Zucchini Egg Foo Yung

Just had this for supper to use up the multitude of zucchinis we have this year! Wonderful!

Grate coarsely
4 medium unpeeled zucchini

Mix in
3 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup (2 fluid oz in a measuring cup) plain flour
1/4 t (teaspoon) garlic powder
1 t salt
1 onion, grated

Fry by tablespoonfuls in hot oiled skillet, turning once when golden brown. Arrange on platter and top with sauce.
Combine in saucepan
1 cup chicken broth (8 fl. oz)
2 T. (tablespoons) soy sauce
1 T. cornstarch

Cook and stir over low heat until thickened. Serve with rice.

Options:

Add fresh bean sprouts with grated zucchini.

Switch from Chinese to Italian meal by topping with tomato sauce and Parmesan cheese. Serve with spaghetti.

A recipe for left-over chicken

Chicken Julienne

Ingredients

serves 4

175 g (6 oz) long grain rice
3 Tbsp (40 g) butter
3/8 cup (40 g) plain flour, sieved
1 1/4 cup (300 ml) 1/2 pint chicken stock
1 1/4 cup (1/2 pint) 300 ml milk
350 g (12 oz) cooked chicken, cut into long narrow strips
2 tbsp (30 ml) lemon juice
4 oz (100 g) green beans, cooked
pinch of dried thyme
salt and freshly ground pepper
1 tbsp (15 ml) chopped fresh parsley
4 oz (100 g) carrot, peeled, cut into julienne strips and blanched
1/4 cup (25 g) 1 oz flaked almonds, toasted

Method

1. Cook the rice in a saucepan of boiling salted water until tender, but not soft. Set aside and keep hot.

2. Melt the butter in a pan, stir in the flour and cook gently for 1 minute, stirring. Remove pan from the heat and gradually stir in the stock and milk. Bring to the boil and continue to cook, stirring until the sauce thickens.

3. Gently stir in the chicken, lemon juice, green beans, thyme and seasoning and cook for 5 - 10 minutes until heated through.

4. Add the parsley to the cooked rice and toss lightly. Make a border of rice on a serving dish and spoon the chicken into the centre. Decorate with carrot and almonds.

Italian Sponge Cake

I rather like the sound of this cake. It is used in a recipe for Tirame-Su (Pick me up cake) which is found in Venetian restaurants.

Pan de Spagna (Italian Sponge Cake)

5 eggs, yolks and whites separated
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/4 cups white cake flour, sifted
1 t vanilla essence
1/2 t grated lemon rind

Put the egg yolks and sugar in a mixing bowl and beat till lemon coloured. Add the sifted flour, a little at a time, mixing in well. Add the essence and rind.

Beat the egg whites until stiff but not dry and fold into the flour mixture.

Butter and flour a cake tin about 10"/25 cm in diameter. Pour in the cake mix and bake in a moderate (350F/180C) oven for 40 minutes.

Turn out on to a cake rack and cool

To make Tirame-Su using Italian Sponge Cake, use the following instructions:

1 Italian sponge cake (baked in a 14"/35cm pan)
1/2 cup strong black coffee
3 1/2 fl oz / 100ml kirsch or Tia Maria or any other favourite liqueur
1lb 2oz / 500 g cream cheese sweetened with icing sugar to takst
unsweetened cocoa powder

Cool the sponge cake and split in half. Mix together the liqueur and coffee and carefully sprinkle half over bottom half of cake. Spread some cream cheese over this half and place the second half on top of this. Sprinkle the top of the cake with the rest of the liqueur and coffee and spread the rest of the cream cheese over the top and sides of the cake. Sieve a thickish layer of unsweetened cocoa powder over the top and transfer to a serving plate. This cake should only be about 2 in/5cm in height and should be fairly moist without crumbling inside.

