Tuesday 5 January 2016

Crumble de Membrillo y Kiwi

So, it was Señor Spoon's Cumpleaños the other day, I gave him the option of cake or cumble (and custard) - I think you can decipher what he chose...

So, the recipe is appropriated and slightly amended from the Good Food website: goodfood.uktv.co.uk/recipe/quince-crumble/

7 quince, 7 kiwi, bad lighting.
The stuff:

  • 7 membrillos/quince
  • 7 kiwis
  • 6 clavos/cloves
  • 2 tsp canela molido/ground cinnamon (1 tsp in each: quince mix and topping)
  • 200g azucar/sugar  (100g in each: quince mix and topping)
  • 300 g harina de trigo/plain flour
  • 100 g mantequilla/butter

The how:
  1. Right, this bit takes for-ages, so, rope-in a willing, or not, volunteer, even it is his birthday. Peel, core and chop the quince into chunks, chuck into a pan of water as you go, 'cos they'll start to turn brown in the time it takes to do them all! "It's worth all the prep" Señor Spoon states!
  2. Drain off water some water to leave just enough to cover the quince pieces, add cloves and just 1 tsp cinnamon.
  3. Give the pan a hat and bring it to the boil, add in 100g of sugar, you'll need the rest for the topping - cover and simmer for 5 minutes.
  4. Simmer quince mix, without a hat, until the quince is cooked - around 15-20 minutes (the original recipe asked to simmer until the liquid is syrupy, but mine didn't get that far before the quince were soft).
  5. While patiently waiting, peel and chop up the kiwis and plonk in your allocated crumble dish.
  6. Make the crumble topping, ratio I use is 1:1:3, butter:sugar:flour, chuck butter and flour to bowl, using finger tips, rub together until bread-crumb-like, mix in remaining 100g sugar and teaspoon of cinnamon, keep about the place.
  7. Back to the now cooked quince, remove lumps with a slotted spoon and add to kiwis, fishing out any cloves you can see, see, see.
  8. Stick pan of not-quite syrupy liquid back on the heat to get a bit closer to syrupy liquid, add to other fruit when you're happy with viscosity.
  9. Liberally sprinkle crumble topping over fruit. 
  10. Stick in the oven, now the one here is, erm, nuclear, so I have no guidelines, other than until golden brown (texture like sun - feel free to listen to the song, it could help, if you don't know what to look out for). I reckon 30 mins in a normal oven will do it!
  11. Eat with lashings of custard!

Friday 1 January 2016

Nochevieja Chilli sin Carne

New Year's Eve Chilli without meat

Firstly, Happy New Year!!
Secondly, photos are not loading from my phone, so I'll add them later.
Thirdly, Chilli!

New Year's Eve with a Chilli by the bonfire down by the stream, among the orange trees you say? Yes, yes please!
I concocted a recipe from stuff we had about the place, use different stuff if you like, this was pretty lush though!

The stuff:
  • 1 taza lentejas marrones/cup brown lentils
  • 600ml aqua/water
  • 1 cebolla/onion
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 3 dientes de ajo/garlic cloves 
  • sobrante tallo de brócoli/ leftover broccoli stem
  • algunas zanahorias/a few carrots
  • algunos coliflor/some cauliflower - 1/4 of a head (?)
  • algunas calabaza/some squash - 250g(?)
  • 1 tsp azúcar/sugar
  • algunos vinagre de ciruela/glug plum vinegar
  • 1/2 tsp chilli en polvo/chilli powder
  • 2 tsp comino molido/ground cumin
  • 2 tsp semillas de cilantro/coriander seeds (crushed in a pestle)
  • 1/2 tsp pimentón dulce/sweet paprika
  • 1/2 tsp canela molida/ground cinnamon
  • Sal y pimiento negro/salt and pepper (as per taste)
  • 1 cup lentejas peladas/yellow split peas
  • 800g lata de tomates/tin of tomatoes
  • 400g tarro garbanzos/jar chickpeas
And yes, I am practising my Spanish, but that's my fix for the post though...

The how:
  1. So, get them lovely brown lentils with the water in a saucepan and on to boil - about 20 mins until almost cooked or 'al dente'.
  2. Meanwhile in the next 20 minutes, at a stove near you, get the oil in a big ol' pan that you'll be cooking the whole thing in and whack up the heat.
  3. Find a chopping board, in the dishwasher, dirty, tend to this, find a knife in same state as chopping board, *good start, don't add that to the blog* *ahem*. Roughly chop up the onion, realise something's a bit smoky in here, take pan off flame, open window. Once a bit less nuclear stick onion in pan and back on the heat, nice a hot (but keep an eye on it this time).
  4. Return to chopping board, stirring onions occasionally, crush and smush garlic cloves and roughly massacre the rest of the veg: broc, carrots, cauli and squish.
  5. Now for some stickyness *mmm*, add sugar to onion, stir, let it get a bit gloopy, add a glug of vinegar, more mixy, more gloop. Theory is a caramelised onion base - naughty!
  6. Check lentils, burn tongue on spoon (not Señor), take off heat if ready, don't drain!
  7. Now, add all the spices to the gloopy mess and stiiiiiiiir, let them have a few minutes.
  8. Add all chopped veg: garlic, broc, carrots, cauli and squish, stir into gloop.
  9. Add the yellow split peas, tomatoes, and the entire pan of lentils (as long as they're done), water and all! Stir, stir, stir.
  10. Check seasoning, be bold about the spice and add another 1/2 tsp of chilli powder, 1 tsp sugar, plus s&p.
  11. Boil, simmer, simmer (with a lid on), until split peas have turned to mush and veg is cooked, I usefully didn't time it...40 mins(?)
  12. Take off heat, taste test: add as needed, realise you've forgotten to add the chickpeas, drain, rinse and add, plus some oregano as you saw it on the self and thought why not?! Stir.
  13. Admire chilli lovelyness, don't take photo for your blog because your phone is dead and the lighting in here is rubbish.
  14. Leave on stove until bonfire is lit, roast potatoes are cooked and you're ready to see the New Year in (give it a blast of heat before serving).
That's it.

We just had two, generous, portions from this giant chilli - I'll see how many we get out of it and report back, plus the other things we have with it or concoct with it...

Happy New Year's Day!


Reporting back - 05/01/15:
I had grand idea of eating the left overs with exciting side dishes, as I suppose you could, but we went with homemade bread and generous portions! So this giant chilli did 6 generous portions, I reckon you could stretch it to 8, if you so fancied...LS x