Canapes and Cake

A little while ago, I paid a visit to BBC Radio Oxford to talk to the charming Bill Buckley about vinegars on his Sunday lunchtime show. It was a funny feeling: a mere, ahem, 30 or so years earlier, I went to Summer Fields prep school on the opposite side of Banbury Road. Little could I have predicted that I'd be in a radio studio across the road years later...
For this visit, I thought it would be good to show Bill a couple of ways you can use fruit vinegars and so produced a savoury and a sweet canape and a Gluten Free drizzle cake with a twist. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Urvashi Roe for the inspiration for the canapes and Simon Blackwell for the cake: both British Bake Off Greats.

 

Smoked salmon with fresh herb salad,

Womersley Lime, Black Pepper & Lavender vinegar dressing

Use a quality smoked salmon for this dish.

Mixed garden herbs (chives, parsely, thyme) dressed with a little virgin oil

Lime, Black Pepper & Lavender vinegar to taste

Slice the smoked salmon thinly, sprinkle over the herbs and drizzle over the vinegar

Leave to stand at room temperature for about half an hour before serving

Blinis/Pastry cases with Mascarpone and Blackberries macerated in Womersley Blackberry Vinegar

Ingredients:

6 Blinis or Pastry cases

A 250g tub of Mascarpone

Womersley Blackberry Vinegar

Blackberries

Method:

Place 6 blackberries in a smal bowl with a couple of teaspoons of Blackberry Vinegar and leave to macerate for a quarter of an hour

Blend a teaspoon of the Blackberry Vinegar into 100g Mascarpone

Level fill your pastry cases with the blended mixture and top with a juicy Blackberry

Serve

Urvashi Roe did these when we were exhibiting at BBC Good Food last November at the NEC. She made them look really pretty with the addition of edible flowers; sadly my photo does not do them justice, though:

   

Gluten free Lemon Drizzle Cake

 with Womersley Lime, Black Pepper & Lavender Vinegar Drizzle

Ingredients for the cake:

125g unsalted butter

75g caster sugar

2 large eggs

Zest of one lemon

175g gluten free self raising flour (we used Doves Farm)

Pinch of salt

4 tablespoons milk

Ingredients for the Drizzle:

Juice of 1½ lemons

100g icing sugar

2 tbsp Womersley Lime, Black Pepper & Lavender vinegar

Method:

- Pre-heat oven to 180°C/ gas mark 4

- Butter and line a loaf or cake tin (make sure the lining goes well up the sides of the tin)

- Cream together butter and sugar, add eggs and lemon zest and beat well

- Add flour and salt, folding gently until mixed

- Add milk and mix in

- Spoon cake mix into prepared tin

- Cook for 45 minutes until golden and skewer comes out clean

For the Drizzle:

(Make just before the cake is due out of the oven)

 -    Put icing sugar, lemon juice and Womersley Lime, Black Pepper & Lavender Vinegar into a small saucepan

-    Heat gently until the sugar is dissolved and the vinegar has reduced the mixture to a viscous drizzle

-  When cake is ready, take out of the oven and pierce it all over with a skewer. Pour the drizzle all over. Make sure the cake is totally cooled before taking out of the loaf tin or it will crumble.

Smoked Salmon Pate Recipe

Christmas time is surely the season for Smoked salmon so I was delighted to receive this delicious recipe from fellow Tweeter, Bill King, today. After some Tweetery, I was delighted to meet Bill at Abergavenny on Sunday, full of enthusiasm for our vinegars and dressings. He left with a smile on his face and a bottle of our Lemon, Basil, Bay & Juniper, so I was keen to hear how he would use it...

Bill was a Local Government Officer who longed to be involved in food and was immensely keen on local food and quality ingredients. Cuts meant the chance to break free so, in anticipation, he went to Ballymaloe Cookery School, where "cooking is fun!" You can read about Bill's Ballymaloe experience on his blog, all 84 days of it, the highs the lows and the effect of being in the "Ballymaloe Bubble." Currently he is a "Freelance Foodie" (unemployed) but hoping to set up a deli - using his many local producer contacts and favourite ingredients with some in house production.

He is married to Janet who does not cook but enjoys food and indulges his foodie expeditions and expects to spend ages in a shop/stall whilst he discusses the product/ingredient and plan usage on the spot. Bill says that Janet's highest accolade is "YUM" whilst a 3* Michelin was rated "Alright"!!

Bill tells me that this recipe for Smoked Salmon Pate "really did lift the whole flavour sensation. I have used lemon juice in the past but found an amazing difference when the Lemon, Basil, Bay & Juniper dressing was substituted. Mrs K has just loaded a couple of homemade baguettes with the pate to feed a horde of ravenous midwives at their team meeting!" Can't be bad...

You can get a lot of pate from this recipe!

 

Smoked Salmon Pate

This richly indulgent pate has deep layers of taste and flavour and can be as coarse or fine as you like.

