Biscuits, Pizza and Not Much Else

I've lapsed a bit of late with blogging and with cooking, I'm really very sad to say. I'm exhausted again. I spoke to G at work who is a dietician by training and she suggested it's probably a minor infection upsetting absorbency of nutrients so I'm trying a few supplements "just in case".

I can't say much right now as I'm so tired - I'm going to reboot over the Bank Holiday and start cooking again, I think!

Turkey and Leek pie and Casatiello

I've not blogged for a few days over Easter because I've mostly been too busy lying on the sofa and watching the entire second season of Bron (aka Broen aka The Bridge), to which I got hooked last year with the first season and the second season had me laughing, crying and everything in between. I watched 10h of it in about 2 days and learnt a lot of useful Danish and Swedish along the way. I'm now, however, back in the real world.

I remade chicken and leek "pie" as turkey, leek, spring onion and green pepper pie which was just amazing - I added sides and a base of shortcrust (frozen, ok...!) pastry, blind baked for 20 minutes first and it was far better.

That lasted me a couple of days and on the third day, I had the leftover pie filling heated up with some casatiello that R gave me (his ladyfriend, who is Italian, made it) in return for simnel cake. It's a stuffed Easter bread from Naples and was filled with different delicious garlic-laden sausages and (in R's words) "some very phallic cheese", by which I hope he meant shape. It's not something I'd had before so I really enjoyed being forced to eat it same-day and mix it with pie filling - I left content I'd no waste!!!

Steak, Sweet Potato and Simnel Cake

No, not all three at once - even I draw the bloody line! I don't think I've ever eaten real Simnel cake and for some reason woke up with "Simnel Cake" the first thing on my mind - I vaguely knew what went in it (it's a very light fruitcake and has marzipan in it, what more is there to know?!) - so when I went to Sainsbury's, I picked up some eggs, butter and so on such that I could make one! I was after some meat to make something for The Challenge but spotted some fillet steak on offer (a mere £7 - I'm allowed it every 2 months, maximum - the cost and the cholesterol ain't good for me!), so I treated myself. I was going to have it tomorrow but baking simnel cake ran me out of energy and steak is a quick meal for me, given I'm firmly in the "cut its head off, wipe its arse and get it on the plate" school of steak cookery! I did it with some sweet potato wedges, cooked with rosemary - it was a Covington this time - rose-coloured skin and bright orange flesh and a lovely sweet, warm flavour. And reading the variety name caused me to sing "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" in the original 1976 key - which is a lot higher than the Paige/LuPone keys - or at least has bigger key change for "And as for fortune...".

I read several simnel cake recipes online and hybridised them and rejigged the measurements as I wanted to bake a loaf (slices fit into the freezer more easily etc). I took myself over to The Flavour Thesaurus to see what they had to say about almonds and guess what sits nicely with them?! Roses! Not really a surprise, given both belong to the Order Rosales. The recipe I found originally needed the juice of 2 oranges - something I didn't have - but a bit of Googling later, I managed to work out that that was 125mL of liquid that I needed to find. It was clear that rosewater would be involved and a quick raid of the booze cabinet gave me triple sec and amaretto and what goes well with orange fruit liqueur? Orange blossom water! Different flavour profile entirely but an obvious combination. As for fruit, I found every recipe online used different things, so I just used up a few things and ended up with quite a random combination but hey ho - that's why I love cooking so much - it's therapeutic in that there are no rules! As a scientist, every synthesis I perform or culture medium I make is reigned in by rules - so not having to follow a strict protocol at home is always a nice change!

The eggs I got reduced are worth a mention - they fell out of the Old Cotswold Legbar, which is a nasty horrible chicken (as all chickens obviously are) but their eggs are beautiful pale blue with almost red yolks.

