Cardamom rice soufflé cakes Rizskók tortácskák

Rizskók or rizskoch is usually a sweet rice soufflé baked in a large baking tray in the oven, then cut up into squares and served with a drizzle of raspberry cordial or jam. It's the typical school dinner pudding and afternoon treat from my childhood and it was always delicious as it was. I wanted to improve the recipe by using nice arborio rice with one or two things I love with rice and milky puddings. An addition of ground cardamom and topping the cakes with cinnamon roasted red plum compote is just so much more wintry and warming. Using little cake moulds, cups, muffin or tart cases  make them look a lot more appealing, but it would be just fine in a tray or cake tin too. 

120g arborio risotto rice

500ml milk

25g butter

half tsp ground cardamom

half tsp lemon zest

few drops of vanilla extract

50g caster sugar

2 eggs, yolks and whites separated

Melt the butter in a pan, add the rice and stir it around gently so it's all coated. Add the cardamom, lemon zest, vanilla extract, sugar and gradually start adding the milk as if you were making a risotto. Try not to stir the rice too much, just move it around slightly, adding more milk as the rice soaks it up while cooking. It should be cooked but not mushy, a creamy texture with a scent of cardamom. Let it cool down. Preheat the oven to 180C. Beat the egg yolks and mix it with the rice when it is cool or just lukewarm. Beat the egg whites until stiff then gently fold it into the rice, making sure it stays airy and light. Fill your greased cake moulds with the rice mix or spread into a lined baking tray and bake for 20-30 minutes until cooked through and lightly coloured. Stick a wooden skewer into the centre, it should come out clean.

For the topping I cut 8 red plums into quarters, sprinkled with cinnamon and 50g sugar, mix and roast in the oven at 180C for 20-40 minutes depending on the ripeness of the fruit. It should be soft and the juices syrupy when ready. Drizzle this over the cakes and dust with icing sugar.

Cardamom and saffron poached pears

 

We eat a lot of poached pears, apples and plums in winter and try to ignore the tasteless imported berries and other summer fruit. Seasonal winter fruit such as pears tend to be rather under ripe on supermarket shelves but they lend themselves to poaching perfectly. In fact you can poach any slightly unripe fruit with a bit of sugar and warming spices. They transform our winter breakfast porridge into something really special. I make this saffron poached pear every week, it's quick with a delicious scent of cardamom and a fabulous deep yellow colour from the saffron, great with breakfast or add it to vanilla ice cream. I adapted the original recipe from Darina Allen, she makes it with tons more sugar to make it a scented syrup. For us that would just be too ridiculously puddingy for breakfast, so I only add a tablespoon of sugar to the poaching juices. This is perfectly enough as the pears also give it a natural sweetness. How does it fit in with the Hungarian theme? Poached or preserved fruit has always been part of our diet back home, there was little choice of fresh fruit in winter. Poached fruit has always had a bit of a plain and boring quality about them, mainly in the form of overcooked apple compote. But I discovered spices like cardamom, star anise, cloves, cinnamon bark, saffron can make a huge difference to flavour and colour. Adding red plums to any poaching fruit will transform the whole dish to a beautiful claret red. As you can tell I am a big fan of poached fruit and there will be more to come in this topic :-)

6 pears

500ml water

1 tbsp caster sugar

lemon rind and some juice

small pinch of saffron

6 cardamom pods, crushed

Bring the water, sugar, cardamom, few strips of lemon rind, tbsp of lemon juice and pinch of saffron gently to the boil, stirring until the sugar dissolves. Peel the pears with a potato peeler, cut them in half length ways, core them, leaving the stalks on. Place them into the poaching liquid cut side down and gently simmer for 10-15 minutes then turn over and simmer for the same time. The poaching time depends on the ripeness of the fruit. If the pears are softer and more ripe, they will take less time to poach. If you can easily insert a knife into the pears, they are ready. By this time the juices have also reduced to a sweeter more syrupy liquid and the pears taken on a deep golden colour. If the fruit takes longer to poach, keep an eye on the syrup ad top it up with a little boiling water if need to. When ready, cool it down and keep it in the fridge. Serve it with porridge, birchers muesli, yoghurt, chopped nuts or as a dessert with  ice cream and drizzle with chocolate.

