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Archive for the tag “mother and daughter cooking”

07 Mar 2021

Keema calm and carry on

I’m celebrating my love of the food columns and supplements in The Guardian by trying to cook at least one recipe from each issue of Guardian Feast in 2021. Find out a bit more about that here.

After such a long period of breath-holding it’s almost too scary to believe that we may be at a turning point with coronavirus. It’s times like these when a good dose of comfort food steadies the nerves and warms the heart – and distracts from something we almost daren’t believe in. Lovely, reliable food.

We’ve found that some issues of Feast don’t inspire us to rush immediately to the kitchen (although there’s always something to be tackled, of course). However, other issues have us racing to the hob before Saturday coffee – and offer such rich pickings that we plunder them again and again. So, for lashings of calming comfort, we returned to Issue No.162 and Felicity Cloake’s perfect keema – which had already gifted us Tamal Ray’s chai-spiced mousse with caramel pecans and several other recipes including Rachel Roddy’s magnificent pork, bread and bay skewers.

A sneak preview of the Husband’s take on Rachel Roddy’s fantabulous pork, bread and bay skewers – also from Feast Issue No.162

I’m still one foot down so The Husband and eldest daughter remain firmly in the cooking seat. The Husband has been creating all sorts of deliciousness – including the skewers pictured above – but is determined to guest blog about his endeavours. Last night it was the eldest daughter who stepped up to Felicity’s perfect keema challenge. She allowed me to meddle lightly in the prep of chilli, ginger and garlic before ushering me back to my foot-up observation point.

We agree with Felicity’s keema preference of lamb over beef – and fattier over lean – for this spicy, fragrant feel-good lip-smacker. Eldest daughter would have liked to add lamb bone marrow for an even richer vibe but none was available – next time. Total cooking and prep time about an hour.

The only hiccup was the realisation that we were low on fresh coriander. Oh, and that mint sauce was our only source of mint. Hey ho, in went the fresh coriander bolstered with frozen and The Husband persuaded eldest daughter to tip in a tablespoon of mint sauce. Perfect keema? Yeah baby! One of the fabulous things about this recipe is the pop of intense flavour delivered by those whole cardamom, coriander and cumin seeds. The final masterstroke was serving the keema with coconut rice (shavings from a block of creamed coconut cooked in with the rice) infused with cinnamon. The daughter had made enough keema and rice for five peckish people. We three wolfed down the lot.

Here’s to lockdown ending and staying ended – and taking comfort in comfort food for the sheer and simple joy of it.

Original recipe:

Felicity Cloake – the perfect keema

Felicity Cloake's perfect keema created by my eldest daughter
Comfort on a plate: the spicy pop of perfect keema served with coconut and cinnamon rice in my Berwick kitchen
Posted in A year with The Guardian Feast, Covid Diary, Foody stuff, Posts, Uncategorized and tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment
23 Jul 2017

A mother & daughter moment with pastel de nata

So the 15-year-old has just been to Portugal. She came home longing for those gorgeous, sticky custard pastries whose sweetness is so cleverly balanced by an ethereal hint of lemon and cinnamon. She remembered that I had a recipe tucked away somewhere and asked me to dig it out. Turns out it was an old BBC Good Food recipe (this is a slightly different recipe to the one we tried).

I remember so keenly cooking with my Mum. Mostly it involved me licking the spoon after cake-making, making pastry animals with off-cuts, and stirring grated cheese into cheese sauce and saying, ‘I’m bored’. Mum always maintained that I showed no interest in cooking whatsoever and that trying to teach me was pointless. Despite this, I do remember Mum showing me how to make a roux (so useful!). I suspect that my love of cooking comes largely from hanging around and watching her cook (and eating the results!) and, even if in her eyes I was disdainful of it all, her skills seem to have rubbed off: I’m a pretty good cook!

So I was chuffed that the 15-year-old wanted to cook with me. In fact she’s been showing an increasing interest in experimenting – cooking us scrambled eggs for lunch, trying out different ways with pancakes etc. But Portuguese egg custard tarts would certainly be pushing her skills.

I was in charge of weighing and setting out equipment. The 15-year-old occupied herself with being a bit tetchy (she’d been working late as a pot-washer in a local hotel the previous night!) and making the cinnamon-lemon syrup and the custard. This was slightly fraught but much beating and a quick sieve solved everything (isn’t that exactly the way to learn how ingredients behave?)!

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The custard cooling post beating and sieving

Energy levels had waned by the time it came to rolling and cutting the ready-roll puff pastry! However, the repartee while I made pastry discs (all that making pastry animals paid off Mum!) and the 15-year-old inserted them into the buttered muffin tray was second to none!

Look, the result wasn’t perfect – I forgot to put the muffin tray on a pre-heated baking sheet so we had a bit of Mary Berry’s proverbial soggy bottoms. But they tasted great. And maybe this will be a moment that my 15-year-old will look back on warmly one day – I know I shall.

The cooled pastel de nata: not perfect but dang tasty!
And prettified with a little blowtorching and hazy filter!

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