CS-E : Cooking Successes - Engineers

A slight tweak on how Mother Dennison used to make it, to reflect lower skills with pastry… Yes, pastry; fish pie with mashed potato on top is also delicious but, round our way, that’s called Trawler Pie. Ingredients Two fillets unsmoked white fish  Two fillets smoked white fish  A big handful of frozen prawns 1 litre milk ~75g butter Two dessert spoons of plain flour Two Bay leaves Some Tarragon Garlic puree Double handful of frozen peas 2 pucks frozen spinach Roll of puff pastry Method Poach the fish fillets in the milk, with the bay leaves, tarragon, garlic puree and a hefty crack of salt and pepper. Basically any fish will work but make sure there’s some smoked fish in there as it adds the best flavour. After about 8 minutes, when the fish is flaky, turn off the heat and add the prawns and peas to help cool it all down.

This creation required planning and stock-control. Either spectacularly good or embarrassingly bad. Post Christmas, the Panettone Breads , which are normally massively over-priced, are sold off at a stupidly low price.  The crafty cook will buy a couple, and store them at the back of a cupboard, "pretending" to have forgotten about them.  Luckily, they have a long shelf-life. This pudding was made from one such panettone - without any real recipe, but generally following the classic "Bread Pudding" format. First - Select your Panettone Probably worth removing from it's interior bag Cut into thick slices, spread with butter Form a layer in an oven-proof dish Personal choice, but I added some out-of-date matured mincemeat filling. Add another layer, and mix up some eggs in milk, with a little sugar and some vanilla Pour eggy-milk mixture over the panettone, and allow to soak. Cook in an over at (suitable temperature) for (a suitable time) Yes, it's as good as

Sometimes, you just have to improvise. Lunchtime, and a mood slump meant that a simple butty would not suffice. So, with a guiding recipe, I decided on Creamy Mushrooms on Toast. No "Ingredients" list. Melt some unsalted French butter in a frying pan. (Or store bought economy stuff. Be adaptable.) Finely chop some organic free-range boneless red onions. (Or any onion.) Gently sweat the onions until they soften. Take a handful of woodland forages ceps, chantarelles and oyster mushroom (or supermarket white ones) and roughly chop. Cook  mushrooms in frying pan. Gently. When cooked and juicy, add a splash of genuine Tibetan Yak-Cream, and stir together. Season with salt, pepper and optionally Black truffle. Meanwhile, toast some white bread. (Or some hand-made artisan sourdough bread. Place on a plate (or a cleaned fireman's shovel, if you're a hipster) and pile mushroom mixture on top. Add some grated Parmesan (or grated turnip) Enjoy !

Thanks Heston Blumenthal for the recipe! Not sure it would have been so bad if I only cooked it for 8 hours, but it was exciting leaving the oven on overnight! Update: The leftover belly was amazing in this spicy ramen lunch the next day!

These little biscuits have magical properties. They.  Just.  Disappear. The  recipe I originally had said that these were an ideal way of using left-over cheese.  What craziness is this?  Leftover Cheese?   Insanity. Basically, use 100g of whatever flavorsome  cheese you have.  I've even used Stilton, ...nothing was wasted :-) Ingredients 75g unsalted butter, softened ½ tsp coarsely ground black pepper ½ tsp salt 1 small clove garlic, peeled and grated to a paste 50g Parmesan, grated 50g hard cheese, such as Cheddar or double Gloucester, grated 100g plain flour How To... In a bowl, beat the butter, pepper, garlic and salt until smooth. Stir in the grated cheeses and flour, and work into a soft, evenly mixed dough, adding a scant teaspoon or so of water if the biscuit mixture seems on the dry side. Chill for about 30 minutes, covered if you like. Preheat the oven to 160C (140C fan-assisted)/325F/gas mark 3. Line a baking tray with nonstick baking paper. Ta

CRAFTING Successes - Engineers. Not everyone wants to be creative thru' their cooking and baking, so let's highlight an anonymous Engineer who used the Lockdown period to recycle beer-cans into unque snazzy beer-mats. Nice Work dude.

