Lockdown Edition Week 10: Streusel Cake

The book: Swedish Cakes and Cookies (Sju sorters kakor)

The recipe: p32, "Streusel Cake"

During the original Random Kitchen, I dedicated an entire post to this particular book only for it to stubbornly refuse to be chosen even once during the entire project. (How rude.) It's a pleasing bit of timing, then, that we're finally all set to visit the world of Swedish baking just as I'm busy working my way through a lockdown care package from the marvellous Scandinavian Kitchen.

Except we're not. Because, and there are no two ways around this: the randomly chosen recipe this week is German. That's not just food snobbery. Sometimes known as a crumb cake on account of its crumbly topping, Streuselkuchen is unquestionably and undeniably a German speciality. Now, it's true that this book only claims to contain the recipes you need for a perfect Swedish fika, not that they're all Swedish in origin. So while I'm disappointed not to be doling out the pärlsocker just yet, we'll just have to make do with something from slightly further afield.

Even if it's something I already know isn't going to be especially interesting. Or interesting at all, really. Granted, Streuselkuchen is occasionally my cake of choice when life happens to plop me down at the counter of a German bakery, but ideally one with fruit in - apple or some berries, say - to add a bit of much-needed texture and moisture. This particular variant is resolutely fruit-free and looks about as rudimentary as they come.

I wouldn't mind, but the recipe comes from the "Yeast Breads" chapter of the book, which features such genuine Swedish favourites as saffron buns, cinnamon rolls, and even the magnificent seasonal semlor. Still, that's the nature of the random project. And don't worry - there'll still be plenty for me to write about...

The prep: While the aforementioned care package mainly comprised crispbreads, chocolate, various fish products and the obligatory salt liquorice, the Great Flour Shortage of 2020 was still recent enough for me to add a bag of actual Swedish flour to my order. Which means big authenticity points:

Other than that, well, I said the recipe was rudimentary and I wasn't kidding - beyond stocking up on chopped almonds, there's nothing I need to buy here. Which is good, because it means less of a waste of money when things all go wrong.

The making: Milk and butter are heated to the very specific temperature of "37°C, or 45°C if using active dry yeast", which I am. This fine distinction is somewhat arbitrary considering I don't own a food thermometer, but hey - it's not like the temperature is going to be perfectly accurate by the time it all gets mixed together anyway, so I decide to apply a rule of thumb (or rather, forefinger) in judging what constitutes luke-warm liquid for this particular purpose. This may prove to be an error.

The recipe then asks me to crumble in the yeast and dissolve it in the warm milk and butter mixture. The crumbling implies this instruction is for fresh yeast, but it doesn't tell me not to stir in my powdered dry yeast at this point, so in it goes. This may prove to be an error.

I then put some flour in a mixing bowl before stirring in a mere two teaspoons of sugar (this really is a "cake" in nominal terms only), a pinch of salt, half an egg, and the milk/butter/yeast combo. The resulting gloopy mixture is kneaded with a wooden spoon "until smooth and elastic". This seems to happen fairly quickly, so I figure that's probably enough kneading for now. This may prove to be an error.

The rest of the flour is then added. The recipe doesn't tell me to knead it in - it doesn't say anything about mixing it in at all, in fact - but I figure I need something that at least resembles dough by the time this stage is done, so I get to work with my knuckles for a minute or two (making sure to wash my hands first, since I've also been making a batch of Canarian mojo sauce - no one needs traces of chilli and coriander in their Streusel).

This is the end result:

Seems to be a dough, so I cover it for an hour and leave it to rise.

At this point, I hear a whisper in my ear. The whisper is a memory. A memory of when I made those white bread rolls a few weeks ago. James Martin required me to knead the dough for ten minutes, see, and even then it didn't rise quite as nicely as I might have liked. Since this is cake base is essentially a bread too, common sense would dictate that this week's dough would benefit from a similar level of attention. But again, the recipe hasn't actively told me to work the dough especially hard, so I decide not to. This may prove to be an error.
 
An hour passes. And whatever the error, be it single or cumulative, the fact is that my dough now looks like this:

Ah. That's... that's the same, isn't it?

Bugger.

At this point it's already fairly clear that this project is destined for failure, but what do we do on Random Kitchen when faced with adversity? That's right, we plough on regardless! And so I "lightly knead" my defiantly unrisen dough into a "round, smooth cake" around nine inches in diameter, then leave it to rise for another half an hour.

Less a cake, more a pancake

Obviously it doesn't rise any further during this time. Not even a bit. Not even when I decide that our kitchen might be a bit on the cool side - because that's the problem here - and pop the baking tray out in the Saturday sunshine for a while (still covered, of course).

Still, I'm determined to see this through no matter what, so I move on to preparing the titular crumb ("Streusel" loosely translates as crumble(s) or sprinkle(s), fact fans). This involves measuring out some dry ingredients in a mixing jug, because Swedish recipes seem to really hate using scales:

This decilitre-and-a-half of flour, sugar and chopped almonds is rubbed into some butter to form the requisite crumb. The "cake" is then brushed with beaten egg and the mixture is sprinkled on top before it goes into the oven.

I may have a cynical demeanour, but deep down inside I'm something of an optimist. As such, I still hold out some hope that the cake might miraculously rise while cooking. And it does! A little. Unfortunately, the stodgy nature of the dough means the prescribed cooking time is now excessive, so I end up with a somewhat scorched Streusel:

Yeah. Quite aside from the burnt bits, the "finished" cake feels about as dense and heavy as it looks. Still, it would make a quite attractive frisbee, or an effective doorstop.

All in all, it's a bit of a disaster. So of course we have to try some.

The eating: We manage about half a slice each, more out of grim curiosity than anything else. The topping actually isn't bad, even the burnt bits - I suppose you can't go too wrong with sugar and butter - but the main body of the cake is a predictably flat, dense and doughy disappointment.

Now, I really hate food waste - I'm a demon for coming up with unlikely meals to use up whatever's left in the fridge, and we're fortunate in having no particular allergies or intolerances to hold us back on that front. But honestly, I don't think even the birds would bother with this, so into the recycling caddy it goes.

