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

       

St Martins Weekend Fish Pie

For various reasons we decided to celebrate St Martins day, but least because of its religious nuances, more because of the Goose and also it was The Nordic Film Festival in Lübeck and My daughter and partner and our dear friend Kalle were coming to stay.

Bit of Luxurious Fish Pie.

 My Daughter and partner were coming to stay for the weekend, they would be arriving Friday evening and as normal hungry (when are they ever not?). So I decided on something that could be made up front and just slipped into the oven either just before or on arrival, so it was a pie, always a good one that can be made up front, We decided on a Fish Pie as it is easy to assemble, can be made well before hand and is one of Janice’s favourites (and surprise, surprise also Linda’s).

I sorted out what fish I had in the freezer, I had of course plenty of cod from my last fishing trip, I had a few pieces of Pollack, some frozen King Prawns, a small amount of Fruiti-de-Mare . I went to my local fish monger (Gosch) to see what was offer, I bought 2 filets of Plaice, a nice piece of Tuna, a piece of smoked Halibut (this was in place of the none existent smoked haddock) a slice of hot smoked salmon (Stremmellachs) and some cooked prawns. So that was the fish taken care of.

Ingredients:

1kg Selection of fish both smoked and unsmoked.

500ml of milk

1 clove of garlic, crushed

1 small onion, thinly sliced

1 tsp of mace

1 pinch of cinnamon powder

2 bay leaves

Remove the skin and bones from the fish

In a saucepan, add this to the milk and add all of the above spices, onion and garlic, heat gently and allow to infuse at a very low heat for  30 mins. Strain the liquor through a hair sieve, discard the residue. 

Poach the rest of the fresh and defrosted fish in this, when cooked, remove from the liquor with a slotted spoon into an oven-proof flat terrine. Break the smoked fish into bite sized pieces and scatter with the cooked prawns

In a clean saucepan make a Roux, with 30g of butter and 30g of plain flour, slowly adding the warm poaching liquor while whisking all of the time, allow to cook out, the resulting sauce should just coat the back of a spoon, add a good handful of defrosted garden peas.

Pour the resulting sauce over the fish in the terrine, cover with cling film and put into the fridge overnight.

Next day make your potato topping.

1.5kg of floury potatoes

50g of butter

50ml of catering cream (you can use real cream if you wish)

1 large egg

Small handful of chopped parsley

50g of grated cheese (Emmentaler, Greyér, Cheddar or whatever takes tickles your fancy)

1 heaped tsp of English mustard

Salt and white pepper.

Peel and boil your potatoes until they are just starting to break up, strain and allow to cool a little, push through a ricer, add the egg and beat in slowly, add the butter and cream (warmed together) beating with a wooden spoon until smooth and creamy, stir in the mustard and the parsley.

Add the cheese, reserving 10g for the top, adjust the seasoning (you may not require salt, depending on the cheese).

Using a palate knife and starting at the outside, pile the topping over the fish filling (none of the filling should squidge out as it will be set firm from being cooled overnight). Now run the back of a fork along the top of the topping (this is not only for decoration but also makes for crispy browning, sprinkle with the remaining cheese.

This can be set aside in the fridge until required.

Pre-heat the oven (fan assisted 180°C) and place the pie on a grid in the oven for 15 minutes, raising temperature to 200°C for a further 5 minutes to crisp up top. (You could put it under the grill if you wish for the last 5 minutes). Serve at once, we had it with broccoli.

A nice crisp white wine goes excellently with this; we had a German White Burgundy. 

A quick fish pie

As I wandered through the Rheda Wochenmarkt, I stopped at the fish stall, they don’t normally have a great selection of fresh fish, but I saw they had haddock (schellfisch) fresh not smoked, but they did have smoked halibut, thinks :?:  what can one do with those, well I decided on fish pie, I visited the spud stand and got 2kg of Sissi (a very nice potato for mash). I next went to a discounter beginning with A and ending in I as I know they always have very reasonable Prawns and Stremmel Lachs ( a speciality of the Baltic, hot smoked salmon).

When home late, really too late to cook and eat, but as I hadn't eaten since 13:00 at the shoot, I was really quite peckish.

So it was the haddock and halibut into a pan with 400ml milk , a piece of onion, a crushed garlic clove and a few pepper corns, a piece of mace, a bit of cinnamon bark, 2 slivers of lemon peel, a bay leaf, 2 cardamom pods and 2 cloves. Brought to the boil and lowered the heat, allowed to simmer, then turned off the heat and let it sit in the milk and aromatics to infuse.

Took the haddock and halibut out of the milk and poured the poaching liquid through a sieve.

Mean time I made my mash, 3 spuds cut quite small, boiled allowed to steam dry, mashed and then added a good knob of butter, a grating of nutmeg and some chopped parsley.

I arranged the prawns in an oven proof dish and flaked in largish pieces, the Stremmel  Lachs, topped this with the  flaked haddock and smoked halibut.

I next made a Béchamel, mustard and blue cheese sauce (I had a piece of Blue Vinney that I needed to use up)

25g butter melted in a sauce pan, added 25g of flour, made a roux and cooked it out, added a ½ a tsp. of mustard powder, slowly poured in the cooking liquor then cooked it, adding the blue cheese and a pinch of marigold stock powder.

It should coat the back of a spoon, poured this over the fish, allowing about 10mm space at the top. Spooned the mash on top (starting at the outside and working inwards), when it is all covered, smooth with a palate knife and then criss-cross pattern with a fork.

 

Put into a very hot oven to brown the top, serve piping hot. You will notice I didn’t add any peas or hard-boiled egg, reason was I didn’t have any!

And here we have it