Recipe for Kumquat Fondants with Lychee Icecream

Here's an approximation of the recipe I used for our Chinese Banquet's dessert. I say an approximation because both recipes are mixtures of other recipes, so I need to remember (in my currently slightly sleepy state following a fabulous evening) exactly what the changes I made were...

Here goes:

For the ice cream


I adapted a recipe for Cinnamon and Basil ice cream from an ice cream recipe book I have. If you have never eaten Cinnamon and Basil ice cream, give it a go, it is divine.

You will need:

600ml full fat milk
8 egg yolks (check out Honey Wild's website for ideas on what to do with all those egg whites)
225g caster sugar (maybe a bit less, given the lychee syrup below)
360ml double cream
Can of lychees in syrup

Bring the milk to a low boil. Whilst this is happening, mix the egg yolks and sugar in a bowl. Remove the milk from the heat, and slowly pour into the egg mixture, before returning the eggy custard mix to the pan (you may want to use a new pan / wash the pan quickly in case any of the milk has stuck to the side). Place over a medium heat, stirring all the time, until the custard thickens (it won't get really thick, so don't worry if it's not). Coating the back of a spoon is thick enough.

Remove from the heat, leave to cool, and chill.

Meanwhile, drain the lychees, retaining a bit of the syrup. Pop in a blender, with a bit of the syrup (remembering, the ice cream custard needs to be sweeter than you would have it normally, as the freezing process, for reasons I do not understand, loses some of the sweetness. To taste, you may want to use more syrup and less sugar).

This lychee puree along with the double cream can now be added to the custard mixture. I normally at this stage add a splash of something stronger - but for the life of me can't remember which bottle was nearest the kitchen at the time, Calvados maybe? This bit is optional of course!

Now churn the custard in an ice cream maker, or, if you don't have one, pop in the freezer, taking it out regularly to stir by hand so you don't end up with an ice cream ice cube. Pop in a container in the freezer, but take out about 30mins before you need to serve it and leave in the fridge.


For the Fondants


Firstly make the kumquat goo.

I got my kumquats from Global Fruit and Veg opposite Barclay Church in Edinburgh, as they're not something you can buy in every supermarket. They will reduce quite a bit in cooking so - and this isn't very helpful - I tend to get about a bag full, and make extra.

Slice and seed the washed kumquat. If you could do this over a pan to save up all the juices, then all the better, but mind your fingers, as they're quite tricky to handle!

Add enough water to the pan to half cover the sliced kumquat (you can add more as you go along if you want a gooier syrup) plus two or three tbsp caster sugar.

Bring to a simmering boil and cook until the kumquats are soft and the liquid becoming syrupy. Depending on evaporation, you may want to add further liquid at this stage. Taste and, if necessary, add a bit more sugar at this stage and allow to dissolve and become syrupy.

Add a splash of whisky (to taste).

Now put the mixture into an ice cube tray. Knowing this may influence how syrupy you want to make the mixture, as what goes in to the ice cube tray as syrup, will ooze out pleasingly from the finished fondant.

Freeze these kumquat cubes for a minimum of 2 hours, or any time before you actually assemble the fondants.

Now for the fondants batter (thanks to LaRousse's Moelleux et Fondants book - translation errors all my own). These quantities make four, I did a multiple of this for the Supper Club:

2 eggs
100g icing sugar
100g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
Spices to taste - I used about a tsp each of cinnamon and ginger (my addition)
100g melted salted butter - plus butter for greasing
4 ramekins

Pre-heat the oven to 180c. Grease and flour the ramekins.

Beat the eggs and sugar for about 5 minutes, till light and fluffy. Fold in the rest of the dry ingredients.

Finally fold in the butter.

Use two thirds of the batter to part fill the ramekins, then pop into each one a kumquat ice cube. Use the remaining batter to cover the ice cube.

Pop in the oven for between 16-18 minutes (according to my French recipe book). In reality, mine took a minute or so longer. You want them to be golden and slightly crisped on top, but not dried out.

Once out of the oven, use a palette knife to loosen the little fondants from the ramekins, invert onto a plate, dust with icing sugar, and serve with a generous dollop of the ice cream.

