Sweet Potato Fries and Homemade Mayonnaise

When only "CHIPS" will do.

Potato chips in the UK are not the same as potato chips in the USA. CHIPS in the UK are potato fries in the USA and CRISPS in the UK are what they call CHIPS in USA.

Now I've confused you, I can tell you that these are probably one of the most simple things you will ever make and calling them fries or even chips isn't really right as they are not even fried - they're baked !

You may or may not remember the 80's tv advert for McCains Fries. It's about two little girls and one asks the other - "What do you prefer - Daddy or chips ?". It's a rather iconic advert and I still remember being in the car with my brother and the two of us saying "Daddy or chips ? C-h-i-p-s !"

Well - McCains Homefries are probably the best UK freezer cabinet chips you can buy in the UK, but they still don't beat home made. Home made baked and not fried have to be better health wise too !

The sweet potato fries are nothing more than sweet potatoes cut into 12mm (approx) rings and then cut length ways into 12mm  finger like lengths. Toss in olive oil and sprinkle with cleery salt. Place on a baking tray on the top rack of your halogen oven and turn temperature to approx 230deg C. Cook until edges are turning crispy and brown - approx 12 minutes. Alternatively, preheat a regular oven to a similar temperature and shove them in there for around 30minutes.

HOMEMADE MAYONNAISE

This has to be the best with chips. Homemade mayonnaise is quite a vivid yellow colour. If you have got good free range eggs as we do, it will be very vivid indeed. As much as I like homemade mayonnaise, I find it far too strong tasting for memade with olive oil. I far prefer using rape oil or sunflower oil. Groundnut oil works well too. If it's too thick and cloying, add a teaspoon of water at a time right at the end and beat it in. This will significantly lighten the colour and lighten the taste. I usually have to add a touch of water. Lemon works well too - but keep tasting or it can get very lemony !

Ingredients

290ml sunflower oil
2 egg yolks
1 tsp salt
1 tsp colman's english mustard (bit more if powder form)
squeeze of lemon or couple of tsp vinegar

Beat the eggs , salt and mustard together. Add a drop or two of oil and beat it in. Keep adding the oil just a few drops at a time. It is easiest to do this with a hand mixer. After a couple of minutes, add the oil in a very slow and steady stream. As it starts to get cloying and lumpy, add in the vinegar or lemon to let it relax and then continue adding the rest of the oil.

Taste. It's probably going to be a bit cloying again by now. If not too acidic, add a tiny bit more vinegar or lemon. If it's slightly too acidic or you think it's right but just too thick, combine in a teaspoon or so of cold water at a time which will lighten it up and relax it.

Cover mayonnaise not being used immediately in the fridge with cling film over the top. I like the film to touch the mayo to prevent a skin forming.

Sarah-Jane Nash - http://www.siliconemoulds.com/ - halogen ovens and halogen cooker recipes

Happy New Year & Hot Cross Buns !

Happy New Year Everyone !

I'd like to wish all of you the very best for 2011.

We've had a fairly quiet time since coming home from spending Christmas in Scotland. I'm still hoping to do (a rather late) blog post about some of that.

My husband and I spent most of the last day of the year doing a major clearout of the house and took down the baby stair gates. It's made a massive difference to the space in our house and Oliver really is not interested in wandering upstairs at all.... He knows all his toys live in our lounge !

Oliver having a rare, quiet "chill" moment !

Shamefully, I was in bed and asleep well before the midnight bells. I wasn't even up to open the door to "let the old year out and the new year in" as is pretty much our tradition.

We collected my in-laws the following day who came to stay overnight and spend some time with us.

I have absolutely no idea why, but I really had a notion of making hot cross buns... which I've never made before. It DID feel rather odd to make them totally out of season. Originally, I thought I'd just glaze them as spiced buns without the crosses.... but added the crossed just before putting them in the oven as they really need crosses as a final touch. Don't you think ?

Oliver was having a marvellous time with all his new toys as you can see. It was really cosy infront of our cast iron wood burning and multi fuel stove (an older style Abbey model from http://www.naturalheating.co.uk/) and the heat from the fire was super for making the hot cross buns rise. If you look carefully - they can be seen balanced on top of the nursery guard !

Hot Cross Buns - makes 8 > 10

(adapted from River Cottage Handbook no.3)

250g strong bread flour

250g plain flour

259g warm milk

7g sachet of instant yeast (same stuff for bread makers)

10g salt

50g caster sugar

1 egg

50g butter

100g raisins or sultanas

2 tsp of mixed spice

I added all the ingredients together to my Kitchenaid mixer apart from the sultanas and mixed on a low speed to combine. I then added the sultanas and let it mix until dough was smooth and silky (about 10 > 15 mins)

Finsh kneading by hand and leave dough to rise for approx 1 hour in a covered bowl in a warm place. I leave mine in the Kitchenaid mixer bowl, covered with cling film. When the stove is not on, I like to put it in the halogen oven / tabletop cooker to prove (in the kitchenaid bowl) with the tempreature setting set a little more than half way between off and THAW.

