Cookery Club (KIkoklu) Autumn Meeting.

12 November 2016

Though the meeting had been agreed on a few weeks earlier, when it was quite warm, it had now defiantly turned from the golden Autumn to the cold, snowy advent of Winter.

It was Kalle’s turn to be host and so he was making Falscher Hase, the German mince beef loaf, for main, with Caroline doing the vegetable accompaniment, that left the remainder to sort out the rest of the menu.

I was originally going to do a soup, but I was a beaten to that course by dear Marianne so I decided on one of my old favourites, fish pie, these would be served in individual dishes.

Linda was doing a chicken liver terrine with homemade oat cakes and crackers.

Martin had decided on the dessert.

So without much more ado here are the recipes:

Linda’s Chicken liver terrine with blackcurrant jelly

500g chicken livers

2 shallots

2 garlic cloves

2 rosemary tufts

2 thyme twigs

6 juniper berries

1 bay leaf

3 cloves

6 allspice berries

10 black pepper corns

100 ml of Madeira

100 ml Port wine

200 ml of chicken stock

220 g of butter

Salt and pepper to taste

A couple of scrapings of nutmeg

125 g of single cream

For the jelly topping

3 leaves of gelatine

100ml of blackcurrant juice

50ml of chicken stock

100ml of Cassis (blackcurrant liquor)

The terrine was served with oat cakes and salted oat crackers (home made to Dan Lepard’s recipe)

Remove any fat and sinews from the livers, wash, dry and dice. Puree in a kitchen machine or use a blender stick. Rub through a fine sieve to remove any thick residue.

Dice the shallot and garlic, place in a small saucepan along with the thyme,  rosemary and spices pour over the Madeira and Port and by a very low heat reduce until there is only a teaspoon of liquid left. Add the chicken stock to the pan and again reduce until there is only 2 tablespoons of liquid remaining. Pour this reduction onto the puréed liver,  through a fine sieve, pressing the all of the juices out.

Melt the butter and pour onto the liver puree while stirring all the time. Add seasoning (salt, pepper and nutmeg. Whip the cream until quite stiff and mix into the puree.

Heat the oven to 120°C fan assisted (140°C normal heat). Line a form with cling film and carefully pour the liver into the form until it is about 1cm under the lip. Place the form into a deep roasting tray and fill it 2/3 full with boiling water. Put into the heated oven and bake for 75 minutes.

Remove from oven and allow to cool and then place in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours.

To make the jelly.

Soften the gelatine in cold water. Put the black current juice and chicken stock into a small pan and warm through (do not allow to boil). Add the Cassis and the squeezed gelatine and allow to dissolve. Remove from the heat and allow to cool.

Carefully pour the black current/cassis liquor over the top of the liver mixture. Cover with cling film and place the terrine into the fridge for at least 12 hours.

To serve, place the form into hot water and then turn out (it should slide out with ease), remove the cling film and cut into 2cm thick slices, serve with the Crackers and Oat cakes.

Oat cakes

Oat cakes at the front and crackers at the rear

150 g wholemeal flour

50 g plain flour

50 g medium oatmeal

1 tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. salt

Muscovado sugar (for sweet ones 2 tbsp. or for not so sweet 2 tsp.)

A squeeze of honey

100 g of butter

4 tbsp. of milk

Sieve in the dry ingredients and rub in the butter.

Add the milk and mix in with a knife.

Knead very briefly on a floured board until it forms a dough

Roll out to a thickness of 5 mm and cut out with a biscuit cutter (the size is up to you). Keep re-rolling the off cuts until it is all used up.

Place on a baking tray (I covered it with a silicon baking mat) Bake in a 180°C preheated oven until golden brown.

Store in an airtight tin when cold.

Salted oat crackers

300 g plain flour

1 tsp. caster sugar

½ tsp. baking powder

¾ tsp. salt

25 g of softened unsalted butter

100 g of rolled oats

175 ml of milk

Flour for sprinkling on board when rolling

Flaked sea salt to sprinkle on top.

