The Keston Kitchen Calendar 2013

Back in 2010, The Keston Kitchen Calendar was born.  Packed with seasonal, delicious recipe's by the 4 of us and featuring some excellent photographs plus we raised £1000 for The Passage, a charity that helps feed homeless people in London and recieved a personal letter from Her Delianess.  It was a good year!!

We are very excited to announce that 2013 will welcome the 2nd edition of the KK Calendar. Each month features original, seasonal recipes, and the calendar as a whole reflects the variety of British dishes conjured up in the Keston Kitchen.  This year we are  lucky to feature the incredible photographic talents of Miss Ellen Doherty from Duchess Photographic. 

Peckham Fried Chicken- shot from 2013 Keston Kitchen Calendar

For 2013, we are delighted to be supporting a wonderful charity called Give Me Education whch was set up by Viv Nutt, a friend of ours from The Shire. Give Me Education supports children in Aksum, Ethiopia by giving them resources for an opportunity to go to school. 

The design has once again been lovingly put together by the fantastic Nick Ritchie.  Thanks so much to Ellen and Nick for their time, patience and commitment to the project.

So, if you are at a loss for what to buy loved ones at Christmas, or just can't get enough of the Keston Kitchen, order your calendar today! They cost £10 each plus P&P - we want to raise as much as possible for Give Me Education.  If you would like to order a copy, email thekestonkitchen@gmail.com to place your order. We will then reply with payment and delivery details and get them to you before Christmas.

Alternatively, if you are local to Peckham or Camberwell we can arrange collection.

Jules, Ceri, Charl and Rach. xxx 

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Winter Tomato Tarts

Winter Tomato Tarts

with Parmesan short crust

New / old tins from ebay have been staring at me for two months now so here goes...

Rule - half fat to flour. I used 110g flour to 55g butter (Netherend is simply the best) with a pinch of salt and tbsp of water. Rub the fat into the flour lifting as much as possible - mum says add the water and mix with a knife - do no knead. Add some grated Parmesan if you fancy. Pinch the ingredients together, form a ball and put in the fridge wrapped in baking paper until you are ready.

Roll out the pastry and push into your tin(s). Metal tins are best as they are good heat conductors. Prick the pastry, fill with your beans to bake blind and bake on 200C for 12-15mins.

Meanwhile make you're tomato sauce, a basic sauce that can be used for many things. Slice and slowly cook an onion in olive oil, add a clove of crushed garlic. Add one tin of tomatoes, a handful of fresh tomatoes (not many around right now), chopped basil and salt & pepper. Simmer for 20-30mins. Cool.

Heat the oven to 180C and when the pastry has cooled make the filling - whisk one egg and one egg yolk, add 110ml milk/cream mix and your tomato sauce with a tsp chopped marjoram. Season. Pour the filling into your tart(s) and bake for 30-40mins until firm to touch. Eat warm.

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Berlin - 5 days of food

Last weekend i went to visit Julia and her Keston Kuche in Berlin. The weather was very chilly but the cafes were warming and there is an amazing choice of food to sample from traditional German to cuisines from around the globe.
Berlin may not be the obvious choice for a foodies paradise but if you go to the right places (and hanging out with a resident definitely helps) you will be pleasantly surprised.
Her are some of my culinary highlights, take note if you are planning a trip there!

Rachael x

 My favourite gallery in Berlin is the Hamburger Bahnhof, before embarking on the art we paid a visit to the restaurant in the gallery. I have been to Berlin a few times and always avoided currywurst and the orange sausages they serve everywhere but this menu made it sound appetizing and promised that the sausage was organic. It came with lots of mustard and fresh horse radish which made it edible!

For dessert at the gallery restaurant we had apple strudel with vanilla sauce which was absolutely delicious and not to be missed!

It was Julia's friend Andrew's birthday while we were visiting so Ju whipped up some black bottom cupcakes (from the humming bird bakery cook book) and a lovely coffee cake to celebrate.

This brunch featured in the previous Keston Kuche post and rightly so, i was keen not to miss out on trying it for myself. Anna Blume is a bustling cafe in Prenzlauer Berg, the brunch was worth making the trip for - a tower of meats, cheeses, salad, fruit and jams and a basket of bread to go alongside.

 Julia and I stopped for cake at a cafe in the Hackescher Markt courtyards, i had a huge slice of apple, walnut and caramel cake with cream cheese and caramel frosting. Ju had an equally exciting looking carrot cake.

