Jottage from Lancaster/Cambridge - Lemon Tart

I have been lacking a bit in inspiration over the festive season, hence not putting up any new posts at all. However I couldn’t resist reporting on the concoction of a very delicious lemon tart. The recipe came from the River Cottage Family Cookbook (pp. 52-3) – one of my Christmas presents. The book is full of lovely pictures and is clearly meant to be used by young children (there are quite a few pictures of cute kids peeling, chopping and eating things). It is neatly divided up into the major food groups – flour, milk, eggs etc. – with descriptions at the beginning of each chapter about what extraordinary things can be created from the most basic ingredients. The lemon tart was the most obvious thing to make as my mother had already bought a load of lemons, and my husband adores lemon tart more than pretty much anything else. Supermarket brands of lemon tart are generally pretty good, and for about 3.99 you can get yourself a nice tart which might even be sprinkled with some icing sugar. I was intrigued to know what it would taste like if I made it myself though.

Ethan and Amelia making breadcrumbs from butter and flour

This was my first attempt at making a lemon tart and I had no idea how time-consuming it was going to be. Hugh’s recipe was fairly straightforward  but there were a surprising number of steps and not much explanation at certain points – for example, he didn’t explain why the pastry needed to be pricked with a fork, or why a baking sheet needed to be warmed up in the oven. Also, what on earth are baking beans for and what would have happened if we hadn’t used them? Pastry is pretty fragile stuff it seems, and needs a lot of care and attention. I gathered the assistance of my 5 year old nephew, Ethan, and 2 year old niece Amelia, and – as the pictures below reveal – they got stuck in mixing the flour and butter together.

Tristan making sure that we follow the recipe correctly

However I couldn’t really interest them in the next stage (too many Christmas presents to play with)– a pity as there can’t be many things more satisfying than mixing together butter, sugar, eggs and lemons. We poured the gloopy mix into our perfect pastry case and warmed it slightly under the grill before eating. Unlike shop bought tarts the filling was very runny, but it was a perfect shade of yellow – not pale at all, but the colour of real lemons. There were no complaints at the table that night, and there wasn’t a scrap of pastry left.

The final product - edges slightly burned as we didn't read the bit which suggested you cover the sides in foil

Jottage from Lancaster/Cambridge - Lemon Tart the prequel

I bought the River Cottage Family Cookbook from Beverley. That's not to say that I didn't have it already as I had bought a copy from Amazon, but I saw one for 4.99 in W H Smith and I thought I would buy one for Heather. It wasn't long after this that the dilemma hit me - should I give my daughter the new one - or the second hand Amazon copy? In the end, she confidently picked up the new one and declared it as 'hers' which solved it very neatly. But that's not the point of this blog. As we are all together this Christmas there has been a lot of opportunities for cooking big quantities and some chance of cooking with the children. 


In the end, it was Heather who decided to have a go at the Lemon Tart. She has written her blog about this in Lemon Tart Part 1 so there isn't much more to say about that - but that it was really, really lovely. Much nicer than anything you can buy in the shops and far more lemony. So I thought I would introduce some of the cooks involved:

Ethan aged 5

Amelia aged 2

Tristan aged 9 months

Jottage from Lancaster - Fried Fish Fillets with Herbs and Lemon

I had the rainbow trout I had bought from the worst Sainsburys in the world - Morecambe - and it really needed eating. I decided to have a shot at the Fried Fish Fillets with Herbs and Lemon. I had remembered to buy capers at last and so the vital ingredients were all to hand - I even had the right herbs and a lemon. I decided to roast some carrots, baby potatoes and parsnips with it - making a nice veggie accompaniment. Hugh has had a big influence on me this - I rarely use only one vegetable and more often than not, potato takes a back seat. However this wasn't an unqualified success. I should have added some nice green veggies like leek or cabbage, which would have gone better, I think. And the herbs and lemon mix was very lemony. I'm not sure it was the best thing to have with the Rainbow Trout - it seemed to need thick fish to take up the real lemoniness of the juices. But even with these reservations it was very nice and I am pleased with myself for cooking fish twice in 2 days. I should have cooked the trout in the parcels and the haddock with the lemon and herbs and a more experienced fish cook would probably know that.

