Eggs 5 - Movember

It’s Movember; season of the ‘tash.  Throughout the world hundreds of thousands of men have forsaken the blade and are tolerating an itchy upper lip in order to raise awareness of and money to help fight prostate cancer.  

The rules are simple, start Movember 1st  clean-shaven and then grow a moustache for the entire month.  The moustache becomes the ribbon for men’s health, the means by which awareness and funds are raised for cancers that affect men.  Much like the commitment to run or walk for charity, the men of Movember commit to growing a moustache for 30 days.  The funds raised through Movember’s UK campaign benefit the The Prostate Cancer Charity, the UK’s leading prostate cancer charity.

The eggs, kindly provided by Castel Farm, have been pressed into duty to help with this tonsorial venture, through one of the more satisfying way to raise money; a cake sale. Given the testosterone-bound theme of this challenge these must be manly cakes, bristling with swagger and just a hint of Old Spice.  The John Wayne of the cake domain; the rock cake.

Movember Rock Cakes

Ingredients
200g (8oz) white flour
1 teaspoon of mized spice
100g  (4 oz) butter
gratted lemon rind of 1/2 lemon
100g (4oz) brown sugar
100g (4oz)  mixed dried fruit
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoon of milk

Method
Pre-heat the oven to 200C / 400F / Gas 6
In a mixing bowl rub the flour, mixed spices and butter together into a crumbly mixture.
Stir in the remaining ingredients well.
Place small dollops of the cake mixture on a greased baking tray.
Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until golden.

For more information on Movember (including ways to donate) and to follow my mustachioed efforts visit http://uk.movember.com/mospace/690216/

Over Egged - Pickled Eggs

“Coldtonguecoldhamcoldbeefpickledgherkinssaladfrenchrollscressandwidgespottedmeatgingerbeerlemonadesodawater...” Rattie's uber-picnic from Kenneth Graham's Wind in the Willows has always stood for me as the picnic by which all other hampers are judged. But not an egg in sight! As mole might say, one small omission, dear Rattie. Couldn't the whiskery oarsman have stretched to a pickled egg?

Pickles; the coyest of foods, Spinsters of the store cupboard, hugging the back corner, frumpily dressed in dusty jars. Little suggests what will follow the seditious hiss as a bottle's seal finally gives under the pressure of glutinous fingers; the tang of acerbic onions, last year's windfalls transformed into syrupy chutney, alchemy within a jar.

As the first apples tumble turfward we ferret out the Big Pan and fill the street with heady clouds of hot vinegar, crushed cardomen pods, sugar and cinnamon. Anything left from the Summer's crop hits the pot. This year our chutneys & pickles have added pep, as we've cracked the art of chilli growing.  After several years of mouldering thanklessly in a pot on the patio we moved our chilli plants indoors into the warmest room in the house, the bathroom.  A window seat is now festooned with  cayenne and birds eye chillies, quietly bruising red amid clouds of steam and shaving foam.

Sceptical at first about the virtues of pickled eggs I am now a passionate convert.  Uncouth fiery orbs of peppery heat these are the morsels Weasel & Co. would have bought to the riverside banquet, destine to curl the hair on Rattie’s chest and make Mole whimper with delight.  Resist the urge to nibble for a couple of weeks and let the eggs steep in the pickling liquor.  Kept in the fridge they should last for up to a year.

Wicked Weasel's Pickled Eggs    

Ingredients

6 - 8 eggs
700 ml (1 1/4 pint) white wine vinegar
4 teaspoons salt
3 teaspoons cayenne pepper
6 cloves of garlic, peeled
12 peppercorns
1 1/2 teaspoons of ground allspice
2 teaspoons mustard seeds
4 cloves
2 bay leaves
2 whole chillies

Method
Simmer the eggs for 3 minutes in boiling water, then drain and transfer the eggs straight to a bowl of cold water.

Once cool peel the eggs and place carefully in a large, sterile pickling jar.

Bring all the other ingredients to the boil in a large pan, simmer for five minutes and then turn the heat off and leave the liquor to stew for at least 2 hours.

Put the mixture back on the heat.  Once boiling again carefully ladle over the eggs, ensuring all the eggs are covered, before wiping and sealing the jar.

Allow to cool and keep in the fridge.

Over Egged - Meringues

Meringues are one of the few egg based foodstuffs that have successfully penetrated my egg aversion.  Like all good food, the taste of a meringue is peppered with memories.  There was the drive along pockmarked country roads in a car stuffed with 85 of my mother-in-law's pristine meringues, to be delivered in mint condition at a wedding reception.  Or the small stall tucked away in a St. Peter's hedge, stuffed with bags of freshly baked meringues.  A sugary trail of white dust followed us for the rest of that afternoon's ramble.  But only when 6 eggs began dutifully appearing on my doorstep each week from Castel Farm did it occur to me to try making a meringue myself.

Meringue alone is incomplete, though.   Meringue needs fruit.  Served brimming with strawberries, or stained by a raspberry coolie, or nestled in a hook of melon; the slightly acidic tang of fruit parries deftly with the sweetness of the meringue.  We stumbled upon growing soft fruit by accident and it is testament to the resilience of our plants, rather than our skill, that we get any crop at all.  We inherited a patch of autumn-fruiting raspberry canes which, despite their name, produce two loads of fruit a year, a first batch in early Summer and a second serving in Autumn.  Having left them to their own devices for the past few years, last autumn we got busy with the secateurs and, following advice from the RHS website, pruned the canes down to ground level.  Painful though the buzz-cut canes looked, they have rallied and are once again producing fruit.  

