St Piran's Day Cornish Blue Pasties...

Happy St Piran's Day for tomorrow. St Piran's Day has become so much bigger in the last few years. (Here's the history). There is only one dish fit for the celebrations and that is a pasty lunch. I got really excited because I had loads of Cornish Blue cheese to use up and thought I would make Steak and Cornish Blue pasties. I did a bit of googling around to see whether there were any recipes anywhere and couldn't find one. Then I felt a bit smug that I was going to put a recipe online, only to realise yesterday that Chough's won World Champion Company Savoury at the World Pasty Championships at the weekend for the same thing. 

So the idea isn't original but it was delicious. If you don't want the blue cheese in it just leave it out. 

I also experimented using strong white bread flour instead of plain and I actually preferred it. Which is handy as I've got 8kgs to use up.

Cornish Blue and Steak Pasties (makes 4 or 6 bite size)

450g strong white bread flour

120g butter

120g hard white vegetable fat or lard

120g butter

up to 200ml cold water

200g beef skirt (I only had chopped beef)

100g Cornish Blue cheese

1 small onion

100g slice swede

120g potato

salt and pepper

2 tbsps clotted cream 

Weigh the flour into a bowl and season with some salt. Grate in the butter and vegetable fat. Rub the fat into the flour until thoroughly combined.

Add the water a little at a time and bring the dough together with a knife. Give it a little knead and bring it together into a ball. Wrap it in cling film and pop it in the fridge for about 40 minutes. Preheat the oven to 200'c.

Peel and chop the onion and separate the chunks. Peel and slice the potato and swede into slices about as thick as a pound coin. Chop the cheese and beef into rough chunks. (Make sure you haven't got chunks of fat on the beef.)

Take the pastry out of the fridge and chop into four (or six if making smaller ones). Roll out into four circles the size of a small dinner plate (about 25 cms.) Layer up the pasty filling in the centre leaving a good sized edge, seasoning with salt and pepper as you go. Top with some little blobs of clotted cream. 

Fold the pastry over so you have a crescent shape and press down the edge to keep the ingredients in. I could now tell you how to crimp but I'm rubbish at it. (See below). However, there's a good masterclass here that's much better than I could do.

Brush with a little milk and put in the oven for 30 minutes. Leave to cool for 5-10 minutes. Serve on it's own. Not with mayonnaise and ketchup as my other half did. 

The other two pasties I put in the freezer so I can defrost tomorrow morning and have a proper St Piran's Day lunch. 

You can find out more about St Piran's Day and get in the spirit by following @stpiransday on twitter.

Perfect Sunday pancakes....

There's little Spring breakthroughs at the moment on Bryher. Beautiful sunsets turning the buildings on Tresco pink, sunny days which trick you into thinking it's warm enough for a picnic and flowers and buds bursting to life in the garden. 

But there's a cold easterly windy blowing into Samson Hill making gardening hard to tolerate. This week we've had our first visitors who had three days of sunshine. They also had the extra low tides which meant they walk to Tresco two days in a row, stopping to chat to people walking the other way. The house suddenly seems much quieter now they have gone. After a winter of cereal and toast I decided to get up early and do us a cooked breakfast to warm us up for a day clearing the autumn bracken and brambles as long as our kitchen. 

My mum's scotch pancakes and bacon (serves 3-4)

225g self raising flour

1 pinch of salt

1 egg

25g very soft margarine or butter

25g caster sugar

225ml milk

spray oil or a little butter

8 slices of bacon (I used Troytown which are like slices of heaven) 

maple syrup 

 Preheat the oven to 200'c. Put the bacon on a baking tray. Pop in the oven. While the bacon is cooking, sieve the flour into a large bowl. Add all the other ingredients and mix with an electric beating until smooth. 

Spray a frying pan with spray oil or add a little butter. Heat the pan up and add a tablespoon or so of the batter. Once it starts to bubble, flip over with a fish slice. You will need to do several batches. (I keep them warm by getting another big bowl and putting a clean tea towel in it and then I wrap the pancakes in it.

Put the pancakes of a warm plate and serve with the crispy bacon and lots of maple syrup. 

Home alone....

I'm in the sitting room watching the rain pour down outside. It's the kind of rain that hits the window like a child throwing gravel. It's a foul day. The waves are rolling in off the Atlantic and are hitting the west coast of the island making a noise like a creaking ship. Last night the wind gusted up to 90mph. It's the perfect day to be inside, to watch Scilly at it's most exposed and at its most perfect. 

We've been decorating the house. Using masking tape to cover the light switches and skirting boards and using big rollers to cover the smudges and scrapes from our guests suitcases as they came and went. Painting over 2012 and creating afresh for 2013. We've got another three weeks until our first guests arrive and it all starts again. We can't wait to share our house with people. To meet new faces and to welcome back some from 2012. But for now we are wrapped up warm, enjoying our solitude.

Chicken and vegetable pie (serves 4)....

