LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

oven

Roast peppers

      I find this simple technique for roasting peppers very successful. The secret is to allow the peppers to get blistered, almost burnt and collapsing before removing them from the oven. The peeled peppers can be stored in the fridge for weeks. I usually cover them with olive oil and add a few basil leaves if I have them. Annual marjoram is also an excellent herb here.

      Serves 4–6 6 best-quality (preferably organic) peppers

      A drizzle of olive oil for roasting, and more olive oil to cover the roasted and peeled peppers

      Maldon sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

      Preheat the oven to 190°C/375°F/gas 5.

      Place the peppers in a bowl and drizzle lightly with olive oil. There is no need for pools of oil, it will just go to waste. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer to a roasting tray and roast for about 40 minutes, or until the skin is dark and blistered, the flesh is soft and the peppers are starting to collapse.

      When ready, remove from the oven and tip the contents of the roasting tray into a bowl. Cover the bowl tightly with cling film and allow to cool completely.

      Gently pull the cooled peppers apart and remove the skin and seeds. Put the peppers into a jar. If you like, at this stage you can add leaves or sprigs of the herb of your choice. They will keep for longer, several months in fact, if you cover them completely with olive oil. The leftover oil can be used for cooking when the peppers are finished.

      Cover and chill until needed. Always allow the peppers to come back to room temperature before serving.

      Roasting and grinding spices

      If you like to use spices in your cooking, grinding your own as you need them will give you the very best results. It is an easy and essential kitchen technique. Most of the pre-ground spices you buy are a pale imitation of the freshly ground results you can achieve with ease in your own kitchen. Whole spices are sometimes lightly dry-roasted before being used or ground. The roasting lifts the flavour and aroma of the spices, giving them a nutty tone. I generally roast the different spices for a recipe in separate batches, as because of the variation in size and shape, they colour unevenly when they are roasted together. For example, if you roast cumin and coriander together, the cumin will have reached the required toasted colour before the coriander; hence if you allow the coriander to toast properly, the cumin will burn and become unpleasantly bitter. If you burn spices when dry-roasting, it is better to cut your losses and start again. Do not be put off by the last sentence, though, as this is so easy and rewarding. The roasted spices can be ground in a spice grinder or in the more manual pestle and mortar, which is my preferred spice-grinding apparatus. An electric coffee grinder makes a perfect spice grinder, though if your first cup of coffee of the day is as important to you as it is to me, I suggest that perhaps you have a separate grinder, clearly marked for the purpose of grinding spices only.

      Spices are best bought in small quantities and stored in tightly sealed containers. If you grind too much spice for a recipe, store any left over, again in tightly sealed containers, and use it up as soon as possible. I use jars with tightly fitting screw-on lids.

      To dry roast spices, heat a heavy cast-iron or heavy-based non-stick frying pan over a medium heat and add the spice. Stir gently or shake the pan to keep the spices moving.

      Watch as the colour changes. If you are not sure of the colour change, refer to the colour of the unroasted spice to indicate what is happening in the pan. The roasting spice should be lightly browned. Do not leave the pan at any stage, as a small quantity of spice can roast in as short a time as 1 minute.

      Spices, roasted to a golden-brown colour, and ready to grind

      As soon as the spice is lightly browned, remove it from the pan immediately and place in the grinder or mortar. Grind the spice right away, generally to a fine powder, unless a recipe specifies a coarser finish.

      Do not forget to catch the aroma of the spices as the little plume of warm and fragrant smoke arises from the grinder or mortar. Only the cook/grinder gets to enjoy this brief moment, and every time I inhale that exotic offering I give silent thanks to the spice god. It is at that point you will know it is worth the small effort of grinding your own. Magic.

      Checking if the bird is cooked

      Fowl must be fully cooked. There is no grey area here and no question of personal preference. There should be no sign of blood or pink flesh. It is crucial to be able to recognise this stage, and there are a couple of ways to determine this. The first thing to do is to look at the bird and see if it looks cooked. That’s the starting point. If it appears to be cooked, take preferably a thin metal skewer, otherwise a small thin-bladed knife, and insert it into the flesh between the leg and the breast, that is, at the bone, right down where the leg is attached to the carcass. Leave it there for exactly 10 seconds and remove. Now immediately test the temperature of the tip of the skewer or knife on your hand. It should be red hot and make you pull away the skewer with a start. If that is the case, you know the heat has properly penetrated into the place where it takes longest to cook. If the knife tip is not red hot, replace the bird in the casserole or oven, cook for a further 10 minutes and test again. I find this is the best way to check if the bird is cooked. The other way is to pierce the leg of the bird at the base or get a spoon into the spot where the skewer went in and try to release some of the cooking juices on to it. These juices should be clear, with no trace of pink or blood. This method also works, but is in my opinion somewhat more cumbersome than the first.

      Find the spot between the leg and the breast, count to ten and then test the heat of the skewer

      Carving

      To carve the cooked bird, place it on a timber carving board. A carving board will have a little well cut into it to collect any juices that flow out of the poultry or meat being carved. Failing one of these boards, place a board inside a shallow tray; that way any juices will flow into the tray and not all over your counter. If you struggle with carving a bird, there are several reasons why that might be. Remember that when carving, your knife will generally be travelling south.

      A sharp knife helps greatly, and I prefer to use a flexible filleting knife rather than the usually recommended long carving knife. I find you can be defter with the medium-sized knife.

      The next crucial bit of information is to know what a ‘ball and socket joint’ is and also to know where these are, because they are at the joints where the wings and legs are attached to the carcass and also where the thigh is attached to the drumstick. These joints are most important in this particular adventure, and they feature strongly in the next piece of text, so please bear with me. The ball and socket joint occurs where one bone with a ball end fits snugly into another bone with a socket end. To separate these bones, you need to cut precisely between the ball and socket. They are held together by a small piece of membrane, and when you cut through that, they are miraculously separated. When you are doing this, you need to be a little bit patient, at least to start off with. Put your knife in the appropriate spot and cut. If you hit a bone, stop. Abandon the brute force and ignorance approach. All that will do is blunt your knife and have you in a sweat. Just move the tip of the knife a little to the right or left and cut again. When you are in the right place, as in exactly between the ball and socket, your knife will slip through as if it is soft butter. This is an important moment because when you can find this spot confidently, you have removed at least three-quarters of the difficulty from carving any bird.

      So to start, turn the bird so that the cavity end is facing you. Begin by removing one of the legs, that is, the whole leg consisting of the drumstick and thigh, in one piece. Do this by cutting through the skin between the breast and leg. Push the leg out a little with the side of the knife blade. This makes it easier to see where you are going, and, as you can imagine, being able to see what is going on is a considerable advantage here. You are looking for the ball and socket joint at the base of the carcass. Cut through the

Скачать книгу