Simnel Cake
(this would do an 8" round pan of the deep variety or, as I used, a 2-lb loaf tin)

450g dried fruit [for me, this was 150g raisins, 40g cranberries, 30g cherries, 15g apple-infused blueberries, 15g apple-infused strawberries, 50g apricots, 80g mixed candied peel, 20g crystallised stem ginger chips and 50g halved glacé cherries]
2 tbsp amaretto
2 tbsp triple sec
1 tbsp rosewater
1 tbsp orange flower water
4 tbsp hot water
200g unsalted butter (cut into cubes)
200g sugar (I used 50g unrefined molasses sugar and 150g white granulated sugar)
4 eggs (I used very pretty ones from Cotswold Legbars as they were reduced - blue eggs with almost red yolks!)
2 tbsp 1% fat milk (I used UHT as always)
350g self-raising flour
Icing sugar (about 2 tbsp)
2 tbsp pudding spice (I made my own: 1" cinnamon stick, 1 tsp coriander seeds, 1 tsp ground ginger, 1 tsp caraway seeds, 1 tsp ground nutmeg, 1 tsp cloves, 1 tsp allspice - mix together and grind as fine as you can - use immediately)
About 400g marzipan - I used the golden type because it's "traditional".
1 tbsp melted jam - traditionally apricot but bugger it, I used raspberry!

Pre-heat the oven to 160°C (or 140°C for fan ovens). Mix all of the dried fruit you are using in one bowl and add the liqueurs, flower waters and hot water and mix very thoroughly. Leave the fruit to 'marinade' for 15 minutes and then sprinkle with the pudding spice and mix again so that it's all well-coated. Meanwhile, roll out enough marzipan to make a 0.5cm-thick sheet that is big enough for your loaf tin (which must be buttered unless you're using silicone as I did) - use icing sugar to stop it sticking when rolling it out and once it's ready, coat both sides with icing sugar.

Put the butter, milk, eggs, flour and sugar into a bowl and mix using an electric mixer until well-combined and homogeneous. Add the soaked fruit along with their liquid and mix thoroughly.

Spoon half of the mixture into the loaf tin, add the sheet of marzipan and then add the rest of the mixture and smooth the top flat. Put into the oven and bake for about 1h50. Cool it in the tin and then remove.

Roll out another sheet of marzipan and whatever decorative touches you want and apply to the top of the cake using hot jam as 'glue' - I did a lattice instead of a solid sheet. Grill or blowtorch the surface until slightly toasted.

Steak and Sweet Potato Wedges
(Serves 1)
1 fillet steak
1 sweet potato (I used a Covington)
1 onion
1 clove of garlic
4 tbsp olive oil
1 sprig of rosemary
Salt and pepper

Unwrap the steak and leave it at room temperature for 30 minutes. Meanwhile, pre-heat the oven to 180°C (or 160°C for fan ovens) and peel the sweet potato and cut it into wedges. Pour 2 tbsp oil into a small oven-proof dish and add the wedges, rolling them so that they are coated. Sprinkle with freshly cracked pepper (I used Bristol blend but black is second best) and rosemary leaves and put into the oven. Bake for 45 minutes.

Heat the rest of the oil in a frying pan over a medium-high heat and meanwhile cut the onion and garlic into slices. Cook them until they soften but don't darken in colour. Sprinkle pepper over both sides of the steak and push the onions to one edge of the pan to keep warm.

Seer both sides of the steak in the middle of the pan for 5 seconds on each side and then return to the first side and cook for 1m30 then flip and cook for 1m30. Meanwhile, put the sweet potato wedges onto a plate with the onions and garlic then add the steak, season and eat immediately for it is a feast!

Two-Hour Tagine

Today was my first day back at work and it started about 0400h when some of the contents of my stomach (bile, mostly) poured up my oesophagus and down my trachea and into my lungs, causing me to wake up spluttering and gasping for breath, shortly followed by the beginnings of an asthma attack - thankfully this one passed pretty easily but my chest has been tight all day and I've felt tired. I went into work quite late, enjoying the late morning sun as I walked up through the Hoe Park with the most beautiful view of the sea behind me - it really made me enjoy the walk compared to walking past the discarded sofas, dog-poo and mattresses on North Road West!

Today was mostly spent doing admin and the usual fire-fighting that goes with "Monday" in my experience.

