pastry

[Stokey Sue]

Choux isn’t difficult - I have only made sweet choux a couple of times, but gougeres (cheese puffs) more often

Two tips, think they may be Prue Leith’s - tip the hot flour, water and butter paste into a cold bowl, that will cool it down just enough that you can go straight on adding egg. Second you don’t always need all the last egg, beat it and dribble it in, the combination of modern flour and modern eggs means the classic proportions can give you a paste that’s too runny to pipe.

Never tried hot water crust but Nadiya makes it look very easy - I think she used a tin rather than making a raised pie.

[halfateabag]

OH loves all types of pastry. I like it but try not to eat too much so give OH a lot of mine. I don't bother making puff, the shops do it better than I can but I find that the 'blocks' are disappearing and you can only get pre rolled which is more expensive. I make my own SC pastry and hot water crust. I use half fats to flour so 8oz P flour and 2 oz marg and 2oz lard. Use the machine in the corner and rest it for half an hour in the fridge before rolling.

[Badger's Mate]

It’s not the difficulty, we just haven’t got a round tuit.

[Lokelani]

I use butter for shortcrust and frozen grated for rough puff, but the latter tests my patience rolling out.

My oldest sister in law makes the most melt in the mouth pastry, but does use lard or white fat. Not a problem for me per se, except her recipe is impossible to roll out. I just don't have the patience, not even between 2 sheets of cling film etc. She says she just takes a small ball for mince pies & presses it out into the tin with her fingers. That feels wrong as I can't help but associate over handling pastry with tough hard pastry. I've never actually seen her make it or had her round to show me due to distance. That would probably solve the mystery and give me the confidence to try it that way.

My Magimix never brings pastry together, whatever blade or recipe I try. It just compacts the wet bit to the bottom, after I've added hte egg, and floats the drier bits above it... That's another one of life's mysteries.

[WWordsworth]

I have made hi ot water pastry on the couple of occasions I had reasonably successful attempts at pork pie.
But oh, the smell of that hot wet lard.

[miss mouse]

But oh, the smell of that hot wet lard. :evil:

Is that 'pork taint'? Awful, I think it was eliminated but seems to have returned to bacon recently.

[Stokey Sue]

I think lard has quite a strong odour even without boar taint, despite coming from Hampshire I won’t eat a lardy cake, though I’m fine with pork pies etc and I’ll use lard in some meat cooking and pastry.

[Badger's Mate]

I have never had a problem eating lardy cake or pork pies! ‘Goatiness’ is a real turn-off for me though although I like stronger-tasting sheep products (sheepiness? ovinity?) such as old-breed lamb and hogget or mutton.

[Stokey Sue]

There’s a huge difference between boar taint and the smell of lard,

Boar taint I’ve never experienced in England and not everyone notices it, I remember a meal in Sardinia at which 4 of us thought the roast pork (from a feral animal hunted in the woods) was uneatable but 6 thought it was quite good.

Lard, like any food with a flavour has an odour, which personally I don’t like.

[Earthmaiden]

The secret of a good lardy cake (IMO) is to create such a lovely sticky mess that it is hard to think of it as being made with lard. I'm well aware that each county has it's own recipes. My introduction was in Sussex where they were heavenly, sweet, sticky and fruity. Now in Wiltshire, which considers itself a contender for 'real' lardy cake - and sometimes they are just fruit and lard with hardly any sweet stickiness and, heaven forbid, a 'porky' taste. Nooooo!

Pork pie is different, it is supposed to be a savoury pork product. That said, I'm not keen on goat, pork or anything else which is farmyardish.

[oat]

I hate the smell of lamb, to me it smells the same when it's cooking as the lambing sheds where it was born.
unfortunately it's J' favourite meat.

[Suffs]

Boar taint in meat from a mature uncastrated male pig can be quite distinctive and not pleasant .. especially for some folk who notice it more. Male pigs not intended for breeding are therefore either castrated within a few days of birth or (much more common now) go to the abattoir before sexual maturity when the taint (and handling problems from aggression) set in.

Male ‘goatiness’ is much stronger than the flavour found in some goat cheeses, and if it permeates the dairy it’s the result of poor animal husbandry! An entire male goat should be nowhere near any females who are producing for the dairy!!! and the goat-keeper should keep a different set of overalls etc to wear when handling the makes! Poor practice by a few gets other goat keepers and their produce a bad name Grrrr!

