Blog

08/09/10 - Autumn Flavour Combinations

Neil Sowerby, our intrepid Stilton Blogger, recommends not wasting a crumb of this glorious cheese and discovering new flavour combinations for the autumn...

CHEESE, a treat in itself, is a store cupboard godsend to those charged with catering for the vegetarian turning up for dinner. Vegans make it more of a challenge, obviously. Blue Stilton, of course, is always going to zing up any greens-based cuisine. It’s worth keeping the ends and crusts, not pretty in themselves but, when melted into a savoury dish, flavour-enhancing... and laudably thrifty.

As a supporter of the Love Food, Hate Waste campaign, I was delighted wit the high profile given to the 90-minute BBC documentary, The Great British Waste Menu.

Supermarkets have got so picky about what food looks like that an obscene amount of perfectly edible fruit, vegetables and eggs are thrown away, fed to pigs or ploughed straight back into the soil before they even leave the farm.

The challenge in the Great British Waste Menu was for four top chefs Angela Hartnett, Richard Corrigan, Matt Tebbutt and Simon Rimmer to prepare a banquet for 60 VIP guests purely out of all the meat, fish and other ingredients that would otherwise have gone to waste. It’s all designed to prove that saving scraps is good.

I’ve been a fan, and latterly a friend of Simon Rimmer since 20 years ago when he set up Greens vegetarian restaurant in Didsbury, Manchester. Twice since it has doubled in size and self-taught Simon (pictured second left in Great British Water Menu line-up) has diversified into a non-veggie restaurant in Hale, Cheshire and become a telly kitchen stalwart.

 

Stilton has featured frequently in his recipes. I remember fondly his Stilton asparagus and caramelised shallot roulade with pear and ginger chutney http://uktv.co.uk/food/recipe/aid/513452  for the Good Food Channel.

But with autumn approaching I’d like to salute one of his classic comfort dishes, Peppered Mushroom and Stilton Pie from last year’s The Seasoned Vegetarian (Octopus, £14.99).

 

The ingredients:

225g (8oz) plain flour

100g (3½ oz) butter

1 egg

A little milk to bind, if needed

1 egg, beaten

Filling

1 onion, sliced

500g (1lb 2oz) button mushrooms, halved

2 tbsp vegetable oil

1 tbsp tomato puree

1 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp green peppercorns in brine, drained

250ml (9 fl oz) vegetable stock

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

200g (7oz) Stilton cheese, crumbled

The method:

For the pastry, simply pulse the ingredients together in a food processor to form a dough, adding a little milk if needed. Wrap in cling film and chill for at least 30 minutes.

Now make the filling. Start by frying the onion and mushrooms in oil until soft.

Add the tomato puree and cook for 5 minutes, then add the soy sauce, peppercorns and stock. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat slightly and cook until the liquid has reduced by half. Season to taste.

Divide the filling mixture between four individual pie dishes. Divide the Stilton between the dishes too.

Preheat the oven to 200ºC/ Fan 180ºC/Gas 6. Cut the pastry into four pieces and roll into four circles, just bigger than the dishes.

Damp the rim of the dishes with water and cover the pie dishes with pastry, trim the edges and cut a little hole in the top of each. Brush all over with egg wash to glaze. Bake the pies for about 20 minutes until crisp and golden. Serve with buttery mash and green beans.

SIMON'S is a straightforward recipe with a pictures volume, but I’ve been entranced by a recently published, inspiring book, The Flavour Thesaurus (Bloomsbury, £18.99), which the Sunday Times called “a simple little masterpiece”.

The author Niki Segnit, whose background is in food brand marketing, has compiled a compendium of food combinations, trying to understand why some work and some don’t. Blue cheese in its varied manifestations, figures in a section of its own, first being identified by its chemical make-up. Dominant flavours are the fruity spicy notes attributable to the ketone 2-heptanone, apparently, while a green, fatty metallic note is attributable to 2-nonanone.

Niki Segnit

Her combination involving Blue Stilton was a winner for me, even before I had tried it out in the kitchen. Mainly, I admit, because it features black-purple mission figs, their intense flavour reminiscent of Port. Her Stilton and fig straws should be served, naturally, with a chilled Tawny.

To make them is simple. In a processor make a dough from 125g plain flour, 225g crumbled Stilton, 50g butter, a pinch of salt and 1-2 tbsp cold milk. Roll out into a rectangle 30cm x 20cm. Snip 8 dried mission figs into thins strips and lightly press into the dough. Fold one half of the dough into the other with the fig on the inside. Roll it all out till it’s 5mm thick, cut it into straws and place them on a greased baking tin. Bake at Gas Mark 4 for 15 minutes.