Cornish All Around

The last couple of weeks I've been continuing my Cornish culinary kick. Due to a busier than anticipated schedule I've fallen a little bit behind on a couple of dishes but I am confident I'll be allowed to catch up at some point. October probably. I've been looking at my calendar and nearly every weekend through September looks to be booked up with one event or another. Travel and anniversaries and festivals and concerts and whatnot. Ah, first world problems.

I managed to follow through and make Cornish Pasties not once, but twice. I substituted lamb in place of the called for beef because 1) I love lamb, 2) the grocery stores have actually been carrying it of late, and 3) the lamb is, as I've mentioned before, locally grown and processed. The first batch was delicious but the pastry crust to savory filling ratio was a bit off so we correct for this in the second attempt. I wish there were still more in the freezer. I have yet to make the Celery Sauce or Russian Cream so I'll have to rectify that in the near future.

This past Sunday I was back on schedule with the Cornish Fish Pie. This incorporated several similar elements of the previous chicken and parsley pie. Once again the meat and stock were laid in to the bottom of a pie pan along with parsley (a much lesser quantity this time around) and a crust placed on top. After the main baking time had elapsed cream was poured in through a hole in the crust and then the pie was baked for a further few minutes. The recipe calls for white fish. We used cod and I was a bit disappointed to find that after just 20 minutes in the oven the fish had basically disintegrated. No nummy fishy chunks left at all. Still, the soupy creamy fish filling was tasty so I didn't complain to much. For all I know that's what was supposed to happen.

While the fish pie was baking I knocked together the dough for the Cornish Splits. These are little bread rolls with a hint of sugar to them - perfect with the Gooseberry Jam we made last month when while we still had some berries on our plants. I set aside the dough for about 20 minutes until it had risen to about double it's initial size. The rolls turned out quite nicely I think. Not fluffy but firm and delicious. I've been eating them at work for breakfast with a with of cream cheese.

Finally, I was due to make Clotted Cream and Blackberry Ripple Ice this week but as blackberries here are only beginning to ripen and I need to send away for clotted cream I made next week's scheduled Cornish Fairings instead. These were my FAVORITE of the bunch. Instead of the called for golden syrup I used honey. Honey + sugar + butter + flour + powdered ginger = win. The texture was quite similar to a scone and I think that adding a bit of fresh or dried fruit to these would result in something bordering on magic. Maybe fresh blueberries or dried currants.

July 31- Pies n' Cakes

Dinner the second was a quiet affair. Also, this was not the best dinner I've ever made though a valiant effort was certainly put forth.

I had decently optimistic expectations for the Chicken and Parsley Pie. Who doesn't like a good chicken pot pie, right? And this looked like it was just that, but huge.
However, I'm not sure that I am a great fan of the flavours and textures created by combining massive amounts of chicken with massive amounts of parsley. I used Italian parsley and that might or might not have been the culprit. I have rarely if ever cooked with fresh parsley of any variety let alone such a quantity.
Speaking of quantity - the two chickens that this recipe calls for seems a but much. I think one would have been plenty and then I would have had better baking dish choices. As it was I ended up using a pretty typical casserole dish. I just barely was able to fit all my ingredients in to it. I did finally got to use the little blackbird pie funnel we've had sitting in the cupboard for years - BONUS!

Another quick note: what ever quantity of shortcrust pastry these recipes call for - HALVE IT. At the end of the baking time the instructions call for you to heat a decent amount of double cream to a boil, and then remove the pastry rose from the top of the pie in order to our said hot cream in to the pie. This just did not happen. That cream refused to go down my little funnel and cutting the pie open to pour it in was also not an option. Even though I had only added chicken stick up to the half way mark as instructed the chicken itself was juicy and filled so much of the pie that there wasn't really any room within for the cream. It's a real shame as I think it would have made quite a difference in the final outcome. Not that it wasn't still pretty tasty, but I will defiantly do things a bit differently if I ever make this again.

I was also unimpressed by the Cornish Potato Cakes. The were quick and simple to make and blaaaaaaand. A generous pinch of salt? Howsabout a good teaspoon of salt and maybe some pepper.

Lastly, I had a bit of a change in schedule and have postponed making Mrs. Palmer's Russian Cream until later this week.

Instead I bumped up the making of Cherry Bumpers. These were my favorite items of the evening. Local Rainier cherries with crushed almonds and almost essence inside a little pastry purse. Nothing about that isn't yummy. They were easy to make and a delicious little treat. I *might* have accidentally splashed in a bit more of the almond essence than I had meant to but I think it might have made them all the better. That cherry-almond combination is one of my all time favorite flavours/scents.