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This next Pantry post is a relatively new spice for me, but one which I have enjoyed getting to know. Also called methi in India, it is a common spice in Indian, North African and Middle Eastern foods. I had never heard of it until a friend made a fenugreek chicken curry when we were living in South Africa. On my return to Switzerland, I started looking for some, and eventually, a friend picked some up for me on a trip to the UK. At that point I was unaware that there were even multiple different forms of the spice and was not sure what I needed to try to make the Fenugreek Chicken again, so ended up with all three forms (leaves, whole seeds and ground seeds) and have been experimenting for about a year now. Based on search results when I attempted to buy some on the internet, in addition to its culinary uses, fenugreek is touted as a supplement to increase milk production in breastfeeding mothers, but what truth there is to this I don't know. I only know that it would have been much easier to get supplements than it was to find the actual spice. Its leaves and seeds, whole and ground, are used in cooking. The seeds are cuboid and almost gold in colour, and have a sweet smell, almost like maple syrup, and quite a sweet, warm taste. Raw or undercooked the seeds are quite bitter (early attempts at my Fenugreek Porridge had to contend with this) but when it is cooked most of the bitterness goes away. If not, a little acid, lemon juice for example, does the trick. Interestingly, I have not encountered the same issue with the ground form of the seeds. In powder form I add it to porridge or Golden Milk without any issues whatsoever. The leaves are very small, smaller than I had expected. I've experimented less with them than the seeds, but have played around a bit. They also have a slight bitterness to them, but not unpleasant an easy to balance out with other flavours. Aside from my own experiments, I have been trying out traditional dishes using Fenugreek, mainly from my Indian cookbook A Taste of India. I only recently found out about its uses in North African and Middle Eastern cooking though, and will be heading in that direction soon. Here are some of the recipes I've used fenugreek in (alternatively, type 'Fenugreek' into the search bar. I have - I think - tagged all of the recipes using it): Fenugreek and Sweet Potato Curry Orange and Fenugreek Stuffing Garlic and Sweet Potato Curry Fenugreek Porridge Butternut and Chestnut Cream Soup Miss Sophie's Mulligatawny Soufflé Roasted Veg Bhajis Here are links to find it on Amazon and try it out for yourself! Fenugreek Leaves Ground Fenugreek Seeds Whole Fenugreek Seeds (These are affiliate links, meaning that I get a small commission if you order from there, but that does not in any way affect how much you are charged).

This is another Hubby recipe, and it came out beautifully, so I figured he could guest star on this post. I am also very grateful as he made it just after I finished a night shift when I had zero desire, energy or brain power to cook. I would have thrown something from the freezer in the oven, and instead, for the small price of occupying Little Bit for a while before dinner (a delight rather than a chore), he dished up a beautiful, original meal. So here it is. I hope you enjoy and appreciate it as much as I did! Ingredients: 3 c tomato passata 3 tbsp olive oil 2 medium onions, chopped 1/2 head garlic, chopped 1/2 celeriac head, chopped 4-5 carrots, chopped 1 aubergine sliced thin 1 courgette sliced thin 1 tsp pul biber 1/2 tbsp oregano 15-20 shrimp juice and zest of 1 lemon 1 tbsp chives 500 g spaghetti salt and pepper to taste 1) Heat 1 1/2 tbsp of the oil in a skillet and add the onion, carrot and celeriac and cook over medium low heat until it becomes sweet and tender. Brown a little at the end, caramelising the sugars that have been released. 2) Place remaining oil and the garlic in a second skillet and slowly bring up to medium heat, allowing the garlic to infuse the oil without browning. Add the strips of aubergine and cook until the aubergine is tender, about 5 minutes, then remove and place on paper towel to drain. Set aside. 3) Add the mix from the first skillet the the second and fry briefly in the garlic oil. Add the passata and zucchini. Simmer. Add a little water at this stage if the sauce is plopping and too thick. 4) Cook your spaghetti in salted water. Drain when slightly under done, reserving 1 - 11 1/2 c pasta water. 5) Once the zucchini is tender, add the oregano and pul biber. Add the aubergine back into the pan, add the juice and zest of one lemon and the shrimp. Cook for a further 5 minutes until the shrimp is white and firm but not over done. 6) Place cooked spaghetti and pasta water in the skillet and mix well with the sauce. Serve, sprinkling chives over the top. This hit a good balance of flavours here, not too hot for Little Bit, a bit zesty, rich and moist. All around very satisfying! Little Bit loved it too, so what better endorsement could you ask? Although he does smoosh yogurt into main courses and then knead banana through it all, so perhaps take my word over his after all...