Rosehip Cordial Csipkebogyó szörp

Last Sunday we had a lovely morning at Stoneywish Nature Reserve recommended by my friend Briah. Because of the recent wet weather it was really quiet and we had the place to ourselves, so Leo our 18 months old could run around happily checking out the farm animals, wooden structures at the playground, the teepees and feed the ducks and the fish in the pond - which is the cleanest and most full of wildlife I have ever seen. There were few blackberries left which he all pretty much ate off the hedgerow there and then, but there were plenty of rosehips to pick from now until Christmas. Not entirely sure if it's ok to pick the hedgerows in a Nature Reserve, I had a go anyway as there were so much of it and picked a small amount (about half a large freezer bag) so there is always plenty left for the birds too. 

When I was searching for a good rosehip cordial recipe I found a great variety of them. Most will tell you to boil the fruit with water, then add sugar and carry on boiling for quite sometime to reduce to a syrup. Rosehips have one of the highest vitamin C (and other vitamins) contents among the hedgerow berries, which tend to diminish at temperatures even as low as 50-60C. Its flavours might improve with cooking, but the winter goodness that is so excellent to keep away colds will completely disappear with lengthy boiling. Some recipes suggest longer soaking time in cooler water, then adding a sugar syrup separately, which I chose to do in the end.

Picking rosehips is best around the end of October when the first frosts arrive. Make sure the berries are bright red and ripe but not yet soft. Wear some gloves and clothes you don't mind ruining, the bushes are full of thorns. 

500g Rosehips

800g granulated sugar

Juice of 1 lemon

Top and tail the rosehips removing the green stalk at one end and the black tip at the other. Wash and rinse. Chop the hips up in a food processor into small pieces. Cover them with 500 ml boiling water and 250ml cold water, give it a good stir, cool down and stick in the fridge for a couple of days. If you can remember give it a stir every so often. After two days of soaking, strain the liquid through a fine muslin to get rid of any hips and seeds, discard these, the tiny hairs on them can irritate the throat. Make the sugar syrup by gently heating the sugar with 250ml water until dissolves (do not stir). Boil it for a few minutes to thicken, cool it down slightly then gently pour into the strained rosehip juice, adding the lemon juice to it, stirring to mix well. Pour into sterilised bottles or plastic tupperware for freezing later. Allow to cool down completely before putting in the fridge or freezer. It will keep for a week in the fridge, which is why it is handy to freeze some. This makes a tasty Christmas present too if you can bear giving some away! The above quantity made us 1.5 litres of cordial.

Szedres papucs - Bramble parcels

The blackberry season is here so were back in Stanmer yesterday foraging for some more free and delicious autumn fruit. They are small and very sweet, perfect for little bite size cakes.

Little parcels or slippers "papucs" as they call them in Hungary  are made with puff pastry. Originally they would have been made with pork fat and flour around the slaughtering season in winter and the most popular filling was the thick and creamy Hungarian plum paste  szilvalekvár - something I have not attempted to make yet, as it involves hours and hours of patient simmering and stirring, and it needs the right sort of plums which are difficult to get hold of in the UK. Similar jams you can buy in Austria and Germany too.  I added blueberry jam to my brambles this time but any home made or shop bought berry jam and fresh or frozen berries (completely thawed) will be perfect as long as you add some starch to the mix to hold it together. I used ground arrowroot (tapioca starch) which keeps a clear colour so good with fruit. These can be found in little sachets in supermarket bakery sections. If you use really thick jams, you wouldn't even have to bother with starch. Ready rolled puff pastry makes this a really quick and easy dessert. Dust it with cinnamony icing sugar and eat it warm dipped into some chantilly cream.

1 packet of ready rolled puff pastry (at room temperature) 

250g blackberries

3 tbsp blueberry jam
grated zest of a lemon

1tbsp (1sachet) ground arrowroot

butter

1 egg white

Preheat the oven to 200C/gas mark 6. Wash and dry the blackberries on paper towel and chop them up if they are too big - supermarket berries tend to be huge! Mix them with the blueberry jam, lemon zest and ground arrowroot. Unroll the pastry sheet and cut it into 15 squares (about 7cmx7cm). Lightly beat the egg white and brush the pastry squares edges with it. Put a generous teaspoon of  berry mix on each square and spread it evenly, leaving the brushed edges free. Place a little knob of butter on top of the fruit mix. Fold two opposite corners of the square on top of each other, press the corners lightly together and place them onto a lined baking sheet. Brush the top with more egg white and bake for 20-25 minutes or until crisp and golden colour. 