Jottings from Lancaster - Blue Vinny and Leek Quiche (not)

We had our credit card statement through the post a few days ago and it was much lower than usual. Part of that, I know, is my propensity to shop in Primark rather than Monsoon, and my dedication to making my own face cream from bits and bobs I find lying round the house (some beeswax someone gave me, a bit of rose water I had left in a bottle from the Christmas Cake I made a few years ago and some very cheap face oil bought from Walmart does the trick) rather than buying expensive fancy pots at some unlikely price - which even at 3 for 2 would probably feed a family of 4 for the couple of months it takes me to smear it on my skin. But I was triumphant to spend so much less even so. 'It's Hugh!', I cry, 'You see all this cooking actually SAVES us lots of money'. I actually do believe that. 


Go back in time a couple of weeks when we were going down to Heather's. As she says in her earlier blog, we like to come with a bit of food to pay our way a little for staying down there and eating her out of house and home and so we usually turn up with a ready meal or two, and the scrapings from our fridge at home which may well be a few tomatoes, a pepper and, almost inevitably, half a cabbage. We stopped off at Waitrose at Sandbach on the way down - a much nicer place than Sandbach Services on the M6, believe me. Waitrose is a bit of a luxury for us as they haven't extended their reach this far north west and Sandbach, some 70 miles away, is about as near as they come. I didn't mean to be long, but I went off to look for something to buy. And here a sudden Damascus moment occurred, right there in the ready meal aisle. There was nothing, and I mean nothing, that I thought would be nicer than I could cook at home using my trusty and increasingly rapeseed and smoked paprika splashed River Cottage Everyday book. 


The prices were horrendous - you could pay restaurant prices here for a meal you had to cook yourself, then take out of the foil and arrange on a plate and then wash it all up. There was a lamb thing I quite fancied but it was £8.99 a portion - and that was without any veggies. OK, this was Waitrose and I can see that I could buy packaged meals 2 for £5 in Tesco. But even so would I actually LIKE what I was eating? I kept thinking about the standard ready-meal sauce consistency. What DO they use to make it that gelatinous? 


Now there's no question that sometimes I make a meal, even slavishly following the recipe and we both think that it wasn't quite right somehow. I made the Fried Fish Fillets with Herbs and Lemon and it was far too lemony for instance, but overwhelmingly the recipes have been successful - more than successful and in some cases quite stunning. And at least I knew what was in it and I can use less lemon next time - and it is definitely worth another shot. 


So since River Cottage I have learnt a few things. 


1. Ditch the ready meals - they don't save you much work, they cost you lots more money and they aren't always very nice
2. Eat food - not things that are dressed up to look like food (i.e. most ready meals)
3. And with the money you save, you can buy better quality food and make meals yourself from scratch.


This sounds so prissy and I would be annoyed if I'd read anyone else writing this. And I am lucky enough to have the time to cook - and I am really enjoying it. I thought it would be a luxury being able to buy expensive ingredients like decent free range eggs and meat from the butcher and proper sustainable fish (I haven't quite got that sussed yet but I'm working on it). What I didn't realise is that even if I do that it still saves me money. And I do actually love eating it!


PS I forgot to mention the Blue Vinny and Leek Quiche...

Jottage from Lancaster - Fried Fish Fillets with Herbs and Lemon

Fried Fish with Herbs and Lemon

I had the rainbow trout I had bought from the worst Sainsburys in the world - Morecambe - and it really needed eating. I decided to have a shot at the Fried Fish Fillets with Herbs and Lemon. I had remembered to buy capers at last and so the vital ingredients were all to hand - I even had the right herbs and a lemon. I decided to roast some carrots, baby potatoes and parsnips with it - making a nice veggie accompaniment. Hugh has had a big influence on me this - I rarely use only one vegetable and more often than not, potato takes a back seat. However this wasn't an unqualified success. I should have added some nice green veggies like leek or cabbage, which would have gone better, I think. And the herbs and lemon mix was very lemony. I'm not sure it was the best thing to have with the Rainbow Trout - it seemed to need thick fish to take up the real lemoniness of the juices. But even with these reservations it was very nice and I am pleased with myself for cooking fish twice in 2 days. I should have cooked the trout in foil and the haddock with the lemon and herbs and a more experienced fish cook would probably know that. I'm planning to buy more fish on Saturday and will try this again.