Still, it could be worse - at least I've got some bloggable content out of the experience, and... wait, sorry, what's that?

The making: See, here's the thing. I'm a stubborn sod, and while there are many downsides to that tendency, it does mean I'm determined to get this one right. Or at least less wrong. So I give it another try. (The next day. I'm not that keen.)

I won't bore you with the details, suffice it to say that this time I stir the dry yeast into the flour rather than mixing it with the warm liquid, and I knead the dough for a good ten minutes before leaving it to rise. Lo and behold:

That's more like it.

It's still quite flat and shallow by the time I get to the assembly stage, but the end result is decidedly more risen and less burnt. I then take the executive decision to add some icing sugar to make the whole thing look more interesting (well, "less like rubble on toast", at least).

It's still not especially attractive, but there's only so much you can do with what is effectively a flattish bit of bread with some stuff dumped on top.

The eating: The end result remains a bit on the doughy side, but it is a "yeast bread" as much as it is a cake, so that was to be expected. And it's a damn sight better than what I came up with the previous day. Sure, it's far from decadent - you saw what went into it, we're hardly talking luxury ingredients here - but the combination of the buttery crumble topping and the, well, bready base make for a pleasant enough eating experience.

Was it worth making a second time? Probably not, really - we're still working our way through it some days later, and I suspect it's going to feel like a bit of a chore by the time we get to the last few slices. Though it'll probably work quite well heated up and topped with some ice cream. But then most things do.

I'm willing to give Swedish Cakes And Cookies a pass on this one, though - if only because (a) the cake (when made correctly) is perfectly all right really, (b) it's not actually Swedish, and (c) I've made far better things from within the book's pages before. I'll need it to do better next time though. And ideally give me a wee bit more guidance when it comes to how long I should do things for or whether I need to do them at all. You know, little things like that.

Two-word verdict: Acceptable, eventually.

Lockdown Edition Week 9: Chermoula Aubergine with Bulgar and Yoghurt

The book: Jerusalem (Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi)

The recipe: p59, "Chermoula Aubergine with Bulgar and Yoghurt"

I received Jerusalem as a very kind gift from an Israeli-American friend after I offered some assistance during her (successful!) job search. Israel promptly won Eurovision soon afterwards, allowing me to rustle up a bunch of sharing dishes from its pages for our preview party ahead of Tel Aviv hosting the contest the next year - and very nice they were too, by and large - but I still can't say I've done a proper deep dive into its pages.

When I restarted this project, I was worried there might be a conflict between the likes of Ottolenghi (or any more adventurous chef) and the prevailing lockdown restrictions, self-imposed or otherwise. Jerusalem is a beautiful book and one that always makes me want to Make All The Things whenever I flick through it, but All The Things tend to also involve All The Exotic Ingredients. That said, between the vast "Turkish and everything else" supermarket next to the library and the many other communities represented in the local area, central Lewisham is a pretty good place to live for this kind of thing.

Super-extra-wonder-shop

This week we do have to exercise a veto for another reason, though. The first recipe chosen by random.org is a dessert involving peaches "poached in arak, ouzo or Pernod". As you'll have noticed, this teetotal blogger is perfectly okay with sauces that involve a bit of wine in some capacity, but buying spirits by the bottle and using them in a way that's going to be front and centre in the experience - that's a nope for me, sadly. (On perusing the recipe, Sam adds "that also sounds horrible and I don't want it". Technically not grounds for a Random Kitchen veto in itself, but it makes it an easier decision to spin the wheel again...)

So instead we end up here. Where is here? Here is "baked aubergine with a spicy north African rub and topped with herby bulgar and cooling yoghurt". Those aren't my words - I'm pleased to say this is a recipe that's also available online, so you can read along and I don't have to bore you with quite so many details as we go. Though I'm sure I will. Anyway, sounds nice, doesn't it?

The prep: We've had a soup and a salad so far, but it's good to be doing a vegetarian main for once. Well, it's substantial enough to qualify as a main if we take "serves 4" to mean "serves 2", which is exactly what we shall be doing.

Unlike some weeks, I have to buy in pretty much all of the ingredients this time. To my astonishment, though, a pilgrimage to the aforementioned Lewisham Food Centre is not required - which is a bit of a shame, to be honest, as it means I don't get to also buy a couple of börek from the in-store bakery counter then pray the paper bag doesn't collapse under the sheer weight of dripping grease by the time I get home. Fun times.

Instead, the humble Asda on Lewisham Way turns out to have everything I need. That includes the various herbs, a pair of aubergines an emoji-maker would be proud of, a bag of bulgur wheat ("medium" rather than "fine", but I'm sure that'll be, erm, fine) - and even preserved lemons.

Yes, preserved lemons. Absolutely central to Moroccan and wider North African cuisine, apparently. You learn a new thing every week (or I do, at least). Jerusalem offers two recipes for making them at home - one taking four weeks, the other 24 hours - so I add the pickling ingredients for the latter to my weekly shopping list in anticipation of needing them. But no!

Full of lemony goodness (and a bit of plastic)

Quite what I'm going to do with a whole jar of the things is another matter, though the Guardian has a few ideas on that front too.

The making: The chermoula is an easy mix of garlic, cumin, coriander, chilli flakes, paprika, olive oil, salt, and some finely chopped preserved lemon skin. I could probably do a finer job on the chopping front, but either way, this looks like it'll do the job nicely enough.

Hold on tight, you know she's a little bit dangerous

I then take two aubergines, cut them lengthways, and score their flesh in a criss-cross pattern. (It's what the recipe tells me to do, I'm not just doing it for fun. Although it is quite fun.)

Pristine baking trays are for losers

The chermoula then gets smeared all over the aubergines. I assume this is going to be a basting/pastry brush kind of job, but it's too thick for that, so I use the back of a spoon instead. It doesn't have to be elegant, after all.