I left work pretty late to make up for the late start, popped to Sainsbury's as I realised I had no peppers and so on and I wanted to use up what I thought was some lamb shoulder in a tagine. I got home and found it was actually boneless leg joint and really too good for a tagine but I had the idea in my head and that was that. I'm not going to post a detailed recipe as I kind of made it up as I went along but it's damn nice! Basically I just plastered the lamb in ras al hanout and left it for 20 minutes whilst I chopped onions, garlic, potatoes (La Ratte and Red King Edwards), sweet potatoes (Murasaki), some floppy courgettes from the bottom of the fridge, a green pepper and a couple of tomatoes...oh and a chilli... I threw the onions into my biggest cooking pot and meanwhile hacked the lamb up into 2" chunks with my meat cleaver (whilst thinking up "look at the size of my chopper" jokes...SUCH a child...) and put that into the pan too, then all of the vegetables and gave it a stir, then added a couple of cans of cherry tomatoes and two lamb stock cubes (the horridly high-salt Knorr ones). I made my usual tagine spice mix from peppercorns (and yes, long pepper catkins), ginger, turmeric, smoked hot paprika and cinnamon stick and added a tablespoon full of that, brought it all to the boil and then whacked it in the oven at 160C for 1h.

It was delicious and I feel a bit full now - there's enough for lunch AND dinner tomorrow too! Photos to follow. If I was doing it again, I would roll the lamb in honey before adding the ras al hanout.

"Wenn die Flieder blüht und Erinn’rung bringt Geh’n wir durch den Park zum Strand"

I like a nice bit of serendipity. I had a lazy, lazy weekend - I got out of bed really late yesterday and not that early today and then lazed about not really doing a lot. I chatted to Y online on my phone whilst inhaling mömmudraumur for a bit who promptly told me off for still being in bed, so up I got. By the time I got out of bed and up and moving I'd decided to 'celebrate' my last day of annual leave by going for a walk in the sun, via getting some coffee. Off I eventually set and decided to call my ex, P, who wasn't there (probably up a mountain somewhere), so I tried Dr K (straight to voicemail but called me back later) and then Dr R (voicemail again - no one bloody loves me today!) and carried on my walk up through the Hoe Park past the Easter Fayre ("I suppose they think if they spell it with a 'y' more people will go?") and whilst doing a slalom betwist the skaters outside the Civic Centre, T pulled up on his bike - he was heading for the Hoe. I never bump into people I know and it's always really nice when it happens. I mentioned I was heading for coffee and T tagged along and we ended up going on a little walk down to the sea and looking at all the damage that has still not been repaired on the Hoe, which is disconcerting. We went our separate ways and I came home via Tesco Express wherein I procured all manner of orange food and have just consumed what my ex P calls "dinner on a baking tray" - that mid-week emergency meal if, like me, you're a bit common! It was bloody lovely too!

Time for some more mömmudraumur and then I need to think about an early night - back to work tomorrow - urgh!

Mömmudraumur Með Jarðarberjumsulta og Súkkulaðismjörkrem and Gljáðum Piparkökur (Part II)

Today was not one of my best. Very high levels of extra pain-relief on top of what I normally take has exhausted me this week. I spent almost all day in bed - slept until 1430h and then read the interweb on my phone (because I finally can again!) until 1800h, at which point I was craving coffee and remembered I had mömmudraumur from last night in the fridge to have with it! Obviously too late to go to get coffee - even from Notte Street Coffee, to whom I have recently grown hooked. I've thankfully got my trusty Tassimo in my bedroom - it's been a bedroom fixture for about 4 years now - and is perfect for days like today, in which normal movements like walking or opening a window are enough to pull the relevant joints completely out of place and as I sit here, my shoulders are all over the place. I just got up to open the window as I feel too hot yet too cold at the same time and that tells me that the dysautomnia and POTS end of the Ehlers-Danlos symptombank have kicked in. There's not a lot I can do other than plenty of fluids and salt - so I'm having a big bag of Doritos and one of their over-salted sour cream dips with it to try and help. I can remember when Doritos were "new" in the UK - I remember it was a summer holiday and every day mother would stop working at her sewing machine (she sewed dry-suits from home, piece-work, awful workload and awful pay and she was doing it to feed and clothe me though of course I never really appreciated it until many years later) and send me to the shops to get some crisps, a can of coke each and she would make sandwiches - I remember thinking Doritos and Dr Pepper - both of which were new that summer I think - were the height of sophistication as of course they were "American" and to me, growing up dirt-poor in a UK backwater, anything "American" was "posh" somehow. So I always get a pang of nostalgia when I eat them even 20 odd years later.

