Roast tomato, roast paprika and shrimp gumbo

It was our cookery club Autumn menu, this time the venue was at our good friend and goumet Kalle. As normal the host provides the  "Raumlichkeit" and does the main course, this time it was to be an Autumn Risotto. Alas Martin could not be with us as he was partying on the Havel or the Spree or may be both, I do hope it was on and not in as it is a little cool this time of the year. But I digress (as usual), the rest of the menu is described in my following blog. 

 

Saturday morning was a quick visit to Kiels wonderful "Wochenmarkt" at Exerzierplatz, alas on reaching Exerzierplatz I found not the market but  a tented enclosure with much winnying and naying going on, it was the stabling for the Baltic horse show that was taking place in the adjacent arena. So I then knew that the market would be taking place on the other large platz, The Wilhelmplatz, so a quick leg up to Willi (as it is known in Kiel). I bought my shrimps and visited out favorite vegetable stall, run by Anka and her husband. I then left Linda and Kalle to head for home as I had bread proving and I wanted to get the soup on the go.

Ankas big pumpkins

 



The  Soup

 

To make 6 large servings.

1kg ripe tomatoes

4 large red peppers

500g brown shrimps in their shells

 

To make the stock

1 small onion halved and each half studded with bay leaf held in place with a clove

2 cloves of garlic crushed

White of a leek (about 10 cm long x 3 cm in dia) sliced

1 piece of celeriac (or a stalk of celery) diced

A sprig each of thyme, rosemary and parsley

2 carrots diced

 

Shells from the shrimps

2 L water (or a good stock for a stronger soup)

The remainder of the ingredients

2L of vegetable/fish stock (made with the shells and veg)

125g of sour cream

1 good pinch of smoked Spanish paprika powder

1 twig of rosemary

2 tablespoons of olive oil

Salt and pepper to taste

 

For the decoration

The flesh from the brown shrimps

1 yellow pepper diced quite small (5mmx5mm)

Flesh of 2 tomatoes (or better sun dried in oil) also diced small

6 sprigs of rosemary

 

Method

1)   Roast the peppers and the tomatoes, remove the skin (this is easiest done by removing them from the oven when the skins start to blacken, put them in a freezer bag and allow to sweat, after about 30 minutes the skins will just come away from the flesh, cut open and remove the seeds, pith  and stalks 

 

2)    Shell the brown shrimps (keeping the meat to one side)

Making the stock

3)   Put the shells in a pan with a table spoon of oil and fry over a high heat, put the soup vegetables in another pan and add the garlic, fry the lot in the rest of the oil until the veg starts to soften, transfer the shells and top up with 2 litre of water (or better still a good vegetable of fish stock stock), add spiked onion and bring to the boil, skim and simmer for 15-20 minutes.

 

4)    Strain through a sieve lined with muslin into a clean pan, squeezing as much of the goodness out as possible (you can of course buy ready made shrimp paste, but this is much more fun).

 

5)    Chop the paprika and tomato flesh (remove the seeds, when you remove the skins) add this to the stock.

6)    Remove the rosemary leaves from the stem and chop quite fine (reserve 6 sprigs to decorate) add this to the soup bring to the boil and simmer for 5minutes.

7)    Add the smoked paprika powder and blend the whole lot either in a blender of use a magic wand (this is a gumbo so it doesn’t have to be really smooth, you’re going to put some more bits in anyway.

 

 

8)    Add the sour cream and blend. Adjust seasoning (salt, pepper and smoked paprika)

9) Add the shrimps allow to warm through (keep 25g back for the butter)

10) Here you can either pour into a terrine and add the diced yellow pepper, and tomatoes, or as I prefer to do, ladle into individual soup bowls and crown with a cream foam topping dusted with smoked paprika and a sprig of rosemary resting on the foam. Or roast a crouton spread with shrimp butter (or potted shrimps) and topped with a solitary unpeeled shrimp. (looks very good, but the shell is a bit of a fumble so most just leave it). Or snip some chive over the top and serve potted shrimp toast as a side accompaniment.

11) I served with the fougasse bread, a shrimp butter, my soup was topped with wasabi foam and rosemary 

 
Making the foam, Linda has a special pot for making foam for coffee, I comandeered this to make my wasabi foam. Warm the milk through ,add a teaspoon of aga-aga powder (this helps to maintain the foam).

Add a thumb nail size piece of ready made wasabi paste and stir in. Put the top on work the plunger a few times and there it is, wasabi foam done. spoon it onto the soup and top with a sprig of rosemary.

 

The fougasse the dough made to Remond Blanc's recipe, great, but he should have said how much dough this makes. Linda has now enough fougasse dough frozen away to make another two loafs.

 

The shrimp butter
75g of salted butter
100g 17% goats cream cheese
25g of shrimps kept back from the soup shrimps.
1 pinch of smoked paprika

Blend the butter and cream cheese together, dice the shrimps into quite big bits and add 50% to the blended butter, blend until quite smooth, then stir in the remainder of the chopped shrimps. Put into pots and decorate with a solitary shrimp.

 

 We drank a nice Grey Burgundy

 

 

Saturday tea time and Paella to finish

Friday evening had been a lousy drive up, traffic jams all the way took about 7 hours, but when I got here there was a welcoming red wine and an Italian meal waiting.  1^st off was a nice selection of Anti pasta, followed by pumpkin ravioli, and finished with a sea bass baked in foil with white wine and lemon.

We then watched Gordon Ramsey, well the girls did, I snoozed.

