A Dish a Day: Blood Orange Posset

Ramblings from a voracious eater 

on the dish that made her day

The blood orange posset

Once a year, around January and February, the sunset colours of blood oranges give us wintry cheer. The oranges that we have are from Sicily - from the foothills of Mount Etna, so Riverford tells me, and the blush of the segments varies from modest to deep crimson - evoking those Mediterranean hues of the evening sky.

After considering a granita or a jelly, I decide to make a posset. I haven’t many oranges left (after many are consumed nakedly fresh, without fanfare, and as instant cure for the effects from the-night-before) and posset doesn't require a lot of juice. With its use of three ingredients – oranges, sugar and cream, this is possibly one of the simplest puddings to make while looking as though you've put in abundant effort.

  

Squeezing the orange

Serves 4-6

125ml fresh blood orange juice (about 2 oranges)

500ml double cream

115-120g caster sugar (to taste. I don’t like it too sweet)

Zest from one orange

Blood orange segments - from 1 or 2 oranges

Shortbread to serve

Put all the ingredients into a pan - I love pouring the blood orange juice in last and watching the ruby liquid marble the cream as I stir with a wooden spoon. Like thick paints that you mix in primary school, watch the cream turn a pale peach (not unlike the colour of strawberry angel delight).

Heat until it reaches a simmer, then cook on the lowest heat for five minutes. Take off the heat and cool at room temperature. This should take an hour or two. Stretch clingfilm over the mixture to prevent a skin forming.

Served up

Pour into champagne coupe glasses and chill in the fridge until set (another three hours at least). Garnish with two segments of blood orange and serve immediately with a thin shortbread.

More reading

Diana Henry writes a fascinating article about the blood orange here.

New Culinary Tales with New Culinary Presents

Having professed that I don’t make resolutions (read my attempt to give up red meat last January), I am a glutton for punishment and shall make some more. Friends and family have been generous  with their culinary Christmas presents, so it would be rude not to use them. 

I, therefore, vow to cook more with these enabling gifts in 2013. 

Here are the new additions to the kitchen, and what I will do with them: 

Clockwise, starting from far left: spice grinder, fine mini grater, ice cream machine, David Hockney tray, meat thermometer, tea ball.

The spice grinder 

It’s easy to be a martyr for the spice-pounding cause. A few years ago my mother bought me ‘The Little Nyonya’ - a Singaporean epic drama set in Malacca, Malaysia. The protagonist, a Cinderella-type figure, would seek refuge in her cooking crouched on the floor as she pestled all the spices in her mortar for babi pongteh (braised pork-belly stew), winning love and a husband along the way. 

I have since discovered that crouching for two hours on the kitchen floor pounding spices for curries and satays won’t win you love. It is a highly antisocial activity. If you live in a first floor flat like me, pity the residents on the floor below - victims of constant dull thudding for hours on end. And pity anyone who comes near as you stink of shallots and turmeric. And the blisters - let’s not even talk about the blisters. 

I think of the spice grinder as the gateway to the food of the straits of Malacca, and to social acceptance. 

The fine grater

A grater not just for zesting but for making mush of ginger. When I cook Hainanese chicken, one of the sauces requires smoking hot oil to be poured over grated ginger with the most satisfying sizzle. My box grater produces woody shards of ginger, which doesn’t meld well with the oil. 

The ice cream machine

I am desperate to make Christmas pudding ice cream (in my head, just vanilla flavoured with clumps of leftover pud folded in. Or should the base be laced with brandy in the place of brandy butter?). Also Campari sorbet for summer. I wished and was good, and Santa delivered. 

The David Hockney tray 

This present from my betrothed is his way of asking me to make more tea. 

The meat thermometer 

I’m not a roast-meat purist. By that I mean that I often judge my pork belly or beef joint by looking and poking and slicing it open. Obviously, this is not ideal. If anyone asks me for different levels of done-ness this will send me into a spiral of panic - hence the meat thermometer. According to Heston Blumenthal (and who can argue with HB?), to achieve a rare rib of beef the central insides need to reach 55C. Gone are the days of putting a licked finger to the wind, now I can brandish my digital meat wand. Panic no more, Miss Lee, panic no more. 