I tried making both mozzarella and mascarpone again. One went tremendously ill and the other tremendously well. The mozzarella in my first attempt, if you remember, mostly worked but was a little tough and a little bland (A third opinion told me that it wasn't as bad as I was making it out to be). This second attempt at mozzarella however failed entirely. I followed the instructions in my kit to the letter but the curds never gelled the way they were supposed to, but then the first time they didn't quite either. Once drained they tasted pretty close to what they were supposed to, which was promising, but then once immersed in the warm water, they fell apart and melted away into the water instead of melting down together into a stretchable lump. Any attempt at stretching did not work at all and the curds I did manage to lift out of the water crumbled instead of adhering together to form one mass. I ended up resorting to squishing them into little balls and simply putting them in the cold water like that because I saw no other solution. I then spent forever trying to extract the remaining crumbled bits of curd from the whey. The whey tasted too acidic and odd in some way, but was still useable. The cheese, such as it was, didn't taste too far off but was almost as far from mozzarella's smooth yielding creaminess as you can get. It ended up being put unceremoniously on top of pizza to melt, and served its purpose there, but no more. The remaining salvaged curds I used in the mashed potatoes with the Mushroom Sauce, and it served to make the mash creamier but with an added tang which helped balance things nicely. The mascarpone however went really well. I used the juice of one lemon instead of the citric acid as a bit of an experiment, and given the draining issues I had last time, I made it in advance and left it to drain over night. It came out a little more acidic tasting than the first time around, but smooth and thick and very tasty. We had it on sweet scones as an experiment to see how well it could replace clotted cream which we can't get here (although come to think of it, I can see if I can figure out how to make it). The mascarpone wasn't the same as clotted cream obviously, but worked very well and added a pleasant acidic counterbalance. I was trying a further experiment in food chemistry with the scones again, using whey and baking soda instead of baking powder, as I did in the Broccoli and Cheese Scones. Then I found it worked but not quite to the extent I would have liked (although I also had used some 5 grain flour which makes things a little denser anyway), so this time I added a little more baking soda - and it was a mistake. I added too much more and it was perceptible in the scones. The mascarpone with plum jam did a good job at masking it, but when tried on their own it was very noticeable and left the tongue feeling a little tingly. Oops. They did rise very well though and were light and fluffy, so there is that. They still went in no time, as did a whole jar of jam, but not the best scones I've made. (Oh for sea level baking again where I didn't have any of these issues!) Hopefully the next try will find the happy medium! As they kind of failed, I am not including my scone recipe today, but will give them some more thought and a little more work and post the recipe once I have fixed them!