This baking tray then goes into the oven for 40 minutes "or until the aubergines are very soft" (you want to be able to eat the skin, basically).

Meanwhile - and this is a proper "meanwhile" for once - it's time to prepare the bulgur topping.

Let's go, Güs!

This is straightforward enough: the bulgur is covered in boiling water and left for ten minutes, some sultanas also get the warm water treatment at the same time, and then it all gets mixed together with (deep breath now) some fresh coriander, fresh mint, halved green olives, toasted flaked almonds, spring onions, and a little lemon juice. Plus a bit of salt for good measure. Et voilà:

Bulgur display of power

The end result is something that would make a pretty good meal in its own right, to be honest. I leave it to sit and absorb the flavours while the aubergines are done, and once they are:

...it's time to assemble the finished dish. Which involves spooning the bulgar mix over the aubergines "allowing some to fall over the sides" (deliberately untidy food presentation? I'm in love), then spooning over some Greek yoghurt, sprinkling on some more coriander, and finishing with a wee drizzly dribble of olive oil. Nice and simple.

The eating: The recipe says this one can be served "warm or at room temperature". We go with the latter, partly because Sam firstly needs to finish the round of family phone calls saying "you did what with your hair?!".

By virtue of the "just dump the stuff on top" presentation method, it's not necessarily the prettiest dish you'll ever see, although the colours and textures are all very fresh and attractive.

I swear I didn't add the yoghurt with an ice-cream scoop

This broadly positive impression continues with the eating. The aubergine rub has a nice kick and depth to it, although I have to admit I don't get much sense of the lemon skin (maybe I did need to chop it more finely after all), while the bulgar offers up a mix of savoury and sweet flavours that are competing but complementary. Like with most of the dishes I've tried from Jerusalem so far, there's so much fresh herb action going on that you're guaranteed to end up with the stuff stuck in your teeth, but I suppose that's also where the flavour comes from.

I could possibly use a bit more crunch in the bulgur mix to counteract the inherent squidginess of the aubergine, olives and all. Maybe up the almond and spring onion content, say. But these are minor quibbles. It's a tasty dish, and pretty filling despite its relative lightness (though again, we are doing double portions here). Plus it's really pretty easy to make once you've got all the ingredients in - the reward to effort ratio is favourable, and would have remained so even if I'd had to rustle up some home-pickled lemons as I expected.

In summary, then: my socks are not knocked off altogether, but they do end up dangling from my toes a bit. Good work, Jerusalem.

Two-word verdict: Egg(plant)cellent... ah, forget it.

Lockdown Edition Week 8: Halibut With Olive Sauce

The book: The Silver Spoon

The recipe: p752, "Halibut With Olive Sauce"

We're back in The Silver Spoon already, but that's fine - it's as big as several regular cookbooks put together. (This recipe, from page 752, is nestled in the middle of the book.) And this week we land in the fish section, so we should theoretically be on track for something more interesting than a spinach salad.

The recipe looks relatively straightforward, falling into the "white fish covered in stuff" category that we've already encountered this year. Although I'm expecting this to be more authentic than Ainsley - if only because the accompanying illustration presents the titular "olive sauce" as a fairly violent-looking black-green splodge against an innocent white fish background, and let's be honest, you wouldn't choose it to look that way unless it tasted good too.

Like with the duck last week, I'm scaling back the portions because I'm not made of money. The recipe "Serves 6", so halving that to "Serves 3" should be about right for the two of us.

The prep: A problem immediately presents itself in the form of an unintended coronavirus consequence. Supermarket fish counters were already becoming less common anyway, but now a lot of them have been closed to free up capacity for other priorities, and understandably so. Trouble is, the cornerstone of this recipe is turbot or, as an alternative, brill or halibut. I'm grateful to The Silver Spoon for giving me three options, but none of these are the kind of thing you get pre-packaged in a supermarket cooler cabinet (and indeed it feels like sourcing the titular turbot would be a bit of a stretch even at the best of times). I decide to aim for halibut, as that seems the most likely find under the circumstances - but either way it's going to require a bit of Google work to locate the nearest decent fishmonger (I know there's usually a fish stall at Lewisham market, but whether they're open right now is not something the internet is willing to answer for me).

It might sound odd but I've never really shopped at a fishmonger's before. There was one downstairs from where I used to work in Germany, but I never bought fresh fish from there, preferring the decent approximation of English-style battered fish and chips they had on their lunch menu. And even back before the supermarkets muscled in on every aspect of food shopping, I mainly remember us getting our fresh fish from a van that came round the mean streets of Gosforth (including some scraps for the cat, naturally).

As such, I'm almost feeling a little intimidated by the prospect of rocking up with no real expertise ("so is it x, y or z that you need?" "erm, I don't know, I chose this recipe using a random number generator on the internet"). So I'm pleased to say the search ends up taking me to Greenwich, and a very nice place just off Royal Hill that sets me up with a substantial cross-section of halibut that should yield four decently-sized portions.

Hefty

The Greenwich fishmonger is also Greenwich fishmonger-priced, but life is basically just a series of cancellations of plans and refunds of travel tickets right now, so I figure I might as well indulge in something.

On the walk back, I realise that this is by far the furthest I've been from home other than for exercise since mid-March, and I've been a little on edge as a result. I'm not sure why, really - the sun is shining, the shopping experience was smooth and friendly (minimal wait time, in and out in a couple of minutes, concise and non-patronising advice, everything contact-free), and I've even managed to get precisely what I required for this dish, which is never a given in Random Kitchen world. Maybe I'm just unnerved by the sheer number of hand-holding couples hogging the pavements and forcing me into the road. Anyway, hopefully this stuff will start to feel a bit more normal again soon. And I suppose actually getting out there and doing it is the best way to start achieving that.

So what else do I need? Black olives and pine nuts are already in the house thanks to my new-found salad habit (don't worry, I'm okay), I'm cautiously substituting the requisite shallot for a small amount of onion, and Asda is happy enough to supply me with canned anchovy fillets and flat-leaf parsley for the occasion.