The mömmudraumur is just delicious - I've eaten 1/4 of it already...! It's a nice texture and the súkkulaðismjörkrem is superior to English buttercream, that's for sure! I don't think I'd normally say strawberries and chocolate was one of my favourite combinations but in this cake, it just works, hands down.

I took the piparkökur dough out of the fridge and decided not to roll it as it was very, very hard and I was not going to manage it without dislocating my wrists. I instead rolled it with my hands (still in the clingfilm) on the granite slab until it was a rough sausage-shape and then cut it into rounds with my vegetable knife (the kind with air-pockets on the blade so things don't stick to it). I then cut them in half and realised I had about 40 biscuits-worth of dough...! So, I put half of them into the freezer raw to have at a later date - they only take "5-8 minutes", so says Nanna Rögnvaldardóttir in her book, but I found they took longer - I put the oven to 160°C (180°C for non-fan-ovens) and put them in on a baking tray - 20 or so on one tray - and baked them for a total of about 15 minutes - I took them out after 10 minutes but they were too squishy so they went back in.

They've been cooling since but I've had one of them - very, very spicy and fragrant and I may not glaze them after all but if I do, here's the recipe:

Piparkökur Gljáa (Pepper Cookie Glaze - this is actually my variation of a soft lebkuchen glaze)
1/2 cup golden caster sugar
1/4 cup hot water
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp amaretto (Disaronno is perfect for this as it's quite fruity)
1/2 cup icing sugar
1 star of star anise

Boil the caster sugar, water and star anise for 2 minutes and then remove from the heat and remove the anise. Add the vanilla extract and amaretto with stirring and then add the icing sugar, stirring until it has dissolved completely (heat slightly if need be).

Paint onto biscuits/lebkuchen and leave to set at room temperature overnight.

Floral Salmon; Mömmudraumur Með Jarðarberjumsulta og Súkkulaðismjörkrem and Gljáðum Piparkökur (Part I)

I had an early start today with the BT Openreach engineer finally giving me back my broadband for the first time since I moved to the Haus Am Meer. The slot was 0800-1300h and he was here by 0900h and very polite, if a little bit standoffish as some engineers and so on always seem to be - it can't be an easy job - you have to be able to feel comfortable in other peoples' homes, which I would personally find hard as I find it hard to relax in someone else's house and so I'd be quite prickly too. So, whilst he was removing the old socket from the lounge and putting the new one in place, I busied myself reading stuff. I was right, that one was the Master, I identified it correctly! And I was also right that the wiring therein wasn't done properly - the Extension in the bedroom was connected to this socked but the actual cable from the street wasn't - weird huh?! He hooked up the phone line, went back to the Cabinet a few streets away and connected up the fibre optics at that end and then came back to replace my socket for the second time to the MK2 SSFP, which, thanks to Wikipedia when he wasn't looking, I was able to know all about and look like I knew what he was doing! So I now have a 70Mbps download speed and almost 20Mbps upload speed which is wonderful! No more awful Wifi on my PC after 2.5 years of it at Grey Gardens and, best of all, I can use the internet and apps on my phone in my own home as thus far I've been using the feeble GPRS signal - there's no 3G on this part of the West Hoe at all, unfortunately.

Whilst he was doing his thing, I enjoyed the beautiful morning views across the sea and tried not to jar my back which is still slowly healing from moving house - it hasn't been great to be honest and I'm still taking a lot of extra Methocarbamol to relax the spasms in the large muscles around my spine, which I've clearly done some damage to but rest and relaxation and hot baths are all I can do.

