Category: Useful ingedients

LIke pastries, or sauces

Quick cure for smoked salmon

For 1lb of salmon, cut into 4 pieces. Use 2hrs+ before smoking.

2 cups cold water
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1/4 cup salt
1 tsp ground white pepper
1 tsp garlic powder

mix the ingredients till the salt & sugar have disolved. Add the salmon (in a bag, so the salmon is covered) and give it a mix every now and then.

Smoking – hot smoke, c25 minutes.

Chocolate Ganache


120g dark chocolate
80g milk chocolate
1+1/2 tbl butter
100ml double or whipping cream
1tbl glucose syrup (i use chocolate icecream syrup, because its usually in the house)

chop the chocolate into a bowl

Boil up the butter, cream and syrup and pour over the chocolate. Stir like crazy, so that the chocolate melts in to the cream and emulsifies. Don’t let it split out at the edges!

Let it cool a touch, then pour over the cake and let it set.

Membrillo (Quince jelly)

4 medium quinces (about 2 pounds total)
1/4 to 1/2 cup water
2 to 3 cups sugar

Preheat oven to 350°F and lightly oil a 1-quart terrine.

Wash quinces and place in a small roasting pan. Cover and bake until fork tender, about 1 hour.

When cool enough to handle, peel, core, and chop quince and place into a food processor.

Puree pulp with 1/4 cup water until smooth (if mixture is too thick, add remaining 1/4 cup water a little at a time, as needed).

Measure the amount of puree, then transfer to a heavy saucepan and add the equivalent amount of sugar.

Cook over moderate heat, stirring constantly, until it is thickened and begins to pull away from side of pan, about 25 minutes.

Pour into terrine or Pyrex loaf pan.

Smooth the top and once cooled, cover with plastic wrap. Refrigerate at least 4 hours until set.

Run a thin knife around sides of terrine and invert onto a platter. (Quince paste keeps, wrapped well in wax paper and then plastic wrap and chilled, 3 months.)

Serve with crackers and Manchego cheese.

Clarified chicken stock

For a brown stock, use the skin and carcus of a roast chicken? Break it into 3 or 4 big pieces  so it takes less room in the pot. Add an onion, a couple of carrots and a couple of sticks of celery.talked halved). Cover with water, add a bay leaf and simmer for 90 mins.

This will give you a greasy, cloudy stock.Cool it in the fridge overnight.

Filter it using a sieve with cloth or kitchen paper in. This will remove the solidified fat, and any bigger bits from thestock.

Next, add 1-2 egg whites to the cold stock and whisk in. Put it in a pan and bring Botia simmer. A thick scummy crust will form on top as the egg whites cook. Don’t mix it in, orshimmer too hard. Let it cool a little, the re filtthorough acloth lined sieve.

Bingo, clear brown stock, with no fat.Salt to taste.