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[cryptoosmart]

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[aobblog-blog]

Railway Cake

Our mum Bridie wasn’t the best of cooks.

Maybe it was having to cook for seven of us every day ? But I tend to think she just couldn’t be arsed. 

We’ve often joked about leaving a plate of her signature ‘instant potato, fried corned beef and pickled beetroot’ on her grave on mothers day. Or possibly a Frey Bentos steak and kidney pie with grated carrot followed by tinned peaches and evaporated milk ?

Very occasionally she would feel the urge to bake and we would all be delighted with an apple pie, some scones and a sort of currant loaf. It was all great when it was straight out of the oven but everything turned rock hard the next day. Some Irish curse perhaps ?

I was leafing through a Rachel Allen cookery book and came across ‘Railway Cake’ or ‘Spotted Dog’ and recognised that very same currant loaf. 

I’m not sure why it was called ‘Railway Cake’. It’s basically an Irish soda bread with a handful of dried fruit thrown in. It was probably a bit of a treat - currants, sugar and eggs were luxuries. Here it is:

Railway Cake

450g plain flour

1 level tsp bicarbonate of soda

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp caster sugar

110g sultanas, raisins, currants

1 egg

375 ml buttermilk or soured milk

Preheat the oven to 220C/425F/Gas 7. Sift flour, bicarb and salt into a large bowl. Stir in sugar and dried fruit, making a well in the middle. 

Beat egg and buttermilk together and pour most of it in. (You might need less liquid than this so use your judgement....it’s supposed to be a sticky mix).

Bring the flour and liquid together. It doesn’t really need kneading. It should be softish, but not too wet.

Turn onto a floured board and bring together into a round, about 5cm high.

Cut a deep cross, dust with flour and bake on a greased tray for 10mins at 220C, then reduce to 200C for another 30 mins.

You can use the mix to make scones - cut 3 cm deep and bake 15mins at 230C.

It’s delicious with loads of butter warm, or toasted for breakfast the next day.

My friend Cathy might have it with pate. But you don’t have to go there.

[aobblog-blog]

Foraging ? Pah !

All this nonsense about ‘Foraging’ these days. It’s just picking stuff on a walk and eating it. 

I remember seeing  wild garlic (or Ramsons, as it’s sometimes called) on a picnic years ago and rather shocking my friend by shoving it in my cheese sandwich.

We all read Richard Mabey’s ‘Food for Free’ because we were hard up hippies. Some things sounded a bit weird...bladder wrack ? lesser knapweed ? but wild garlic was everywhere in the spring. And still is. Nice in a sandwich, salad, but really good in a pesto. Here’s a recipe:

Wild garlic and walnut pesto

50g shelled walnuts

75g wild garlic leaves

40g parmesan

grated zest of half a lemon, plus the juice (unwaxed best)

125 ml good extra virgin olive oil

seasoning (got to be Maldon and freshly ground black pepper)

Wash the wild garlic in cold water and chop roughly. 

Heat the oven to 180C/350F/gas mark 4 and toast the walnuts on a tray for about 5/7 minutes. Keep a close eye on them as they can burn easily. Leave to cool.

Put the garlic leaves, parmesan, lemon zest  with the toasted walnuts in a food processor. (If you don’t have one, you really ought to get one).

Blitz to a paste then add the oil to make a gorgeous green garlicky slosh. 

Scrape into a small bowl and season with a splash of lemon juice and salt/black pepper to taste. Keeps for a few days in the fridge. I am experimenting with freezing small quantities - the season is short and by the end of May it will have gone. Stir into pasta, mashed potato, use on bruschetta..... It’s a little more bitter than basil pesto and intensely garlicky but I love it.