Lamb’s Lettuce Salad with Mango and Avocado

Lamb’s Lettuce, (Feldsalat auf Deutsch), also sometimes called field or corn salad, has a slightly nutty, tangy flavor. (My husband can't stand it because it's too green;) The name 'lamb's lettuce' appears to stem from the fact that it tastes best during lambing season, and some people also call it 'lamb's tongue', because the leaves resemble small tongues.

Like many zesty-flavored foraged greens, lamb's lettuce has a high nutritional value. It typically provides several vital minerals and nutrients, including vitamins C, E, and B9, along with beta carotene and essential fatty acids. Commercially cultivated lamb's lettuce may not be as nutritionally rich, depending on farming practices, but it is generally more beneficial than conventional lettuce.

	Dressing
1/2 Mango 1 Romaine lettuceangiesrecipes , rinsed 100 g Lamb’s lettuceangiesrecipes , rinsed 1/2 Red onionangiesrecipes , finely diced 1/2 Avocado, pittedangiesrecipes, peeled and sliced	80 ml Canola oil 80 ml Olive oil 2 tbsp Raspberry vinegar 1 tbsp Dried parsley 1 clove Garlic, minced 1 Shallot, chopped 1 tsp Honey 1 tsp Salt or to taste 1/5 tsp Freshly ground black pepper

1. Peel and pit the mango, cutting the flesh into 5mm cubes. Place the mango cubes in a large salad bowl. Tear the lettuce leaves into bite-sized pieces and add to the salad bowl alogh with the lamb’s lettuce, and onion.
   
   


2. To make the dressing, in a clean jar, combine the oils and vinegar. Add the parsley, garlic, shallot, honey, salt and pepper. Close the lid and shake furiously until well combined. Pour just enough dressing over the salad to moisten it, then toss to coat evenly. Garnish with the avocado slices and serve.

A pork pie for Giles

A pork pie is a wonderful thing. But it is also complicated and can go wrong in a number of ways, because there are three elements to this: a pastry, a filling and jelly, which each come with their complications.

If you'd like to make one, I say go for it, but make sure you have an entire day - or even a day and  a half clear to attempt it - especially if it's your first go.

This recipe makes a medium-sized pork pie, using a 7in loose-bottomed cake tin from John Lewis. A similar version of this recipe can be found in Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage Meat book, on p.444.

You will need for the pastry:

275g plain flour

100ml water

30g diced butter

70g diced lard

1 beaten egg

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 Heat the fat and water in a saucepan until it is melted and warm - hot, even - it but don't boil it. While the fat is melting, put the flour and the salt into a mixing bowl and make a dip in the centre. Pour the egg into the dip and half mix it in with a knife. Once the fat and water have melted together, add it to the flour and mix until it is a dough. Here the dough will probably be a bit too sticky, so sprinkle on flour until it takes on that glossy sheen of pastry. Form it into a ball, cover in cling film and chill for an hour.

2 For your filling you will need:

400g pork shoulder/leg
200g streaky bacon
200g pork belly

Or similarly ratio'd quantities. Mince this finely the best way you can see how.

Do NOT - are you listening? - do NOT, NOT, NOT use only pork shoulder, or only bacon, or only belly because the result will be grim. To your pork mixture add 1/4 tsp mace (if you want), a pinch of salt, 5 twists of black pepper and a dried chilli (if you want).

2 Grease your pie dish with butter or vegetable oil. Roll out the pastry to about a 0.5cm thickness and lay as best you can in the dish. This isn't especially easy, as you're fitting a flat thing into a rounded, 3D thing. The most important thing is that the pastry doesn't tear - nothing else really matters. This is so important that I often cut my nails very short before doing it.

I always recall Delia Smith's advice about pastry when I'm making a pork pie, which is to handle the pastry "with confidence". Like horses and naughty children, pastry can smell fear.

3 Fill your pastry casing with your filling. Really ram it in, as this will shrink on cooking. Sometimes I add a whole boiled egg, hidden in the middle, if I want to freak people out.

4 Trim off any excess pastry hanging over the side of your dish and re-roll to form a lid. You must brush the edges of the pie and the lid with beaten egg to seal it. You absolutely cannot use water or milk because it won't stick properly.

5 Seal the edges of the pie and then make a blow hole in the surface of the pie, about 1cm in diameter, for the pork juices to bubble out of during cooking. Then brush the whole of the top of the pie with beaten egg.