Venetian cooking

I was in the local Oxfam shop yesterday and discovered a copy of Taste of Venice: Traditional Venetian Cooking by Jeanette Nance Nordio. I bought it for a number of reasons. I love reading the books of Donna Leon with her wonderful descriptions of meals en famille in Venice, the book was beautifully illustrated and finally, I am looking for new recipes to enliven our mealtimes. So far, I have been rewarded with a recipe for a tomato sauce and one for Italian sponge cake, both of which I will make today! I have looked on the Internet for Jeanette Nance Nordio but it seems that Taste of Venice is the only cookbook she has written. What a shame!

Tomato Sauce

500g unskinned jam tomatoes (plum?) or 14 oz/400g tinned, peeled tomatoes
1 clove
1 small onion
1 small carot
1 stalk celery
3 T (tablespoon) parsley
2 T basil
20 g butter
1 t (teaspoon) olive oil
salt and freshly ground pepper

In a copper or earthenware pot melt the butter and oil and add the celery, carrot, onion and parsley finely chopped together. cover the pot and cook over a moderate heat for a few minutes, stirring from time to time.

Add the tomatoes, cut into large pieces, the basil and the garlic and recover the pot and allow to cook over a low hear for 15 minutes. Add the salt, sugar and pepper and blend or sieve the sauce.

Return to a low heat and gently simmer for another 25 minutes until the water from the tomatoes has been consumed and the sauce has thickened. Do not overcook as it will tend to become acid in taste.

This sauce may be bottled and sealed like jam to be used when needed.

Update on sponge cakes

I made the sponge cake recipe I posted the other day and was a little disappointed. In part the underwhelming size of the cake. I used an 8" size and should have used a sponge cake tin, which I think must be at least a 7".

Instead I will post the recipe for the first sponge I made. I was much more pleased with that one.

Madeleines

I still haven't managed to make the sponge cake I said that I would in the last post but I did finally make madeleines. I went to Paris in 2005 and one of the items I brought back was a madeleine tin. In all those intervening years I have never used that tin! But I have now. Twice!

I used Rick Stein's recipe but checked another recipe after I made the first batch and they didn't come out quite as I expected. Rick Stein suggests that you put the batter in the fridge for 15 minutes before baking. In Paris Sweets, they suggest that you wait a minimum of 3 hours and that you can keep the batter for up to two days. My second batch worked much better than the first so I would suggest waiting.

I had to go to Paris for my tin because at the time they weren't sold in the UK. However, you can now get them at Lakeland for only £7.95. Certainly less expensive than a trip to Paris, though perhaps not as interesting!

Today I promise to make one of the sponges and report back tomorrow!

Sponge Cakes

It has been a long time since I posted here. I seem to have ground to a halt on my writing, which includes my blog writing. I had never made a sponge cake until late May of this year, when I saw a recipe by Hugh Firnly-Wittingstall in the Guardian weekend magazine. I've made it 3 times since and really like it but it isn't as light as I have heard that sponge cakes should be so I am in search of the perfect recipe. Here is my first and I shall make it tonight.

Sponge cake recipe ingredients: Serves 4

100g butter
100g caster sugar
100g self raising flour
Vanilla essence
Pinch of salt
2 medium eggs

Sponge cake recipe cooking instructions:

1. Preheat oven to Gas mark 190°C.

2. Place the butter and sugar into a mixing bowl. Beat until smooth and creamy.

3. Beat the eggs in basin or cup and add to the mixture a little at the time, with the flour keeping the same smooth and creamy consistency.

4. Making sure the mixtures does not get too wet or dry as you go when you have used all the flour and the eggs.

5. Add the vanilla essence and a pinch of salt, mix for a few minutes.

6. Divide into two lined, or non-stick sponge tins, put into a moderately hot oven, middle shelf.

7. Put into the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes (it is important that the oven is well heated).

8. Put to cool on a rack to cool.

9.When cool put one upside down on a plate spread with jam, you can also put fresh cream in at this stage, put the other piece on the top and dust with icing sugar.

I rather like Delia Smith's instructions for her sponge cake so I will try that one later in the week. Now I just have to decide who to give these cakes to so that I don't eat them all myself!!