Hot Chocolate Orange Fondant Puddings – a dirty little secret

We all love chocolate fondant pudding…the soft molten chocolate goo inside and the spongy crust provide for a great collision of taste sensations. Here I am using an eco friendly serving dish – the case of the orange itself which is also great if you dont happen to own ramekins or mini pudding tins. This also imbibes an extra orangey hit into the mix. I took the idea from a child’s cooking session where we baked orange cake in the shells and created this more adult version.

And now the dirty little secret…. no not that you can eat the batter direct from the bowl and never actually bother with making the puds…no something a little more prosaic… simply that you can cook these direct from frozen…hallelujah! and therefore they should be on your dinner party shortlist.

Ingredients (makes 12 halves)

2 oranges whole boiled for 1 hour starting with a level of water that almost covers them both – use up less than perfect oranges, make ahead and freeze them
6 oranges
cocoa powder, for dusting
200g good-quality dark chocolate, chopped into small pieces
200g butter, in small pieces plus extra if you are using ramekins or expresso cups
200g sugar
4 eggs and 4 yolks
100g plain flour (note for a gluten free version use rice flour or corn flour)
50g good cocoa powder

Gadgets & Gizmos

An electric whisk/ food mixer with a whisk attachment – unless you have Popeye biceps its not really worth whisking with a hand whisk…well I think its not!

A blender to pulp your boiled oranges.

A cup cake tin is handy

How To

If you are using orange halves no need to prepare your moulds just cut in half and use a citrus juicer to take out the juice. Now with your fingers or a teaspoon remove the pithy debris – what you want is orange halves free of the pith and segment membranes. It sounds worse than it is – its pretty easy! Cut a little of the orange away at each end so it will sit flat on a tray/ final serving plate. Place each empty half so it just rests on the cup cake hole.
If using ceramic/metal little pots/ ramekins make sure what you are using is ovenproof – expresso cups work well if you dont have ramekins. First get your moulds ready by painting them with melted butter and then allow it to go solid. Now sprinkle with cocoa powder generously, tip upside down onto a plate to remove excess. This step seems fiddly…..and it is. But the cocoa powder allows the pudding to rise up gracefully and not stick to the sides of the moulds. Same thing applies to souffles.
Cut your boiled oranges up roughly just to ensure you can take all the pips out. Blitz them up to a nice puree. It should smell like marmalade.
Melt your chocolate and butter together in the microwave (carefully and checking the rotating plate is rotating so you don’t set fire to it like I did recently…beautiful chocolate reduced to smoke and ash…) or traditionally in a bowl over simmering water.
In a separate bowl whisk the eggs and yolks together with the sugar until thick and pale and the whisk leaves a trail – if you havent got an electric whisk this is pretty daunting and I am not sure I would bother to be honest.
Sift the flour and cocoa into the egg mixture. Pour in the orange puree. Fold very gently until incorporated taking care that the orange puree hasnt all sunk to the bottom.
Pour the melted chocolate/butter into the orangey floury cocoay egg mixture in thirds, folding in ever so gently so as not to knock the air out. Again make sure the chocolate hasnt all accumulated at the bottom of your bowl.
You can tip into a jug but I hate excess washing up – I use a ladle to put into the orange halves. Fill to the brim. At this point you can freeze them. If cooking immediately it is better to chill them a little beforehand but not essential.
Heat oven to 180C and cook for 10-12 minutes until the tops have formed a crust and they are starting to come away from the sides of their moulds (this wont happen with the orange). If cooking from frozen add 6 minutes extra to the cooking time.
Serve immediately!

I think they are great with some vanilla ice cream on top or actually just as they are.

Risotto all’uva fragola (Fragola Grape Risotto)

Fragola grapes grace many a terrace in Bucharest and I’ve always been fascinated with their slightly “pear dropsy” strawberry aroma and taste. I don’t much care for eating them as they are because the skins are really thick and tough but when put through a mouli (not a food processor as the blades tend to pulverise the pips creating way too much bitterness and tannin) the resulting pulpy sauce makes magical sorbets, jelly and a sauce that works wonderfully over lemon ice cream. The resulting creations all have a very deep purple hue (although there is nothing heavy and metallic about them) So this time I wanted to have a go at the risotto. Essentially this is a regular white risotto where you use the grape pulp/liquid in place of most of the stock.