Jottage from Lancaster - A Fishy Dilemma

Fish as a subject is something I don't think too much about. Whilst being vaguely aware that eating fish is good for you, we don't actually do it much. I always have this resolution in mind to eat it once or twice a week, but I can't say that I have ever kept to it. 


I don't really know much about buying fish or cooking it. But I was very tempted by the Foil Baked Fish with Fennel, Ginger and Chili, even though the picture in River Cottage Everyday looks to me as if the fish is raw but the veggies cooked. I cooked it and it was blissfully easy to make and really succulent. Buoyed up by the triumph I thought I would try another fish recipe from the book. I had in mind Fried Fish Fillets with Herbs and Lemon. However I had forgotten that I had finished off my ancient little bottle of capers for the lamb chops with garlic, thyme and capers (really scrumptious), and so I had to remember to buy some more. But I had totally forgotten and the chances of the local village shop having some were so minimal that it just wasn't worth getting the car out. So I was searching for another recipe and the foil baked fish is probably the best I can do - but I don't have any fennel. So I might substitute tomatoes - or I might just try roast fish fillets with roast potatoes.


But those dilemmas are nothing compared to actually buying a bit of fish. Ever keen to expand my culinary knowledge, yesterday I got round to reading the Fish Forever preamble to the fish recipe section of River Cottage Everyday. And here I first encountered what I should have known before; Hugh has a real thing about fish. I know he goes fishing as I have seen him do it on the telly - and I now know he is deeply concerned about all sorts of fishing-related issues. So it was with some hesitation that I stood in front of the fish display at Marks and Spencer (I know I should have gone to a proper fishmonger but yesterday just wasn't the time or the place). There seemed to be a bewildering amount of choice and I was desperately trying to remember Hugh's list of fish to avoid/fish to eat more of. All I could remember was that cod-bad and mackerel-good.

Packet of sole, lemon

In the end I came back with a pack of lemon sole and with some trepidation turned to page 138 to see if it was on the black list. In fact it didn't mention sole of any kind - good, bad or indifferent (although Megrim and Witch, members of the sole family, are, suprisingly, good). So I turned to the website www.fishonline.org which Hugh assures us (on page 139) is 'very easy to use'. I found myself well out of my comfort zone here as I typed in 'lemon sole'. I was very confused to find that there were no results found. Perhaps this was some kind of fish that didn't really exist - a kind of chicken kiev of fish - a ready-meal I didn't need to prepare in any way. But no, this 'very easy' website wants to to put in 'sole, lemon' (note the all-important comma which is a vital part of this creature's name otherwise 'no results found'). Hmmm - not such an easy site then. But then it got more complex as there are 3 sole, lemons. 2 of them were probably OK and one was rated as a no-no; 'based on available information these species should probably not be considered sustainable at this time'. Ah.

Forever Fish (albeit fuzzy)

All I knew from the packet was that it was caught in the North Atlantic but it was labelled 'Fish Forever' which is some new kind of M and S initiative to keep up fish stocks (so they say). But on the M and S website it says 'Lemon sole has not been certified by MSC'. So what does that mean? Does MSC mean the Marine Conservation Society with a bit of a typo? In which case it may be that it doesn't quite meet up to the standards of someone like Hugh? I have no idea what it means, but it seems to me that if you are buying fish, because the situation with fish stocks and fishing methods changes all the time, you are better befriending a good fishmonger and keeping away from supermarkets. 

Fish Forever

Meanwhile I haven't considered buying the River Cottage Fish yet - but even now I am thinking that maybe one day....