Baked apples with porter cake crumbs and whiskey custard

A perfect, simple, but indulgent winter pudding from Trish Deseine's lovely new book about Irish cooking, Home. "Truly unbeatable when made with thick Irish cream, farmyard eggs and a dash of Bushmills."

Trish says "use Bramleys if you like your baked apples very fluffy and tart. Braeburns or any other eating apple will do otherwise."

For 4

10 minutes preparation

30 minutes cooking

4 medium sized Bramley, Braeburn or eating apples

50 g butter

4 teaspoons brown sugar

4 tablespoons porter cake (or dark fruit cake) crumbs

30 g butter

250 ml fresh milk

250 ml single cream

5 egg yolks

100 g sugar

Dash of Bushmills (or another Irish whiskey)

Core the apples, sit them upright in an ovenproof dish and put a little butter and a teaspoon of sugar in the gap where the core used to be.

Put them in the oven and bake for about 25 minutes.

Meanwhile, make the custard and the crumbs.

Bring the milk and the cream to the boil in a saucepan but be very careful not to boil them.

Whisk the egg yolks with the sugar until they have doubled in volume and turned white.

Pour the hot milk onto the yolks, whisking as you go. Tip the eggy cream back into the pan and heat again, stirring all the while, until the custard starts to thicken. When the custard coats the back of a spoon, immediately remove the pan from the heat and pour the custard into a cold serving bowl to prevent it from curdling. Add a dash of whiskey.

Heat the butter in a frying pan and fry the crumbs until they are crispy. Let them cool slightly.

Serve the apples in bowls with the hot custard and the crumbs sprinkled over.

From Home: Recipes from Ireland by Trish Deseine published by Hachette at £25. photograph © Deidre Rooney. Food styling Trish Deseine

What to drink: This is such a homely recipe I'm not sure it needs anything by way of wine but you could serve a glass of barley wine (which is a beer)

Fluffy apple and marmalade hotcakes with cinnamon butter

My friend cookery writer Sarah Randell has written the most enchanting book on marmalade full not only of great marmalade recipes but also some delicious ways of using them.

You can either make them for brunch or at teatime. "I often serve them in relays for brunch when friends or family are staying for the weekend" Sarah says. "Eat them hot from the pan."

Makes 16

150g (1 small) Bramley cooking apple

100g plain flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 tablespoon caster sugar

3 large eggs

3 tablespoons of your favourite marmalade (the apple harvest marmalade in the book is particularly good in these)

150g ricotta

2 tablespoons milk

butter and oil, for frying

FOR THE CINNAMON BUTTER

50g soft unsalted butter

1 tablespoon marmalade

1 teaspoon cinnamon sugar

For the cinnamon butter, mix the ingredients together in a small bowl, using scissors to chop any large pieces of peel in the marmalade. Transfer the butter to the fridge to firm up.

Peel, core and dice the apple. Weigh the flour and put it into a mixing bowl, then add the baking powder, sugar and a pinch of salt and mix together. Make a well in the centre.

Crack the eggs into a small bowl, add the marmalade (again chopping any large pieces of peel), lightly whisk together with a fork, then tip into the well in the flour. Using a balloon whisk, gradually whisk the beaten eggs into the flour, followed by the ricotta and milk. Stir in the diced apple.

Heat a small knob of butter and a tablespoonful of oil in a non-stick frying pan until sizzling. Add a heaped dessertspoonful of batter per pancake, frying a few at a time over a low heat for 2-3 minutes on each side – they are ready to flip over when small bubbles appear at the edges. If the fat in the pan starts to darken and burn, wipe out the pan before heating more oil and butter.

Serve the hotcakes straight from the pan, topped with the cinnamon butter.

ALSO TRY

Tropical hotcakes – use lime and grapefruit or sweet orange and passion fruit marmalade in the hotcake mixture and in the flavoured butter, and substitute the cinnamon sugar with regular sugar mixed with a generous grating of nutmeg. Swap the ricotta for thick coconut yoghurt and serve the hotcakes drizzled with passion fruit pulp.

Extracted from MARMALADE: A Bittersweet Cookbook by Sarah Randell, published by Saltyard Books priced £20 and also available as an ebook. Visit http://potofmarmalade.uk/ to find out more.

Pumpkin, coconut and lentil soup

If you're carving a pumpkin for Hallowe'en this weekend here's a gorgeous spicy soup from Jenny Chandler's excellent book Pulse to make with the discarded pulp.

Jenny writes: "Pumpkin gives this soup a wonderful velvety texture and when it comes to the flavour, the Thai balance of spicy, sweet, sour and salty is vital. The chilli provides the spicy heat, so just keep adding small amounts of fish sauce or soy, lime juice and sugar until you reach perfection."