At last, a use for those Gü ramekins

The only other complication is "concentrated fish stock", for which The Silver Spoon refers me to another page. The recipe on that page demands that I start with a kilogram of fish heads. Reader, I do not make the fish stock. The shelves of the Greenwich fishmonger boast pre-made stock in a handy pouch instead, and I've never been one to look a gift halibut in the mouth.

The making: I start by heating some butter - allowing my one-egg frying pan to make a welcome return appearance - and cooking some pine nuts "for a few minutes until golden brown, stirring frequently". Now, I've learned from bitter experience that golden brown can become outright burnt in the blink of an eye where pine nuts are concerned, and indeed a moment of unattentiveness causes me to need a second run at what should be a fairly simple task.

Lucky pine nuts aren't weirdly expensive for what they are

Next, an anchovy fillet goes into the food processor along with the olives, parsley, onion and a tablespoon or two of the stock (no fear of waste, I intend to use the rest in an improved kedgeree). Once this is all blitzed together, I slowly pour in some olive oil with the blade still running until a "smooth sauce" is achieved. This is a relative term where my aging Kenwood is concerned, but I'm pleased to note that the end result looks similar to the illustration above - i.e. pretty disgusting.

Hey, the main ingredient is black olives, it was never going to be especially photogenic.

That done, I realise that I still need to cut the fish into portions and the oven has already reached 200°C. Oh well, it'll just have to wait. It's only one of the hottest days of the year so far, it's all good. Being an ignoramus on such matters, I quickly fire up both Google and YouTube to see exactly what the advice is on halibut skin. The general consensus seems to be "it's not edible but you don't have to remove it for cooking". Regardless, I err on the side of caution, resulting in four slightly battered and misshapen fish portions that would probably have retained their shape a bit better if I'd gone with the skin-on variant. Still, the flesh is meaty enough to survive this manhandling, and I suppose that's a part of what you pay for.

The fish goes into a buttered dish, the sauce is smeared over it, and into the oven it goes! "20 minutes", the recipe says. These portions are a little smaller so I make it more like 15.

The recipe concludes with a recommendation: "Boiled or steamed potatoes make an excellent side dish." (That's good advice for life generally, to be honest.) While I don't have my preferred dill or chives in the house and I'm not making a non-essential trip to the shop for the sake of some herbs, there's plenty of parsley left over from earlier, and that'll do well enough for a summery side. Add in some Greek yoghurt, olive oil, Dijon mustard and red wine vinegar, and this ends up being a perfectly acceptable way to pimp up some warm salad potatoes.

That all being done, the fish comes out of the oven, the pine nuts are lovingly sprinkled across the serving dish, and we're ready to go!

The eating: "You eat with your eyes first", or so the saying goes. There's truth in that, of course, but thankfully it's not the whole truth or this dish would be something of a failure.

Don't get me wrong: it actually looks reasonably professional (by my modest standards), and serving it with just one side gives it a "proper" feel compared with my penchant for packing each plate as full as possible with greens and other things. But ultimately it is just some portions of plain white fish with some black-green goop on top.

The good news - great news, really, considering my fear of making an expensive mess - is that the fish is perfectly cooked, juicy and meaty, and even the olive goop is rather nice! It's not as strong as the vivid/unappealing colour might suggest - if anything, it's almost on the subtle side, and I'd be tempted to up the anchovy content next time to give it a bit more oomph - but there's plenty of flavour in there to please the palate without the whole thing only tasting of olives like I feared. Meanwhile, they may have taken two goes to get right, but the pine nuts are a surprisingly inspired addition in terms of both bite and flavour.

And the potatoes are indeed an "excellent side dish" - but when aren't they?

Another minor victory, then. I'm giving The Silver Spoon two thumbs up this week. Not only has it delivered a successful dinner, but it's made me go out of my comfort zone a bit - both geographically and in terms of actually shopping for fresh fish without making a complete arse of myself. Take that, adult life!

Two-word verdict: Reassuringly good.

Lockdown Edition Week 7: Cinnamon Duck with Redcurrant Sauce

The book: Good Housekeeping New Step-by-Step Cookbook

The recipe: p226, "Cinnamon Duck with Redcurrant Sauce"

I don't really do meat. By which I mean I don't really do slabs of meat, for want of a better term. Joints, lamb shanks, and especially steaks - these things are very much not my area of expertise. Partly because they demand a more delicate touch than I possess - "heavily overdone" and "heavily underdone" are just two of the outcomes of previous attempts - and partly because (to be honest) I don't enjoy cooking while worrying about fucking up something relatively expensive. As such, I tend to leave that kind of thing to the experts, i.e. actual restaurants (or my friend Kate in Berlin, whose credo is "you're not allowed to leave the table until your third round of meat sweats").

What this means is I've literally never cooked duck at home before, in any shape or form. Still, a recipe from the sturdy old Good Housekeeping cookbook feels like it should be quite a friendly way in to the topic. This is a book I bought aeons ago on the recommendation that it's a good "starter kit" for the kitchen n00b, and it's one I still recommend to others in that vein, even if it's probably showing its age a bit now. "Cinnamon Duck" also sounds like a reasonably interesting take on proceedings, even if it is clearly also an Eesti Laul band name.

The prep: The recipe is for six people, and while I do usually make the full quantity of these random recipes no matter what (our definition of "portion size" apparently differing wildly from that of pretty much every cookbook author), I'm drawing the line here. Not least because six duck breasts would cost about as much as I've spent on every other recipe so far.

As it turns out, "any duck breasts at all" would be a start. I do our weekly Asda shop fully expecting them to have nothing in stock that once quacked, but it turns out they do have whole ducklings in the chilled aisle, just not breast portions. Frustrating. I'm not ready to hack things up for the sake of randomness just yet, so instead I wait a few days then bite the bullet, making my first trip into central Lewisham since lockdown began.

