Black pudding and rhubarb parcels as featured on Paul Hollywoods Pies and Puds

Reader you may remember from an earlier post I was filmed for a slot on TV in the summer, so just so you have the recipe I have decided to write up a detailed post of the recipe I prepared. This savoury snack is great for the upcoming festive celebrations and also ideal for converting black pudding haters into black pudding lovers. 

For both the slot on TV and this recipe I used "The Bury Black pudding company" black pudding, but I like RS Irelands Black puddings too, in fact most butchers locally make their own black pudding, Browns Butchers in Chorley are legendary.

The recipe for these parcels is also featured in the Lancashire Recipe booklet that was published recently as well, so its becoming pretty famous. I love that this recipe features pretty lowly ingredients but by the end you have something glamorous and suitable for serving at any drinks party.

I am also pleased to say as well that I used Lancashire cider in the sauce and homegrown rhubarb, in the filming this was fresh from the garden but when I remade this recipe for the blog post, it was from the freezer. The cider is from Doves Sykes an artisan cider producer from the Ribble Valley - Ribble Valley Gold is produced in small quantities and is a still dry cider ideal for drinking or cooking with.

I have no idea as to whether the slot I filmed will be used on the show, today is Lancashire Day so I thought I'd post the recipe to celebrate the day.

Update: the clip was used on Paul Hollywoods Pies and Puds on 27th November 2013 its currently avaliable on iplayer but Mr Lancashire Food has also made a copy of Youtube which you can find here 

I got a "nice one Linzi" from Mr Hollywood himself so he must have liked the recipe, why not try it for yourself.

What you need

• Black pudding
• Rhubarb (fresh or frozen)
• Onion
• Cider (medium to dry)
• Salt and Pepper
• Nutmeg
• Filo pastry (shop bought fresh rather than frozen)
• Vegetable oil

What you do 

• First pre heat the oven to 160C
• Fry off the black pudding until a little crispy

• Remove from the pan and set to one side
• Now cook of the finely chopped onions until slightly soft, now add the rhubarb and cider (in my case a lovely local one)
• Simmer until soft and the moisture has been driven off

• Allow to cool before filling your parcels

• Spoon your filling onto a single sheet of filo, folded in half and create your parcels

• Place on a baking tray brushed with a little oil and cook until golden brown

• Serve hot or cold either on its own or with a sweet chilli sauce if wanted

Radio Lancashire appearance for Lancashire Week

                               
I am back on the John Gilmore show on the 26th November, taking part in the week long celebrations for Lancashire Week !

We will be on the Flag Market in Preston with the BBC bus, so come along and join in the fun, if you are in the city centre. We hope to be on air from about 2.30pm and will be talking all about food in Lancashire and especially "Butter Pie" as a traditional Lancashire delicacy.

The best fruited buns, ever !

These buns are amazing, soft, aromatic and stuffed full of fruit and spices, the perfect combination of flavours and great toasted or served simply buttered. Ok, so perfect buns aren't an instant thing but I promise you these buns are worth the additional effort and like any bread recipe its all about planning what you will do in the time your dough is working.

The other good thing is that you are in control of what you want in your buns, so in this mix we have a little crystallized ginger and chopped figs alongside the more traditional, raisins, sultanas and citron peel (hand chopped, ready chopped peel is vile), and you wouldn't want to spoil these amazing buns. To create the soft texture you need to use some fat in your dough, lard and dripping work well but you can also use white chocolate or even milk chocolate at a push, it makes the dough have a soft crumb, just the texture you want for your buns.

The buns would be great for festive celebrations and would easily adapted for Easter too, but frankly you'll love them so much you will eat them all year round !