Put the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt into a bowl and rub in the butter, mix in the oats and milk and mix to a soft pliable dough. Cover and leave for 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 200°C or 180°C if you have a fan assisted oven. Roll out the dough very thinly dusting with flour to stop it sticking to the board and rolling pin. Cut discs out with a pastry cutter (I would normally then roll these again to make them extra thin). Lay the discs on a baking tray covered with non-stick baking parchment or silicon sheet, very lightly dampen the top and sprinkle with a few salt flakes.

Bake for 14 minutes until the edges are just starting to turn a golden brown (keep an eye on them at the 10 minute mark, they tend to turn brown very quick).

These store well in an airtight tin for a few days, but they will not last that long, great to snack on instead of crisps.

Marianne’s Pumpkin Soup

My Fish Pie

For 6 servings in a oven proof form (about 300 ml)

I had a freezer full of fish from my last fishing trip, I also had some smoked haddock from a visit to the UK (here in Germany they smoke every other kind of fish, but for some reason not Haddock).

200 g of smoked haddock

300 g of boneless cod (I filet my own so can guarantee that it has had all the bones removed, but otherwise check by running your finger along the filet and pin boning any you find.

6 small squid (called chipirón in Spain) if fresh just slice the body bag open and remove the innards, cut out the beak and wash under running water.

1 large slice of Tuna, cut into 6 pieces

1 filet of hot smoked salmon cut into 6 pieces

18 medium prawns

500 ml of full fat milk for poaching

1 bottle of cooking cream (Rama, though ALDI have their own brand at 50% of the price)

50 mg of fish sauce paste (Jürgen Langbein or similar) you can make your own but

2 bay leaves

3 juniper berries

3 pimento berries

3 cloves

6 pepper corns

3 pieces of mace

1 cup of peas

2-3 hard-boiled eggs

1 kg of floury potatoes

More milk, butter and cream to make the mash

1 heaped tbsp. of chopped flat leaf parsley

Salt and pepper to taste

Pour the milk into a deep frying or saute pan, add the bay leaf and mace, crush the other aromatics in a pestle and mortar, add these to the milk, place in the smoked haddock and bring to the a temperature just below a boil (surface just moving), poach until you can split it easily and milky in colour. Remove and set aside while you poach the rest of the fish, starting with the firmest (chipirón) and ending with the softest (cod).

Evenly portion the fish between 6 oven proof bowls.

To make the sauce, strain the poaching liquor into a measuring jug and make up to 400 ml with the cooking cream, pour into a sauce pan and stir under heat until it thickens add the peas and pour over the fish. 

Allow to cool (it should set).

Add a couple of slices of hard boiled egg onto the top of each

Make a creamed mashed potato with parsley for the topping, this should be quite thin as you will pipe it on, but firm enough to hold its form.

To serve heat in a 100°C oven until warmed through, then place under the grill (or turn the oven onto grill function) and brown the top. Sprinkle with Bottarga (dried salted mullet or tuna roe), this is of course optional as you may not be able to lay hands on it.

Serve immediately.

Kalle’s Falscher Hase (hackbraten). - Mince meat loaf 

Recipe to follow! 

This recipe uses no bread crumb as one of our members is Glutin intolerant.

Vegetable Dish
Plain Boiled Potatoes and

Caroline's Italian Mangold Bake

Martin’s iced desert. 
Recipe and photo to follow!             

     

The evenings debris

       

The Cookery Clubs Spring Meet.

It was the last day in April, it started off quite nice, but as the morning wore in it clouded over.

We loaded up the camper with all the necessary cooking utensils and the pre-prepared part of the meal, I was doing a soup and Linda the Asparagus and two different Hollandaise sauces.

We set off at 09:30 which would give us plenty of time to get to Kiel get parked up on Willhelmplatz and meet our friend Kalle at the market. we were not far on the road when it started to rain, just a few spots at first but within a few minutes it was a steady rain, so we drove to Kiel with Klassik Musik and the swish of windscreen wipers.

