a large mixing bowl.
4. Proceed in exactly the same way with the belly of pork, the smoked streaky bacon and the liver, combining all the meats
5. together in the bowl.
6. Preparing the pate: Add the egg, salt, pepper, juniper berries, five-spice powder, chopped thyme, white wine, cognac and nuts to the bowl and vigorously mix everything together with a large wooden spoon.
7. Filling the terrine: Tip the mixture into a 23x 9x 7, 5cm terrine mould and, with the edge of a spoon, press and pack the meat down into the mould.
8. Tap the terrine a couple of times on the work surface to ensure that there are no air pockets and that the meat is compact.
9. Press the bay leaf and thyme sprigs onto the top of the mixture.
10. Cooking the paté: Cover loosely with a piece of buttered greaseproof paper, then place the terrine in a roasting tin and slide it onto the oven shelf. Pour boiling water into the roasting tin until it reaches two-thirds of the way up the side of the terrine mould.
11. Cook for 1 hour. The top of the pate should be slightly rounded.
12. The inside should be 65-70C; if you have a temperature probe, check this. Remove the terrine from the oven leave it to cool at room temperature for 2 hours, then cover with cling film.
13. Refrigerate for two days, so the flavours mature. To serve, dip a knife blade in hot water and slide it against the sides of the terrine to loosen the pate.
14. Turn the terrine upside down on a tray and tap the base to free it from its mould. Carve generous slices onto a plate.
15. Cooking is always an expression of care and generosity.