What you need

• 600g strong white bread flour
• 150ml skimmed milk
• 14g dried yeast (2 pkts)
• Approx 120ml warm water but this will depend on your flour and the temperature in your kitchen
• 1 tbsp golden syrup (you could maple syrup or honey instead)
• 25g caster sugar
• 50g white fat (dripping, lard, chocolate)
• 300g dried fruit mixed (whatever you like)
• 1 1/2 tsp mixed spices (ginger, nutmeg, cardamon, cinnamon, feel free to mix and match)
• 1 tsp finely ground salt
• 3 eggs - free range please
• Another egg for glazing purposes

What you do 

• Dissolve the yeast in the warm water, I always add a little flour as I find this get the yeast activated more quickly and leave in a warm place until frothy and the yeast is clearly active.
• Warm the milk and the syrup, caster sugar, white fat until melted and then add the spices, salt and the dried fruits. Allow to cool.
• Add the beaten eggs to the cooled milk mixture.
• In a large bowl combine the flour, yeast mixture and egg and milk mixture, stir until you have an loose dough. Leave this to rest for about 10 minutes covered, then knead again, do this again a couple of times but leaving it rest longer in between.
• You should eventually have a soft well combined active dough, divide this your require number of buns, I went for 10 but these were monster sized.
• Form balls and press flat, leave these to rest again on oiled trays until doubled in size, covered in plastic so the dough doesn't form a skin ( as this is an enriched dough it may take several hours)
• Bake at 200c in a pre heated oven, brush the tops with a beaten egg if you want a shiny top.
• They will be ready after about 15 minutes or so when well risen and golden on top, don't overcook them as they will go dry.
• Cool on a wire rack and devour slathered with butter, toasted or just as they are.

I am entering this post in the Tea time Treats challenge hosted by Karen over at Lavender and Lovage and Kate who blogs over at What Kate baked. The theme is "Dried Fruit" and I think this bun more than qualifies.

                                                

Baked chicken with tomatoes and olives for Nigel Slater Dish of the Month

As my contribution to "Recipe of the month" challenge hosted by Janice who blogs over at Farmersgirl and Sue who blog over at a little bit of heaven on a plate, I have chosen a recipe from Nigel Slaters kitchen diaries II.

The recipe is on page 322 and is recipe from August in the book, I fortunately managed to get hold of some English tomatoes to make the recipe with and I always have chicken thighs in the freezer I thought I'd give it a try. I pretty much followed the recipe to the letter except I didn't have any green tomatoes as you can see from the photographs the recipe turned out well enough but was a little too moist for my taste, so if I made it again I would roast longer to burn off some of the meat juices.

Nigel recommends you serve the dish with bread, rice or couscous to soak up the juices.

As stated above I'm taking part in "Dish of the month" hosted this month by Sue who blogs at "A little bit of heaven on a plate"

                                                 

BBC Radio Lancashire - Newspaper Review

Well, we have been invited onto Graham Livers breakfast show tomorrow morning to review the mornings newspapers !!

If you would like to listen in, it'll be an early get up. We will be on the air between 07:15 and 08:00.

Orange yogurt loaf with orange glace icing for Alphabakes

The theme for this month's Alphabakes is "O", I plumped for one of the more obvious O's - oranges, this easy bakes uses orange zest in the cake and the oranges juice in the glace icing which creates a lovely contrast to the soft crumbly cake. Using my trusty yogurt cake recipe I just added the finely grated zest, its a very versatile recipe and would also work well with lemon.

Oranges are great at this time of year and signal to me that the festive season is just around the corner. The resulting cake is beautifully elegant and ideal for afternoon tea, give it a try.

What you need

• 1C yogurt
• 1C sunflower oil
• 1 egg
• 2C caster sugar
• 3C self raising flour
• Grated orange zest

For the glace icing

• Icing sugar
• Orange juice

What you do

• Mix all the cake ingredients together until you have a smooth cake mixture
• Pour into 2 prepared loaf tins
• Bake in a pre heated oven at 180c for approx 45 minutes until cooked through
• Cool in the tin intially and then on a wire rack
• Once the cake is fully cool, then mix the icing sugar with a little orange juice till the icing is the thickness of double cream
• Drizzle onto the cooled cake artistically

Alphabakes is hosted by Caroline Makes and The more than the occasional baker on alternate months

Slow cooker creamy chicken curry

Firstly apologies for not the most wonderful of photographs, its a quick snap taken before demolishing this dish and I was very hungry. I love my slow cooker but up until recently I hadn't made a curry in it, its so nice to return home from work with supper ready and just needing some rice to accompany it.

