Curried Parsnip Soup

Ingredients
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 pound parsnips, peeled and cubed
• 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
• 2 teaspoons curry powder
• 1 cube chicken bouillon
• 3 1/4 cups boiling water
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 pinch red pepper flakes or paprika for garnish

Directions
• Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Fry the onion in butter until soft, about 5 minutes. Add the parsnips, garlic and curry powder, and fry for a couple of minutes to release the flavors. Mix the bouillon cube into the boiling water, and pour into the saucepan. Stir to remove any bits of vegetable from the bottom of the pot. Simmer for 15 minutes or until parsnips are soft and easy to break with a wooden spoon.
• Remove from the heat, and blend with a hand mixer or immersion blender. Stir in the cream, and heat through. Do not boil. Season with salt and pepper to taste, and garnish with red pepper flakes or paprika.

The students were taught two essential recipes of Northern European cuisine to go along with their beer tasting, Mummy Boome’s Sheppard’s pie and traditional Yorkshire puddings in beef gravy, were scoffed down while comparing which beer went well with what food, as the group started thinking about planning there fall dinner party’s.

“The Harp larger did extremely well as the students opened themselves to it’s refreshing new taste, and I know that the Guinness and Smithwick’s will be the winter drink of choice of many of the lady’s in attendance.”

Many Thanks to Diageo for supporting the school and our future lessons.

What is a Lager? Lager is brewed using bottom-fermenting yeast at lower temperatures and for longer durations rather than those typically used to brew ales. In German, the term “lager” refers to storing a beer at cool temperatures and does not necessarily imply bottom-fermentation. Pale lager is the most widely-consumed and commercially available style of beer in the world. There are also dark lagers, such as Dunkel and Schwarzbier.

What is a Bitter? Bitter is an English term for pale ale. A boy’s bitter has less than 3% alcohol by volume, while a strong bitter has at least 7%. Bitters may be a dark amber, or as light in appearance as a golden ale. By 1830, the terms bitter and pale ale were synonymous in England where breweries would tend to designate beers as pale ale, though customers in the pub would commonly refer to the same beers as bitter.

What is a Stout? Stout and porter are dark beers made using roasted malt or barley, hops, water, and yeast. Stouts were traditionally the generic term for the strongest or stoutest beers, typically 7% or 8%,produced by a brewery. There are a number of variations including Baltic porter, dry stout, and imperial stout. The name porter was first used in 1721 to describe a dark beer popular with street and river porters of London that had been made with roasted malts. This same beer later also became known as stout, though the word stout had been used as early as 1677. The history and development of stout and porter are intertwined.

Mummy Boome’s Traditional Shepherd’s Pie

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 onion, diced
• 2 carrots, diced
• 2 stalks celery, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 2 pounds lean ground beef or lamb
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 cup beef stock
• 1 1/2 cups garden peas
• Cheesy Mashed Potatoes, recipe follows

Directions

Preheat oven at 400 degrees F.

Add butter and oil to a large skillet on medium heat. Sautee onions, carrots, celery and garlic until tender for about 7 to 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Once the vegetables have softened and start to brown, add the tomato paste and mix evenly. Add the ground beef and cook until beef is no longer pink about 10 minutes. Add the Worcestershire sauce and beef stock. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Cook and simmer for another 10 minutes. Mix in peas. Transfer mixture to an oven-proof baking dish and spread evenly. Place potato on top of ground beef mixture and spread out evenly, once the top surface has been covered, rake through with a fork so that there are peaks that will brown nicely. Place the dish into the preheated oven and cook until browned about 20 minutes. Spoon out the shepherd’s pie and serve.

For the Cheesy Mashed Potatoes:

• 4 pounds Yukon gold potatoes, peeled, quartered
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 1 cup grated mature white Cheddar
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions

Fill a large saucepan with cold water and a tablespoon of salt. Add potatoes to the water and bring to a boil. Let potatoes cook until soft about 20 minutes. Once the potatoes are at a desired density, drain the potatoes and place them back into the saucepan for mashing. Add butter and cream and begin to mash potatoes into a semi smooth consistency. Once at desired texture add cheese and mix well. Season with salt and pepper.

Yorkshire Pudding

Ingredients

• 4 large, fresh eggs
• 1 cup of milk (equal quantity of milk to eggs)
• 1 cup of flour (equal quantity of all purpose/plain flour to eggs)
• Pinch of salt
• 2 tablespoons lard, beef dripping or vegetable oil

Directions

Heat the oven to the highest temperature possible, but do not exceed 450F/230C or the fat may burn.

Pour the eggs and milk into a large mixing bowl and add the pinch of salt. Whisk thoroughly with an electric hand beater or hand whisk. Leave to stand for 10 minutes. Gradually sieve the same volume of flour (as the eggs) into the milk and egg mixture, again using an electric hand beater or hand-whisk to create a lump free batter resembling thick cream, if there are any lumps pass the batter through a fine sieve. Leave the batter to rest in the kitchen for a minimum of 30 minutes, longer if possible – up to several hours.

Place a pea-sized piece of lard, dripping or ½ teaspoon vegetable oil into your chosen Yorkshire Pudding tin, or a 4 x 2″/5cm hole tin or 12-hole muffin tin and heat in the oven until the fat is smoking. Give the batter another good whisk adding 2 tablespoons of cold water and fill a third of each section of the tin with batter and return quickly to the oven. Leave to cook until golden brown approximately 20 minutes. Repeat the last step again until all the batter is used up.