Allotment progress

We've been making slow but steady progress with our organic allotment.  The battle with the perennial weeds, rye grass and the weather has made it a bit more challenging but a few weeks ago we finally cleared the entire plot and have been anxiously waiting to get some crops in. Yesterday we received our potatoes which have been lovingly chitted in Perthshire and we finally planted them in the ground!  Typically, just as we finished planting, the dark clouds over us relieved themselves of their hail stones and we got pelted! Don't you just love Edinburgh weather!?

Drum roll as the first one goes in!

Our first earlies are Sharpes Express, a heritage potato dating back to 1901.  This should be a good all-rounder and we expect to have some from around June.

Our second early crop will be Charlotte potatoes, which should be ready to serve up in some delicious summer salads.

Potato #1 in all it's glory!

We'll be planting more vegetables in the next few weeks so do come back to see how we're getting on!

Justine, proud of her first planting!

Table for Ten menu - Saturday 5th May

 

食品食品食品食品食品食品食品食品食品食品食品食品食品食品食品食品食品食品食品食品

“Chinese cooking is, in this sense, the manipulation of… foodstuffs as basic ingredients. Since ingredients are not the same everywhere, Chinese food begins to assume a local character simply by virtue of the ingredients it uses”

The next menu for Table for Ten is inspired by our love of Chinese food. Although we live in Scotland and love local food, our menu is designed to make the best use of Scottish produce in Chinese-style cookery.

Taking into account the principles of fan and ts’ai we have created a menu that should be both delicious and harmonious.

Table for Ten Menu

十大菜单表

Dim Sum

点心

Tomato and Eggflower Soup

番茄和鸡蛋花汤

Peking Duck

北京烤 鸭

Jasmine Tea Sorbet

茉莉花 茶冰糕

Sweet & Sour Prawns

Crispy Chicken Dumplings

Bean Sauce Noodles with Pork

甜酸 辣虾
香酥鸡饺
豉 汁面条猪肉

Kumquat Fondant & Lychee Ice Cream

金橘糖果软馅及荔枝冰淇淋

“In the Chinese culture, the whole process of preparing food from raw ingredients to morsels ready for the mouth involves a complex of interrelated variables that is highly distinctive when compared with other food traditions of major magnitude. At the base of this complex is the division between fan, grains and other starch foods, and ts'ai, vegetable and meat dishes. To prepare a balanced meal, it must have an appropriate amount of both rice or noodle product and meat and vegetables, and ingredients are readied along both tracks. Grains are cooked whole or as flour, making up the fan half of the meal in various forms: fan (in the narrow sense, "cooked rice"), steamed wheat-, millet-, or corn-flour bread, ping ("pancakes"), and noodles. Vegetables and meats are cut up and mixed in various ways into individual dishes to constitute the ts'ai half. Even in meals in which the staple starch portion and the meat-and-vegetable portion are apparently joined together, such as in . . . "wonton" . . . they are in fact put together but not mixed up, and each still retains its due proportion and own distinction.”

Quotes taken from Chang, K.C. (1977) Food in Chinese Culture: Anthropological and Historical Perspectives, Yale University Press, Newhaven, pp429.

You may also be interested in some of the symbolism associated with the food we have chosen:

Duck (鸭肉, yāròu) – fertility

Pork (猪肉; zhūròu) - strength, wealth, abundant blessing

Prawn (大虾; dàxiā) - liveliness

Chicken (whole) (鸡肉; jīròu) - prosperity, togetherness of the family, joy (note: chicken with its head, tail and feet symbolises completeness)

Noodles (面条; miàntiáo) uncut - long life

Kumquat (金橘; jīn jú) - gold, hence fortune, wealth

Lychee (荔枝; lìzhī) - close family ties

If you’d like to join us for our Chinese-inspired supper, then please email us at tableforten@btinternet.com

Time flies...

Now the last time I looked it was January and I was arm-deep in haggis, but suddenly I find myself staring at the end of March and it's almost April - where did it all go? Have I been in some kind of Rip Van Winkle-like slumber for the past 3 months??   It certainly feels like it, but in reality we at Table for Ten  have been very busy with the other parts of our lives so we apologise that we have spectacularly failed to write about our last supper which was our Burns' Supper back in January. To be honest my memory is rather foggy as I seem to recall a fair amount of whisky was drunk but we will get some photos up soon.