[miss mouse]

Male pigs not intended for breeding are therefore either castrated within a few days of birth or (much more common now) go to the abattoir before sexual maturity when the taint (and handling problems from aggression) set in.

I thought castration had been banned hence the 'boar taint' problems initially. A quick search reveals beyond 7 days old it has to be done by a vert, perhaps that was the change in legislation. About 3 weeks old seems to be the favoured time if it is done at all.

Male ‘goatiness’ is much stronger than the flavour found in some goat cheeses, and if it permeates the dairy it’s the result of poor animal husbandry!

Gosh, perhaps this is why goat products had such a poor reputation when I was growing up. I took a long time to get rid of that reputation.

[scullion]

Male ‘goatiness’ is much stronger than the flavour found in some goat cheeses,

unfortunately, after taking my goat to the billy i could always taste that 'goatiness' in the milk and (bought) cheese - which made them inedible for me.
the billy goats pungency, up close, hits your senses and is visceral

[Suffs]

I let my females ‘dry off’ before mating so we weren’t milking them again until they’d kidded. But a lemon-scented ‘shampoo’ will usually remove the scent of a Billy, as long as the billy’s owner is also responsible enough to keep him regularly washed in the mating season … more likely for me as I was also breeding a pedigree rare breed for showing and selling on and I was paying a reasonable stud fee
https://www.britishgoatsociety.com/abou ... -guernsey/

Back in the day when Ma kept a ‘house goat’ it was just a case of walking Marsha a few hundred yards up the lane to visit the Misses Bamfields’ big hairy black billy.

[KeenCook]

What a fascinating discussion about goats and goatiness etc! The things you learn on here

Something I've never really wanted to eat is rabbit - people say it's not unlike chicken, but I've never given it a try. I also understand that it has more small bones, presumably, if it's not been well butchered.

Those of you who do eat it, please tell me if the taste/texture bear any relationship to chicken?

I believe rabbit pie is much loved! I guess it would normally be made with hot water pastry.

Zosh, re puff pastry in blocks or ready rolled, I gave up using the blocks because rolling it into the shape/size I wanted also seemed to squash the air out of it so it wasn't "puff" any more!

[Earthmaiden]

I'd not had rabbit until we moved to Australia. There we cooked it during cookery classes at school and sometimes had it at home. My family had always liked it in earlier times but the myxomatosis thing just after the war stopped it being sold in the UK and it didn't really pick up again.

It was a light meat similar to chicken. We fricasseed it at school but it went in casseroles, pies etc. as well. It was sold jointed. No small bones. I liked it. I have never had properly wild rabbit - the sort that a village poacher might leave on the doorstep. I understand that it is more gamey and better in a robust casserole.

The movement against the breeding of 'bunnies' as meat is so strong now, I doubt it would be a success commercially in a big way now.

[Busybee]

Rabbit does taste like chicken. I quite like the meatier parts, the rib cage etc has too many small bones.

When we had a house in Spain the local restaurant used to do a fabulous dish called mountain rabbit. It was basically a rustic stew, never the same twice - it really depended on which daughter was cooking that day (all done on an open fire) flavoured with thyme. It was my absolute favourite dish and I always ordered it.

We used to see it in the local butcher/game dealer but I haven’t seen it in a while- but there again I’ve not really been looking. It was a cheap meat, but has probably gone up in price as tv chefs popularised it.

I would certainly eat it if I was served it.

BB

[Lusciouslush]

Goat..... ....love goat's cheese....& love a good goat curry but use mutton mostly - goat meat isn't always easy to find in butchers - I use the leg or shoulder - most butchers have vacuum pack 'Mystery' goat meat!
I gave up on rabbit a few years ago - too much like chicken, nice enough with a mustard sauce but not enough difference to go out of my way to buy it. Only had it wild when I was in Scotland & it was full of.....can't think of the word - yes that's it - pelt...

I've been meaning to try pastry made with yoghurt - anyone made any?

[Stokey Sue]

I can easily get both goat and mutton locally, at least if I want chopped bone in pieces for curries, but getting actual identifiable cuts is harder

I have had both wild and tame rabbit, not mad about tame, I think chicken is nicer, wild I do like. tame rabbit traditional in some versions of paella

I think people of my parents generation went off both mutton and goat products in the war and post war rationing when they hadn't been used to eating them adn were eating less good quality stuff simply because it was there - same might apply to rabbit for some people.

If you read food historians like Dorothy Hartley, goats and sheep were much commoner as dairy and meat animals on small holdings before the Industrial revolution, as a cow cost a lot and needed more land to feed it.