I'm a little anxious about this - for obvious reasons, but also because I don't really want to have to queue for ages just for the sake of this foolish little blog. But the Sainsbury's experience proves to be surprisingly OK. I think my overactive imagination had it frozen in time on March 16th, the date of my last visit, and I'd forgotten that both shop and shoppers have had more than two months to get used to the way things are now. Either that or I just got lucky and it's usually merry chaos in there - it certainly often was before lockdown...

Anyway, I swiftly pick up a pack of two duck breasts, a wee punnet of watercress, the redcurrant jelly that Asda also failed to provide - and a bunch of seriously reduced Indian starter selections that go straight in the freezer for future snackage (score!).

Everything else is surprisingly storecupboardy - I even own marjoram, for some reason - so we're good to go!

The making: I score the duck (score!) before browning it in a frying pan, skin side down and without any oil, for five minutes. I drain the pan of oil at least twice during this process, so it's no surprise to see some shrinkage occurring even before the meat goes into the oven to be finished off.

Oh, I should add that the duck is not alone in the pan - as per the instructions (and the recipe name), I've added a cinnamon stick. After five minutes on a fairly high heat, the smell test suggests that this has done little to impart any flavour or colour; instead, I'm left with an incinerated cinnamon stick that needs to be put outside to calm down a bit.

Blackened is the end

My breasts are a little on the small side - 125g vs. the 175g required by the book - so I was already going to go by the instructions on the packet rather than what the recipe says. Which is probably for the best, since Good Housekeeping inexplicably wants the duck to go in the oven for half an hour. Half an hour! I know the book's a bit old-school and this country didn't really do pink meat back in the day, but there's having your meat well done and there's ensuring it's as dry as a bone. "12-15 minutes" is what the packaging suggests, so that's what I aim for instead.

Then it's time to prepare the sauce. This involves roughly chopping an onion and frying it with some oil and garlic until brown, then adding chicken stock, red wine, dried marjoram, Dijon mustard (oh christ not mustard again), a frankly tiny amount of ground cinnamon, a dollop of redcurrant jelly, and some salt and pepper.

This mixture is brought to the boil and left to bubble until reduced by half, then - aha! - I'm required to strain it. This takes me by surprise a little, purely because I hadn't bothered to read the recipe properly beforehand and was expecting the onion to mean a chunkier sauce was on the cards here. I now realise this "sauce" is in fact what a trendier recipe book would call a "jus", which is restaurant-speak for "we can charge £5 more for this".

Straining done, the sauce is returned to the pan to be slowly reheated. In the meantime, the meat has been removed from the oven and left to rest on the side "for 5-10 minutes". When I go to cut it, I can already see this has done for any residual pinkness - this is some well-done meat, albeit still juicy (mainly because I used my instinct and ignored the official guidance - I hear it's all the rage). It's also not an especially large quantity of meat: even with clever diagonal cutting, it would look relatively measly, and I need to get this served up so I don't have the patience for that.

In the absence of a serving suggestion beyond "on a plate", I've decided on mashed potato and green beans to accompany. Arranging the duck slices on a bed of mash is no problem, but I encounter something of an aesthetic obstacle when it comes to spooning over the sauce. You see, it's very... I mean to say, colour-wise it's... well, it just looks like red wine, to be honest. And that tends to pair about as well as you'd expect with the crevasses and contours of mashed white potato.

See? That is not a particularly elegant look, I'm afraid. The mash part is down to my own choices, so I won't blame the recipe for that, but the sauce also adds a rather unappealing purply-pink tinge to the duck itself, and that's an inherent design flaw.

Anyway, as you can see, I finish off the dish with a sprinkling of watercress - the Pointless answer of the edible plant world - and it's time for the taste buds to give their verdict.

The eating: While it may not be plentiful (and it could have been, I just chose to be a bit of a skinflint), the duck is perfectly good. I'd make sure it was done at least medium if not medium-rare next time, but I haven't fucked it up or anything (score!).

Going on looks alone, I'm ready for the sauce to taste of nothing but wine - we've been there before, Nigella - but it's actually really nice, with a deep flavour and a redcurrant tang that pairs very nicely with the meat.

What it doesn't taste of, at all, is the titular cinnamon. Weirdly enough, the stick that was in the loose vicinity of the meat during the browning phase and the eighth of a teaspoon (!) of the ground stuff that went into the sauce have barely made any impact at all against the stronger flavours like the red wine and the mustard. I'm not necessarily sad about this, because it's a nice dish as it stands and a proper cinnamon kick might have felt a bit out of place, but it'd be good to at least feel its presence somewhere in there.

"Serve the remaining sauce separately", the recipe says. Yeah, probably for the best or the plate would be swimming in the stuff. Anyway, having taken a few pictures while things are still relatively photogenic, we do indeed pour on a good bit more of the jus and revel in the cognitive dissonance of well-done meat with the look of a bloody steak. Weird, but tasty.

Aesthetics and perplexing lack of cinnamon aside, anyway, I think this week's Random Kitchen can be summed up in the same way as my music collection: old-fashioned but pretty decent.

Two-word verdict: Misdesignated goodness.

Lockdown Edition Week 6: Hot Smoked Salmon Salad with Gravlax Dressing

The book: The Little Swedish Kitchen (Rachel Khoo)

The recipe: p92, "Hot Smoked Salmon Salad with Gravlax Dressing"

Being the product of a half-British, half-Swedish family, the wave of interest in all things Scandinavian over the past decade has left me curiously conflicted. The TV-propagated idea of the European north as a dark, moody, crime-ridden place scarcely tallies with my summer memories of lazy lakeside days, and "lifestyle choices" like hygge and lagom really are just words, first and foremost. So yes, it's wonderful that all those foods I grew up with, from Kalles Kaviar to filmjölk, can now be obtained simply by visiting the wonderful Scandinavian Kitchen in person or online - but when the mighty meatball is ubiquitous and everyone seems to be knocking out cinnamon buns left, right and centre, the selfish little kid in me feels a bit miffed that, well, it's all a bit less special than it used to be.