Serving Yorkshire Pudding

In Yorkshire, serving the pudding is traditionally with gravy, meat and vegetables. Smaller puddings cooked in muffin tins are served alongside meat and vegetables. Yorkshire pudding isn’t reserved only for Sunday lunch. A large pudding filled with a meaty stew or chili is a dish in its own right and cold left-over Yorkshire Puddings make a lovely snack with a little jam or honey.

Yorkshire Puddings do not reheat well, becoming brittle and dry.

September

Vegetables

• eggplants
• pumpkins
• tomatoes
• spinach
• lettuce

Fruits

• grapes
• pomegranates

October

Vegetables

• sweet potatoes
• pumpkins
• winter squash
• broccoli
• spinach lettuce

Fruits

• cranberries
• apples
• pomegranates
• grapes

November

Vegetables

• pumpkins
• winter squash
• sweet potatoes
• broccoli
• mushrooms
• spinach

Fruit

• cranberries
• oranges
• tangerines
• pears
• pomegranates

June

Vegetables

• corn
• lettuce

Fruit

• watermelon
• strawberries
• cantaloupe
• cherries
• blueberries
• peaches
• apricots

July

Vegetables

• cucumbers
• tomatoes
• summer squash
• corn
• green beans
• lettuce

Fruits

• watermelon
• strawberries
• cantaloupe
• blueberries
• peaches
• apricots
• kiwi
• raspberries
• plums

August

Vegetables

• cucumbers
• corn
• eggplant
• tomatoes
• summer squash
• green beans
• lettuce

Fruits

• watermelon
• strawberries
• cantaloupe
• blueberries
• peaches
• apricots
• kiwi
• raspberries
• plums

April

Vegetables

• zucchini
• rhubarb
• artichokes
• asparagus
• spring peas
• broccoli
• lettuce

Fruits

• pineapples
• mangoes

May

Vegetables

• okra
• zucchini
• rhubarb
• artichokes
• asparagus
• spring peas
• broccoli
• lettuce

Fruit

• cherries
• pineapples
• apricots

June

Vegetables

• corn
• lettuce

Fruit

• watermelon
• strawberries
• cantaloupe
• cherries
• blueberries
• peaches
• apricots

Take the turkey out of the refrigerator and leave it to come to room temperature, about 30 minutes prior to preparing and cooking. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

In a mixing bowl, add the 1/2 cup softened butter, lemon zest and chopped chives. Halve the lemons and squeeze the juice of 1 lemon half into the butter. Stir to combine. Season with salt and pepper.

Prepare the turkey: From the cavity remove the inner packet of giblets, neck and plastic leg truss, from the end of the bird cut off the parsons nose and set aside in the roasting pan.

A Citrus Roasting Nest

Remove the giblets from the packet, rinse and pat dry. Place the giblets neck and parsons nose on the bottom of a large roasting pan. Quarter oranges lemons and grapefruit with onions and garlic and mix all the ingredients in the roasting pan, then place the turkey on top of the “roasting nest”. Tuck the wings under the turkey.

Place the turkey in a preheated oven and cook for 30 minutes. Then, turn down the heat to 350 degrees F and roast for about another 2 hours, until a meat thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the thigh registers 175 to 180 degrees F. (The general rule is to cook a turkey about 15-20 minutes per pound.)

Stuff the Turkey with Fruit

Basting the Turkey

Remove the bird from the pan onto a carving board or platter and cover with foil to keep warm. Allow it to rest for 15 minutes before carving.

Place the roasting pan over low heat on the stovetop. Add white wine and deglaze the pan, scraping up the browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Pour in the chicken stock. Whisk the cornstarch into it. Add the remaining tablespoon of butter and the Dijon mustard. Whisk well to combine. Strain the gravy into a small saucepan and simmer over low heat until thick and smooth, about 8 minutes.

Danny’s Turkey Tips: Bring your turkey to room temperature to ensure that the bird will cook evenly.

Stuffing a turkey with fruit keep the bird moist and acts as a secondary cooking agent. As the juice of the fruit steams inside the cavity, it helps cook the bird from the inside. The juices also help to flavor the pan juices used for making the gravy.

Stuffing butter between the skin and the flesh, keep the meat moist and flavorful. The butter and salt on the outside help create a tasty, crispy skin.

I like to use the giblets as a platform for the bird. It stops the bottom of the bird from burning and adds flavor to the pan juices.

A good rule for roasting times is to plan on roasting a turkey for about 15-20 minutes per pound.

A meat thermometer is the best tool for figuring out if your turkey is fully cooked.

Let Danny know your thoughts and share them with the “4 in 30? Community!

Blog Starts September 1st 2009

Method
In a sauce pan gently heat the cream. Add the sugar and gelatin. Once dissolved add the grated lemon and lemon juice. Bring the cream to a simmer infusing the flavors together about 10 minutes. Once it thickens pour mixture into lightly oiled ramekins. Place moulds onto a tray and then place into the fridge to chill and set about 6 hours or overnight. Once ready to serve, take out of fridge and serve with raspberry coulis.

For raspberry coulis
In a food processor puree raspberries. Over a bowl strain puree into a sieve using a rubber spatula. Spoon raspberry coulis over panna cotta and top with a raspberry.