I’m celebrating a brand new look for:
The Restaurant @ The Mill – no, it’s not a refurbishment, but it has a lovely new cover, courtesy of Sapphire Star Publishing. To mark the occasion I’m launching a ‘Winter Warmer’ feature. Over the next two months I will be sharing some home-cooked recipe. I’ve always been one of those home chefs who enjoys experimenting. I love winter because it’s an excuse to cook up some fabulous casseroles, but I’ll also be featuring some festive puddings and a tipple or two along the way … Plus there will be some very special guests!
I’ll be drafting in a few friends to help and asking them to bring along one of their own concoctions to share.
‘The Restaurant @ The Mill ‘Winter Warmer Recipe Booklet’ will be available to download free, here on 2 February, 2014, but today we’re looking at one of the easiest recipes you can find. An apple muffin that freezes well and tastes divine! And author Emma Calin has dropped by to share one of her favourite home-cooked recipes – Kedgeree. Banish those winter blues … in the kitchen! Both of these are lovely served at breakfast or brunch.
Easy Apple Muffins with a touch of spice – or not!
2oz margarine
2oz caster sugar
1 egg
4 oz plain flour
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon cinnamon
3fl oz milk and water (half and half)
1 medium apple – peeled, cored and finely chopped
Either a) 1 level dessertspoon of caster sugar + ¼ teaspoon of cinnamon or b) a sprinkling of granulated sugar for the topping
Cream the margarine and caster sugar, then beat in the egg. Sift together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon and salt and add to the mixture. Gradually add small amounts of water and milk to the mix until everything has been combined. Fold in the apple and spoon into buttered, individual muffin tins/moulds. Mix together a) 1 level dessertspoon of caster sugar and the cinnamon and sprinkle over the top of b) shake a little granulated sugar over the top to give a ‘crunch’.
Bake at 220ºC for 15 minutes. Cook until golden brown. Make large quantities as these freeze well. Serve: No need … they disappear!
A HUGE welcome to my guest today, author Emma Calin. Emma has a poet’s heart, writes gritty, urban stories that are often hard-hitting and is a self-confessed Francophile! Spending her life split between homes in the UK and France, when it comes to recipes Emma is prepared to experiment. Today it’s a dish that she’s made her own…
Kedgeree
Serves 4
Kedgeree is an old-fashioned savoury warming winter breakfast dish, although we often eat it for supper and it would make a nice lunch too. It became popular during Victorian times – a colonial class favourite. It’s roots lie in India – hence the curry powder – although although I think that the Scots claim to have invented it too. It’s ideal for using up cooked rice (providing you have cooled it and refrigerated it quickly – we don’t want any food poisoning here!).
Ingredients:
300g uncooked rice (or about 600g cooked rice if you have some left-overs!)
500g smoked haddock
120g butter
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 bay leaves
4-5 black peppercorns
1 green chilli, finely chopped without the seeds
1.5 tbsp curry powder
4 hard-boiled eggs, peeled and quartered
Fresh flat leaf parsley & coriander (cilantro) chopped – about 2 tbsps of each.
1 lemon cut into 8 thin wedges
Salt and pepper
Method:
1. Wash and boil the rice according to the instructions on the packet. (If you are using left-over rice, reheat until piping hot by adding a ladle of boiling water, covering and microwaving for the time recommended in your oven instruction booklet. If you do not use a microwave oven, you could equally cover it and reheat in the oven – which can be a bit drying, or steam it over a saucepan of boiling water.)
2. Put the smoked haddock, bay leaves and peppercorns in a pan, add water to cover, simmer gently for 10 minutes with a lid on the pan. Remove fish from the water and allow to cool enough for you to remove the skin and break into large chunks/flakes.
3. Meanwhile melt the butter and soften the onions until clear and just turning golden brown – about 4 minutes. Add the curry powder and chopped chilli and continue to cook for a couple of minutes.
4. Add the fish to the onion and spices and heat gently for a couple more minutes.
5. Add the hot rice and gently mix the fish and vegetable spice through the rice.
6. Taste and season with extra salt and pepper if necessary (the smoked fish is quite salty so I prefer not to add any additional salt).
7. Share between 4 individual bowls/plates, put 4 egg quarters on top of each and sprinkle with the coriander and parsley.
8. Add a couple of lemon wedges to each plate to finish.
Bon appetit!
Website/blog: http://www.emmacalin.com/Welcome.html
Twitter: @EmmaCalin FB: Emma Calin
THANK YOU, Emma, for sharing such a fab recipe! Off to cook some rice ready for brunch tomorrow …
Of course, a restaurant is about more than just the food – it’s the ambience, too. The Restaurant @ The Mill has a ghost, her name is Sarah and she loves to visit and watch the diners. She doesn’t understand much of what she overhears, or the rather bizarre way they dress because Sarah is a Victorian lady. Her husband is the mill owner and she frets that he’s working too hard, so she likes to keep an eye whilst she waits for him to come home to her …
Follow the Winter Warmer recipe series and I can promise you some very tempting and easy to cook recipes to ward off those chilly days. I’ll also be pulling them together into a free downloadable document you can save on your desktop and refer back to, or print out. Perfect for lifting the spirits during those long, winter months!
viewBook.at/TheRestaurant
Come back soon – next up will be Winter Sausages – this dish can be served three ways – something for everyone!