Not that I wasn't pleased to be gifted The Little Swedish Kitchen, you understand - it looks like it's got some lovely stuff in it - but reading Khoo's introductory text immediately got my hackles up in quite a similar way. The obligatory mentions of Pippi Longstocking and Abba, midsummer and fika, and several disclaimers ("I did not set out to write a definitive guide to Swedish food", "I'm no expert in Swedish cooking") didn't exactly bode well - and my prejudices threatened to be confirmed when I checked out one of the recipes, for the smörgåsbord staple mysteriously known as Jansson's Temptation, only to find that Khoo's version contains carrots (!) and beetroot (!!).

Now, I'm not saying this "I'll do things my way, not the traditional way" attitude is definitely going to be relevant to this week's blog, but let's say there's a hint of foreshadowing here.

Nevertheless, I can't deny that letting the book just fall open always reveals something I'd like to make, whether in an "improved" version or by digging out an original Swedish recipe, so I'm glad random.org has sent me in this direction. I'll just have to hold my tongue as I navigate my way around yet more patronising interludes about just amazing Swedish bakery culture is (get a grip, woman, it's literally coffee and cake).

The prep: Now, here's a thing. Sometimes you see the name of a recipe and only later realise you're parsing it wrong. So when the finger of fate lands on page 92, I immediately think "oh, warm salmon in a salad sounds interesting!" But no: this is not a salad with "hot | smoked salmon", it is a salad with "hot smoked | salmon". There's a reason the grammar gods invented the hyphen; it would have saved me a misunderstanding here, for a start, and I'll be using it throughout the rest of the blog by means of protest.

Hot-smoked salmon is, as the name (now) suggests, salmon that's been smoked at a higher temperature than normal, giving it a more cooked feel and making it a bit chonkier and flakier, rather than the kind of thing you serve as thin slices. Obviously, getting hold of something truly authentic during lockdown is going to be an issue - Scandinavian Kitchen currently have a backlog of at least two weeks, for a start, and I'm not sufficiently committed to the cause to wait - but the recipe suggests I could replace it with "regular smoked salmon, smoked trout or even cold roast chicken" (ah, chicken, my favourite fish) so I reckon I'll be OK with what the Lewisham Asda can give me on the that front.

I'm actually a little sceptical as to whether the aforementioned supermarket will have fresh dill in stock, but my scepticism proves to be misplaced as there's plenty to go round. Which is good, because dill is fairly central to the Swedish food experience. (I mean, savoury-wise, at least. They don't put it in the prinsesstårta. Although Rachel Khoo might.)

The making: Everything else being fairly standard stuff, it's time to begin! Which I do by first preparing the salad. This involves shredding a cos lettuce - although the accompanying photo suggests more of a "torn leaves" approach, so I split the difference with an approach I call the Chunky Shred (also the name of my next ska-punk band). Eight radishes are thinly sliced and added to the mix, as is a carrot which I do my best to peel into attractive ribbons, or at least attractive bits of what might once have been ribbons.

So far so colourful

Next up, it's time for the "gravlax dressing", and this is where the alarm bells start ringing. I'm asked to mix together two heaped tablespoons of mayonnaise, the zest and juice of a lemon, a healthy quantity of chopped dill, a pinch of salt - and two tablespoons (again, heaped) of grainy mustard.

Bear with me here, because I swear I'm not just hating on Rachel Khoo for the sake of it. But have a quick look at a Google image search to see exactly the kind of thing we're meant to be replicating here. Do you see any mustard grains? I do not see any mustard grains. This is not meant to be made with grainy mustard. And I certainly don't see anything that looks like this:

While not unattractive, this "dressing" turns out to be at least two things: too grainy and too thick. Tasting it also suggests a third issue, namely that it's way too strong to be put anywhere near a light summery salad.

Nevertheless, the recipe is the recipe, so I continue by spreading a tablespoon of the dressing on each plate:

This is a nice way of making sure the flavour is distributed throughout the dish, actually, plus it's fun to do. Score!

I then arrange the salad on top before flaking the smoked salmon over the whole thing, a little haphazardly (just for a change).

That would seem enough, but - joy of joys - I am also to "drizzle over" the rest of the dressing. There's nothing about the consistency of this dressing that would allow it to be drizzled (and even the photo next to the recipe suggests more of a "multiple dollops" approach), but I do my best within the means available to me - this blog has never been about attractive food presentation, after all - and our cold-but-hot-smoked salmon salad is ready to go!

The eating: Let's cut to the chase here. The mustard and lemon content of the dressing makes it absolutely overpowering, and it wrecks the whole thing. Used sparingly alongside some good forkfuls of chunky salmon, it could work quite well - and I'm certainly not averse to strong taste contrasts in general - but when the bulk of this dish is some rather delicate salad vegetables (and it's not like salmon is an especially dominant flavour either), this is basically like forcing horseradish up your nose while chewing on something crunchy. None of the other flavours come through at all - not even the dill, and as you can see from the smeared plate above, there was plenty of dill in there.

It's weird, it's wrong and, worst of all, it's so easily avoidable. These are simple ingredients and they shouldn't go this badly awry, but while the smear of dressing on the plate alone might have been survivable, there's no way back from the extra dollops on top. We grudgingly make our way through about two-thirds of what's before us before picking out the salmon and giving up on the rest

The leftovers, dressing included, get stirred into a much bigger bowl of salad I've already got on the go in the fridge. Duly diluted, the mustard, lemon and mayo are far less offensive to the senses and actually make for quite a nice combo. But that's not really the point. The point is there's already a perfectly good way of making a Swedish-style dressing for salmon that's milder but still punchy, and messing with it only ends up here: in a waste of everyone's time.

Still, I said that dipping into this book has given me inspiration to try out new things, and regardless of this disappointing experience, I would quite like to attempt this again some time only with better salmon - and, obviously, actual gravlaxsås. Ideally made by people who know what they're doing.

Two-word verdict: Woefully misguided.