 

Bodzalekvár - Elderberry Jam

 

I took our little 16 months old son Leo to our local Stanmer Park berry picking a couple of days ago. He was in a backback enjoying the views and eating lots of blackberries while I managed to pick a kilo of elderberries and blackberries. His face (and the back of my jumper) was a beautiful claret colour from all the squashed blackberries! There are lots more to pick if anyone has the chance to go now. These are the same elder trees I picked flowers from early summer for elderflower cordial.

Elderberries are packed with vitamin C so great for winter top up. In this recipe I also used blackberries and apples, it's a delicious combination of autumn fruit, they really compliment each other. Try this jam on top of your porridge with a little bit of milk and honey and a sprinkle of cinnamon. 

750g elderberries

250g blackberries 

1kg slightly sour apples (I used Discovery)
2-3 cinnamon sticks or cinnamon bark

500g granulated sugar (or more if you like it sweeter)

juice of 1/2 lemon

water (about 1 litre)

Pick the elderberries off the stalks with a fork (or by hand) and wash. They will need a couple of rinses. The best way of doing this is by covering them with plenty of water in a bowl. All the green berries and the dry shrivelled ones will float to the top and you can skim these off easily. The ripe fruit sinks to the bottom of the dish. Wash the blackberries too and add both to a large pan. Add about 100ml water. Wash and core the apples, chop them into cubes. I didn't bother to peel them. Add them to the pan together with the cinnamon sticks. Bring it to the boil then start simmering until all the fruit has fallen to bits and become soft. This took me around 30 minutes. You will need to add some more water little at a time as you go. Keep an eye on the pan, the simmering fruit should have a jam consistency right the way through. I used about a litre of water added gradually. Take the pan off the heat and add the sugar slowly, mixing it until it is completely melted, then add the lemon juice. Taste and adjust the sugar if you like. Put it back on the heat and bring back to the boil, cook it for 10 minutes. Pour the jam into sterilized jars (this recipe made 8x200ml jars), seal and let it cool.

Almás pite - Cinnamon apple squares

 

This is my Mum's recipe. She prefers a yeasty dough for the pastry as it makes this cake really light and it keeps fresh and soft for days. It is a perfect mid-afternoon autumnal treat with the warm scent of cinnamon and cooked apples. I used dessert apples as they need less sugar for stewing and we like their flavour. In Hungary it is served with just a dusting of icing sugar, but it would also be lovely with cream, fresh egg custard, creme fréche, sour cream or thick Greek yoghurt.

For the pastry:

500g plain flour

100 ml milk

20g fresh yeast or 7g (1packet) dried yeast

100g icing sugar

2 egg yolks

200g melted butter

Crumble the fresh yeast into the luke warm milk and leave to activate in a warm place for 15 minutes. If using dried yeast, add it straight to the flour. Sift the icing sugar and flour together, add the yeasty milk, egg yolks and knead it until well mixed. Add the melted butter gradually until it becomes smooth. Use a dough mixer or a bread maker for these first stages (you can leave dough to rise in bread mixers too). Cover it with a damp tea towel and leave in a warm place to rise - this could take an hour or more. In the meantime, make the filling.

For the filling:

2kg dessert apples, peeled and grated

5tbsp sugar (less or more to taste - depends on your taste buds and the sweetness of the apples)

1tsp ground cinnamon

Grate the apples by hand or a food processor and put them in a large heavy base saucepan with the sugar and cinnamon. Warm it slowly until the sugar dissolves then stew it with a lid on, until the apples have softened, very little juice left and it has become a soft, not soggy but creamy texture. This takes about 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 6. When the dough is ready, knock it back and knead it for a minute on a floured surface. Devide into two and roll them out to the size of your greased baking tin (I used a 30cmx40cm tin). Lay the first sheet of pastry in the tin, sprinkle with semolina or breadcrumbs, this will stop the pastry going soggy from the filling. Spread the apple filling evenly on top then sprinkle with more semolina and place the second sheet of pastry on top. Give it an egg wash if you wish and bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes or until it is a lovely golden colour. Leave it to cool completely in the tin - it is much easier to cut into neat squares when cooled down. Dust with icing sugar.