Jenny's week: from Coq au vin to oranges & almonds (From Dorset Echo)

Jenny's week: from Coq au vin to oranges & almonds

12:06pm Thursday 19th January 2012

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Now, if ever you are looking for a dish to make for that "special" meal, this is the one.

Billed as a "lighter" version (420 cals as opposed to 818 for the "full fat" equivalent) in the Good Food Magazine, I had some reservations over it. Three forkfuls in and those reservations had been shot down in delicious flames.

This was very definitely one of those happy accidents. I wasn't planning on making a restaurant quality dish, but restaurant quality it sure is.

I will admit to tinkering around with the ingredients list, mostly because it was billed as serving six and should have contained chicken legs, thighs and breasts. I was only interested in serving three - and two of my diners aren't keen on chicken legs and thighs, so our Coq au vin was breast meat solely. However, it didn't appear to miss the added flavour that chicken legs will bring.

I also skipped on the brandy. We do have some, but just a little - and didn't want to lose it in a recipe.

As for the bouquet garni, well I cheated and used a ready-made one. Ah yes - and the mushrooms. The recipe said to pan fry them and add them at the serving moment, but I couldn't see the point in losing the lovely flavour they could bring to the sauce.

Want to know how to make any of these dishes?

Scroll down to the bottom for links to the recipes!

Hence, I added them raw at the beginning and let them absorb some of the lovely wine. To say they then acted as little flavour bombs, is putting it mildly. They were delicious!

I suspect that the excellent bottle of Merlot that I used provided a lot of the depth to the flavour of this dish. I’m not saying that the bottle of wine was a terribly expensive one – far from it – but the wine itself was full bodied and full of gorgeous flavour notes that easily translated to its culinary use.

Another interesting point (well, it was interesting to me, anyway!) was the use of the "thickener" for the sauce. I'd often seen a paste of butter and flour being used as thickener by various TV chefs, but hadn't ever used it myself.

This one was 2 tbsp plain flour, a tsp of butter and a small amount of olive oil. Whisked into the sauce in small increments, it made a perfect thickener, with no flouriness or globby lumps that I'll remember to use in other recipes.

I served the Coq au vin with some leeks, Chantenay carrots, Tenderstem broccoli and peas, all of which had been braised in vegetable stock with a clove of sliced garlic. With some mashed potato for son & heir, the dish was as healthy as it could get and I most heartily recommend it to you.

I reckon that James Martin's a clever old stick when it comes to anything sweet, don't you think? Of course, he's quite probably a clever old stick when it comes to anything savoury, too - but the desserts and cakes are what I know him for.

I was lucky enough to receive a copy of his book "Desserts" from my brother's family for Christmas and I'm fairly sure I put on at least four pounds, just looking at the photographs.

However, I spotted the recipe for his Orange & Almond Cake in a magazine (I forget which, now!) and cut it out to keep. Hence, when I found I had a number of oranges backing up in the fridge it occurred to me that here was a great way of using them.

However, it wasn't until I was getting the ingredients out of the cupboards, that I realised it is a flourless cake - and it takes six eggs!

A quick count-up of the egg supplies showed that I did indeed have enough to cope, and so the plan continued.

I hadn't ever made a flourless cake before, so was suddenly a tad nervous - as this cake was intended to form part of a High Tea to be consumed that night.

High-risk cakes tend not to be a good strategy - not when you're relying on them to feed the five thousand (or three, in our case).

The preparation of the cake batter was simplicity itself, involving a saucepan and a food processor - and that was it. The saucepan is required to poach the oranges (whole) until they are soft and the inherent bitterness of their skin has reduced.

Then, once cooled, they go into a food processor (chop them up a bit first, to remove the pips) and get blitzed until completely "mullered". (What IS the origin of the term "mullered", I wonder?).

Next, add ground almonds, sugar and six eggs and blitz again - then hey presto, your cake batter has miraculously appeared. Decant into a springform tin, sprinkle with flaked almonds and into the oven for 25mins, then another 25mins with a silver foil hat on to prevent the almonds burning.

There really couldn't be an easier way of making a cake. Well, not unless someone has invented a cooker that you just throw all the naked ingredients into.

The resultant cake was light, frothy almost. The orange was tempered by the cooking it had received and although extremely orangey in flavour, was only slightly bitter. That bitterness was enough to scare son & heir away regrettably, but hubby and I both thought that the cake was gorgeous.

Interestingly, with Mr Martin's emphasis being on desserts, we both thought that the cake was rather more a dessert and rather less a cake - but even so, I'd be happy to eat it at any time of the day!

Recipes

Coq au vin

Orange & Almond Cake