The tea ball

I have stacks of loose leaf tea, abandoned and crying in the dark at the back of my cupboards. Now with my new tea ball I can unearth the Japanese roasted rice tea, the darjeeling, the strange LOV teas I’m not sure I’ll like. Or I could use it for infusing bouquet garni in soups...  

Here's to endless feasting in 2013. 

The Gilbert Scott: A thoroughly British affair

Evangelists occupy the Gilbert Scott restaurant. This is no place for indifference. The security guard chats for twenty minutes about the wrought iron from Coventry with Olympic fervour next to the now-famous staircase in the Spice Girls’ Wannabe video. The front of house enthuses about Marcus Wareing who pops in at least once or twice a week to run the team here with head chef Oliver Wilson. A grail for history-lovers, artists, models and academics who take refuge from the British Library, the newly refurbished St Pancras renaissance hotel (which houses the restaurant) is an ode to the skill and splendour of British architecture and industry. 

So prescient is the personality of the St Pancras Renaissance that you almost feel short-changed by the simplicity of the bar and dining room. Unfairly so, as the ceiling is cathedral-high, the marble twinkles and is splendidly grand and altogether impressive. It’s shiny and polished and, quite frankly, splendid. 

It’s such an exhibition of the best of home manufacturing and design that one can only wonder about the food. 

It would follow that Marcus Wareing seems a good fit, after all, he is a Lancashire craftsman who evolves already staunchly British dishes to become iconically British. This is the Wareing whose care has won Michelin stars for the likes of Petrus and brought Prue, Oliver and Matthew to their knees with the wibble of his custard tart in the first ever Great British Menu.

And so a charming evangelist at front of house takes us to the bar, where the evangelist barman serves us up a spiced virgin mary (for my pregnant friend Claire who’s saving her drinks for the main)...

...and an a-pear-itif cocktail (Pear Grey Goose, Sipsmith gin, cucumber, elderflower), fresh with that taste of English gardens. A most elegant drink with the cool of the cucumber wrapped round an ice cube in a coupe glass.

We’re taken through to the impeccably elegant dining room, and dinner begins. Claire’s Portwood Farm asparagus are fat and sweet, accompanied by a burnt butter hollandaise. They are unspectacular but wholly delicious. 

My bone marrow with snails is a quite perfect dish. Juicy snails, deeply dark in taste and look, sit affably on the jelly of the marrow. Spooned onto toast soaked through with garlic butter, it’s almost creamy in its richness and overall, exquisite in conception.

We take a quick break to sneak down to the kitchen table, a front-row view (for up to ten people) of the cool mechanics of the steam-lined kitchen. The curious can also peer at the wines kept behind the table. 

Back up to our table, our mains are ready to serve. My rump of veal is a solid symphony of flavours - wild garlic and sage accompany the pink, surprisingly meaty and juicy veal, lifted by the sweet of plump roasted onions. 

Claire’s coral-pink scottish sea trout is a succulent and slim fillet under a blanket of crisp skin. It’s a well-executed dish. We expect something cold and salady from our side order of peas, lettuce and lovage but with the latter wilted and thickened with a touch of cream to mellow its pungency, it is a welcome surprise. 

For pudding we have Mrs Beeton’s snow egg, a variation of the French dessert ile flottante - poached meringue atop a light and cold custard or creme anglaise. It is slightly ‘ile’ heavy (I'd love more custard), but cleverly lined with marmalade in the middle and the smooth almost foam-like richness is cut through with the crunch of caramelised almonds. 

Claire’s warm chocolate cornflakes makes up for all those times you were deprived pudding as a child; the dessert is almost unforgivably rich and a nod to the glory of the chocolate crispy cake. 

There is a sort of humour and pride that laces the Gilbert Scott menu; where else outside of Cumbria will Kendal mint cake be an ingredient? I would certainly love to pop in for a peanut butter ice. Either way, I do believe for those who arrive in straight from the Eurostar, the Gilbert Scott should be the first stop for a happy and glorious view of London town. By the end of the meal we are satiate, evangelistic, and terribly proud that the British are such devilishly good cooks. 