In the meantime, let me tickle your fancy so to speak by saying that our next Supper Club will on Saturday 5th May 2012 and it will be a Chinese banquet inspired by my mum and also the master of Chinese cookery, Mr Ken Hom.  We're just working up the menu  and we'll post it up on the blog very soon. We're going to do our own Peking duck - I've never tried it before so I'm looking forward to getting busy with the bicycle pump and a paint brush (Yes - really!).


If you'd like to come to our Supper on 5th May, then please email us at tableforten@btinternet.com.





 

Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face...

Burns Supper Saturday 28 January 2012

Our next supper club will be our celebration of Robert Burns, with piper, poetry and of course a traditional Burns' Supper menu:

      Cock-a-leekie soup

                   ~

               Haggis

     with clapshot & whisky sauce

                  ~ 

           Cranachan

Inspiration

In putting together our menu, we have been inspired by traditional recipes dating back to the 1800s and one person who features prominently is Mistress Meg Dods, a character from Walter Scott's work St. Ronan's Well.  Mistress Dods is said to have been modelled on Miss Marian Ritchie, the landlady of the Cross Keys in Peebles.

Cross Keys, Peebles in 2006

In the book Meg sets up and runs the Cleikum Club, an institution established to foster high quality Scottish food and drink. The Cleikum Club  is thought to be among the first organisations to celebrate a Burns' Night.

Scott is also believed to have been instrumental in the publication of one of Scotland’s most important culinary works, The Cook and Housewife’s Manual, or Meg Dods’ Cookery, as it was commonly known.This was published in Edinburgh in 1826 under the pseudonym of Mistress Margaret Dods.

The manual was supposedly compiled and written by Mrs Isobel Christian Johnstone, an author of some note and wife of an Edinburgh publisher although there is also a suggestion that Scott himself wrote it.  Who ever the author was, the manual provides a written record of Scotland's culinary traditions, customs and national dishes.  You can read it online here 

Interestingly, while researching this, I came across lots of evidence that Scotland, and in fact Edinburgh is truly the spiritual home of supper clubs. According to Lord Cockburn:

"Early dinners begat suppers. But suppers are so delightful that they have survived long after dinners have become late... Almost all my set, which is perhaps the merriest, the most intellectual, and not the most severely abstemious in Edinburgh, are addicted to it... Supper is cheaper than dinner; shorter; less ceremonious; and more poetical."

Indeed, suppers were an important meal during Scotland's Age of Enlightenment and Edinburgh suppers were highly regarded.

With such wonderful history, the best way we can think of to pay homage to Scotland's greatest poet is to celebrate him with a traditional meal. We will be serving food cooked using recipes dating back to the 1800s, including our very own handmade haggis, sourced from the best Scottish ingredients.

Great chieftan o' the puddin' race!

The origins of haggis are perhaps controversial; apparently a recipe for haggis dates back as far as 1430 from Lancashire and there other dishes that resemble haggis dating back to ancient Greece - Aristophanes described "a stuffed sheep's paunch... with its rich contents of all sorts."  Some suggestions are that the name haggis derived from the French hachis but it is more likely derived from hag - to chop (hack).  Certainly there is no claim from France that the dish is theirs but whatever the origin, the humble haggis is beloved in Scotland as the national dish and was certainly popularised by Burns.

Oddly enough, haggis appears to provoke strong reactions from some with those of a 'sensitive' disposition choosing to ignore the origins of the dish.  For our supper club, I will be making my version of traditional haggis with organic ingredients sourced from Hugh Grierson Organic, and to my mind is a proper mark of respect for the animal that fits in with my philosophy that we should use as much of an animal as possible.

For those of you coming to the Supper, we look forward to welcoming you for a fun celebration of the best of Scotland.  If you're not joining us, then do check back for photos and a review!

Festive Table for Ten

The Festive Supper table set and ready to go. Again, our beautiful menu cards provided by the brilliant Kirstie at White Blossom Paper Boutique in Bruntsfield. 

Getting to know each other

In the foreground, hand made rye bread rolls, thinly sliced homecured gravadlax with delicious salmon from Eddie's in Marchmont. Our guests' wine lined up and labelled.

Our two desserts. Lemon posset with berries and panettone butter pudding.

Our guests enjoying the meal

Guests and hosts enjoying a post dinner chat.

Burns Night Supper

Our first event of 2012 will be a Burns Night Supper on 29 January.  More details to follow - email us on tableforten@btinternet.com to book.