Ingredients (for 4)

320g risotto rice such as arborio or carnaroli. at a pinch if you have a craving for risotto and no posh Italian grains in the cupboard pudding rice will do

1 medium onion diced

1 clove of garlic smushed

1 litre of liquid which in this case should be approx 500ml of the grape pulp/liquid and approx 400ml of stock and 100ml vermouth or wine. Use approx 1kg grapes to obtain the liquid but the final quantity will depend on the grapes. If you are vegetarian use a veggie stock but personally I like a chicken stock.

Butter, olive oil, approx 100g parmesan, salt & pepper, good quality dried thyme or fresh

How To

Put the stock/grape pulp liquid in a saucepan and heat very gently – you dont want a jammy or “cooked” grape flavour in the risotto

Put a small knob of butter and a glug of olive oil in a saucepan with a heavy base – if you have a Le Creuset use it for risotto. Try and have a “wedge” shaped wooden spoon/ spatula as you want to be moving the rice around and having a clean saucepan bottom all the time. Fry the onion until translucent and add the garlic and rice and swirl around the pan for a couple of minutes taking care not to brown the onion.

Tip in the vermouth/wine and enjoy the “whoosh” and associated alcohol vapours! Give a good stir but this will probably absorb instantaneously. Then start adding the stock/grape mix and stirring slowly. This is quite hypnotic and generally much helped by having a glass of wine in your hand too. Add a teaspoon or so of the dried thyme at this stage.

Keep adding the liquid slowly as the rice absorbs it until it is just done – keep testing grains between your teeth until the rice is done. It should be firm but not uncooked in the middle of the grain (that will end in tummy ache!). At this point test for seasoning and add salt and pepper according to your own taste.

At this point you need to add the parmesan, maybe a little knob of butter and take the risotto off the heat and just stir gently and then leave the risotto for the all important relaxation stage (risotto is just soooo Italian). This is to allow the parmesan to melt gently and create a creaminess and depth of flavour.

This risotto works really well with crispy bacon or goat’s cheese – anything that offsets the inherent fruitiness of the risotto. Try it!

Gin & wild boar sausages (or meatballs or burgers)

Please don’t avoid making sausages because the entire idea of stuffing ground meat into intestinal tubes is abhorrent! Have a go with the seasoning and create amazing meatballs or gastro-burgers. If Michel Roux Jr can create a duck burger then it’s all OK! Now I did create these this week for a dinner where we served parsnip ciabatta (kind of gives it a sweetish flavor). The thought of slapping in a couple of sausages between the bread, adding a bit of salad, some meat juices and some red onion marmalade is more than appealing.

Making good sausages is really all about having good fresh meat, working fast to keep things cold (I know that every American article I read about making your own sausages involves hyper attentive instructions involving ice water baths but this is overkill). Simply work fast and keep things as cool as you can without giving yourself frostbite. The other key to sausages is seasoning – which is why starting with meatballs makes sense. When you have mixed your mixture fry up a little and taste it for seasoning and mouth feel. Now the first pass at this recipe made very lean sausages – not dry and besides you want things a bit lean from gamey sausages – but personally I would steer to a little more fat next time.

We made 5kgs of wild boar with 1 kg of fatty pork. 6kgs of sausages might be a bit much even for the most ardent sausage fan, so I have scaled it down here. The seasonings are personal – but don’t play too much with the salt because it is there for a reason. This recipe was sort of inspired by one of my favorite Greek sausages (involves red wine, chilli and orange zest) and also by my love of juniper. I find restraint quite difficult generally, but in this recipe go easy on the juniper to avoid sausages with a “soapy” flavor.

These sausages go great with a celeriac and potato mash or green lentils cooked in red wine and I really do think as meatballs or burgers sandwiched between good bread or popped in a pita they would be magical. I would be tempted to smoke these and in fact am curing a couple to see how they behave.

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