6 Shove it in the oven for 30mins at 180 degrees and then for 1 and 1/4 hours at 160 degrees.

7 Once the pie has cooked you must allow it to cool. And I mean really cool down - ideally leave it overnight, although I know it's torture to have to wait. During cooking, the pork will have shrunk away from the sides of the pastry to form a natural cavity to be filled by the jelly.

The point of the jelly - so unbeloved by those understandably squeamish about savoury food the wobbles - would originally have been to make an airtight casing for the precious porkstuff, which would help it to keep for a couple of weeks without refrigeration.

You can make the jelly in two ways: either make up a pint of warm stock - any will do, out of a packet or whatever - and set it with powdered gelatine. I find Dr Oetker's powdered beef gelatine to be the most user-friendly. 1 x 30g sachet sets one pint of liquid - easy peasy. You will need in total about half a pint of gelatine to be on the safe side.

If you're feeling very serious, ask your butcher for some veal bones or a pig's trotter. Boil it all up for a couple of hours with some carrots and celery and the stock will turn to jelly when it sets, without needing the help of manufactured gelatine.

Pour the jelly through the hole in the top of the pie while the jelly is still warm and it will set around the pork as it cools.

This is the trickiest part of the process, so you must keep your nerve - never attempt this in a hurry. You can use a turkey baster if you've got one, or a jug and funnel. It's a pretty messy business, so don't lose heart if the stock bubbles out of your pie's blowhole and goes everywhere.

This kind of pastry is very resilient and can withstand having quite a lot of stock splashed all over it without becoming soggy. You may have to repeat the pouring-in of the jelly as after you've poured in the first lot, as it will slowly disappear into nooks and crannies of the pie and suddenly there will be a 1cm gap between the lid of the pie and the top of the pork.

Then once you think there's as much gelatine in there as you're going to get, leave this to cool again - or chill in the fridge, ideally for three or four hours.

Dulce de Leche Cheesecake

This recipe is inspired by Reeni and Moon-sweet Kitchen Cat@Cinnamon Spice & Everything Nice and DULCE DE LECHE "San Ignacio" CHEESECAKE (The easy way)

Dulce de Leche, differing from caramel, which is made with sugar, corn syrup, milk or cream, and butter, is simply sweetened condensed milk boiled down to a thickened sauce. It is especially popular in South American countries.

Crust	Filling
150 g Almond cookies, crumbed 100 g Butter, melted Pinch of salt	450 g Philiadelphia 12% balance cream cheeseangiesrecipes 120 g Sugar 2 Eggs 150 g 3.5% yogurt 1 tbsp Cornstarch 240 ml Dulce de leche angiesrecipes Juice and zest of 1 lemon

1. Toss the cookie crumbs into the melted butter in a mixing bowl. Reserve 1 tablespoon of the mixture for the topping. Press the rest of the mixture onto the bottom and up 3cm high of a greased 24cm spring form pan. Chill until it’s ready for use.
   
   
2. Using electric mixer beat balance cream cheese and sugar in a large mixing bowl until smooth. Add yogurt and eggs, beating until just blended. Stir in cornstarch, dulce de leche, lemon juice and zest until blended.
   
   
3. Pour the mixture into the crust and sprinkle the top with reserved cookie crumbs. Steamed bake the cheesecake at 165C/330F for 65 minutes until almost set. Turn oven off. Leave the cake with the oven door ajar for 1 hour. Cool completely and chill at least 4 hours or overnight until firm.

Recipe Exchange

I got an email the other day, with the title Recipe Exchange - a sort of chain letter for recipes. I'm supposed to get 360 recipes out of it, which sounds a bit many. But still, it's a nice idea and I can try out some new things, that aren't all out of Nigel Slater.

Although frankly, they all WILL be.

Lamb shank stew for a blustery November night

I've always been a bit scared of stews, I don't know why. But the other day I found some lamb shanks in the freezer and some haricot beans in the larder and decided to put them together, with the help of my NBF Nigel Slater.

He recommended using leeks with the beans, but I didn't have any of them, so I used some celery and carrots instead.