Pumpkin, coconut and lentil soup

Serves 4

2 tbsp vegetable oil

small bunch of spring onions (scallions), finely sliced

2 garlic cloves, crushed

5-cm/2-in piece of fresh ginger, chopped

1–2 fiery chillies, finely chopped

2 stalks of lemongrass, outer leaves removed and remainder finely sliced

225 g/8 oz/generous 1 cup red lentils, rinsed

500 g/1 lb 2 oz pumpkin or butternut squash, peeled, deseeded and
cut into 2 cm/3⁄4 inch dice

1.2 litres/2 pints/5 cups vegetable or chicken stock

400 g/14 oz can of coconut milk

1 tbsp tamarind paste

2 tbsp finely chopped fresh coriander (cilantro)

Thai fish sauce or tamari soy sauce

juice of 1–2 limes

pinch of brown sugar or palm sugar (optional)

Heat the oil in a large saucepan and add most of the spring onions (setting aside
a tablespoon to garnish). Add the garlic, ginger, chilli and lemongrass and stir
for a minute or two, until you are engulfed in fabulous smells. You will be wheezing if you have been generous with the chilli!

Add the lentils, pumpkin or squash and the stock, and simmer until the lentils are soft and the pumpkin flesh has collapsed.

Stir in the coconut milk, tamarind and most of the coriander. Now taste and balance the soup with fish sauce or soy sauce, lime juice and sugar.

Serve hot, sprinkled with the remaining spring onions and coriander.

You could also:

... thin the soup with a little extra stock or water and add some sugarsnap peas for the last 2 minutes of cooking

... stir-fry some raw prawns with a little chilli and garlic and serve on top of the soup.

What to drink: I normally go for chardonnay with pumpkin but with these spicy Thai flavours I reckon a dry or off-dry Australian or New Zealand riesling would be a much better option.

Recipe from Pulse by Jenny Chandler, published by Pavilion at £26 . Photograph © Clare Winfield.

Quails with burnt miso butterscotch and pomegranate and walnut salsa

As those of you who subscribe to the newsletter know we've been offering a signed copy of Yotam Ottolenghi and Ramael Scully's fabulous new book Nopi this month. Here's one of the recipes as a taster ...

Yotam writes: We went through a miso stage where the sweet, umami-rich white or brown paste found its way into every dish possible. Miso ice cream, miso dressings, miso soup. The inspiration for this particular incarnation was David Chang’s Lucky Peach magazine, which told of how pastry chef Christina Tosi used burnt miso in a banana pie that was so addictive itsoon went by the name Crack pie. The miso is cooked in the oven to the point where it turns almost caramel-like. After a bit of experimenting, we found it worked as well in a savoury dish as it did in its sweet incarnation.

De-boned chicken thighs also work well here, as an alternative to the quail.

Serves 8 as a starter, 4 as a main

150g white miso paste, at room temperature

50ml mirin

30g light brown sugar

2 tsp sherry vinegar

40g unsalted butter, at room temperature

2 tbsp sunflower oil

8 whole quails, de-boned with wing tips left on (1.1kg)

coarse sea salt and black pepper

Salsa

150g pomegranate seeds (seeds of 1 medium pomegranate)

70g walnuts, toasted and roughly chopped

35g pickled walnuts, rinsed, skin removed, finely chopped (optional)

2 tsp pomegranate molasses

2 tbsp Valdespino sherry vinegar (or another good-quality sherry vinegar)

1 tbsp olive oil

20g parsley, finely chopped

1 Preheat the oven to 160°C/140°C fan/gas mark 3.

2 Use a rubber spatula to spread the miso paste out thinly and evenly on a parchment-lined baking tray. Place the tray in the oven and roast for 20–25 minutes, until the miso has turned to dark caramel: the sides should look burnt and the middle a dark golden-brown. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool. Scrape the burnt miso paste off the parchment paper, breaking it as you go, and transfer the pieces to a food processor, along with the mirin, sugar, vinegar, butter and 1 tablespoon of water. Blitz well for 5 minutes to form a smooth aerated paste.

3 Place all the ingredients for the salsa, apart from the parsley, in a medium bowl with 1/4 teaspoon of salt and 3 tablespoons of water. Mix well and set aside until ready to use, stirring the parsley in just before serving.

4 When you are ready to serve, set the oven to its highest grill setting.

5 Place a large sauté pan on a high heat and add the oil. Season the quails with 1 teaspoon of salt and a good grind of pepper and, once the pan is hot, add them skin-side down in batches. Fry for 5 minutes, turning once, so that both sides get some colour. Transfer the quails to a parchment-lined baking tray and spread 1 tablespoon of miso butterscotch evenly over the skin of each bird. Place the tray under the grill and cook for 1–2 minutes, until the miso starts to bubble and caramelize. Serve at once, with the salsa spooned on top or alongside.

Extracted from NOPI: The Cookbook by Yotam Ottolenghi and Ramael Scully. (Ebury Press, £28) Photography by Jonathan Lovekin. You can eat the dishes for yourself at their restaurant Nopi just off Piccadilly Circus.

What to drink: Even Yotam Ottolenghi couldn't tell me what he'd drink with this dish and I haven't had a chance to make it yet but I'd personally go for a full, ripe red - probably a GSM (grenache/syrah/mourvèdre) or a graciano-based rioja. I feel sake should work too.