Saturday morning I was up at 06:00 and fiddled about with the Internet connections as Linda is having problems with her connections LoL!

We then had a few things to do, and then it was off to the Turkish butchers to get some chicken for the Paella and also a leg of lamb for Sunday Dinner.

 

We next headed to the market to get the fish and shell fish for the Paella.

 

I always like the Kiel market it has a vast array of different fish, they may not have it when you want it as they didn't have any rascasse when I made my Bouillabaisse a couple of months ago.

But they had some nice sword fish, prawns and mussels, it is a pleasure just to walk up and down the stalls, I also had a matjes brotchen for my lunch.

 

 

Fish purchased it was off home to watch Saturday kitchen and then get started on making the stock and making the scones


A very British cream tea

I had been in a discussion about making scones, I have never in my life made scones and there are so many diverse recipes, I had decided to try a variety of recipes some with egg and milk, some with buttermilk and egg and finally buttermilk and no egg. The later were meant to have had fruit in them  (cranberries) but I forgot, it was to be a baking session pitted with a plethora of mistakes but in the end all came out better than expected and the girls certainly enjoyed their Kiel clotted cream tea.

The ingredients

 

I used Mary Berries recipe and I thought I had followed it very well, but I was making half the quantity and though halving most of the ingredients I had forgot to half the amount of butter and milk and eggs, what a dumbo, I wondered why the mixture was so runny , but she had said it should be sticky, well it sure was that.

 

So batch one finished, I started on the second one this time making with buttermilk and egg mixture, the final one being made just with buttermilk and no egg.

The 2 final batches turned out fantastic, the first batch being more moist spread, but tasted fantastic.

   At the front the first batch made with the rather too moist mixture 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 So after all of these years I have made my first scones and we had a royal cream tea with 3 different jams and tea in a warmed pot, oh how genteel.

Janice laying it on a bit thick

 

Next was the

Paella

Chicken stock

6 chicken wings and the skin and off cuts from the chicken legs.

1 onion diced

5cm piece of leek diced

Small piece of celeriac or a stick of celery diced

1 carrot diced

1 tbsp. of dried soup vegetables

1 tsp. of white pepper corns

1 bunch of herbs

1 tsp. of vegetable stock powder (I prefer using this as opposed to using salt)

 First make your stock (you don’t have to but I always like to make my own, it is so satisfying. While at the Turks, I bought some chicken wings, these along with the skin and bones from 3 legs went into the stock pot along with some dried root veg, a piece of leek, a carrot and some diced celeriac. Added a teaspoon of white pepper corns, the bunch of herbs, a diced onion, and a crushed clove of garlic and a teaspoon of vegetable stock powder. 

Top up with cold water bring to the boil, skim and drop to a simmer.

The Paella

First a bit about the Paella, the name comes from the pan that this rice dish is cooked in, there are many claimants to the original version, but it is clear that it was a peasant dish that can contain anything, in coastal areas it will have more or only fish. Inland it will be a meat one, containing rabbit, chicken and to make up for a lack of protein often snails, I like this but have seen when I add them the girls tend  to leave them on the side of their plates.

I first had Paella back in  1969 while dish washing my way through France and Spain, it was in either Lorette de mar or it could have been Blane's or even Tarragona  but no matter it was at a market place on a scorching hot afternoon and I bought a portion for a few Peseta’s, life was good in those days, it was so cheap to live in Spain and if you couldn’t get a place in a hostel, you could sleep on the beach, that was if you could keep out of the way of Franco’s Garda.

I was later to become more involved in the making of Paella, my Sister in Law is Spanish and it was from her that I learnt to cook a Paella Valencia, this is the seafood variation.

You shall require:

3 chicken legs skinned and jointed

 

1 piece of sword fish (cut into 3)

1 piece of salmon or as in this case sea trout  (cut into 3)

 A good double handful of mussels

about 15 Prawns

1 onion diced

1 clove of garlic pressed

1 red pepper deseeded and sliced

8cm piece of chorizo sliced

 

 A good pinch of saffron

1 level tsp. sweet smoked paprika

(mix the two above ingredients together in a cup with some warm chicken stock)

600g of paella rice

 

2 tomato’s halved and grated (this will leave you with just the skin, this is the part you do not need)

Heat the olive oil and fry the onions and garlic.

 add the chorizo and heat until it releases its colour, push to one side of the pan,












put the chicken pieces into the paella and brown, reduce the heat and fry for about 10 minutes, remove and set aside. 

Return the onions and chorizo back to the pan, add the tomato,

now add the rice,

stir in to coat all over with oil, add the chicken and pour in the stock until it is all covered, finally add the cup of saffron/paprika stock, add a handful of peas (or cut green beans), give it a final stir (you shouldn't stir it any more, but if you like I needed to have the Paella over two rings you will need to turn the pan at regular intervals so that the whole of the pan gets evenly heated.

Cover with aluminium foil and over a low heat (it should bubble not boil) allow it to absorb the liquid. about 20 minutes before it is  finished put the fish and decorate with strips of red peppers.

Then bury the mussels into the rice and arrange the prawns evenly around the pan.

When the fish is cooked, the mussels open, turn off the heat and cover with a clean tea towel and allow to stand so that the rice absorbs any remaining liquid. (it is traditionally covered with newspaper).

There should be a firm crust on the base of the Paella (the socarrat) , it is meant to be there, it is an integral part of the dish and it is one of the best parts of the meal

Drink with a crisp white wine , Ole!!!