Ingredients

300g Smoked Salmon (I use Black Mountains Smokery for the deep smoke)

10 capers

2 small gherkins or cornichons, cut into slices

6 Black Peppercorns, crushed

3 Dessert spoons of Crème Fraiche

1 Dessert spoon of Womersley Lemon, Basil, Bay & Juniper Dressing

Method

Tear the Smoked Salmon into large-ish pieces and place into a food processor with the capers, black pepper and gherkins. Process to a coarse pate.

Add the Crème Fraiche and pulse.

Then add the Womersley Dressing and process to a finer pate – you should still have some small chunks of salmon.

Serve with Melba toast, crudités or pipe onto crackers or blinis.

The dressing has natural companions for smoked salmon – Lemon and Juniper and the Basil and Bay add subtle background notes – and balances the lovely oily, smoky taste. I have never needed to add any salt but Halen Mon Sea Salt would be my salt of choice.

For small presentations I garnish with a little grated Lemon Zest; in a larger dipping bowl I would put thin slices of Lemon and Cucumber around the bowl.

BBC Radio 4 Food Progamme Recipes

On a lovely warm, sunny day in April, we welcomed Sheila Dillon and Dilly Barlow to my mother's house to record part of a special programme they recorded on Vinegars. We were also joined by Seafood Chef of the Year 2009, Rob Green.

Rob Green, Sheila Dillon, Rupert Parsons

On a break from his excellent restaurant, Green's of Whitby, Rob cooked the most amazing dishes to tempt us all and here they are, in full for you now:

Oysters with red onion and
Womersley Golden Raspberry & Apache Chilli Dressing
Ingredients
1 small red onion
4 oysters
50ml Golden raspberry and Apache chilli vinegar

Method
Finely dice the red onion and marinade in the vinegar for at least 1 hour
Open oysters and spoon over the dressing and onions

Smoked salmon with fresh herb salad and
Womersley Lime, Black Pepper & Lavender dressing
Ingredients
Use a quality smoked salmon for this dish.
Mixed garden herbs (chives, parsley, thyme) dressed with a little virgin oil
Lime, black pepper and lavender vinegar to taste

 

Method

Slice the smoked salmon thinly, sprinkle over the herbs and drizzle over the dressing. Leave to stand at room temperature for around half an hour. 

The action of the Lime dressing on the smoked salmon makes it really succulent and brings out a fabulous flavour in the salmon.

Hot smoked Whitby Seafish salmon with English asparagus and Hollandaise made with
Womersley Lemon, Basil, Bay & Juniper Dressing

Serves 2 as a starter

Had to snap this fast, it was eaten in seconds!

Ingredients
1x 250g fillet of hot smoked salmon
8 English asparagus spears, washed and trimmed

For the hollandaise

250g melted unsalted butter
2x egg yolks
75 ml Womersley Lemon, Basil, Bay & Juniper dressing

 

Method
Place the salmon fillet in a pre-heated oven (180°C)
The salmon is already cooked, so we are just gently warming it through.
Place the Asparagus in a pan of boiling salted water and cook for 2-3 mins until just tender, sprinkle with sea salt and keep warm.

 
Whisk the egg yolks and dressing in a small mixing bowl over the pan of water which we used to cook the asparagus until it starts to thicken and go slightly pale. Slowly whisk in the melted butter until you have a thick rich hollandaise.

Place two of the asparagus spears on a serving plate and half the oak smoked salmon on top.
Place two more asparagus spears on the salmon and spoon over the hollandaise.


Sautéed Whitby queen scallops with Yorkshire chorizo, spring onions & chilli with a Womersley Cherry Vinegar butter sauce.

Serves 4

Ingredients
32 Queen Scallops, shucked, cleaned and washed. Wash and reserve the shells
¼ of a Yorkshire chorizo diced
3 Spring onions, sliced
1 Green chilli sliced, seeds removed
25g Cold, unsalted butter, cubed
75ml Womersley Cherry vinegar
Virgin oil for cooking

 

Method
Pre heat a non stick pan over a high heat. Add a little oil and wait until it starts to gently smoke. Carefully add the queen scallops. Leave for 30 seconds then add the spring onions, chorizo and chillies. Toss the pan and sauté for another 30 seconds. Remove from the pan and keep warm.
De-glaze the pan with the cherry vinegar and reduce by ½. Remove from the heat and whisk in the butter.
Place the scallop sauté mixture into the shells on a serving plate and spoon over the cherry vinegar butter reduction.



Marinated strawberries with ground black pepper and
Womersley Strawberry & Mint dressing

Method
Wash and chop the strawberries in half. 

Cover with strawberry and mint vinegar and a few grinds of black pepper. 

Leave the strawberries at room temperature for 20 mins before serving. 

This is particularly good for slightly under-ripe strawberries as the action of the vinegar makes them lovely and sweet and tender.