Summertime, and the Pizzas are easy. My birthday present to myself in 2018 was a portable pizza oven, and summertime is when it's rolled out for another round of patio living.  Get the oven tp 350 deg C, and pizza's cook in less than a minute.  And are delicious ! Pizza Dough Makes 5 x 12″ pizzas (165g per dough ball)  Ingredients:  500g ( 4 cups) Type ’00’ flour  or strong white 300g (300 ml / 10.5 oz / 1⅓ cups) water 20g (1 tbsp) olive oil 10g (2 tsp) salt 7g dry yeast (or 20g fresh yeast) Method: Bring 1/3 of the water to boil and mix with the rest of the cold water. This brings it to the correct temperature. Whisk in the yeast and then oil In a separate bowl, sift the flour with salt. Pour water on top of the flour and begin mixing with a wooden spoon. Once the dough is starting to form, continue mixing with your hands. Turn the dough onto a slightly floured surface and knead using both hands. Continue kneading for around 10 minutes until the dough

A post for the addition of reader's pictures of efforts based upon other recipes. Big-Iain's attempt at a Dutch Apple Cake.  Very tasty, tho' my pastry skills need some practise. Another loaf - let it prove for longer, and didn't knock it down .

Serves 8 Use a circular cake tin of 24cm Ingredients: For the dough 200 grams butter 200 grams caster sugar 200 grams self raising flour 200 grams plain flour 1 egg (half for the dough, other half to spread on top at the end) For the filling 6 granny smith apples (or other sour kind) 75 grams caster sugar 100 grams sultanas 3 teaspoons of cinnamon Using your hands, mix butter, caster sugar, both flours, half the egg into a firm dough, set aside on a plate in the fridge. Put the sultanas in a bowl of lukewarm water. Peel the apples and dice into little cubes. Put into a large bowl and add the sugar and cinnamon. Drain the sultanas and add to the mix, toss it around so the sultanas, apples, sugar and cinnamon are evenly distributed. Grease the cake tin with butter. Get the dough back from the fridge and split in 3 equal parts. Use 1 part to cover the base of the cake tin, a second part for the edges. Add the apple/sultana/sugar/cinnamon mixture to

This one will have you wishing you could lick the plate clean (and if you aren't in "polite company", please feel free!). Recipe: Prep 10min ; Cooking time 25min ; Serves 5(ish) 1kg pork tenderloin (i.e. the long thin one!) 1.5 tbsp olive oil (or butter) 3 garlic cloves (very finely chopped) Rub: 1/2 tsp garlic powder 1/2 tsp paprika 1/2 tsp salt 1/2 tsp black pepper Sauce: 3 tbsp white wine vinegar 1.5 tbsp light soy sauce (not dark) 1/2 cup (150g) honey (or maple syrup) 1. Preheat oven to 180C/350F. 2. Mix Sauce ingredients together. 3. Mix Rub ingredients then sprinkle over the pork. 4. Heat oil in a large oven proof skillet over high heat. Add pork and sear until golden all over. 5. When pork is almost seared, push to the side, add garlic and cook until golden. 6. Pour sauce in. Turn pork once, then immediately transfer to the oven. 7. Roast 15 - 18 minutes or until the internal temperature is 68C/155F using a meat thermometer (for no pink

A Family Favourite, and for a damned good reason. It's easy, nutritious and delicious. Ingredients 1 tea bag 300g Mixed Fruit (Sultanas / Raisins / Currants / Mixed Peel / Cranberries...whatever) 175g sugar  2 medium eggs, beaten 225g plain flour 1 tsp baking powder 1 tsp ground cinnamon Method • Pour 300ml boiling water into a measuring jug with the tea bag and leave to infuse for 4-5 minutes. (Or just use some from a teapot.) • Place fruit in a large bowl. Pour the tea over, then discard the tea bag. Stir well, cover with clingfilm and leave to soak for 4-5 hours or overnight. • Preheat the oven to 180°C / gas mark 4.  • Line the base of a loaf tin.  • Stir the sugar and then the eggs into the fruit mixture.  • Sift in the flour, baking powder and cinnamon and stir the mixture until thoroughly combined. • Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 1½ hours, or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.  • Cover the top with foil