I love requests for the blog! This recipe is at the request of one of my cousins who was introducing his girlfriend to Cottage Pie for the first time. (Following a question recently: Cottage pie is made with beef, shepherd's pie with lamb. I like making it with pork too, which I guess is Swineherd's pie? Not sure what a chicken based one would be. Anyone?) No garlic in this one I am afraid as (shock, horror) I was out of garlic. Gasp! Normally I would have included about half a head. I use different veg every time. It depends on what is in on sale and what is in the fridge. Mushrooms and celery are also good, although not included in this particular one. I hadn't made a cottage pie in ages, and I don't think Little Bit had ever had it but it was a hit! Rich, moist and packed with flavour with a layer of creamy mash and melted cheese on top, it was perfect for a chilly March afternoon just above freezing with snow still on the ground. Ingredients: 1 tbsp olive oil 1 onion, finely chopped 3 carrots, chopped 1/2 - 3/4 c chopped celeriac 1 leek, chopped 500 g (ish) of ground beef 1 /2 tsp baking soda 1 c (ish) of tomato passata 1/2 - 1 c red cooking wine 1 tsp thyme 1 tsp cumin 1 tsp rosemary 1/2 tsp sumac 1/2 tsp Aloha Spiced Cacao 2 c - or more, my layer was a little scanty - mashed potatoes (given my eternal supplies of whey these days I mixed mine up with whey and butter, but normally I use milk.) 100g/ 1/2 - 1 c cheese, diced (I used raclette aux herbes) Salt and pepper to taste 1) Sprinkle the baking soda over the beef, mix it up well and leave it to sit while you start on other bits. The chemical reactions involved leave you with tenderer, juicier meat and without the puddle of grease. 2) Heat oil in a cast iron skillet (or a heavy frying pan). Sauté onions (and garlic if using) for a couple of minutes until just starting to soften then add in the carrot and celeriac. Allow these to cook for a few minutes, allowing some of the veg to brown a little. 3) Add the meat and mix thoroughly. Continue cooking until the meat has begun browning, then add the other ingredients except the mashed potato. Cook for about 5 more minutes, then taste test. 4) If you've cooked the meat mix in an iron skillet, then simply layer the potatoes over the top of the meat mix and scatter the diced cheese over the top. Place in a preheated oven at 200°C for 25-30 minutes, until the cheese is melty and bubbling and the meat juices have bubbled up. I had not had cottage pie in the longest time and am so happy that I had a request for this! This recipe, like many others, never comes out the same way twice, and I feel that this batch was particularly good. As with other favourite dishes, it's a good fridge clearer dish, where almost any veg in the fridge can go in to make this more interesting and bulk it out. Book Pairing: When I made this I was listening to Aldous Huxley's Crome Yellow (and took a trip out to see cows with Little Bit while it was in the oven). I really enjoyed the book, but it was not what I was expecting. Unlike the only other book of his that I have read, it was not futuristic and not a dystopia, just a little sad, a tale of unrequited love, (and strange characters) in a 1920s British manor house for the summer.

My second post for this Pantry section of the blog is a request. I use dried orange peel in rather a lot of my recipes (you may have noticed), so I've been asked to share how I prep it and why I use it. Orange peel is edible and contains many of the same nutrients as the fruit itself, sometimes, as in the case of vitamin C and fibre, in more concentrated doses. The only caveat is that there could be residual pesticides on the skin, so give it a wash before using it. I first started drying orange peel and using it after hitting a stumbling block when making a recipe from my cookbook Taste of Persia by Naomi Duguid. A few of the recipes call for dried orange peel, and zest just wasn't getting the effect I was looking for. My grandmother and I therefore started saving the peels off oranges and then drying them over the wood burning stove at my parents' chalet. Whole they dried well but were harder to use, to we started cutting them into strips before drying them. We then discovered that while they were a much more useable size, the pith was quite bitter and ruined the taste. We therefore started cutting away the pith before drying, and that is what I still do now. I try to do a lot of this during the winter when oranges are in season so that I have some for the rest of the year. I use it in all sorts of dishes. It doesn't always give a strong orangey note, but it does brighten dishes with a slight tangy note and a little sweetness. I use it to