Our poor strawberry plants could probably apply for a restraining order against us, having spent two miserable years mouldering in an overshadowed grow-bag in our back yard.  In February I had the bright idea that the strawberries might be happier in the allotment.  Never the best plan to move grow-bags after a solid week of rain, but after much muttering and dark chuntering we eased the benighted plants into trenches filled with well-rotted horse dung.  Covered with chicken wire and guarded with old CDs dangled from string our strawberries clearly appreciated being sworn at and being left in poo, as they're now pumping out berries by the punnet load.  

Meringue Morsels

I've borrowed this recipe from my mother, who had the inspired idea of adding the rose water.  The rosewater adds a heady scent of the Orient to these morsels, perfect for a warm, hazy evening in the back yard.   

 

Makes 16                                           

 

Ingredients                                               

2 large free-range egg whites                       

100g caster sugar

½  tablespoon icing sugar

150ml double cream

1 tablespoon of rose water

 

Method

Preheat the oven to 130°C/250°F. 

Line a large baking tray with baking paper. 

Break the eggs and separate the whites into a large bowl. 

Whisk the whites until they stiffen. 

 

Gradually whisk in the caster sugar, a tablespoonful at a time, until it is completely incorporated

Spoon the meringue mixture inside a piping bag fitted with a large nozzle.
Pipe 32 small meringues onto the baking paper. 

Put meringues in the centre of the oven and immediately reduce the temperature to IOO°C/225°F,. 

Bake for 2 hours until crisp but not coloured. 

Turn off the oven and leave to cool. 

 

Shortly before you are ready to unveil your meringues sift the icing sugar over the cream, stir in the rosewater and whip into stiff peaks. 

Taking two meringues put a dolop of cream on the underside of one and sandwich against the bottom of the second.   

 

Serve on a platter with a glass of something chilled, pink & bubbly.  If you are serving the meringues with strawberries try adding a bit of freshly torn basil for extra zing.

Over Egged - eggs & artichokes

Recently my partner won a wonderful thing, a year’s supply of organic eggs from Castel Farm. 6 eggs, every week for a year. 312 eggs. Wonderful for those who like eggs. I, however, don’t. It’s not a medical allergy, just a pathological aversion.

Clearly I’m going to have to challenge my petulant distain for the egg and embrace this as a culinary opportunity. It'll be good for me. I'd like to share the experience, though. Maybe not every soldier dunked and omelette flipped, but the highlights, the meringue islands floating giddily by, the frittatas packed with fresh veg’. The moments that convert me. One man and 312 eggs.

To aid me on this task I'm going to plunder the garden and hedgerows, allotment and sea for ingredients. These tawny shelled marvels demand decent ingredients. Whether they are playing a supporting bass note or the headline aria in a dish, I want these eggs to be married with the best local produce I can find.

Garlic, artichoke & eggs We claim no gardening expertise. As well as an account of my efforts to love the egg, this is also a record of our efforts to encourage edible stuff to grow. This year, through iffy planning, we've managed to extend the 'hunger gap', the period of time when the Winter crop has been eaten and the Summer veg has yet to come. The purple sprouting has given up its tight buds to exuberant yellow flowers, the kale has gone leggy and the cabbages have been finished off by slugs, wood pigeons and, occasionally, us. Broad beans may be swelling in pods, sweet corn stalks unfurling and runner beans scrambling up canes, but there is nothing yet to eat, bar garlic and artichokes.

The garlic is a wilted, leek rust scarred remnant of its former winter glory. Beneath the soil, though, nestle small, pungent white bullets, a crop perfect for using fresh, or 'wet'.

Our artichoke plants are glorious. Kindly given to us as cuttings by a fellow allotmenteer, the plants now tower over our small plot. Fat, succulent leaves sprawl out beneath thick stems that punch fist sized artichokes into the sky. We closely monitor the buds, as artichokes are best eaten as their lower petals start to open,
before the plant gets a chance to open thistle like flowers.

Garlic egg mayonnaise and whole artichokes The artichokes take a little prepping. Ours have become home to thousands of aphids, farmed by an attending multitude of ants. To purge the insects it is necessary to give
the artichokes a good soak in salted water. Rinse and repeat until the black bug slick dissipates.

Bring a large pan of salted water to the bowl and get a bowl of water with a squeeze of lemon in ready to drop the artichokes in as you prepare them. Slice away the top quarter of each artichoke and cut its stalk off close to the base. Put the artichokes into the pan, along with a squeeze of lemon and boil for 20 – 40 minutes, until the base is tender to a knife and the lower petals pull easily away. Drain, shake and serve.

While the artichokes soften you can whip up this quick mayonnaise. A silky, seductive concoction that appeals even to an egg adverse chap like me, this is ideal for dipping the artichoke’s tender petals in before stripping off the flesh with your teeth. All that is required is a strong whipping arm and patience.

The luxuriousness of the mayo soon quelled any residual reservations about eating raw egg. After an indulgent few minutes deconstructing the artichokes our table was strewn with chewed leaves and splashes of mayonnaise; I may yet be converted to the egg.

Egg Mayonnaise

300 ml good quality extra virgin olive oil
1 small garlic clove, crushed
2 large egg yolks
Squeeze of lemon
Handful of chopped dill
Salt
Pepper

Method
• Add the crushed garlic to the egg yolks in a large bowl
• Whisk in half a teaspoon of the oil to the eggs and garlic
• Continue whisking, adding small amounts of oil as you go, ensuring the
mixture retains a thick consistency
• Add the dill and lemon when all the oil has been added and the mixture
has become glossy and wobbly
• Add salt and pepper to taste, giving the mayonnaise one final beating

Store in a screw-top jar in the bottom of the fridge for no longer than a week