The exact recipe can be found in Volume 1 of NS's 'Tender' cookbook, but it goes something like this:

(For 2)
- Soak 150g haricot beans overnight, or for approx 6-hours, then change water and bring to boil, skim off the gross froth bit and then simmer for 40 mins. When they're done, leave them in the water they boiled in.
- Season lamb shanks all over and then brown in some oil in whatever casserole pot you're going to cook the whole lot in. Takes about 10 mins to brown lightly all over (but it's going to cook for 2 hours, so you don't have to be really neurotic about it. And anyway, I always tell myself, lamb won't kill you if it's a bit rare). Then put aside, on a plate.
- Chop up your carrots and celery - maybe two of each? - and a clove of garlic and add, with a thick slice of butter to the casserole. Then cook gently for 20 mins. Here, NS recommends putting a sheet of greaseproof paper underneath the casserole lid, but if you haven't got any (and I frequently haven't) it's probably ok just to put the lid on.
- Take the casserole off the heat and sprinkle a tablespoon of plain flour over the veg and stir it round. Then drain the beans and add them, then pour in about 150 ml stock (just made with a cube or whatever), give it a stir and then place in the lamb shanks.
- Cook at 160 for 2 hours.
NS says it's best re-heated and he's right, athough it's also great first time round. It goes really well with Haimisha cucumbers on the side, just to cut through a bit of the fattiness of the lamb and the delicious gackiness of the beans.

Dry-Fried Shredded Chicken And Bamboo Shoots 干煸鸡丝

Dry-frying (干煸 gān biān), one of six uniquely Szechuan cooking techniques, means food cut into thin sticks stirred continually in a wok with a very small amount of oil over a medium high flame until the food is dried out slightly, browned.

Sichuan cuisine is a style of Chinese cuisine originating in Sichuan Province of southwestern China is famed for bold flavors, particularly the spiciness resulting from liberal use of chilis and "numb" or "tingling" flavor of the Sichuan peppercorn.

• 250 g Roast chicken left-over
  
  
• 100 g Bamboo shoots
  
  angiesrecipes
  
  
• Dried red chillies
  
  
• 30 g Jiafan rice wine
  
  
• 15 g Maggi sauce
  
  
• little of chicken bouillon
  
  
• A little of salt
  
  
• 1 stalk Green onion
  
  
• Some cooking oil

1. Shred the chicken, bamboo shoots and dried chillies. Combine together maggi sauce, rice wine and salt in a small bowl. Heat some oil in the skillet until hot. Add in shredded dried chillies and fry until fragrant. Remove the dried chillies and reserve for the later use. Add in shredded chicken and cook until the chicken have released the oil. Add in the prepared dresing and shredded bamboo shoots.
   
2. Continue stir-frying 1-2 minutes. Return the fried chillies, and season the mixture with pinch of chicken bouillon. Toss until well combined. Sprinkle the spring onions over and transfer to a serving plate.

I also want to thank Anncoo@Anncoo's Hobby giving me this lovely award!

Almond Butter Slices

Recipe Source: Dr. Oetker A-Z Backen

Almonds are high in monounsaturated fats, the same type of health-promoting fats as are found in olive oil, which have been associated with reduced risk of heart disease.

In addition to their cholesterol-lowering effects, almonds' ability to reduce heart disease risk may also be partly due to the antioxidant action of the vitamin E found in the almonds, as well as to the LDL-lowering effect of almonds' monounsaturated fats. (LDL is the form of cholesterol that has been linked to atherosclerosis and heart disease). When almonds are substituted for more traditional fats in human feeding trials, LDL cholesterol can be reduced from 8 to 12%.

In addition to healthy fats and vitamin E, a quarter-cup of almonds contains almost 99 mg of magnesium (that's 24.7% of the daily value for this important mineral), plus 257 mg of potassium. World's Healthiest Foods

Dough:	Topping:
300 g German #405 flour 1 package / 15 g Saffron baking powderangiesrecipes 150 g German Magerquarkangiesrecipes (or fromage frais) 90 ml Milk 90 ml Safflower oil 75 g Sugar Pinch of salt	125 g Kellygold Butterangiesrecipes, softened 50 g Sugar 20 g Vanilla sugar 100 g Almond slices

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F. Line a 30x40cm baking tray with paper. Combine the sugar, vanilla sugar and almond slices for the topping in a bowl. Set aside.
   
   
2. Sift the flour and baking powder into a mixing bowl. Add in Quark, milk, oil, sugar and salt. Mix all the ingredients with a hand mixer fitted with dough hooks for 1 minute on high speed. Don’t over stir the dough or it will become sticky.
   
   
3. Place the dough onto the prepared tray and roll it out. Spread the softened butter all over the surface of the dough. Spead the topping mixture evenly onto the dough. Bake on the upper rack of the hot oven for about 20 minutes until golden crispy.