Recipes from Jane Green's HAPPY FOOD

Below you will find a few recipes from Jane Green's eBook original, HAPPY FOOD.

TOMATO TARTE TATIN
My father claims to be a wonderful cook. He does, in fact, have a few dishes that he makes spectacularly well, and Tarte Tatin is one of them.

Growing up, we had a house in France, and every vacation was spent hopping on a plane to France, to our very old stone farmhouse nestled in the hills, gathering olives from the orchard and taking them down to Opio to be turned into olive oil, and watching the grown-ups sit outside under pergolas dripping with Wisteria, drinking Rosé and eating wonderful pâtés and cheeses.

Finishing, almost always, with my father's traditional Apple Tarte Tatin.

I decided to experiment with tomatoes, a little less sugar, some balsamic vinegar rand it has now become a staple. We eat it mostly in summer with tomatoes picked fresh from the garden, but it is substantial and comforting enought to work beautifully in winter too.

Ingredients:
8 medium tomatoes, sliced
1 stick butter
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
bunch of fresh basil, julienned into fine strips
Puff pastry

Method:
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Melt the butter, add the sugar and keep over low heat until it starts to thicken. Add balsamic vinegar. Layer slices in rows, working from the outside in. Lay pastry sheet gently over top, tucking sides in with a knife.

Put pan in oven for around 30 minutes, or until pastry is nicely browned.

Remove, and put plate over top, making sure it covers most of the pastry but fits inside pan.

Holding plate tightly, flip the pan so the plate is on the bottom.

Garnish with fresh basil.

CAULIFLOWER AND PARMIGIANO SOUP WITH TRUFFLE OIL
This soup was a happy mistake. It came from one of those nights where I didn't seem to have anything in the fridge other than a head of cauliflower that was well on its way to becoming inedible, a packet of pancetta, and some stale Parmesan.

I do always tend to have onions, garlic, carrots and cauliflower, and always stock in the pantry. When all else fails, I can always pull something together with the aforementioned and anything else I can find.

This was that night, and the truffle oil added the most delicious twist. For a whole winter we ended up eating this almost every night.

Ingredients:
2 ounces chopped pancetta
1 cup chopped onion
3/4 cup chopped celery
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 head cauliflower
3 1/2 cups chicken broth
1-inch cube Parmigiano, or any other strong cheese (I made this with Gorgonzola recently, and it was amazing...reserve some cheese to sprinkle over the top to serve)
1/2 cup half-and-half
White or black truffle oil (for drizzling)

Method:
Sauté pancetta until brown. Add onion, garlic and celery and cook until vegetables are soft --- a little over five minutes. Add cauliflower, broth and cheese. Bring to a boil and simmer, covered, for around 20 minutes.

Purée soup with a hand-held blender, add half-and-half. When ready to serve, ladle into bowls, drizzle with truffle oil and sprinkle cheese on top.

BRAISED SHORT RIBS WITH MARMALADE GLAZE (Serves 6)
When I went to culinary school I learned the secret to excellent braising, which basically involves searing meat in a hot fat to brown, then slow cooking in liquid, which usually covers about 2/3 of the meat, in a heavy pot, until the meat is tender enough to fall apart with the gentlest of prods.

The secret involves parchment paper. Instead of covering the pot with a lid, which leaves a large gap between the food and the lid, allowing all the flavor to evaporate while cooking, they taught us to make a parchment paper lid.

With my oval Le Creuset that I use for all braises, I cut the parchment, then roughly bend it over the empty pot to leave an imprint of the shape, before cutting it out.

When the meat is ready to be covered, the parchment lid sits directly on top of the meat, keeping all the flavors intact. It was the best thing I learned, apart from omelettes, which I shall save for another time, but transforms dishes such as these.

Ingredients:
12 beef short ribs
Olive oil (not extra virgin), or vegetable oil
4 carrots, chopped
2 onions, chopped
2 celery sticks, chopped
4 sprigs fresh thyme
6 stalks of fresh parsley
1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns
1 bay leaf
2 cups chicken stock
1 can peeled tomatoes
1 teaspoon lemon juice

For glaze:
1 cup soy sauce
1 cup orange marmalade
1 cup orange juice
1 tablespoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon fresh grated ginger

Method:
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Whisk glaze ingredients in bowl. Add ribs. Salt and pepper. Toss to coat. Cover and refrigerate for at least two hours, preferably overnight.