I had fishfingers for lunch which was lovely and attracted a lot of attention from Frederick who got out of bed just to see what the smell was and begged very sweetly but failed to get any. A bit later on, Josef climbed up onto my desk and got into the space behind the monitor where he's learned that it's warm but I took him out and played with him for a bit and noticed how bald his rear end is - presumably related to the lice and hopefully it'll grow back soon. I took him on an adventure over to the dining areas as I wanted to look in my recipe books and find some means to use up the 3 eggs I have left - I won't eat eggs "as is" other than at a huge push in an omelette that contains about a pound of cheese and a pound of vegetables and 1 egg or something, but I can bake with them! I went through quite a lot of books that I'd hoped would inspire me but that didn't really work out. I'd got a strong urge to cook with lavender, which I've only used in apple crumbles before now - I had procured a jar of lavender sugar about 3-4 years ago on a whim and never really used it other than making one batch of cakes about 3-4 years ago - so when I discovered how good it tastes in apple crumble a few months back, I used the whole jar! I bought some lavender flowers a few weeks ago and I've not yet had chance to use them - but nothing was very inspiring. Whilst Josef was busy wandering about on his own exploring the dining chairs and the bookcase (via my shoulders, which make a very good bridge, apparently) and giggling to himself mischievously, I started flicking through my copy of Icelandic Food and Cookery  by Nanna Rögnvaldardóttir (who I've just discovered has a blog and I've added her to my blogroll!). I bought it about 5 years ago and thus far hadn't cooked anything from it for no reason other than I just hadn't. I started eye-balling Nanna's biscuit and cake recipes and found two that would use up some ingredients I had lying around - namely those bloody eggs!

The first item I picked out to cook is piparkökur (pepper cookies), which I've not actually cooked yet - I've made the dough and it's in the fridge overnight. Nanna notes in her book that these are pretty much the same as the Swedish and Danish equivalents and only came to Iceland relatively recently and goes on to give a lovely description of the recent traditions that have developed around it. Rather than just copy her recipe, I decided to mess with the spices used and what I've ended up with smells a little bit like soft lebkuchen, which made me want to glaze them as per lebkuchen, so I've found a recipe for that and I'll glaze some of them after they're cooked. Nanna mentions that pepper isn't always used in piparkökur, but can be - so I decided I had to add some and oh look, another opportunity to use some long pepper! It's a simple enough recipe but it doesn't use any eggs, so I needed something else! I didn't have any buttermilk, so I made some faux buttermilk using vinegar and milk which is pretty much the same in this kind of recipe.

Mömmudraumur translates to "Mother's Dream", which Nanna says has been widely cooked in Iceland since it appeared in home economics book The Young Girl and the Kitchen Tasks, which I can't find any record of online, unfortunately, as I'd love to read it. It's a very simple chocolate cake, essentially - nothing complicated at all. I've copied Nanna's recipe to the letter this time and filled it just as she instructs - with strawberry jam (the last of the strawberry and wild strawberry conserve, in fact) and with súkkulaðismjörkrem, which is an Icelandic chocoalte buttercream, that contains raw egg yolk which I think makes it set quite firm overnight in the fridge - to be honest, Nanna's recipe did not work for me! There was no way that could be used as it was - so I had to add water to it to make it smooth enough to work with and then add a bit more sugar to balance it out. I added extra cocoa powder as I felt it needed to be darker. Personally for this kind of cake, I would normally fill it with jam and a chocolate Chantilly but I was copying the "traditional recipe" (if 100 years is traditional?) of course.

Finally, after all the rich, heavy food of the last week, I wanted a very light dinner and I had some salmon fillets that I got on offer that go off tomorrow and felt I should use them! A little googling told me that honey and...lavender...go brilliantly with salmon! Fantastic! I also had some ras al hanout, which I love with fish, so I decided to use that too. The name means "head of the shop" or something similar and it's a spice blend from Morocco that I love to use with lamb and with chicken thighs - and it contains rose petals...so ideas started to brew about using this and lavender on the two salmon fillets I had - and a bit of honey would help them to adhere...now I abhor honey (bee sick) as a rule and can only really handle very clear, pale honey - so I picked up a jar of borage honey a few weeks back, which is beautifully clear though I'd not opened it yet. I was relieved upon tasting it to find it has a very, very mild flavour and smells deliciously of borage - a fresh, cucumber-y smell. I used to work at the University of Warwick, which is located (or was - I think the field has been built on now) next to a huge field of borage and I remember walking through it one summer and eating the petals right off of the plants - shhhh! I'm pretty pleased with how this turned out - it was exactly what I needed - light but flavoursome and floral and fresh - it would be great on a summers evening and could easily be expanded with boiled potatoes and green vegetables I guess.

Floral Salmon
(Serves 1)
2 salmon fillets
2 tbsp borage honey
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp salt
1 tsp lavender flowers
1 tsp ras al hanout

Preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C for fan ovens). In two separate bowls, mix half of each of the honey, oil, vinegar and salt. To one bowl, add the lavender and to the other add the ras al hanout.

