MAKE DO MILLE-FEUILLE

I don’t drive and that can make food shopping a bit tricky. As I get older my packhorse capabilities are decreasing. I do, though,  have a lovely trolley. My teenage children laugh at me going up the road with my blue, dotty helper, cruelly calling it the wally trolley but I ignore them. It’s great, insulated to keep the chilled stuff cool, easy to manoeuvre but sadly it’s not bottomless so I have to restrain myself from buying too much. Not a bad thing, as I am always trying to economise.  I do an Internet shop for the big stuff and then pop up and down to the shops regularly to buy the evening meal fare. Sometimes  though it rains. Well, this this year it has rained more often than not and I  simply can’t handle the trolley and a brolly. So on those days I must look deep into my fridge, rummage through the freezer and scan the cupboards. I have to make do with what I find. Last Friday’s desert was a good example of this.

On Friday nights we have my brother-in-law over to stay as he works in near us at the weekends.   We also have my daughter’s friend to stay so the pair of them can get to drama class early on Saturday. So it’s a matter of making a variety of things that will please everyone.  My son was out at a friend so I didn’t have to offer a vegetarian option for this particular supper. For the meat eaters I put some belly of pork in an ovenproof dish. Following a recipe from Nigella Lawson’s Kitchen, I mixed together tahini, soy sauce, juice from one lime and one lemon, poured it over the scored bell, marinated for a couple of hours. Popped it in the oven for 3 hours at 150℃ and then turned it up for another half hour to get the skin extra crispy. Delicious and just enough left over to make a sandwich with the next day.

 For pudding I assembled a strawberry Mille-feuille from a recipe by Skye Gyngell. I know in my last entry I said I preferred raspberries to strawberries, which is true, but that’s not to say that a strawberry desert doesn’t capture my heart every now and again. This one certainly did. It also included chopped pistachios. I love pistachio nuts for their taste, texture and the colour they bring to a dish but despite hunting high and low, there was not a pistachio to be found in my kitchen. I did have some chopped nuts though and so used them. I didn’t have orange flower water but did have rose flower water so that had to suffice.  It gave a slight Turkish Delight hint to the pudding. As I adore Turkish Delight that could never be a problem. I also didn’t have as much filo pastry as required in the recipe so made single layer servings instead of double-deckers. Oh, and talking of lacking, I was a bit short on strawberries. There was just enough to go around and none for decoration. OK, OK, I know it maybe would have made sense to give this Mille-feuille a miss and make something else but I desperately yearned for the crunch of the filo and nuts alongside the soft cloud of subtly flavoured cream with the first strawberries of the year.  So to have a pared down version was the compromise.

MAKE DO STRAWBERRY MILLE-FEUILLE

100g finely chopped assorted nuts (or pistachios, for those lucky or organised enough to have them to hand)

75g light soft brown sugar


1⁄2 tsp ground ginger


1 tsp ground cinnamon

Seeds from 1 vanilla pod


3 large sheets filo pastry 


75g melted butter

800g strawberries, hulled and halved

Orange Flower (or Rose Flower) Cream


1⁄2 tsp Orange or Rose flower water


300ml double cream


300g crème fraîche


4 tbsp honey

1.   Preheat oven to 180c/gas mark 4. Line 2 large baking sheets with non-stick baking paper.

2.   In a bowl, mix chopped nuts with sugar, ginger, cinnamon and vanilla seeds plus a pinch of salt.

3.   Lay 1 sheet of filo  (measuring about 31 x 38 cm) out flat, short side closest to you. Brush generously with melted butter and scatter with an even layer of the spiced chopped nut mixture. Cut the pastry in half down the centre to create 2 long rectangles. Lay 1 half on top of the other and cut into 6 rectangles, then carefully lift onto one of the lined baking sheets. Repeat with the remaining sheets to create 18 small rectangles in total. Drizzle over any leftover butter and cook for about 10 minutes, until golden and crisp. If you don’t want to assemble immediately, rest assured these golden sheets can happily stay in an airtight tub for up to 2 todays.

4.   If you want to proceed right now, leave for 5 mins then pop on wire racks to cool completely.  While you are waiting you can make the orange cream, by whipping the orange flower water together with double cream and crème fraiche. It should not be stiff but just hold its shape. Then comes the building bit.

5.   So, first lay down a filo sheet, spread cream over and then add a layer of strawberries. And repeat, finishing with a filo rectangle and top with strawberries, nuts and generous drizzle of honey.