0 Quick hollandaise sauce

Hollandaise sauce is a great recipe to have in your arsenal, this versatile sauce is often thought to be difficult to make but if you have a food processor to whisk it up in you shouldn't have any issues with your sauce splitting or your sauce failing to thicken.

The origins of Hollandaise is a debated hotly and is claimed by both Holland and France, well whatever I say. All I know that this is a great accompaniment to fish (particularly salmon and as pictured), asparagus (as pictured), eggs benedict and the basis of other great sauces such as bearnasie.

The sauce in the photograph is a foaming hollandaise, where the whisked egg whites are folded back into the sauce, this is a surefire way of ensuring you sauce doesn't split, especially if you need to re heat it.

Oh and just in case you were wondering that lovely local asparagus too and some garlic and rosemary potatoes.

What you need

• 2 eggs - seperated
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 1 dessert spoon of white wine vinegar
• Rough 3 oz of butter
• Salt and pepper

What you do

• Place the egg yolks in the bowl of your food processor (my magimix has a dinky little bowl which fits inside the large bowl, that is the perfect size)
• In a small bowl, I microwave the lemon juice and vinegar for 30 seconds, until warm. Add this to the egg, whizz in for a few seconds
• In the same bowl melt the butter, and slowly with the processor whizzing drizzle in the butter, until you have a thicken emulsion. Don't hurry this step take your time, all of a sudden you will have a lovely glossy sauce.
• Add salt and pepper to taste.
• If you want to make foaming hollandiase, whisk up in a bowl the egg white until at the soft peak stage and fold into your golden sauce.
• Serve warm or cold with fish, asparagus or over egg benedict.

Detail: Quick hollandaise sauce

0 National Vegetarian Week and Greenhalghs

Greenhalgh's Butter pie served with brown sauce

This week is National Vegetarian Week  a great celebration of vegetarian food. One great Lancashire delicacy is a great dish for vegetarians and that is Butter Pie. A pie that has its history firmly fixed in Lancashire and the area surrounding Preston in particular as a economical and nutritious meal for catholic mill workers. Butter pies are still produced by a number of local north west bakeries to satisy local demand, one of which Greenhalghs recently approached me to review their butter pie, obviously as a connoisseur  of the butter pie I was more than happy to undertaken this task.

A butter pie has a filling of potatoes, onion and butter, plus a little seasoning this is all in cased in a shortcrust pastry parcel, happily all the fats in Greenhalghs pastry are of vegetable origin so no worries there if you are vegetarian  I found the freshly baked pies to be delicious, juicy and tender and the pastry having just the right amount of crumble combined with melt in the mouth filling. Some people may think a pie with only potato, onion and butter in its filling would be a little bland, but far from it in a Butter pie the potato flavour comes to the fore. It is also nice that the pie has potato slices which create a nice texture rather than a mush I have seen in other butter pies.

Most high streets in the North west have a Greenhalghs so its easy to pop in and stock up on this great tasty vegetarian snack , especially during National Vegetarian Week.

                                           
Alternatively if you are feeling creative you could always make you own , check out the recipe in the popular posts.

Detail: National Vegetarian Week and Greenhalghs

0 Apple Butter - windfalls for the store cupboard

In the garden the apple season is in full swing, our trees are old and knarled and are the remnants of a much larger orchard for a nearby ancient farmhouse. All the gardens in the local areas have fruit trees, mainly apple or perry pear, but the fields just down the lane also have crab apples and damsons as well.

Given that this year has been the wettest on record (interesting term that as records have only been kept for a few hundred years, I digress) the fruit harvest is very variable and many trees haven't fruited well , that combined with the trees being old, codling moth and fungal diseases means that the fruit is mostly ignored locally.

I like to embrace this harvest and every year when we have fruit in the garden, we make cider (variable quality), chutney, sauce, apple butter and freeze large quantities for pies and crumbles in the winter. We are also lucky that the fallen fruit particularly in cold winters attracts flocks of redwings and fieldfares into the garden to feast on the slowly rotting piles of apples and pears.

This apple butter recipe is based on a Women's Institute recipe and one from River Cottage preserves, its a easy preserve to make and is delicious on toasted crumpets or as a filling for cakes. The proportion of sugar is lower than a jam so its keeping qualities aren't quite as good as jam and it must be stored in a cool place and eaten promptly once opened. Its smells heavenly when cooking as the spices give it a deliciously aromatic scent, which when combined the cider notes is wonderful.

Ingredients

• About 1.5kg apples, cut up into chunks , only discard really manky bits !
• Sugar - Granulated about 800g
• 600ml Cider ( local if you can get it )
• 600ml Water
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground cloves ( you can use other spices it up to you)
• Lots of recycled jars - sterilised (small one's are better so you can eat it all quickly once open)

Method

• Place your cut up apples, cider and water in a very large pan
• Bring to boil and simmer until all the fruit is soft and pulpy
• Pass through a mouli or rub through a sieve to remove the cores, pips and skins
• Add the strained pulp back to your cleaned pan, adding approx 350g sugar for each 600ml of pulp
• Add the spices (whichever you are using)
• Stir and heat slowly to dissolve the sugar
• Once the sugar has dissolved bring to a good rolling boil until the mixture is reduced and spluttering and creamy in texture
• Pot immediately into your warmed sterilised jars
• Cool and then store in cool location until use

National Apple Day was started by Common Ground

 This is also an entry for A little bit of Heaven on a plates Homemade and Well Preserved challenge 

STOP PRESS - I won best in show, amazed and such a lovely lovely prize a signed preserves book from Vivien Lloyd expert chutney and preserves maker and also a WI Judge

Detail: Apple Butter - windfalls for the store cupboard