balance out flavours, in something creamy, Turkey Cream Pasta for example, it keeps the dish from tasting too cloyingly heavy, in something spiced it balances the deeper, richer tones of, for example, cinnamon and cloves with a higher, lighter note. Even a small amount brings a fresher note to food. In short, it plays a nice counter part to sweet notes, like chocolate, or in cookies, as well as being a foil to deeper savoury notes. Some herbs and spices lend themselves particularly well to pairing with Orange peel, like cinnamon, cloves, basilic, and more recently discovered, fenugreek. I use other citrus peels too. Lemon has an even brighter, fresher note, but also a little more bitterness and is a slightly less rounded flavour than orange. Grapefruit is deeper and, in a way, more citrusy but also more bitter. In Golden Milk though, I found that the grapefruit worked much better than orange without imparting any bitterness. It's been all about playing with different notes and experimenting them, but over the last two years I've really enjoyed that process. I also use dried orange peel in different sizes depending on what I'm doing. Crushing some in a mortar and pestle (or putting it through a spice/coffee grinder) replaces fresh orange zest in baking quite nicely. Strips of it in other dishes, sometimes crumbled into smaller bits, sometimes in long elegant ribbons, offer a variation in texture, like in my Pumpkin Pie with a Rosehip Swirl or in Baked Oats (coming soon), while broader swirls of peel work well for infusing, like in Golden Milk, or for decoration. Ingredients: Orange peel, clean, as much or as little as you want 1) Using a butter knife, carefully cut the pith away from the inside of the peel. 2) Cut the peel into the desired size(s). 3) Place on a baking tray and then dry them. As I no longer have daily access to my parents' wood stove, I dry them in the oven now (you can air dry them but it takes longer and there is a higher likelihood of them going mouldy rather than drying completely). As I use the oven almost every day, I place them on a baking try or a pie plate in a cooling oven once I've baked or roasted whatever it was that I was cooking and leave the peel in there. I turn them over once or twice and pull them out when the oven is cool. Be careful though, if the oven was on high heat either let it cool a bit before putting the orange peel in or take them out quickly or they might get a little darker than you intended! 4) Store in an airtight jar. If it is properly dry, I've had it keep for up to 6 or 9 months. An added benefit to drying it at home in the oven is the smell the peels release in the process! Here are a few other recipes I use it in (it pops up a lot, and if you search "Orange" recipes including it will pop up). Orange Chocolate Cake Orange and Fenugreek Stuffing Orange Date Cookies Beetroot and Pomelo Sauce Fenugreek Porridge

Chicken and Waffles is a meal I have been sceptical of for a while, but Hubby always assured me was delicious. As far as I have always been concerned, waffles are a breakfast food (or at a push, a breakfast-for-dinner food). For his birthday dinner this year though, I agreed to try it out, and I was surprised at how well it worked. The waffles and the chicken were made using whey (as ever my cheese making experiments had left me with some), and on the side we had coleslaw from the Thug Kitchen cookbook. I also made mayo to go with it all using a herby white wine vinegar. Everything played together surprisingly well, and even more surprisingly, it also played well with a little drizzle of maple syrup. The fried chicken was pre-cooked in the oven a little as it was all leg meat on the bone, and we didn't do a batter but a crust for the chicken. I also found out that this is traditional both in the South of the US and in Amish country, interestingly. Ingredients: For the Waffles: 3 c waffles 2 tbsp baking powder 4 tsp sugar 2 c whey (or milk) 4 eggs, separated 3/4 c melted butter For the Fried Chicken: 4 chicken legs, separated at the joint into thighs and drumsticks 5 c whey 2 eggs 1/4 tsp turmeric 1 tbsp vinegar 1 1/4 c flour 2 tbsp corn meal 1 tbsp nigella seeds 2 tsp oregano 1 tbsp lime zest Oil for frying For the mayo: 1 egg yolk 3/4 c vegetable oil 1 - 2 tbsp herby white wine vinegar Salt or Season-all to taste NB You can prep the waffles and mayo ahead of time. 1) For the mayo: place the egg yolk in a bowl and begin whisking. Drop by drop add the oil, whisking all the while. When you have added half the oil, you can speed up and pour it in a little faster, but keep whisking. If it looks like the egg yolk and the oil aren't forming a smooth emulsion and coming together as you'd like, STOP adding oil and whisk until it does come together before adding more. You can add a few drops of ice cold water to help it emulsify. Once you've added the oil, or even before you've added it all if the mayo is getting too stiff, add the vinegar and salt to taste. If you have the taste you want but the mayo is still a little stiff, add a little water. Set aside in fridge until later (or do what I did and whip it up furiously as everything else is being plated, but I don't recommend it). 