My Quest

Following my epiphany at Trattoria La Festa in Stowe my quest was to find a recipe for a light creamy sauce worthy of that bowl of Fettuccine Alfredo. Over the years I've tried so many recipes – some ok, some definitely not.

A couple of years ago I came across “The Leftovers Handbook” by Suzy Bowler – remember what I said in the Guilty Pleasure post about the tab marking system when you're taking your first glance through your new cookery book, here's a photograph of my copy of the book :

The tabs, or rather the number of tabs indicate how good a book this is and I am delighted to report that my quest is over since the book contains, in my view, the best and definitely the nearest version of the sauce I had in Stowe. I know that I've written the words “keep it simple” in the past and time and again this proves to be the case. The bizarre thing is that I've spent hours try to recreate this sauce and it turns out that it takes three ingredients and takes only a few minutes to make.

For ease of reference, here it is :

Alfredo Sauce

Alfredo is traditionally served with pasta – however it's so good and tasty it lends itself to other dishes and particularly leftovers.

1 tbsp unsalted butter

200ml double cream

50g freshly grated Parmesan, plus more for sprinkling

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Gently heat the butter and the cream together, stirring, until the butter has melted, then stir in the Parmesan.

Slowly bring to a gentle boil, turn down the heat and simmer, stir continuously for a minute or so until you have a smooth, creamy sauce.

This sauce can be made ahead.

The above recipe would be sufficient for two servings – enough to coat 225g uncooked pasta. Traditionally there are no additions to Alfredo although I've had it served with petit pois.

Thank you to The Leftovers Handbook – you've made a grumpy old woman very happy!

Sensational Stowe

Stowe, Vermont, USA is sensational and particularly so in our Autumn - Fall in the USA.

On the Upper Mountain Road in Stowe you can find Top Notch at Stowe www.topnotchresort.com a truly luxurious spa et al and yours truly was fortunate enough to stay. You can absorb all the stunning scenery on foot, on a bicycle or, my personal favourite mode of transport, on horseback. You can even ski if that's your thing.

Absolutely random piece of additional information – Vermont is where Ben & Jerry's ice cream began.

Whenever I visit the USA I always pay attention to the weather forecasts – why you may ask – answer - because they're accurate. So, you can imagine that I was slightly concerned when it forecast snow in two days time. Hey, they might be wrong.

You know you can always tell when it has snowed – it's really bright when you wake up in the morning. That'll teach me to pack Wellington boots – pinpoint accuracy as usual – I should have known better than to doubt.

More concern, picture perfect though the snowfall was, that evening dinner was booked next door at Trattoria La Festa 4080 Upper Mountain Road, Stowe, VT 05672 www.trattoriastowe.com (see also La Toscana Country Inn – they have rooms too.) I feel I should clarify “next door” - next door in the UK means exactly that – in the USA and in this instance it's half a mile down the drive out of Top Notch and then a climb up the next drive to the restaurant – you might recall that the address is Upper Mountain Road – emphasis on “mountain”. Did we make it and was it worth the wrecked shoes – you betcha – big time. Without question I was served the best bowl of Fettuccine Alfredo I've ever eaten and more to the point, the only bowl of pasta I've ever finished in my life.

A perfect combination – over indulgence with the pasta and being able to walk it off in such a beautiful place. By the way the Alfredo sauce triggered a mission to recreate it that lasted years.

If you've any sort of holiday destination list, bucket or otherwise I would strongly recommend you add Stowe and Vermont!

A bit of red wine!

Thoughts from a grumpy old woman.

If there's one thing (actually there's more than one) that drives me crazy it's the constant misuse of the English language in particular when applied to the title above - a “bit” refers to a solid, i.e. a morsel of food, of “bite”. To the best of my knowledge red wine is not a solid ….. if you think the same way I apologise because from now on when either watching your favourite cooking show/magazine programme or listening to your radio – in my case crystal set since as I write I know I sound like the grumpiest old woman ever - I now realise I've turned you into a crazy person. I don't care, I've kept this to myself for so long there must be others out there who think as I do.

I appeal to the major culprits of said misuse who are, you may not be surprised to learn - the celebrity chefs – the word to use is “drop” i.e. a small quantity of liquid. You don't need to go to catering college or train as a chef to attain this earth shattering information!

Whilst I'm on the subject, of celebrity chefs that is, I might as well have another moan – in particular relating to kitchen hygiene or rather lack of. Will someone please let these chefs know that wearing a big fat designer wrist watch whilst you are cooking is not a good idea hygienically speaking – if you want to keep an eye on the time pin a fob watch to your whites or better still buy a large kitchen wall clock that can be wiped down and everyone gets the benefit.

I feel so much better having got that off my chest!

I shouldn't have bothered

… to get out of bed!

When I try any recipe for the first time, particularly one of the baking variety, I follow it to the absolute microgram – baking is a science and unless you have super powers you can't wing it!

So, stall set out for the latest trial – a “loaf cake” type of thing. My mise en place is done and I'm ready to rock and roll.

Everything seems to be going swimmingly – not a complicated recipe – it's in the oven and my trusted timer is set. Note to self – whatever timing is given in a recipe I always set mine to at least 5 minutes before that stated. In this case however it didn't help at all.