We got parked up with no bother and then walked the short distance to the market, it wasn't raining hard, but steadily. They had moved a few stalls around and we had a problem finding the coffee stall where we had agreed to meet Kalle, but first I had a matjes brötchen from the fish stall, I think that the Kiel Fish stands are magnificent, when Linda lived here, we would always buy our fish here, it is the freshest and if you want something exotic, you just need to tell one of the stall holders (we always used Frank on the Matjes Lange stand). We then popped along to say hello to Anker on the vegetable stall that we use and bought some new potatoes. It was still raining and so we wandered around looking at the food and plant stalls, it was cold and wet. After a bit of difficulty we found the coffee stand, it had been moved to the outer limits of the market. Kalle had just arrived, so Linda and Kalle had a coffee and I went to the next stall and had a Currywurst, I must say not the best I have had but then I was spoiled with living in Berlin, the home of the true Currywurst.

We then headed out to Carolyn where we would be feasting in the evening, we set up at the rear of the village local (that is being totally renovated so closed).

We had arrived early, but Linda read the Stern and I made do with the crossword from the Lübecker Nachrichten and dozed. Carolyn phoned and said if we wished we could come around, so we did and kept her company (along with a nice glass of white wine) as she got her main course ready for the oven (veal rump).

The rest of the crew arrived, which sounded the start of the evening, with the pop of the cock of the sparkling wine this set the wheels in motion. Marianne made the cocktail (I helped her, I put the ice cubes into the glasses). The cocktail had a very nice Apirol base, it is such a pretty colour and has that nice bitter/sweet taste.

We adjourned to the wonderfully decorated table (lilac themed) in the living room.

 Martin Started us off with his very tasty amuse bouch, served in a glass, it was a Green Asparagus, crayfish tails in a smashing cocktail sauce.

Next was my Cream of Asparagus soup with brown shrimps.

Serves six

2kg of white asparagus (peeled and cut into pieces)
500g of green asparagus
The peelings of all the aspargus
1 clove of garlic, crushed
1 shallot, diced

1 large potato, diced

2 ltrs of good vegetable stock (this was used to cook asparagus over 3days)

A piece of lemon skin (outer only)

Juice of half a lemon

1 tsp sugar

Salt and pepper to taste

2 bottles of catering cream (less chance of it splitting)

150g of brown shrimps

A handful of wild garlic leaves shredded

A few fresh basil leaves shredded

I had made the soup base in the morning before setting off, this consisted of an Asparagus stock, that had been made over the previous week, each time we had asparagus I would boil the peelings up and then strain, before cooking the asparagus in the stock. I had started off with a vegetable stock from Knorr (those little plastic pots as advertised by Markus Pierre White).

Over the week t

his became more and more concentrated, until I had the final stock and the house smelling of asparagus

.

I added the final asparagus peelings, a crushed clove of garlic, a couple of slithers of lemon peel and the juice of half a lemon.

This was boiled for 30 minutes, strained through a sieve and the diced white asparagus added, plus a diced potato and a teaspoon of sugar.

When the asparagus and potato were soft I pureed them and passed through a sieve to remove any lumps and fibres.

I next cooked the green asparagus; this would form a puree to drizzle into the finished soup. I pureed the green, adjusted the seasoning and transferred into a piping tube.

Everything was ready, I transferred it to a container for transporting, all that was required at Carolyn’s was to bring the soup just below boiling point, adjust seasoning, stir in the cream and pour over brown shrimps in the soup plate, squeeze over the green asparagus puree and decorating with shredded wild garlic leaves and basil.

Served with some nice stone oven baked bread bought that morning at the market.

After the soup came the main course.

This was Carolyn’s haunch of veal with a butter and herb crust, slow roasted in the oven with carrots and shallots. Served with boiled potatoes and Linda’s white and green asparagus served with two different sauces Hollandaise. One was orange flavoured  and the other a mousseline (whipped cream added at the end to lighten it up)

To finish off the meal was one of Kalle’s desert creations, a trio of rhubarbs, a rhubarb tartlet, a rhubarb crumble and a rhubarb drink, all quite exquisite.

We sat and chatted, before it was time for us to retire to our mobile home and the rest headed back to Kiel and beddy byes.  The end of another wonderful Kikoklu evening long may they continue, the next one is a Summer BBQ at Stodo.