The Gilbert Scott

St Pancras Renaissance Hotel

Euston Road

London

NW1 2AR

020 7278 3888

Website

Helena and Claire were guests of The Gilbert Scott.

How to impress your date: Gelupo in Soho

Mysinglefriend.com has a lot to answer for. This website has claimed too many of my friends. A spate have lost successive evenings to serial dating and revealing what they do for a living. And though a few have found themselves embroiled in unlikely situations, I cannot knock it. One has already found love. Many, flagrant embrace.

For the not-so-lucky in those incipient stages of datehood (juggling five dates a week, perhaps even two a day), innovative thinking is required for each date.

My suggestion would be Gelupo, in Soho, as the place to take a date.

It’s an ice-cream parlour - but Italian. Which means it's actually a gelateria - less schmaltz, gaudy colours, and cherries on top than your average parlour. And ice-cream is a safe bet - take your date on the premise that everybody likes ice-cream.

Teetotal date? Chocolate sorbet it is. Loves booze? Chocolate and Grand Marnier then. Vegetarian, or dare I say it - vegan? Well, let’s just say there is a flavour for everyone. For, Gelupo’s sorbets are as rich as as egg custard and cream without them comprising of egg custard or cream.

And as if that wasn’t enough, it’s across the street from brilliant sister restaurant Bocca di Lupo, well-wishing your date with its name which fortuitously translates as ‘good luck’. 

Ask to taste. That’s the perk.

Gelupo, who make all gelati on the premises, are so proud of their flavours, they will urge you to try them. Chocolate sorbet sounds an anomaly - almost a paradox. The expectation is of something watery and one dimensional, but no. The sorbet is of a rich sort, made from 100% cocoa and sugar and is positively creamy. Their white peach sorbet will take you back to the heat of Venice (think Bellinis of ripe white peaches and Prosecco). The gelato of pear, cinnamon and ricotta is a sweet taste of autumn. Burnt almond granita, which I have to order on fellow tweeter Dinehard’s insistence, is a triumph. The raspberry sorbet is juicy and ripe, the ricotta and sour cherry ripple gelato is especially good fresh from the churn and in a huge waffle cone. My only regret is that I could not taste the naughty milk-infused fig-leaf ice cream as I'd not arrived in time.

In the case that you and your date get on well, the gelateria is open until 1am from Thursday to Saturday. If you do run out of things to say to each other, let me suggest a perusal of the amazing Italian produce on offer at the back of the shop. I defy anyone to lack conversation whilst looking at the refrigerated octopus.

And Gelupo have recently announced that they will be launching an online ordering service. Which means for true love there will be only one thing for it: home delivery of the fig-leaf variety. 

Gelupo
7 Archer Street, London, W1D 7AU
Website

Polishing off the Pandan Cake

Pandan cake is incredible. It’s cakey-brown on the outside yet alarmingly green on the inside, so light it could almost fly, and has a gaping hole in the middle. One slice is never enough, so airy - like a Wispa, and is horribly moreish. It shouldn’t share a surname with heavy drunken fruit cake - they’re so polar-oppositely different.

Of Malay origin, it’s a popular cake in South-East Asia - where the pandan leaf grows. Uniquely aromatic, the dark green juice from the leaf gives the cake its flavour and that colour, whilst the lightness comes from using oil rather than butter. There’s a taste I can only describe as satisfying – coconut milk. I’m not a fan of coconutty-flavoured things, but this in no way dominates the pandan flavour.

My mother used to drop this off whilst I was a student to make sure I was at least eating something. And now that I’m not a student, she still drops it off - and this week I’ve been picking away at it scoffing at least two wedges a day.

Pandan cake is a good way to round off an Asian meal – I usually crave something like this rather than a good old-fashioned Western pud after a pork belly or a stir-fry.

You can pick this up from any good Chinese or Asian supermarket in small, medium or large. I usually get large. Look for the cake with the hole in it.