I used some of the last of the courgettes from the garden and also some other waifs and strays from the fridge too, along with some trusty chicken thighs and a tin of coconut milk.

What you need

• A Slow cooker
• Chicken thighs - chopped into bitesize chinks
• Onion - finely chopped
• Curry powder
• Mango chutney / bengali pineapple chutney
• Courgettes - cut into quarter slices
• Red pepper - cur into little chunks
• Handful of frozen peas
• Tin of coconut milk
• Strong chicken stock
• Salt and pepper

What you do

• Preheat your slow cooker
• Fry off the onion,pepper, courgettes and chicken 
• Place in slow cooker
• Add the curry powder, chutney, coconut milk and a little chicken stock
• Cook on slow for approx 6 -8 hours until the chicken is tender
• For the last 40 minutes of cooking add the frozen peas, turn slow cooker to high
• Serve with basmati recipe and poppadoms.

Luscious Lemon Glitter ball cake for Strictly come baking !

After much cha cha chaing (do you see what I did there) around what recipe I was to make for this months "Strictly" theme I plumped for a glitter ball cake. Based on a run of the mill victoria sponge recipe flavoured with lemon oil, filled with lemon curd, cream and meringue, then decorated with silver sprayed fondant and glitter ball cake pops.

Apologies for the poor photography my camera developed a problem on the night

This is my first venture into cake pops, I made mine using a lemon flavoured yogurt cake, crumbed and mixed with vanilla buttercream. The cake pop balls are shaped by hand into balls which then have a stick pushed through them which has been dipped into white chocolate so that it sets inside the cake pop. These are then left to set and firm up in the fridge.

Once your cake pops are firm and cold you are ready to finish them off , I dipped them in melted white chocolate and decorated with silver balls but you could use any sprinkles you like.

The victoria sponge is an all in recipe and is very easy and produces reliable results, I just added lemon oil for a more intense lemon flavour. The inspiration for the lemon curd, cream and crumbled meringue filling comes from Fiona Cairns. 

What you need for the main cake

• 175g Self raising flour
• 175g butter - soft
• 175g  caster sugar
• 1tsp baking powder
• 3 eggs- beaten
• 1 tsp vanilla paste

2 x 20cm round cake tins , lightly oil sprayed and base lined

Pre-heat the oven to 170c 

What you need to do 

• Whizz up all the ingredients in your food mixer
• Scoop in to 2 prepared pans and bake for approximately 20 minutes until lightly golden and cooked through when tested with a skewer
• Remove from oven and allow to cool slightly before removing from the tin and cooling fully on a wire rack
• Once cool fill with your choice of fillings, I used a generous layer of lemon curd, freshly whipped cream and crumbled meringue.
• I then covered with white fondant and sprayed it with a sliver shimmer spray. 

CCC no 20 - Strictly come baking at Cakes by Ruth in Chorley.

For our 20th event for South Lancashire Clandestine Cake Club we paid a visit to a newly opened celebration cake and cake decorating shop in Chorley town centre. Cakes by Ruth is the home of talented cake decorator Ruth Potts and her lovely shop is a colourful addition to Lancashire's favourite market town.

                               

Inspired by the new series of "Strictly" we had chosen the theme of "Strictly come baking !" for our evening event. Our bakers inspired as ever came up with a great selection of cakes.

Despite a few no shows on the night (I try not take this personally !), we had an enjoyable event enjoying a lovely range of cakes and chatting generally about cakes and baking with Ruth.

