Sourdough with lemon juice

Have been trying to make sourdough with at least 1/3 wholemeal flour, home grind from grains, but bread texture becomes too rough and does not rise well, not enough gluten in the mix..
Read in a French magazine that in Traditional Baguette, baker can use flour, salt, yeast plus only one chemical, citric acid. Whereas in other types of bread, they can use up to 12 chemicals to improve performance. 

Turns out that lemon juice/citric acid can improves elasticity of gluten, helps to make bread rise much better.
Immediately added some lemon juice of in my sourdough mix, and indeed notice the difference in kneading, and rise of the dough improves. On top, the texture of resulting bread is more homogenous and smooth than before!

Semi dried cherry tomatoes

Still very good harvest of cherry tomatoes, Sungold, Firebird and Pigeon heart varieties. Too many to eat fresh, so peel and semi dry, for storage. They are like little flavour bombs, great garnish for any dish.

Tumeric coconut spread

 

Very pleased to find fresh organic tumeric from Peru, instead of using powdered version from India, where the soil is very contaminated.

Sliced and slightly dried, puréed with creamed whole coconut to make turmeric coconut spread.

A tasty way to have a daily dose of curcuma, for its anti-inflammatory effect.

Melon Petit Gris de Reine

 

 

年年都種蜜瓜，以前在法國現在愛爾蘭，有收成的年份，很少。

有可能因為以前菜地一片，所有瓜（青瓜、南瓜、翠玉瓜、蜜瓜）都種在附近，蜜瓜很少結果，有時出現雜交了的奇怪果子。

來到愛爾蘭，把蜜瓜種在溫室內，其餘種戶外，過去兩年都長不好，果子太遲出世，未能成熟。

今年六月大熱，植物生長迅速，蜜瓜早結果子，九月初熟透，色艷甜美，三株植物有四隻瓜，產量麻麻，但開心滿足。

Sunny view

 

大雨狂風大冷多天，今早終於見晴空，即刻登山看風景，掌握好時光。

 

Honey fermented rose petal/elderberry

This summer, I have collected petals in the evening from the Rugosa rose bush, a very fragrant wild rose. They are added into a jar of raw honey, moisture is being extracted from petals and honey start to ferment. By now, the rose perfume is transferred to the honey. I start using both petal and honey in warm drinks.


Similarly, the honey fermented elderberry that was collected in early September is ready to use. Another not much work, no boiling, nutritious syrup.

Lamb shoulder in rosemary sauce

The rosemary bush has grown huge and I have to use more in cooking. Hence came up with this dish, an easy way to make a sauce strongly prefumed with rosemay, for a cut of lamb that takes a bit longer time to cook.

1.Season lamb shoulder with salt and black pepper, place on top of a lot of rosemary in a baking dish.
2.Make a sauce of miso, rice wine, olive oil with cup of water, pour into baking dish. Bake at 170˚C until soft, around 40 minutes.

Pollock two ways

Fisherman brought back 2 good size pollocks, one is eaten whole, the other skinned and filleted. They are salted for 2 days before cooking. Turn out to be a good way as the meat becomes more firm, much better texture then cooked fresh. 

Baked pollock
Brush oil and bake at 200˚C for 20 minutes.

Stir-fry pollock
Cut into pieces and seared in wok with scallion

Rice wine for cooking

It is a habit to make a batch of rice wine for cooking use in autumn, for it to rest over winter and ready to use next year. 

1.Steam round grain rice, Japanese sushi rice the best. 

2.Use a fork to loosen and speed up cooling down.When cool to around 30˚C, add rice yeast, mix well and spread out in large baking dish, cover with cling film. Place inside slightly warmed oven.  

3.Stir with a fork every half day, until liquid starts to come out. 

4.Place in a big bottle, 2/3 full, add some cooled down boiled water to loosen the texture to congee. I always add extra wine yeast to kick start alcoholic fermentation. 

5.Keep in room temperature in the dark, wrap with cloth, until fermentation finish and then keep in a cool dark place over winter.