After a long morning of culture in the sub zero temperatures we were in serious need of a hot meal, we stopped at a restaurant called Schwarzwaldstuben for a hearty lunch of schnitzel with fried potatoes and a cucumber salad. 

Back to Anna Blumes for a fruity breakfast

 

We headed south one evening to a jazz night in Neukolln at Cafe Engel and stopped off on the way for a Korean meal at Kimchi Princess. Lu and I opted for this feast which was strips of pork belly that you barbeque yourself at the table and the eat wrapped in lettuce with a selection of tasty curry pastes and spicy cabbage. I will definitely be keen to try more Korean food in future.

  

 The last thing i ate before leaving Prenzlauer berg was at my favourite cafe from previous visits. Kauf Dich Glucklich on Oderberger Strasee does the most amazing waffles with a huge choice of toppings. Every time a visit i have the same though - apple sauce and cinnamon!

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Roasted & Stuffed Butternut Squash

by Ceri x

Autumn is officially my favourite season.  Summer is lovely, but always infinately hectic and, erm well... hot!

With the arrival of Autumn comes the crisp clear mornings and the inevitable back to school feeling, that I still very much get due to how busy the summer is.  I love seeing your breath as you step out into a cold sunny morning with frost still on the ground, kicking and crunching the leaves underfoot in the park, digging out the knitwear and cosying up by the fire.  Then to top it all off: there is the food!  Autumn brings us the harvest so is the very best time for picking, foraging, pickling, boiling up big vats of chutney and generally getting the best that the country and season has to offer.  Stews, pies, casseroles, steaming puddings, soups, crispy skinned jacket potatoes and all the other foods that are just too heavy for the hot summer months.

This year, I have been loving the fig.  That delightfully juicy fruit with an amazing texture,  flavour and which I recently cooked up a fig tart recipe courtesy of our Jules (currently on location in Berlin) which she posted previously and is well worth a look.  However, my other dearly beloved part of  the autumnal menu is the return of the most traditionally fabulous of British food institutions, the Roast!

I love a Sunday roast.  Sundays and Autumn seem to go together hand in hand.  Lazy Sundays reading the papers, giggling about the activities of Friday and/ or Saturday night, doing the crossword, drinking good coffee/ Bloody Marys and having a stroll in the park whilst donning aforementioned knitwear before coming home/ going to a decent pub and settling in for a damn fine roast eating session for me are irresistible.

This Sunday, Rachie cooked up a Pork Belly with delicious home made Apple sauce and the crunchiest crackling I ever did chomp.  However, for  this post I am going to go for a vegetarian option and roast up another shining star of Autumn, the Butternut Squash.  This works very well as the vegetarian option on a Sunday, or you can do as I did and serve it with salad for your Monday Roast (why limit yourself to just once a week).

(Apologies for the slightly fuzzy picture, my camera is playing up!)

Roasted & Stuffed Butternut Squash
Serves 2

Ingredients
1 medium sized butternut squash
4 garlic cloves
1 small onion
100g chopped walnuts
60g blue cheese (I used roquefort)
a few sprigs of fresh thyme or rosemary (dried will be fine if that's all you have)
5 mushrooms
150g spinach
200g watercress or other leaves for salad
drizzle of olive oil + more for dressing if used
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
salt and pepper

Tip- You can more or less make up the stuffing as you wish.  Goats cheese, peppers, celery, tomatoes, feta, cabbage, pine nuts, toasted almonds, olives etc etc would all work well and it's fun trying out different flavour combinations.  I have done a few though and this is my favourite.

• Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees. Cut the butternut squash lengthways.  Scoop out the seeds but do not throw away. Cut out the flesh approx 2 cm down leaving a 2 cm ledge around the edge of the squash.  If the flesh is too hard for this at this stage, you can always do it once it has cooked a little.  Place both halves skin side down into a baking tray.
• Score crosses in the flesh, drizzle some olive oil over both sides, add a garlic bulb inside each + one in the bottom of the tray.  Season with salt, freshly ground pepper and the thyme then bake in the oven for 45 minutes.
• Meanwhile, add the walnuts to a heated, dry frying pan with the squash seeds and a little salt, moving the pan often for approx 5- 10 minutes until they start to toast- set aside in a bowl.
• Then chop the garlic and onion, add to the frying pan with a bit more olive oil and gently fry.  Once the onion has softened, add the chopped mushrooms . Fry for another 5 minutes, then add watercress and spinach until it wilts.  
• Check that the squash has cooked through  the flesh will be soft and the edges will have begun to brown slightly.  Cube the blue cheese and sprinkle throughout the stuffing mixture along with the toasted walnuts and place inside the squash.  I like to give the whole thing a short drizzle with balsamic vinegar or worcester sauce at this point.
• Turn the oven down to 100 degrees and return the squash for 5-10 minutes until the filling has heated back through and the cheese has begun to melt.
• Serve with a salad and enjoy!  Happy Monday Roast :)

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Sloe Gin

This year on my birthday i was in Cornwall. One of the gifts i was very happy to receive was the River Cottage Handbook 2 - Preserves. This has been an important resource in the Keston Kitchen, particularly at this time of year, very glad to now own a copy myself as the previous one moved to Camberwell with Charlotte!