Put a salmon fillet into each bowl and coat completely with the marinade and leave for 10-30 minutes. Put the salmon into an ovenproof dish and pour the marinade over it and bake for 10-20 minutes or until the fish starts to flake.

Gljáðum Piparkökur, Part I (Glazed Pepper Cookies, Part I)
225g butter (cut into cubes)
2/3 cup golden caster sugar
1/4 cup golden syrup (or maple syrup or agave nectar or whatever you want to use)
1/2 cup buttermilk (I used faux buttermilk, which is 1/2 tsp red wine vinegar and 1/2 cup 1% milk (UHT), left at room temperature for about 30 minutes)
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda (14g if you're pedantic!)
1 tbsp ground ginger
1" length of cinnamon stick
1 tsp peppercorns (I used Bristol blend)
1 long pepper catkin
2 tsp cloves
4 green cardamon pods
1 tsp coriander seeds
1/2 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp allspice berries
3 1/2 cups plain flour

Cream the butter, sugar and syrup. I used my foodmixer to do this and, after reading Julie's post the other day about the need to really whip the butter and sugar, I gave that a go and, once they were creamed, I kept mixing at a high speed for 5 minutes and yes, they do go very creamy and light!

Meanwhile, grind all of the spices thoroughly in a pestle and mortar.

Put the bicarbonate of soda into the (faux) buttermilk and add it to the butter and sugar, along with the ground spices. Keep mixing whilst slowly adding the flour until the mixture forms a firm but slightly gooey dough.

Give this a good mix with the foodmixer or kneed it by hand and then wrap it in clingfilm and put it in the fridge overnight. I will add the rest of the recipe once they're cooked!

Mömmudraumur Með Jarðarberjumsulta og Súkkulaðismjörkrem (Mother's Dream with Strawberry Jam and Chocolate Buttercream)

Mömmudraumur
115g butter (cut into cubes)
1/2 cup + 2 tbsp golden caster sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 1/4 cups plain flour
3 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tsp baking powder
Pinch of salt
1/2 cup of 1% milk (I used UHT, as always)

Set the oven to 180°C (160°C for fan ovens) and sieve the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt together. Butter and flour two 8" cake pans.

Cream the butter and sugar with the vanilla extract (I used the same approach as for the above recipe). Add the first egg along with about 1/2 cup of the flour mixture to stop it curdling and mix, followed by the second egg and another 1/2 cup of the flour mixture. Add another 1 cup of the flour mixture followed by the milk and finally add the rest of the flour in one go and mix. You end up with quite a viscous, dough-like cake batter that you then need to split between the two cake pans - I found this quite hard as the batter is a lot stiffer than I'm used to working with.

Once it's in the pans, bake it for about 20 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean as usual. Cool in the pans for 5 minutes and then turn out and invert and leave to cool completely.

Súkkulaðismjörkrem
1 1/2 cups icing sugar
3 tbsp cocoa powder
112g butter, cut into cubes
1 egg yolk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
3 tbsp hot water

Sieve the cocoa into the sugar and mix thoroughly. Add the butter and rub together with the sugar as though making a crumble topping or similar. Add the egg yolk and vanilla extract and start adding hot water about 1/2 tbsp at a time, mixing constantly until it is a smooth batter-like mixture that holds in soft peaks. If it's too runny, add more sugar.

To Assemble: Put about 75g strawberry jam (I used strawberry & wild strawberry conserve) onto one half of the cake and spread out all over the surface. Put the other layer of the cake on and cover the top and sides with the súkkulaðismjörkrem and spread out and smooth down. You can pipe this on if you want to but I can't be arsed. Put the whole thing into the fridge to set the buttercream - I went with overnight - hence photos tomorrow!

Kharcho and Solenyye Ogurtsy

This coming week's instalment of The Challenge has started a bit early, but I'm using meat from the butcher's counter which isn't vacuum packed and so on and needed to be used within the next few days - today seemed the best thing to do with it. I've today made two things but one can't be enjoyed for several weeks, unfortunately - both are Russian dishes, as per The Challenge's designated country for this coming week, but I'm cheating a tiny bit in that all of my source books tend to define "Russian" recipes as pre-1991 Russia, i.e. the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and so I'm going with "former USSR" rather than "Russia" for this week!