Wrasse steam baked

Fisherman caught a good size wrasse, pinkish skin, body a bit like groupa with fine flesh. From experience, it needs to go with a sauce.

 I decided to cook it with scallion, soy sauce, rice wine and olive oil, like Cantonese style. Instead of steaming, I wrapped the baking dish with foil and baked at 200˚C for 25 minutes. The fish is steam baked without extra steam water inside.

Seafood feast

 

What a feast! Decided to celebrate our wedding anniversary at home with wonderful Irish seafood.

Nowhere in Ireland can I have blue fin tuna belly, blue lobster and line caught squid in a meal.

With such high quality of fresh local ingredients, no serious cooking skills, fancy seasoning and garnishes needed, just to know when not to overcook them is enough!

Black garlic

 

 

The garlic harvested in July is dry enough to be processed into black garlic, by the black garlic machine, can keep for a long time in the fridge.

It will soon be time to sow garlic for next year’s harvest. After 20 years of growing garlic, I have finally grown enough for making confit garlic, honey fermented garlic, black garlic, and for sowing!

Corporate beehives and honey comb

A good initiative by beekeeper here, to work with companies with easy accessible roof tops, to install beehives. The hives belongs to the beekeeper, company pays a fee for hive rental, and receive honey combs in return.

This honey comb is from the hive installed in a city, Limerick, the honey is much more viscous, and have pronounced floral and citrus aroma, very different from mine.

Pickle mackerel (rollmop style)

Still enjoying the pickled line caught mackerels in Norway. Unlike rollmop, after pickling, mackerel is cooked by the vinegar, I don’t know what made this difference.

Anyway, very tender flesh, mildly sweet sour savoury, great for simple starter or quick lunch.

Simple pesto

 

A warmer summer and basil plants growing very well, enough to make a jar of roughly blended basil, pine nut and olive oil sauce, so fragrant.

I have used it on pizza, and mix with cooked runner beans, added a nice flavour to the dishes.

A more colourful dish with cooked runner bean, carrot and raw cherry tomato, just mix with pesto.

honey bee replenished store

 

During cold wet July, bees could not go out to collect nectar, and had to use up the stored honey. We fed then with jars of honey just in case they go hungry and die.

Lucky that mid August to now has been fine weather, bees busy. So happy to see that they have replenished store, even built new combs and filled with nectar.

Decided that there should be enough store for them to last through winter, no need to feed.

BBQ sardines

Another heat wave of the year, very warm and great for alfresco dinner, got some beauticful sardines from on-line fish monger. Salt and dry for a day in the fridge, brush with oil and cook on bbq, goes well with home brew apple pear cider.

Sloe jam

Went for a walk along the edge of a lake, knowing that there are various wild fruits to harvest. The target is hawthorn berry and sloe. Hawthorn berry is to add to my hawthorn flower tincture, for a tonic drink in winter that is good for the heart in traditional medicine.

Sloe is a wild plum, very small with near black skin. It has more intense flavour than using cultivated plum to make jam, especially when none of the plum trees in the garden produced any fruit this year.

It is a bit of work to get the stone out, should rename it as ‘slow’ jam. 

Cover sloe with water (I used apple pear juice as I have a lot of them), bring to boil to soften fruit. Wait until cool down, than one by one squeeze out the stone in the fruit. Use blender to turn to puree, add enough brown sugar to sweeten.

Apple pear fresh cider

 

Made a small batch of apple and pear cider, adding wine yeast to kick start fermentation.
Plan to start drinking it everyday, while there is still some sugar and alcohol level is low, and not to wait for months for bottling, keeping.  Then I could keep making new batches, too many apples and pears to use up.

Indeed in the third day, it is a lovely refreshing fizzy drink, sour and mildly sweet, very easy to drink. Much better than long fermented cider, when the last bit of sweetness is coverted.

Elderberry syrup

 

Lots of elderberries from just one tree, fermenting in raw honey, the simplest way to have elderberry syrup.