2) For the waffles: Mix dry ingredients together then gradually add the wet ingredients except for the egg whites. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks then fold them gently into the batter. Heat the waffle iron (ungreased) and place about 1-2 tbsp of batter in the middle. Close it and wait a couple of minutes. When done, remove and repeat the process. We made these earlier in the day and then popped them briefly back into the iron to warm them up as needed at dinner. 3) For the Chicken: Place the chicken and the whey in a large bowl, cover and set aside in the fridge to soak for at least 2 hours before cooking. Preheat the oven to 170°C and place the chicken in a covered oven proof dish in the oven for 20-30 minutes until it is most of the way cooked. 4) Mix the egg, vinegar, turmeric together and place in a shallow dish. Mix the flour, cornmeal, oregano, nigella seeds and lime zest. One by one, dip the pieces of chicken into the egg mixture and then into the flour mixture, making sure to coat all over. 5) Heat oil in a skillet until shimmering. Place 4 pieces of chicken in the pan. Cover for five minutes, then when the chicken is turning golden brown, turn and cover again for 5 minutes. Remove the cover and continue cooking, turning occasionally, until the chicken is cooked through and crispy on the outside. 6) Drain the chicken on some paper towel then plate up, with some waffles and a little of the other components. I was surprised at how much I liked this. I initially tried it all savoury, spreading the mayo on the waffles and piling on some coleslaw before topping it off with chicken. Without the savoury components though, with just buttered waffles, chicken and a drizzle of maple syrup there was something missing. Surprisingly putting it all together worked! Not something to be had every day, or even every week, and not for a week day meal unless there is a special occasion, but it will be revisited!

I wanted to make a mushroom sauce today - preferably with a bunch of different mushrooms. Sadly, all we could find were white or brown button mushrooms, but I still wanted to make my sauce. The next step was to decide what to pair it with - pasta, rice, potatoes? In the end I decided on a creamy garlic mash (using some of my failed mozzarella curds) and a poached egg. It all came out very nicely, simple but filling and tasty. Ingredients: 500g mushrooms (preferably mixed) 1-2 tbsp olive oil 1 onion, chopped 1/2 head of garlic, chopped 1 - 1 1/2 c red cooking wine 1 tsp thyme salt and pepper to taste 1) Heat the oil in a deep pan. Sauté onions and garlic until soft and fragrant, and allow a few to char a little. Add mushrooms and sauté for 10 minutes or so until mushrooms. 2) Add the thyme and wine, reduce heat and cover, simmering gently for an additional 10 - 15 minutes until the wine is reduced and mushrooms have absorbed the wine. Place over mashed potatoes and a poached egg topped with sumac. This was satisfying and balanced, a comfort food if there ever was one. The creamy mash really allowed the mushrooms to shine and the red wine contrasted nicely with the egg.

Having successfully made ricotta 3 times, I decided for Take 4 to play around and test the method a little. The kit I've been using as my beginner's guide had me using citric acid as the acidifier and curdler, so I decided to swap it out with lemon juice. I mean, citric acid comes from citrus fruits, right? It worked. Sort of. I started out with the juice of one lemon, and the curds looked the same as in previous attempts, but there was a lot less of it and the whey was clearly still richer than the other times. So I warmed the whey up a little and added the juice of another lemon. I did get more curds, but they were much finer this time, to the extent that it took a long time to drain them. In the end, I think I got about the same amount of ricotta as with the standard recipe, but it took a lot longer and half of the curds are tiny. It tastes right though! I made it specifically for Hubby's Manicotti recipe - well, his grandmother's recipe really - at his request. He hadn't made it in a while, so we figured we'd try it with home made ricotta, and I'm glad we did! It was so tasty!

