Piddie's Kitchen: August 2022

Saturday 27 August 2022

Left-over carrots? Why not use them to make a carrot cake.

For the icing I simply use

pre-heat the oven to ca 150C
grease the baking form with butter or oil. Insert the grease-proof/baking foil. It should stick against the form
peel and grate the carrots, put aside
put the eggs and sugar in the bowl. If you have a mixer, use a whisker and whip up the eggs/sugar until it gets to a creamy consistency
add all the other ingredients and continue mixing. The dough may well be a bit liquid, but that's ok.
pour the content into the baking form. Et voilà put it into the oven.
Bake for 1h15min (75min)
take the form out of the oven. you should be able to lift the cake out of the form by lifting the baking paper. transfer the cake to a plate
in a bowl, sift in the icing sugar. Add the lemon juice. And then whisk it (with an electric/handheld device) to make sure that no lumps are left. You might need to add icing sugar to ensure a thick consistency.
pour the icing slowly over the cake. You may have to do this in stages, otherwise the whole icing runs off.

5 filets of herring, failing that mackerel will do nicely as well. Make sure you get the filets from a fishmonger rather than the stuff (smoked and spiced) you buy in supermarkets. The filets should be deboned.
2 carrots
2 onions
1 clove
A couple of thyme twigs - or take dried thyme
2 laurel leaves
1 lemon
75mg white wine (I actually took gin - don’t know how that works yet)
75mg white wine vinegar
Salt, peppercorns
Oil

For serving

Peel onions and carrots
Slice onions into thin rings chop the carrots
Wash and slice a lemon into thin rings
Wash and dry the mackerel filets. With a sharp knife, cut the filets into 2 halves alongside. Then cut diagonally into chunks of ca 1 inch (2.5cm) wide
Put the mackerel chunks into the tin. When the surface is covered slightly salt and pepper them and add half of the lemon rings on top.
Continue until all of the mackerel/lemon is in the tin
Add wine/vinegar, onions, carrots, laurel leaves, clove, thyme, peppercorns and salt into the pot and bring to the boil with the lid closed for 10min
When 10min are over pour the content over the mackerel/lemon chunks in the tin. I usually pour in some oil to make sure all of the fish is covered in the marinade
Let it cool down after which cover the tin well (the smell) and put in the fridge. It should marinate for at least 3 days. A week apparently is ok, too.

Remove the marinated fish from the fridge. Take the portion you need out of it and put aside. It should get to room temperature
You need potatoes. Peel them and cut them into 1cm thick rings. You can also use some spring onions for decoration
Put them into a pot with cold water and a bit of salt
Bring to the boil and cook for 20min, including the time it takes to boil the water . The potatoes should be soft but not disintegrate.
Remove the potatoes from the hot water and put on a plate. Immediately, put some of the marinated mackerel with onion rings and carrots over the hot potatoes and add the marinade as per taste.

There are many different versions of this American classic. Here is one that works for me.

Preheat the oven to 170C
Separate the egg yolk from the whites of the eggs and put the yolks into a bowl and set aside (you can use the egg white for something else - it won’t be needed for this cake though)
Get the juice from the limes and put into a glass
Grease the baking form
Crumble the biscuits and add them to a mixer bowl. Add sugar and butter and start mixing until it becomes a dough that you can put into the baking form.
Make sure the dough covers the baking form evenly. Put into the oven and bake for 10-15min. It should get slightly brown.
Remove the form from the oven and let it cool down.

Now start preparing the filling:

With a handheld whisker (electric if available) start whisking the egg yolk in the bowl.
When it starts changing colour and consistency gradually pour in the condensed milk
While keep whisking add the lime juice
Pour the content onto the pre-baked dough in the baking form
Put into the oven for ca 15-20min. It should not get too brown,
Remove from oven and let cool down
When cold enough put into the fridge for at least 6 hours, or overnight.

It can be served with whipped cream or Swedish cream