Heat oil in Dutch oven until sizzling. Quickly brown ribs on all sides in small batches, ensuring ribs don't touch each other. Transfer to a plate.

Add carrots, onions, celery to same pan. Stir and scrape up all 'sucs' --- brown bits left by meat, for around five minutes, until vegetables are lighty browned.

Add thyme, parsley, peppercorns and bay leaf. Stir well.

Add ribs.

Add glaze, chicken stock and tomatoes.

Bring to boil, then reduce to simmer. Cover and put in over for 2 hours, or until meat is very tender.

Remove ribs when cooked. Strain remaining sauce through fine sieve, bring to a boil then simmer until reduced. Add salt and pepper to sauce, and finish with one teaspoon of lemon juice.

Serve with creamy polenta.

PUMPKIN GINGERBREAD TRIFLE
My mother-in-law, aka The Sherpa, gave this recipe to me. It was the start of my real bonding with the man who was to become my husband. We were on very polite, early dating behavior, when we both offered to help clear the table after this insane dessert had been served. Within thirty seconds the pair of us were hiding in the kitchen, spoon-deep in the crystal bowl, finishing this off. I knew then it was true love.

The first thing The Sherpa does is make gingerbread, which frankly, seems to me to be absolutely bonkers. The Sherpa is a wonderful cook, but she and I cook very differently. She likes fine French food, and I like throwing things together, very easily, and eating family style. We threw a dinner party for her last year, and I asked, casually, whether she had any recipes she might like us to cook. 'Oh yes,' she said, her face lighting up. 'I'll bring them over tomorrow.'

The next day she appeared with a sheath of papers. It was about three inches thick.

Apparently, whilst I was reading it, all the color drained from my face.

So, back to the trifle. The Sherpa does it all from scratch. I would strongly advise a gingerbread mix, adding the fresh and crystallized ginger to give it some zing.

If, however, you are like The Sherpa, you will want to do it from scratch, and even though I will think you are nuts, here is the recipe for the gingerbread.

Gingerbread Ingredients:
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground ginger
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups white sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup dark molasses
1/2 cup apple juice
2 eggs
1 tablespoon grated fresh ginger
1/2 cup chopped crystallized ginger

Method:
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Butter and flour a 10" Springform pan.

Stir together flour, cinnamon, cloves, ground ginger, baking soda, and salt in a container.

Mix sugar with oil, juice, molasses, eggs, and fresh ginger in a large bowl. Mix in crystallized ginger. Stir in flour mixture. Pour into prepared pan. Then bake for an hour. Cool this for ten minutes, then remove from the pan and cool completely.

Pumpkin Custard Ingredients:
3 cups half-and-half
6 large eggs
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
1/3 cup molasses
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 cups puréed pumpkin, or about 1 1/2 cans

Method:
Scald the half-and-half in a heavy saucepan (which means take it to the edge of boiling, then remove from heat).

Beat eggs, sugar, molasses, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and salt. Mix in pumpkin and half-and-half. When it is smooth, put it in buttered baking dish, which you then put into a bain-marie: put dish into larger baking dish, and fill larger dish with hot water to about 1" below the rim of the custard dish. Bake this at 325 degrees for 50 minutes and start to check it. You want a set, firm custard, then a knife inserted into the center should come out clean. Cool and refrigerate overnight.

Whipped Cream Ingredients:
1 quart heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup crystallized ginger

To assemble your trifle, get your trifle bowl out --- I do have a couple of gorgeous crystal bowls left over from my wedding gifts all those years ago, but glass is fine too.

Whip one quart heavy cream with half a teaspoon vanilla extract, then fold in 1/4 cup crystallized ginger, and set aside.

Spoon half the Pumpkin Custard into the bowl and layer half the gingerbread over that and half the whipped cream over that. Do it again. Top the final layer of whipped cream with gingersnaps, or gingersnap crumbs, and, if you like, drizzle with Calvados.