My first foray into Soviet cooking was the one I can't eat for several weeks is solenyye ogurtsy (соленые огурцы) or as my recipe book calls it, smedomi (смедоми), but I can't find that name used elsewhere anywhere! What, pray tell, is solenyye ogurtsy? Fermented, brined cucumbers, that's what! Some would say "pickled cucumbers" but they're not pickled per se, they're brined. What does this do? The brine is high in salt and contains a little acidity, which kills a lot of Bacteria [sorry, I can't write "bacteria", the word is always rightly styled "Bacteria", as I'm a taxonomist!] and fungi present but makes the conditions perfect for lactic acid Bacteria (LAB) such as members of the genera Lactobacillus and Lactococcus. What do these bugs do? They firstly break down the big carbohydrates like starch in the cucumber, resulting ultimately in production of glucose and other sugars - these are then fermented - this is an oxygen-independent process in which the LABs decide they don't want to use oxygen like pedestrian organisms, they want to use something else instead - that something else being pyruvate - so they firstly glycolyse the sugars into pyruvate and then ferment that into lactic acid (and minor amounts of other fatty acids), which then pickle the cucumbers, giving them a sweet, tart taste - much like sauerkraut, which is produced in exactly the same way!

My second attempt was tonight's meal (and I say "attempt" as whilst it was delicious, it wasn't filling at all) - a spicy Georgian stew known as kharcho (харчо) in Russian, or as kharch'o (ხარჩო) in the original Georgian. The recipe that I used came from Elena Makhonko's The Food and Cooking of Russia and to be honest, I felt it looked very, very bland - no spices at all, aside garlic and chilli. So, I did some googling and I found that the traditional spices used include paprika, Turkish smoked red peppers, blue fenugreek and coriander seed. I'm fresh out of fenugreek (blue or otherwise) but did have some smoked paprika which kind of merges the first two on the list and some coriander seeds - so I decided to use those - I've had this tin of smoked paprika for about 10 years but the seal is brilliant and the flavour and aroma are still strong and bright so I've kept using it!

I also decided to add some peppercorns and some allspice as that appears a lot in Russian food and I love the taste and finally I added a new ingredient I just got today that I've never even seen before but I've managed to get it into both of my recipes today - long pepper (Piper longum L.) - which is a catkin-type thing that's apparently hotter in flavour than black pepper (Piper nigrum L.). I procured some today in my Waitrose delivery and thought I'd throw some into these recipes alongside my usual Bristol blend, which is a mix of green, black, white and pink peppercorns and allspice berries. The former three peppers are actually the same thing - P. nigrum - just harvested at different ages and treated differently. The pink peppercorn is actually not a pepper at all but from Schinus molle L. bush, which is more closely related to the cashew tree than to the pepper!

The recipes I found for kharcho used lamb-on-the-bone but I didn't feel like using it as it's very expensive and so, in the interests of (a) saving money and (b) staying in the spirit of The Challenge to use things I don't usually use, I elected to use oxtail - that is to say the vertebrae and surrounding tissues from a cattle [yes, "a cattle" or "a cattlebeast" is right, not "a cow" as that only applies to females of the species, not the species as a whole, which is "cattles", not "cows"] - which is a lovely meat but must be cooked quite slowly. This kharcho recipe takes about an hour and a half, which is a bit quick and has left it a bit tough really but it did make for a lovely gelatinous, rich gravy forming, which was worth it! Traditionally, a long grain white or brown rice would be used for this recipe, but I elected to use Thai black rice because it has a really nice nutty flavour and harder texture which I thought might add a little bit of "bite" to this stew. The colour also works well in the red sauce.

