Breakfast recipe: Baked Eggs Florentine

A wonderfull breakfast dish which the french call 'Oeufs sur la plat a la Florentine', doesn't that sound excuisite? This is very simple, but elegant breakfast dish which I like on special occasions, maybe with abit of something fizzy. This is a variation on the recipe by Paul Bocuse, 3 Michelin star chef of Lyon.

Serves 6

Ingredients:

• 400g spinach (coarser stems removed)
• 50g lean ham in fine dice
• 4 tbl spoons of butter
• 6 eggs
• salt, pepper and fresh grated nutmeg

Pick the coarser stems off the spinach leaves and reserve a few for garnish. Cook the spinach in boiling water briefly and refresh under cold water before pressing out all the liquid from them in a colander. Either chop this finely or process in a blender to make a puree. Add most of the butter to a saute pan and cook the spinach puree, ham and seasoning for a minute or two

Preheat oven to 210c, butter 6 shirred egg dishes or cocottes (any shallow and wide crockery will do) and place a layer of the spinach and ham mix on the bottom before breaking the eggs into each dish. Add any more seasoning to taste, add whole spinach leaves and dap with extra butter. Bake in the oven for approximatly 15 minutes, the whites should be fully set but the yolk still runny. Serve with fresh bread or toast. Happy eating!

How to make: Cottage cheese

Another exceptionally simple cheese, which in times without refrigeration would have extended the shelf life of milk from days to weeks. As with so many of my receipts (recipes, but I like the older word) it screams for experiments, snip in some chives perhaps? Who knows, you decide! It will work for any type of milk, but full fat milk is absolutely necessary. Who knew cheese making could be so easy?

Ingredients: Whole milk, vegetable or animal rennet or lemon juice

Put whatever amount of milk you have in a pan and warm gently to body temperature, when you put your (very clean finger) into the pan you should notice no change in temperature. Then add a few drops of rennet or the juice of half a lemon and stir. Leave to separate for 2 hours off the heat, then strain through a fine sieve/muslin cloth over night. C'est tout! We have a simple cheese.

At this point you can add a pinch of salt or any additional flavourings, it will be sweet and quite moist, definitely spreadable. But will become drier with time, it should last 7-10 days covered in the fridge. Happy eating!

How to make: Butter

Butter, ever thought of making it? Originally it was used to preserve milk in another form, as without refrigeration it wouldn't last 2 days. It's exceptionally simple and opens up a whole range of flavours which you can introduce. Flavoured butters are known in french kitchens as beurres composes. They can add variety to cooked dishes, and work very well with fresh bread from the 'Homebaked' section. The recipe is for a rather large batch, but it freezes well when sealed in an air tight container, and the process is exactly the same to make a lesser amount, and you get a by product, buttermilk!

Woman making butter - Compost et Kalendrier des Bergères, 1499 (paris)

Makes about 1kg (2¼lb) butter and 1 litre (1¾ pints) buttermilk

Ingredients: 2.4 litres (4 pints) of double cream

Place the cream into a scrupulously clean mixing bowl and use an electric whisk on medium to beat it. You will go through the stages of soft and stiff whipped cream, but carry on and eventually the pale yellow butter fat will be forced out of the cream and you have butter. Drain in a fine sieve for a few hours, then use two wooden spatulas to expel more of the buttermilk. C'est tout! Now you can either separate it and freeze, use it or flavour it.

Potential flavours: Garlic, chopped fresh herbs, almond, crushed anchovies or prawns, mustard (use your own from the How to: section), Lemon, Indian spices, shallot

Uses for buttermilk: Drink it, make soda bread or substitute it for other liquids in cakes, make yogurt

Homebaked: Flat breads

Even simpler, this is an unleavened flat bread which just cries out for experimentation and dips! Try paprika, dried herbs, different flours or fruits in the basic dough and give it a go!

Mix as much flour, drizzle of oil and water as you need to make a firm dough which leaves the sides of the bowl clean. knead lightly for 5 minutes and then leave to rest for 10 minutes. seperate into individual balls before rolling out to a thickness of 3mm. Toast in a very hot dry pan, they may inflate and blacken a little but thats fine. They take approximatly 1 minute per side.

Homebaked: White bread

"Give us this day, our daily bread" is something most western Christians will have murmured on a Sunday at some point. It's a statement to the importance of bread as a food source throughout history, perhaps the most important? Nowadays we are so used to sliced white which is a FARCE! Get into the kitchen and fill the house with the smell of baking bread, do you need any more persuasion? Just to prove a point, the taste will be superior and not laced with chemicals.

Simple White loaf

• 1 x 5ml spoon sugar
• 375 ml warm water
• 2 x 5 ml spoons dried yeast
• 600g strong plain flower
• 2 x 5ml spoons of salt
• 15g of fat (lard, butter, oil etc.)

     Dissolve the sugar in the warm water and add the dried yeast, leave for 10 minutes or more to activate and become frothy. Sieve the flour and salt into a suitable bowl and rub in the fats. Add the yeast liquid in increments as you may not need the full amount, it is ready when it leaves the sides of the bowl clean.
    
      Flour your work surface lightly and knead the dough, stretching out the gluten until it feels smooth and elastic. Place in a bowl covered with a damp cloth and leave to rise in a warm spot (It will double in size).

     N.B - You can at this point either knock the dough back (knead it lightly for 5 minutes) and place into a floured tin to rise again before baking, but I like to form it into little baguettes and leave to rise for only a short while before baking as its alot quicker.

    Pre-heat the oven to 220c and place your bread strait in, small baguettes will take around 10-15 minutes and a whole loaf around 40 minutes. They will sound hollow when tapped on the base when ready.

WHAT COULD BE BETTER?

    

Dinner at The Piccadilly hotel - 1924

I recently managed to get a fantastic little book by the writer 'Diner-out', a gourmand who quite obviously had abit of money to spend, it is a critique book containing the menus of the restaurants and the authors views on them. Money and the actual meals don't come like this anymore. This is the bill of fare for one man and one meal, on a normal night! Cost £2/1s/6d, he also drank 1 bottle of Louis Roederer 1911 champagne costing £1/5s. With inflation doubling the value of things every 7 years, that's 7 doublings since 1924. I reckon that's about £290 as of 2013!

Les Hors d’Œuvre Moscovite
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La petite Marmite Henri IV
Créme Dame Blanche
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Le saumon poché

Sauce Mousseline

Concombres

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La selle d’Agneau Orloff

Petits Pois à la Francaise

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La Chasse Royal

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La neige des Alpes

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La poularde du Man en Casserole

Salade Lorette

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Les Asperges de Paris

Sauce Divine

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L’Ananas glacé à la Piccadilly

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La corbeille de Friandises

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Moka



Sterilising preserving jars

A very important skills right up until the 1950's, for people out in the country side failing to bottle the summer glut could mean starvation in the leaner months. It is actually very simple and works for jams, chutneys, mustards etc etc. Make sure you use suitable vessels with vinegar proof lids and soon you will be bottling all sorts

1. Preheat ovento 160c
2.  Wash jars in very hot soapy water and rinse
3. Place jars in the oven upside down until completely dry
4. Bottle produce and seal whilst warm