Lockdown Edition Week 5: Smoked Haddock Kedgeree

The book: Deeply Delicious (WeightWatchers) 

The recipe: p12, "Smoked Haddock Kedgeree"

Ah, my WeightWatchers cookbook. You can take your jokes about lockdown weight gain and shove them, because anything that gets us through this weird time is frankly to be commended, even if that thing is several metric tons of Cadbury's Dairy Milk Marvellous Creations Jelly Popping Candy (try saying that with a mouthful of Cadbury's Dairy Milk Marvellous Creations Jelly Popping Candy).

Anyway, this book was underused before the original Random Kitchen series and remained underused even then, cropping up just the once as part of a near-endless run of pies and pastry. I'm pleased it's come up so soon this time - and random.org has dictated that we're in the "Start The Day" chapter, which should give us something a bit different to work with.

Except it doesn't really, because in this crazy world of ours, the category of "breakfast dishes" is deemed to include kedgeree. You can thank those enterprising Victorians, whose desire for cultural appropriation extended to taking the staple Indian khichdi and bastardising it into... a weird fish and egg concoction, apparently. (Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.) Still, I can't entirely blame the Victorians here - the opposite page of Deeply Delicious offers up a bacon and mushroom risotto, which seems... even less breakfasty? Not actually breakfasty in the slightest?

Ah well, never mind. I could have been making banana muffins, I could have been preparing what the book optimistically describes as a "big brunch" (essentially some potato and beetroot with a slice of cooked ham - be still, my beating heart), but instead we're diving into the cuisine of the Raj, kind of. Only in a healthy and - because recipe book titles never lie - "deeply delicious" form.

I decide we're going to have it for lunch, of course. Partly because that seems more sensible and partly because I'm hardly going to spend an hour in the kitchen first thing in the morning when my belly is calling out for cornflakes.

The prep: Obviously the first thing I need to buy is the titular smoked haddock. Constrained by Asda's pack sizes, I get a bit less than the recipe wants, but then this is supposed to feed four people (albeit four calorie-counting people) so scaling things back probably isn't the worst idea. Basmati rice is something I do have in the house even in lockdown shortage mode, and there are eggs in the fridge that need using up soon-ish, so it's just a question of buying some parsley, a tub of fromage frais (this feels a bit retro in a way I can't quite put my finger on?), and some saffron.

I'm initially a little sceptical as to whether the local Asda will stretch to the latter, and it feels like a bit of an indulgence considering the recipe only calls for a pinch - but I find what I need, so I make a mental note to justify the purchase by knocking out some Swedish saffron buns just as soon as I can get my hands on more flour.

Introducing the band

The making: Spoiler alert: This recipe involves more faff than is strictly necessary. For example, I start by placing the haddock fillets skin side up into a pan of milk with some bay leaves and peppercorns. The milk is brought to the boil then left to cool, after which the fish is soft enough to be easily flaked. Which is fine, but all this really does is make it lose some of its lovely yellow smoked colour - no notable flavour is imparted. Could've just skinned it and chopped it up really.

Anyway, next up I'm required to coat a frying pan or wok with that WeightWatchers staple, low-fat cooking spray. (In fairness, I'm a big user of it too. Mostly to rescue roasted vegetables that are drying up and sticking to the tin, but still.) I also appreciate the "wok" option here, as my wok - a TK Maxx random find, like most things in our kitchen that aren't from IKEA - is a German take on the classic oriental design that is easily as thick as a frying pan. (What was that I was saying about cultural appropriation?) This misses the point of a wok somewhat, but makes for an ideal implement for today's task. Swings and roundabouts.

Some onions get slowly fried in said wok/pan hybrid, then the rice, the saffron (having been soaked in a little bit of boiling water for a couple of minutes) and a tablespoon of garam masala are added. I stir to mix, then add 700ml of "chicken or vegetable stock" - I go with a mixture of both - and bring it all to the boil.

You can probably imagine how appetising this looks, can't you?

Deeply Delicious

And things only get better when I realise the recipe wants me to strain the milk I used to poach the fish in, then add it to the wok. Which:

Please sir, I want some more gruel

Yeah. Now I understand why the recipe calls for a large bunch of parsley - anything to detract from the grim grey-brownness of what's emerging here. Nevertheless, it would be unfair to judge a recipe before the main ingredients have even been added, so I continue.

Continuing means adding the fish and parsley "after about 15-20 minutes, when the rice is just cooked and most of the liquid absorbed". Even after 20 minutes, there are no real signs of full-on absorption here. It might have helped to rinse the rice first (Madhur would be fuming), but the recipe didn't call for that. Anyway, in go the stars of the show:

...and actually, other than being a bit on the soggy side, that isn't looking too terrible, not least because the saffron has finally given the dish some much-needed yellow colour by this stage (again, if I hadn't poached the fish...).

So of course now is when the recipe tells me to add 200g of fromage frais. Because what this needs right now is more liquid. "Very low fat fromage frais", no less, so it's going to be even sloppier than its full-fat cousin. Still, the cookbook never lies, so I proceed with the inevitable wok-based disaster zone:

Yep, that looks every bit as elegant as I expected from the instruction. Which is terrific, because that is also the dish finished and ready to serve. Hurrah!

All I need to do now is prepare a garnish by quartering some hard-boiled eggs and wedging some lemons (yes, I'm using "wedge" as a verb, what of it?), and then it's time to find some way of dolloping this up that doesn't make an actual "thwulp" sound when it hits the plate.

The eating: I'm doing the recipe a disservice there, actually. By the time I've plated up, the rice has sucked up even more of the liquid and we're at a point where you can actually make out the individual grains again. Not that this allows me to present the dish with any degree of style - and how exactly does one "garnish" a pile of rice slop anyway? - but still, it's recognisably something you might want to attack with a fork without a sense of actual concern.

The Korean flag, kedgeree-style

The memory of the grim onion water from earlier in the process is firmly banished, let's say that much for it. And the eating... the eating is pretty good. The texture is still a bit clarty, as we say where I'm from, but there's just about enough flavour in there to satisfy, even if "deeply delicious" remains a wild claim.