Our cake selection featured

• Waltzing mathilda cake - a gorgeous spicy bundt cake

• Dancing Dolly cake - lots of buttercream, sponge and jam topped off with a dolly

• Torta Mojada - Argentinian Wet cake - a moist decadent chocolate cake with citrus layers

• Lucious Lemon glitter ball cake - lemon sponge with lemon curd, meringue and fresh cream, topped off with Lemon and white chocolate silver cake pops.

• Tango'd cake - a freshy zesty orange layer cake

• You've been tango'd - a orange and chocolate confection, very moist and moreish.

You can find Cakes by Ruth on St Georges Street, in Chorley town centre, the shop stocks a great range of decorating materials and of course Ruth can supply any celebration cake needs you may have.

A massive thanks goes to Ruth for hosting our event and opening up specially on a cold November night for our meeting. 

  

Lancashire Recipes - our book. Win a copy in celebration of Lancashire Day

Yipee ! our first booklet has just been published, over the years we have been lucky to have recipes featured in various magazines and articles but this is our first cookery booklet, a collection of 20 modern Lancashire recipes.

                                             
Roughly 12 months ago I was approached by a publishing company to develop the recipes for the book, unfortunately the food photography isn't from Mr Lancashire Food as they chose to use stock images but none the less the recipes and frontis piece are mine.

The book can purchased from major supermarkets, tourist offices and some book shops in Lancashire, plus online from Amazon or Waterstones.

                                         

So in celebration of Lancashire Day you can win one of five signed copies we have to giveway, just enter by completing the Rafflecopter below.

Lancashire Day for the uninitiated is the 27th November it commemorates the date in 1295 when Lancashire sent its first representatives to parliament. A toast is made to the Queen, Duke of Lancaster and is celebrated across the county (even the metropolitan areas which aren't officially Lancashire any more).

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Rules for giveaway

We have 5 signed copies to giveaway, they can only be posted to UK addresses.

• Simply follow the instructions on the Rafflecopter widget above. 
• To be in with a chance of winning you must complete ALL the required fields. 
• All entries will be checked and verified before a winner is announced.
• You can increase your chances of winning by Tweeting on a daily basis.
• Rafflecopter will pick a random winner.
• The competition runs from until Lancashire Day 27th November .
• If you win, you MUST send me your delivery details quickly and within 24 hours or the prize will be passed to the next person drawn.
• Please see the Terms and Conditions on the Rafflecopter widget for the rules and more information.

                                   

Jamie Oliver -squash and spinach rotolo from Save with Jamie

Mr Lancashire Food has been oh so kind and bought me an early christmas pressie already, the latest work from Jamie Oliver (JO). Save with Jamie, features a selection of frugal recipes which aim to be popular with all the family, first impressions suggest this will be as popular as all his other books, of which I have quite a few.

To a lot of people Jamie Oliver can be a bit like marmite, you either love him or you hate him, personally I think that despite JO being a multi millionaire he has his feet firmly placed on the ground and admire the works he has done with young people and also with families encouraging them to get home cooking again.

The first recipe I chose to attempt from this book was his squash and spinach rotolo, JO's books always have a good Italian content and this one is no different, he has re invented one of his previous recipes from Jamie's Italy and made it more frugal by upping the vegetable content and more healthy too.

The recipe for the rotolo can be found here and its a recipe I would definitely make again as it made tasty supper dish, as always JO recipes are generous. 

Its a lovely book, my only compliant is that its a bit lacking on the dessert front, otherwise it a great book and one that I am happy to have on my bookshelf. In the next few weeks I'll be cooking more from the book, again like some of his other books he uses mothership recipes to springboard to linked recipes using the leftovers from the mothership in other dishes. There is plenty of vegeterian choice as well as meat and fish dishes and most of these are pretty frugal. 

On another note this is a cracking photo by Mr LF, in my humble opinion even better than the one in the book by the mighty Mr David Loftus no less. 