Solenyye Ogurtsy - Brined Cucumbers
(Makes 2 × 1L screwcap Kilner jars - that is well over 20 servings)
(Total cost: £3.76 - less than £0.18 per serving)
8 cups of water
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
6 tbsp salt
2 large cucumbers (they should weigh about 500g each - you need 1kg cucumber)
10 garlic cloves (peeled and lightly bruised)
6 springs of dill
2 small bay leaves
20 peppercorns (I was using Bristol blend, so 4 of each colour therein)
4 allspice berries (on top of the ones in the Bristol blend)
4 long pepper catkins
[Optional: 10 blackcurrant leaves - I didn't have access to any so omitted them]
[You could also add mustard seeds, grated fresh horseradish and juniper berries]

Prepare the Kilner jars first by taking off the lids and putting the jars into the oven, lying on their sides, and turning the oven to 100°C (same for fan ovens) and letting them heat up. Once the oven reaches temperature, leave the jars in for 5 minutes and then turn the oven off and open the door. After a few minutes, remove the jars carefully and put them upside down on a trivet to cool slightly. Meanwhile, put the lids into a small heatproof container and cover with water that boiled 30 seconds ago in the kettle and leave submerged until needed.

Put the water, salt and vinegar in a pan and heat rapidly to the boil, stirring to ensure that all of the salt has completely dissolved. Bring it to a rolling boil and then take off of the heat and cool for about 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, prepare the cucumbers by removing any packaging - do not wash the cucumbers - and running your unwashed hands all over them - this is to ensure they have lactic acid Bacteria on the surfaces as packaged cucumbers are often quite sterile. Cut the ends off of the cucumbers and cut them into spears - I cut each cucumber in half and then cut each section longitudinally into quarters. Put the cucumber spears into a large bowl for about 5 minutes whilst you prepare the jars.

Turn the jars over and drop 10 peppercorns, 2 allspice berries, 2 long pepper catkins and 2 garlic cloves into each jar. If you are using blackcurrant leaves, you should add a few at this stage and layer the cucumbers with them. Push a spring of dill into each jar and curve them around the bottom. Start cramming the cucumbers into each jar, packing the spears in tightly. Once you're halfway up the jar, add another sprig of dill and a garlic clove. Once you reach the top of the jar, add a final sprig of dill, 2 garlic cloves and the bay leaf. Pour the hot brine into each jar, filling them almost to the top. Fish the lids out of the hot water and seal the jars immediately. Mix by inversion so that there are no air bubbles in the cucumber and leave the jars at room temperature overnight and then refrigerate for at least 3 weeks before consumption.

Kharcho - Georgian stew
(Serves 2 as a main course - no accompaniment is needed other than perhaps some bread)
(Total cost: £4.54 - £2.27 per person)
350g oxtail (for me, that was 4 segments, 2 large, 2 small)
6 cups of water
1 bay leaf
5 peppercorns (I used Bristol blend, so one of each peppercorn)
5 allspice berries (on top of the one from the Bristol blend)
1 long pepper catkin
1 medium onion (peeled and cut into slices)
2 echalion shallots (peeled and cut into slices)
3 garlic cloves (peeled and cut into slices, not crushed)
1 medium-heat chilli (de-seeded, de-pithed and cut into slices)
2 tbsp tomato purée (I used cherry tomato and vegetable purée)
1 medium tomato (cut into wedges)
1 tsp smoked paprika ("hot" not "sweet" variety)
1 tsp coriander seeds (crush just before adding to the stew)
8 cherry tomatoes (left whole - I used these to use them up, a second medium tomato would do)
2 tbsp olive oil
1/4 cup Thai black rice
1 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley

Put the water, bay leaf, peppercorns, allspice and long pepper into a large cooking pot and heat on the stove. Add the oxtail to the water whilst the water is still luke-warm but not when the water is completely cold either. Bring the water to the boil with the lid off and then simmer for about 5 minutes before skimming any brown foam off of the water, putting the lid on and simmering for one hour.

10 minutes before the oxtail is ready, lightly fry the shallots, onions and garlic in the oil until the start to soften - about 5 minutes on a medium heat.

Add the tomato purée and mix well, then add all of the tomatoes and stir again and cook for 1 minute with constant stirring.

Add the rice and stir so that the rice is coated in the vegetable mixture and fry for another 1 minute. Transfer the onion-tomato-rice mix to the cooked oxtail and stir really well before adding the paprika, coriander seeds and parsley and stir thoroughly.

Put the lid on and cook for about 30 minutes or until the rice is cooked but still has "bite". Fish out the bay leaf if you can find it.

Serve by transferring the oxtail into bowls using tongs and ladling the vegetables and gravy over it.