Leeks Glorious Leeks

We're approaching the end of the season for that luscious member of the allium family, the leek.  When teamed with onion, carrot, parsnip and celery it makes a warming winter soup or combine it with a rich cheese sauce and bake in the oven for a tasty supper or side dish.

With these ideas in mind, yesterday I bought a large bag of smallish leeks.  I find them almost impossible to resist.  At the same time I bought one of the gardening magazines that I enjoy and free with it was a new cooking magazine, Great British Food. 

This magazine was a real bonus, filled with interesting articles as well as recipes.  Many of the recipes were vegetarian which is refreshing and adds to the usual meatfest of most magazines.  I wonder if this will be a regular feature of the publication?

luscious leeks

One of the recipes featured was a Leek and Ricotta Tart.  By chance, or happenstance, I had put a tub of ricotta in my shopping trolley, so guess what we're having for tea tonight.

There was also a recipe for Chocolate and Walnut Brownies which are cooling in the baking tin as we speak - more of these in a later post perhaps.

For now let's focus on the leeks...

rustic tart awaiting baking

Leek and Ricotta Tart
Serves 4
Ingredients
90g butter, cubed
175g plain flour
pinch of salt
3 tbsp cold water

6 small or 4 large leeks, washed and roughly sliced
2 tbsp rapeseed oil
2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
250g tub ricotta
2 tbsp toasted pine nuts
3 tbsp raisins, softened in warm water
1 egg
sat and black pepper to taste

Method
Use the first 4 ingredients to make your pastry.  Wrap in clingfilm and leave to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Put the leeks into a steamer and steam for 10 minutes.  Heat the oil in a large frying pan and add the garlic and leeks and cook for 5 minutes over a medium/low heat.

Meanwhile mix together the ricotta, pine nuts, raisins (without the liquid) and egg in a large bowl then add the cooked leek and garlic and stir through.  Set aside to cool.

Roll out the pastry and fit into a 20cm round baking tin, allowing the pastry to drape over the sides.  Prick the base of the pastry all over with a fork and then line with baking parchment and fill with ceramic beans.  Bake blind at 190C for 15 minutes.  Remove the pastry case from the oven and lift out the parchment and beans.  Return the pastry case to the oven for 5 minutes.

If you are cooking immediately, add the leek and ricotta mixture to the pastry case, level the top and return to the oven for another 30 minutes until the tart has risen and is golden.

Should you wish to bake the tart later then allow the pastry case to cool and assemble and bake at 190C as above - I'd only delay baking for a couple of hours.

Serve warm from the oven with saute potatoes and a nice salad.

My First Veg Box

On Thursday my first organic veg box from a local farm arrived.  The variety of veg was not bad given the time of year - there were a few potatoes (glad there were not too many as we still have a lot of our own potatoes), four large leeks, some carrots and onions, a handful of runner beans, a cauliflower, a cabbage, a very large swede and some curly kale.

We like our vegetables but this is quite a lot to get through before the veg starts to deteriorate and our freezer is already full to bursting with Holly Grove produce, so I had to make things that would use the maximum amount of veg in the shortest time.

First on the list was something to accompany fillets of trout that I had bought for our supper on Thursday.  The runner beans were an obvious choice and something using some of the lovely leeks, but what?  Then I remembered a dish that my Mum used to make when I was a child - stovies!  Any Scots reading this may need no further explanation, though from my experience family recipes vary.  The stovies my Mum made used potatoes, onions, butter and milk and it was cooked in a saucepan on top of the stove; this delicious concoction would be served in bowls with crusty, well buttered bread - real comfort food.

My interpretation is really a variation of dauphinois and uses leeks instead of onions - posh stovies.  The dish was perfect with the simply cooked trout and runner beans, the richness of the stovies went so well with the lightness of the fish - lovely!

A vegetable curry was next on the list and delicious it was too - that was Friday night's meal served with naan and vegetable pakoras.

Then using some beef from the local butcher and leeks, carrots, onions and swede I made a large slow cooked casserole - some eaten last night and the rest for a pie filling for tonight's supper.  The pie I'll serve with creamed potato and swede and some of the dark curly kale.

After all of this there is still enough veg left to make a warming soup and some vegetable stock that I may just be able to squeeze into the freezer - phew!  To be honest I'm not sure veg boxes are for me, I think I'd rather select my veg myself and probably buy smaller quantities more often, but it has been an interesting experience and reminded me of a childhood dish long forgotten - oh, and here's my recipe...

Posh Stovies

Serves 2-3
Ingredients

125ml double cream

125ml milk

2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely sliced

1 bay leaf

good grating of nutmeg

salt and pepper

2 good sized potatoes, peeled and thickly sliced

1 large leek, cleaned and thickly sliced

leaves stripped from a few sprigs of fresh thyme

a handful of freshly grated parmesan cheese

Method

Put the first five ingredients in a saucepan and simmer together for 5 minutes to infuse the milk/cream mixture.  Remove from the heat and remove the bay leaf and season with salt and pepper.

Take an earthenware ovenproof dish and grease generously with softened butter.  Lay a layer of potatoes in the bottom of the dish and sprinkle with some of the thyme, add the leek slices in a layer over the potatoes and then cover the leek with another layer of potatoes, sprinkle the remaining thyme over the potatoes.

Pour the milk/cream mixture over the layered potato and leek.  Oil the inside of a piece of tinfoil and then use this to cover the dish, oilside down.  Put the dish on a baking sheet in the oven 200C for about 40 minutes or until the potato is soft.  Remove the foil and press down the potatoes with the back of a serving spoon then sprinkle over the parmesan and return to the oven for about 10 minutes until the top is golden.