                                   

November - A Quick Bite of Lancashire Food

Mike Rawlinson -  Red Cat restaurant Chorley and the Royal Oak at Riley Green.

Our featured foodie for November is Mike Rawlinson - Co owner and head of front of house operations for the highly acclaimed Red Cat restaurant in Chorley and the Royal Oak at Riley Green. Mike is also a talented "Ironman" (hence the picture below) who thinks nothing of cycling over a hundred miles, swimming a couple of miles and then running a marathon. The award winning Red Cat is in both the AA and Michelin guides this year and is also been nominated for Visit Lancashire and Lancashire Life awards again this year.

Just to keep Mike on his toes we have added a new question to our selection, so lets learn more about him.

• What is your favourite cookery or food book or publication ?

White Heat - Marco Pierre White

• What sentence sums up Lancashire Food to you ?

A bastion of local businesses

• If you weren’t doing what you do now, what would you like to be ?

A professional triathlete

• Which piece of kit could you not do without ?

My bike !

• Who would join you at your ultimate dinner party and why? 

Charles Bukowski for the endless wit.

• What advice would you give to your younger self ?

The end is nigh, get on with it!

• Describe your style in three words

Ambitious optimistic sceptic

• What was your latest foodie gadget purchase ?

Whatever the chef ordered (thats his brother !)

• What is your greatest achievement to date ?

My son

• What is the worst mistake you have made ?

None worth worrying about

• Tell us a secret about yourself ? may be something we wouldn't expect !

I really don’t like cookery programmes

• What would be your 3 course "last supper

"My wife's Thai soup, Heston's meat fruit and an enormous cheese board with a Remy Martin Louis Xiii

Cheese of the Month - No 11

Booths Cheese from Booths and Dewlay Cheese

Here at Lancashire Food we are so excited and privileged to proudly feature Booths Cheese as our cheese this month. 

Booths, the Northern fine food and drink retailer takes enormous pride in the specialist knowledge of their staff, devoting time and training to visiting producers and understanding how a product is made. 

The Booths cheese specialists took their quest for product knowledge to another level recently and turned their hands to making the cheese themselves. Six cheese specialists from across the business have made a Lancashire cheese at Dewlay Cheesemakers in Garstang Lancashire. 

Conor Daunt, Commercial Director at Dewlay Cheesemakers said “Booths and Dewlay have worked very closely over the years and we share the same passion for Lancashire cheese. This was a unique project where these highly experienced cheese specialists worked at the dairy over three days and actually made their own cheese from start to finish to their own specifications, and we look forward to seeing the product in store over the coming weeks.”

Well lucky us, as we have got our hands on some of the cheese on the same day it was delivered to and launched in stores.

Richard Paul cheese specialist from the Lytham St Anne’s Booths said, “They say we people learn best by doing, and I think that’s especially true when it comes to food. To genuinely understand the artisan process of making cheese—there’s nothing like making it yourself. I can’t wait to sell the cheese and tell our customers that I made it myself. At Booths staff knowledge sets us apart from the crowd, it’s was makes us a specialist and not just some person behind the counter.”

“We’re all food lovers at Booths, we take pride in what we sell, and now I can say I take pride in the cheese I made.”

Our cheese came traditionally wrapped in wax paper and was personally delivered by Conor from Dewlay cheese, its a young Lancashire cheese but its already different from a traditional Dewlay cheese, its still a little crumbly but has a nice creamy texture developing with more flavour than a traditional Lancashire creamy, deliciously fresh tasting and very moreish. Mr Lancashire Food is already well on his way to finishing the first block !

So pop into your local Booths and pick some of this cheese and remember to ask your cheesemonger behind the counter whether they are now a cheesemaker too.

At the moment the cheese is a limited edition as I understand but I am sure if Booths customers ask for this cheese, it could become a regular feature of Booths cheese counters.