I've recently gotten into having Golden Milk in the evenings - that is, warm milk with turmeric and other spices. The first time I looked up a couple of recipes to get ideas of spice outlines, as it were, and then from there on out I started playing with the spicing. Some days it would be more golden, with warm spice notes behind it, another much milder, milk with a tinge of yellow and a hint of spices. Some days I include orange peel, sometime almond extract. Sometimes it is simple, just turmeric and one or two other notes, sometimes much more complex, a layering of tones and spices to achieve a rich flavour profile. Here are two of my favourites. Let me know what you think! Ingredients: For variation 1: 3 c milk 1-2 tsp vanilla extract 1 tsp honey 1 tsp turmeric 1/2 tsp ginger 1/4 - 1/2 tsp cloves 1-2 tsp dried orange peel 1/4 tsp Aloha Spiced Cacao (original or chilli) For variation 2: 3 c milk 1 tsp turmeric 3/4 tsp cinnamon 1/4 tsp cloves 1 tsp honey 1/2 - 3/4 tsp almond extract 1/2 tsp grapefruit or orange peel (I've used both, but the grapefruit works better and is more powerful) 1/4 tsp Aloha Spiced Cacao 1) Pour milk into a saucepan and place over gentle heat. Add other ingredients and stir gently to distribute evenly. Bring to a simmer for 5 minutes. Taste test, tweak and serve. I find this drink perfect before bedtime. It is warm and comforting and hot milk has a soporific effect. I am a bit disappointed not to have tried this earlier, but I guess now is better than later or never. Let me know what you think of my variants, and what you do for yours!

Sumac is one of my favourite spices of late. I first encountered it when Hubby and I spent rather too much - both time and money - in Istanbul's spice bazaar at the end of our honeymoon. We picked up masses of spices, some known to us, like Pul and Urfa Biber, some new to us. Some were simple spices some blends, labelled things like "meat spice" or "salad spice". To this day I have no idea what was in them, but we happily used them in a wide variety of dishes for as long as we had them. Sumac is one that once we discovered and found through experimentation that we liked it, we were able to restock and it has remained a favourite ever since. For cooking, the dried fruit of some species of sumac trees (genus Rhus) are ground into a powder. Powdered sumac has a lemony tang to it and is crimson in colour. It is commonly used in the cooking of North Africa, the Middle and Near East. In North America it is used to make a drink. It has been used medicinally, especially in East Asia and the Middle East for centuries, and a clinical study found that it has anti-hypertensive effects. I use it for its slightly spicy, lemony tang as a finishing spice in all sorts of things. I find it helps balance flavours out, especially if they are leaning too sweet, or a little too flat. I often sprinkle it on just before serving or as I tweak flavours towards the end of cooking. It works in raw foods too, like salads or hummus. As Sumac comes from a few different trees, flavours vary slightly, as does the depth of colour, but not significantly enough for me to have really noticed an effect on cooking. Here are links to some of the recipes I've used it in: Whey of Spinach Soup Spinach and Ricotta Ravioli with an Asparagus and Mushroom Cream Sauce Turkey Cream Pasta Vegetable and Bulgur Wheat Stew Caramel Chestnut Risotto Carrot and Ginger Soup Brussel Sprout Soup with Croûtons and Sweet Potato Butternut and Chestnut Cream Soup Carrot and Quince Soup Pumpkin and Chanterelle Risotto I'm also planning on trying out some recipes in which sumac is traditional in the next little while too, so stay posted! Here is a link to find it on Amazon and try it out for yourself! (This is an affiliate link, meaning that I get a small commission if you order from there, but that does not in any way affect how much you are charged).