I don't know why – may be it's just a sight thing – it didn't look right – there's a lot of mixture for the tin bearing in mind it has to rise – or rather I hope it will.

In this case my misgivings proved to be entirely correct and despite the comfort of setting a timer something told me I needed to sneak a peek and look at progress way before the time was up. Thank goodness I did – horror of horrors there was a molten dripping mess oozing over the sides of the tin, on to the baking sheet the tin was on - over the oven shelf the baking sheet was on - over the next two oven shelves and onto its final resting place, the bottom of the oven where (thankfully) I have an oven liner. Note to self if you haven't got an oven liner can I suggest you invest in one!

If at this point you're thinking what's all the fuss is about can I put it another way – have you ever dropped and broken an egg and watched it spread at the speed of light – have you ever knocked over a mug of coffee or a container of milk – it's impossible to stop the spread of liquid and mop it up fast enough before the coffee/milk has accelerated and landed in your cutlery drawer.

The Bionic Man or Woman ain't go nothing on me – oh and don't forget the oven is hot - the faster I tried to stem the flow of the molten lava the messier it got.

The moral of this story, not surprisingly, is that not every recipe is as good as it should be.

Happy baking oh and spare a kind thought for any competitor on the Great British Bake Off when it looks as if they've made a complete hash of what we (obviously sat on our sofas at home) consider to be straight forward baking!

What to serve

… with the Orange Cake

A slice of cake is very nice but I'm serving it as an after supper treat for friends.

The Orange Cake is moist – moist is good but, to use the northern vernacular, it can be claggy. So, as I would make extra “drizzle” to serve with a lemon drizzle cake lets make an orange syrup (or drizzle if you prefer)

Orange Syrup

200g icing sugar

250ml orange juice (no bits)

Put the sugar and orange juice in a small saucepan and heat gently so that the sugar dissolves. Bring to the boil and then reduce the heat and simmer on a low heat for 10 minutes.

You'll then have a syrupy drizzle ready to dress your cake.

Here's a photo of the one that I made earlier :

and it works brilliantly. If you wanted to add another element then why not the white miso or plain vanilla ice cream (there are recipes for both of these, both no-churn, on the blog).

I suppose I should point out that this is what I would call a weekend pud – when you're in need of a treat or just good old fashioned comfort food!

A perfect combination

… the “old” meeting the “new”.

In Book alert! I wrote about Claudia Roden and her books.

In All around the book shelves I mentioned that the perfect combination in a cookery book would be history and recipes too - here's one that is definitely in the “desert island/burning building” category.

Claudia Roden's “The Book of Jewish Food” was first published in the UK in 1997 and is divided into The Ashkenazi World and style of cooking and The Sephardi World with its many styles of cooking.

By “old” in the above title I do not disrespect – I just mean that by modern standards it's probably considered to be so - it's 19 years is old. I have read one particular recipe in this book from The Sephardi World section so many times I could recite it without any prompt.

It is :

Gateau a l'Orange

(Orange Cake)

2 oranges

6 eggs

250g sugar

2 tbsp orange blossom water

1 tsp baking powder

250g ground almonds

Wash the oranges and boil them whole for 1 – 1 ½ hours or until they are very soft.

Beat the eggs with the sugar. Add the orange blossom water, baking powder and almonds and mix well. *Cut open the oranges, remove the pips and purée in a food processor. Mix thoroughly with the egg and almond mixture and pour into a 23cm cake tin – lined with baking parchment, preferably non-stick and with a removable base. Bake in a pre-heated oven 190c/170fan/Gas 5 for an hour. Let it cool before turning out.

What put me off baking this cake was the boiling of the oranges.

Now for the “new” - it should really read “up to date” since I suppose it's not rocket science to use a microwave. Instead of boiling the oranges, microwave them for 8 minutes on high. I used 3 medium sized oranges (as a guide 67-74mm) and turned after 4 minutes. Make sure your fruits are in a covered vented microwave container. Continue with the recipe at *.

I'm not a cake eater generally but in the interests of being true to the art I tasted this and – I know I shouldn't say it of my own efforts – it was everything I like in a cake – moist and the depth of the orange flavour was really good. Everyone else who had a slice loved it too.

Here's what it looked like :

I rest my case!

Guilty pleasure

or, how sad am I!

When I acquire a new cookery book there's a certain protocol that needs to be observed in order to get the most of your latest acquisition.

Don't rush into this … anticipation is the key – I definitely need to get out more.

The first step is to sit comfortably – cuppa or tipple of your choice optional. Ensure you have a supply of coloured tabs (like the post it notes but smaller) so that any “notations” are done carefully since it would be sacrilegious to spoil pages by turning them.

Then go through your book cover to cover, take your time inwardly digesting (sorry for the pun). Any recipes that appeal get a tab – this way you don't miss anything and it doesn't matter if, later on, you decide to discard an original marker.

What is beyond irritating – it may be that it's a senior thing – if you don't “mark” recipes, or anything you want to refer to later for that matter – you can never find it second time around – hence the marker system.

When I'm trying to decide which books should be given away I'll keep the tomes with all the tabs showing – hey it's a start.

In the post A perfect combination coming shortly it illustrates why you should hold on to books that may be considered old or out of fashion.

Chutzpah!