It's taken a bit too much fuss to reach this point, and there's still a lot more that could have been done with the spicing and seasoning - watching your weight is no reason to make things actively boring - but the flavours are decent and it's a reasonable meal, albeit one that I have no particular desire to repeat. And certainly not for breakfast, for heaven's sake. The Victorians may have achieved a lot, but I wouldn't trust them in the kitchen.

Two-word verdict: Deeply acceptable.

Lockdown Edition Week 4: White Onion Soup with White Bread Rolls

The books: A Soup For Every Day (The New Covent Garden Food Co.) and Masterclass (James Martin)

The recipes: p96 of the former, "White Onion Soup"; p186 of the latter, "Basic White Bread"

An intervention takes place almost immediately this week. Not because there's a problem with the randomly chosen recipe - an onion soup sounds nice enough, even if there's something faintly offputting about the word "white" here - but because it's likely to be a bit, well, straightforward. I'm fine with conjuring up paragraph after paragraph about nothing much, but some content doesn't hurt, so a decision is made to go Full Lockdown and make some bread to accompany the soup.

Although it could be seen as an omen that the weekend omnibus of Come Dine With Me mocks me even as I'm putting the ingredients together.

Despite the lockdown, there are no sourdough starters being tended in this house - and indeed there's no flour other than plain white, so as much as I'd like to do something with wholemeal or (especially) rye, that'll have to wait for another time. Now you'd think it'd be easy enough to track down a recipe for a basic white loaf in one of my recipe books, but going through them at random - always on-brand, here - firstly throws up a bunch of sweet Swedish breads with cardamom or saffron involved, which, fine, but not today. Next book, and there's a couple of promising enough breads in there, but they all require a bread maker. One of them even requires the reader to look up the instructions for their bread maker and follow them. That's, um, not a recipe...?

Anyway, we eventually track down a white bread recipe in the pages of James Martin's Masterclass - which, while intended for a loaf, should make perfectly decent buns for dunking purposes. James is somewhat cagey about how easy this will be, concluding: "The best advice I can give you is to lock the door, turn on some music and spend a day practising." That approach might work for teenage boys on lockdown, but I've got a soup to make here, so I'm just going to get on with it and see how it all pans out. How hard can it be?

The prep: Like I say, for the bread I'm working with what flour I already have in the house. This is probably for the best since Lewisham Asda only has white flour in stock anyway - and no own-brand stuff, only Be-Ro, which I swear I haven't seen since the era of this cookbook. I've got some dried yeast in the cupboard already and it's only slightly past its best-before date, so that's fine. Can't be too choosy when there's a lockdown on. Otherwise we're grand on the bread front.

Onions are no problem either - we get a weekly veg box delivered, of course we have too many onions - so all I really need to buy in is some single cream (to deliver the titular whiteness), some fresh parsley, and some white wine. I don't even dare suggest using some of Sam's weekly sauv blanc ration for a purpose as frivolous as cooking, so I grab a Diane Abbott portable special instead, and we're ready to go.

Zylindrisch. Praktisch. Gut.

The making: Between the proofing and the baking, the bread is going to need about two hours, so I start with that. Flour, dried yeast, salt, olive oil and warm water are mixed into a soft dough and kneaded for 10 minutes "until smooth and elastic", then left for an hour to rise and double in size. I then shape the dough into the smaller buns I'm going to be baking (for less long than the loaf recipe says, obviously), and they get another 30 minutes on a baking tray to rise a bit more. They also demand a dusting of flour before they go in the oven, which seems a bit superfluous to me, but who am I to argue with a Masterclass?

(Hey, I never said they were going to be geometrically sound. They're only dunkers.)

Meanwhile... well, shit. It's only now that I notice the "1 hour 40" preparation time on the soup. Seriously? For some onions floating in water? Gah. Well, OK. This is entirely my fault for not reading things properly before I started, and the bread will probably survive a slightly longer proofing than it needs, so best get the paring knife out and whip up some oniony tears before any real ones form.

I begin by finely slicing three medium onions and adding them to a pan along with some butter, some olive oil, and "one" clove of garlic.

The onions are cooked over a low heat for 30 minutes with the lid on, then for another 30 minutes with the lid off. The idea is to sweat and steam them first then gradually cook off the moisture so that the onions are "greatly reduced, but still very pale". I'm not convinced about the "very pale" part, but they're certainly reduced and nicely gloopy by this stage.

The white wine is added to this onion base - I give it a quick go on a high heat to burn off some of the booziness straight away - and some chicken stock follows, because it couldn't be a vegetarian onion soup, could it? A further half-hour of simmering later, and we're finally ready for the last stages. These involve removing half of the soup, blending it until smooth then returning it to the pan - an instruction I interpret as "use a hand blender in the pan, just for half as long as you would normally" - then adding the single cream, a spoonful of sugar and a fistful of chopped parsley, and heating it all through until it's ready to serve.

Which it is, along with the bread rolls that I've finally got round to baking in the meantime. They look nice enough, albeit misshapen (and that flour on top is still pointless).

Let's call them "rustic"

The eating: The trouble with recipes that call for slow cooking, the thing I really, really hate about slow cooking... is that it works.

The soup is seriously good, and as much as my lazy soul would like it to be the case, you can't replicate that sheer depth of flavour by giving the onions a quick five minutes on a high heat. Although the addition of wine and cream doesn't exactly hurt on the flavour front.

Still impossible to photograph appetisingly though.

The whiteness of the soup is more of a creamy golden yellow by the time everything's been added, which is probably for the best, because it was starting to feel like a MAGA rally around here. The bread rolls, however, are undeniably white and - as I feared when I had to let them prove for longer than I'd have liked - a bit stodgy and unsatisfactory. (Apparently not everyone can do homemade bread after all.) Still, with butter added while still warm, they're more than good enough for mopping up what little of the soup is left in the bottom of our bowls. I just wouldn't necessarily serve them up to anyone I was trying to impress.

So what have we learned? Mainly "when life gives you something simple, don't make matters difficult by overcomplicating things, fucko". Oh, and read the recipe first. Nice soup though.

Two-word verdict: Deep, man.