When i got the book i was keen to use some of the recipes from it as soon as i could, where we were staying by the Helford river, the blackberries were not quite ripe. There was one thing though that could be found growing along the shore in vast quantities - sloes.
I filled a bag full of the fruit, they were small and took some persuading to be parted from the blackthorn bush. As i understand you ideally wait until after the first frost before picking your sloes but if you are concerned about the birds eating them all before this has happened, or if like me you have to grab them while you can, the alternative is to freeze them. This process helps break down the internal structure of the berries and gets the juices flowing.

When i got home to London i popped the sloes in the freezer for a couple of days and then let them defrost before following the recipe below. These instructions make about a litre of sloe gin but i just worked out how many sloes i had an adjusted the other ingredients proportionally.

Mine has been infusing for about a week now, should just about ready in time for Christmas!

Ingredients:

450g sloes, frosted or pricked
450g granulated sugar (or less for a more tart gin)
600ml gin
A large glass jar or bottle - Make sure your jar has a good seal and you will be shaking the contents around and you don't want the precious liqueur leaking out. I found that for the quantities above i needed a jar with a capacity of about 2 litres because the fruit takes up a lot of space.

Put the defrosted sloes into your jar or bottle. Pour over the sugar, followed by the gin. Secure the container with the lid and give it a good shake to mix up the contents. For the next week shake it daily to prevent the sugar from settling on the bottom and to help get the juice out of the sloes. Thereafter shake and taste once a week for 8-10 weeks.
When the sloes have instilled their flavour, pass the mixture through a fine sieve. Pour the strained liqueur into bottles.
Ideally, you should leave sloe gin for 18 months before drinking to allow the flavour to mature and mellow but i know from experience that it rarely lasts until the end of the festive season.
In the preserves book they recommend keeping the sloes, removing the stones and eating them with ice cream or folded into melted chocolate, i have not tried this yet myself but i will report back!

Of course if you don't have sloes you can use different fruit like damsons or blackberries and apple. One year some friends brought round their greengage rum which was delicious! Adding fruit and sugar to any half empty bottles of spirits sat in your cupboard is definitely the way forward.

Rachael x

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Brunch in Berlin

577 miles between us but Keston Kitchen teamwork is still going strong.   So as Keston Kitchen UK was dishing up an exotic brunch at the Elrington Table, Keston Küche has been dutifully dining out at some of the best brunch tables in Berlin.

Brunch platter for two at Cafe Anna Blume in Prenzlauer Berg

Brunch is a Berlin institution.  It's reflective of this city's laid back mentality that Sundays are perfectly designed to help you gently and easily recover from the night before.  You stroll into one of the many and varied cafes when you wake, anytime between 11 and 5pm, establish yourself in a comfy spot - in the last throws of summer this has been on sunny terraces outside - and prepare to stay a while.  

I've been to two types of brunches.  The first is the standard choose-of-the-menu brunch.  I guess the difference here is the array of choice and the generous portions, designed to be consumed slowly as you digest the events of the night before with a couple of bleary-eyed pals.

Then there's the brunch buffet.  But this is no mad rush to stock your plate with cold toast and greying scrambled eggs; it is a delicious ever-evolving spread that will gently bring you back to life.  When you first arrive, there's fresh fruit and yoghurt... then at some point croissants and bread and cheese emerge... then you notice the meats beginning to take over the table…. and for the hungrier there's pastas and hot dishes from mid afternoon.  Who could fail to feel right as rain after this?  And once you've spend a couple of hours at brunch, you stroll home and… do nothing.  And that is Sunday in Berlin.  Perfect.

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Join us for - BRUNCH CLUB - Hackney - 22nd Sept





Join Keston Kitchen and the Elrington Table in Hackney E8 for BRUNCH this Saturday.

email to book: patrickgray82@gmail.com / charlotte.whiting@gmail.com

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