1x 500g packet of puff pastry
a little flour
2 small chicken breasts
1 small leek
a little olive oil
1 fat clove of garlic
1 good handful of a green leafy vegetable (I used pak choi)
1 good handful of a sturdier vegetable (cauliflower, broccoli, mushrooms etc)
10g butter
10g plain flour
125ml milk
salt and pepper
20g parmesan cheese
egg for glazing

Cut the pastry block in half and roll both out to about the size of an A4 piece of paper (one should be slightly bigger than the other.)

In a pan gently fry the chicken and chopped leek in the olive oil until the chicken is cooked through. Add the other vegetables, stir and take off the heat. Grate in a clove of garlic.  In another pan melt the butter and add the flour. Stir for around a minute. Add the milk and keep stirring until the sauce has thickened a little. Add salt and pepper and stir into the chicken and leek mix. It should create a shiny wet glaze rather than a creamy sauce.

Put the smaller pastry half on a greased baking tray. Spoon the chicken mix on top leaving any remaining sauce in the pan. Grate half of the parmesan over the top and season. 

Lay the bigger pastry half over the top and seal around the edges using a fork. Glaze with the beaten egg and the rest of the parmesan and make a small snip in the top.

Pop in the oven for around 20-30 minutes.

Serve with vegetables.

* I actually made a lower dairy version of this pie substituting the butter and milk for soya spread and soya milk and the parmesan for pecorino. The pastry of course is still full of butter but it justified it to me! 

Eating out in Thailand....

So we are back from our travels in Thailand and it was stupendous. I'm full of predictable plans to cook all kind of Thai dishes. I'll try not to bore you too much....

Mainland munchies....

 

Only 3 weeks left of our 10 week trip away. This week we're in Cornwall for New Year and then off to Thailand for a two week (very late) honeymoon. We start in Bangkok, then onto Cape Panwa and Koh Phi Phi. I am mostly looking forward to the Bangkok street food which everyone says is fantastic. I'd love any good food reccomendations for Thailand. Anyway here is some of what we've been eating in the last few weeks.....

 

 

Treacle Tart and Vanilla Salt at The Scarlet, Mawgan Porth.

 

 

Crab raviolo with Mylor prawn bisque, tarragon foam, rouille and crostini at The Scarlet. Probbl one of my food highlights.

 

Cocktails with bridesman Alex in London.

 



 

A chocolately delight at The Porthminster Beach Cafe, St Ives.

 

 

Japanese mackerel broth at The Porthminster Beach Cafe, St Ives.

Hubba hubba....

So we're in Truro. The B&B season on Scilly has finished and we have three months before it all starts again. To be honest I can't believe how fast it has gone and the FABULOUS people we have met and friends we have made. But we have various weddings and birthdays coming up over the winter that meant we had to be on the mainland. We decided instead of going back and forth we would spend ten weeks over here spending time with the friends and family we have missed so much this year.

 

The last couple of weeks we have been back in Truro and its been fantastic. It's great to bump into people whether you're shopping in town or on a semi empty beach. It's also been lovely to spend some time in Truro and appreciate it's stunning architecture and atmosphere which is easy to forget when you are living here.

 

On thing that's changed is The Hub's pop up restaurant on Lemon Quay. I bumped into one of my old work colleagues in the supermarket the other day and she said we had to go there as 'the burgers are the best in the world!'

 

 

We decided to go and get takeaway today and went for a kahuna burger with fries and winter slaw.

I love street food and it's great that this place has that kind of vibe. There was a lot of wide eyed mumbling when the other half was tucking in. Best burger in Cornwall? I think so. The most exciting new foodie place in Truro? Definitely.



Hat trick...

I've never really had to budget before. I've thought I have. When I was in my twenties and I lived in a little flat in Truro I was forever running out of money to put in the electricity meter. It was always half past seven on a Sunday night when the lights would go off and I would be left reading with a torch with my duvet up to my face (I also would never have enough money for heating!) But it was mainly because I'd spent all my money on gin and tonics the night before and magazines and takeaways. But now I share a bank account with the other half...a business account. Everything has to be recorded and checked and justified and we can't really justify a splurge at Topshop as a business expense. But I've actually enjoyed it. We hardly spend anything that isn't related to the business and I haven't really missed it. It's meant in January we can have our first holiday in 5 years (and it will be our delayed honeymoon.) To top it off we haven't had to pay to get to the mainland. Anyone who has ever visited Scilly will know the biggest expense is the flights to and from the islands. (The boat doesn't run in the winter.) At Bryher Fete this year we won flights and you have never seen two people more excited!

We also recently found out we won two nights and dinner at The Scarlet in Mawgan Porth which means we can finish our season here and go and enjoy two days of pampering in one of our favourite hotels. To top it off we won lunch for two at the Hell Bay Hotel in a coffee morning raffle so we went there to celebrate our luck and the end of our first season. 

Brown and white crab with passionfruit mousse and crusty bread.

Chocolate fondant with pistachio ice cream.

Bouillabaisse. The best ever.

* Please excuse the fact the courses are mixed up...I can't work out this new blog thingy!