After first prove, knock dough back (just as you do normal bread dough), divide into balls and leave to rise. Mine were on top of a http://www.siliconemoulds.com/pale-pink-silicone-baking-sheet-tray-liner-p-114.html on a rather tatty old baking tray and infront of the fire as you can see.

The second prove does not take too long - generally about 20 > 30 mins.

If you want crosses on your buns - do this after the second prove judst before you pop them into the oven

Make a mix with 50g of plain flour and 50ml of water. Mix until smooth. Pour into a sandwich bag and twist the end to make it like a cone shape or piping bag. Snip a tiny bit of the end and pipe on your crosses.

Actually - you can have a bit of fun with this. I did two like spiders webs that looked amazing baked - yet forgot to photograph them !

I baked these at 180deg C fan oven for 18minutes.

On removing from the oven, you would typically glaze with melted apricot jam whilst hot. However, I didn't have any - so glazed with marmalade instead which worked wonderfully and gave a bitter orangey tang to the buns. The ones above are hot and just glazed. They were lovely still warm - but even better toasted the next day.

I dare say you might not want to make Hot Cross Buns in January - but it's worth having a go sometime as home made ones not only look awesome but taste sooooo good !

Sarah-Jane Nash - http://www.siliconemoulds.com/ - 4th of January 2011

Haggis Bon Bons - Party Food / Canapes

Thought I'd share some of the party food from today with you all.

These are Haggis Bon Bons. Haggis is a traditional Scottish dish made from sheep offal mixed with spices, oatmeal and onion. It's really really tasty - but due to being made from offal, many people write it off before tasting for some reason.

Haggis can be pretty hard to get hold of here in England - though it is starting to appear in the shops from about now until January (when Scots celebrate Robert Burns who was a very well known poet of bygone years). I didn't actually buy haggis on this occassion, I received a massive box from my dad earlier in the week containing black pudding, lorne sausage and haggis. Most of it is now in the freezer.

Haggis Bon Bons are ideal party finger food and very easy to make.

Take some uncooked haggis and roll into approx 1" diameter balls.

Roll the balls in flour and then in beaten egg before coating in breadcrumbs.

I make my own bread crumbs with the halogen oven by cooking slices of bread at a low temperature for quite some time to dry it out but also keep it pale. After cooling, I then blitz this with my Bamix into fine crumbs.

After making the balls, refridgerate until required. Shortly before you need them, heat some oil about 1/3 deep in a pan. Drop in the balls and fry until golden (about 5 mins)

If you want to make these several hours in advance to save messing around with oil later - you can deep fry and then set aside.  Pop on the baking tray into your halogen oven on top rack at about 200deg C for about 5 mins to reheat. They'll take at least 10mins plus preheating in a normal fan oven.

They freeze well too after coating with the breadcrumbs - so easy preprepared party food !

Homemade Sausage Rolls

Traditional Oven versus Halogen Cooker / Oven

If you've never made your own sausage rolls - I'd urge you to have a go. It's so easy your 5 year old could do it on his / her own. They also taste a MILLION times better than shop bought.

Basically, all you need is a pack of shop bought puff pastry, some sausagemeat, an onion (optional) and an egg or some milk to glaze.

Roll out the pastry and cut into rectangles. Put some sausagemeat in the middle of each one and egg wash round the outside. Press edges with a fork (leaving ends open) to seal and put a couple of slashes in the top. You can make them as big as you like. Generally, you'll get 8 giant ones, 12 standard, 16 medium or 40 mini sausage rolls from 6 butchers sausages and a pack of puff pastry

You don't have to buy basic sausagemeat - you can buy some seriously good sausages these days and just remove the skins. I buy ours from the butchers and last weeks special (shown here) was pork, gammon and pineapple.

I cooked the first batch in the conventional fan oven for 20mins at 210 deg C on a silicone baking sheet on top of a tray.

I cooked the second batch in my Sarah-Jane's Halogen Oven on a baking tray at the same temperature (ALWAYS preheat oven for bread / pastry for 5 mins full power). These were nicely done in just 10mins. Super watching them - they rise so fast in front of your eyes :-)

I couldn't tell the difference in pastry or taste between batches - but they DID stick to the non stick baking tray in the halogen oven..... and they glided off the silicone baking sheet from the conventional oven.

The non-stick baking tray with the halogen oven is very good - but if something is going to stick, it will. I'm going to cut a silicone sheet to fit the circular halogen oven tray