Welcome our guest, Deb Crombie!

 Please welcome our 
fabulous guest, Deb Crombie!

New York Times Bestselling author Deborah Crombie 

has written fifteen novels featuring Scotland Yard Superintendent Duncan Kincaid and Inspector Gemma James. She lives in Texas with her husband, two German shepherds, and two cats, and travels to England frequently. Her 16th Kincaid/James novel, To Dwell in Darkness, will be published by William Morrow in September 2014. 

The trade paper release of The Sound of Broken Glass comes out Tuesday!!
Take it away, Deb!

A Proper Scone

I mentioned crumpets the other day on Facebook, and it was clear from some of the comments that many Americans don’t know exactly what a crumpet is. The closest description I can come up with is that crumpets are sort of a cross between what we Americans call English muffins, and what Americans call pancakes. (British pancakes are different, too, but that’s another story…) Crumpets are slightly spongy, firmer than a pancake, and filled with little holes that are perfect for butter. You can butter before or after you toast (I prefer before) then top with some really good jam. A perfect tea-time snack!

Which brings us to scones. I think I need to set the record straight. While the baked pastries you can get at Starbuck’s or La Madeline or Panera are good, they are not proper British scones. A British scone is much more like an American biscuit, but a little sweeter. They often have fruit in them—raisins or currants—and should be served with clotted cream (that’s another story, too) and good jam, preferably strawberry.  If you don’t have cream, butter and jam will do.

This is my favorite scone recipe, from The Laurel’s Kitchen Break Book, published way back in 1984. (The copy in the photo is my second. I wore the first one out, in the hippie-mom-baking stage of my life, before I ever wrote a novel. One of the most charming things about this book are the woodcut illustrations.) 

As these scones are made with whole wheat, you might find something similar in a British health food café. In our house, we have them most often for Sunday brunch, but if there are any leftover they will keep for a day or two. You can split and toast them to have with your afternoon tea.

OLD –FASHIONED SCONES

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour

1 teaspoon baking soda*

1 teaspoon cream of tartar*

½ teaspoon salt

1 or 2 tablespoons brown sugar (I use Succanat) or honey

2 tablespoons cold butter

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons buttermilk at room temperature (I usually add a little more.)

½ cup currants (you can substitute raisins. Currants are better, but I’ve had a tough time finding them in the stores the last few years.)

*If you don’t have cream of tartar, use ½ teaspoon baking soda and 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder.

Preheat oven to 375. Dust a cookie sheet with flour.

Sift flour, soda, cream of tartar, salt, and sugar. (If you use honey instead, stir it thoroughly into the buttermilk.)  Grate the cold butter into the mixture and blend with a pastry cutter or your fingertips until the mixture is like oatmeal flakes.  Stir in the buttermilk and currants, and mix gently and quickly until barely blended together. Immediately turn out onto the floured cookie sheet and pat into a circle about ¾ inch thick, 8 or 9 inches across. Cut the circle into wedges, four or six as you see fit, and place immediately in the hot oven.

Bake about 20 minutes. Serve at once.

Make a pot of tea, grab a good English mystery, and enjoy!

[From Daryl / Avery] ** By the way, the picture is of a gluten-free version of the scones. Delish!

Salmon Fish Cakes: Guest Post from Author Deborah Crombie

LUCY BURDETTE: If you haven't read one of Deborah Crombie's books, set in London, you are in for a treat! THE SOUND OF BROKEN GLASS will be published this week, and we're delighted to welcome Debs to talk about her characters and the way they cook...
DEBORAH CROMBIE: I love books where people eat and drink interesting things. I love to eat and drink interesting things.  I am, in fact, a self-confessed foodie. Which maybe explains why, other than the fact that it give my characters something to do while they talk about the murder in question, people are always eating and drinking in my books.

I should add, “eating and drinking and cooking.”  

In THE SOUND OF BROKEN GLASS, it’s my Scotland Yard Detective Superintendent, Duncan Kincaid, who’s doing most of the cooking. While Duncan’s wife, Detective Inspector Gemma James, works a high profile murder case in London’s Crystal Palace area, Duncan has taken family leave to care for their three-year-old foster daughter, Charlotte. A bit frustrated with his role as stay-at-home dad, Duncan puts his energy into cooking. And while Gemma appreciates having a gourmet meal on the table when she comes home from work, she’s also a little jealous of his accomplishments. But that doesn’t keep her from enjoying Duncan’s Salmon Fish Cakes. 

I make this recipe every few weeks myself.  It’s adapted from a recipe in Robin Ellis’s Delicious Dishes for Diabetics, and even my hubby, who doesn’t like salmon, loves it. (Robin—that’s Ross Poldark, by the way—adapted the recipe from Nigel Slater.) I’ve used regular flour rather than the chickpea flour that Robin recommends for a diabetic diet, a whole egg rather than the white, and I just break up the raw salmon in a bowl with a fork. The recipe works well with dried dill if you don’t have fresh.

1 lb salmon fillet – skinless and checked for bones
1 egg
1 tbsp flour
1 tsp grain mustard
juice of ½ lemon
bunch of dill – chopped fine
salt and pepper
2 tbsp olive oil

•    Mix all the yogurt sauce ingredients and refrigerate until you are ready to eat.
•    Cut up the salmon fillets in roughly equal-size pieces.
•    Put these in a mixer and pulse three or four times.
•    Avoid working them too much and producing slush at the end.
•    Put the salmon in a bowl.
•    Turn in the egg and the flour, then the mustard, lemon juice and dill.
•    Season with salt and pepper.
•    It’s a good idea to taste the mix for seasoning at this point–the dill and the salt should come through.
•    Refrigerate if not using immediately.

•    Heat the oil in a frying pan and using a dessert spoon scoop out a dollop and make a ball.
•    Put this in the pan and flatten it gently.
•    Cook on a medium-high flame, crisping and browning the outside while making sure the interior cooks through.
   
    Yogurt sauce
•    2 x 125 ml pots low-fat yogurt
•    1 tsp grain mustard
•    good pinch of chopped dill
•    salt
Serve with lemon wedges.
 
The trick to these, I’ve discovered, is not to overcook the salmon, and to handle the patties very gently.
Duncan serves the fishcakes with steamed new potatoes, the yogurt sauce, and a green salad.  Oh, and a bottle of chilled Sauvignon Blanc.
(Credit for the photos to Robin Ellis and Meredith Wheeler. My fishcakes don’t look quite as pretty.)

Kit, Duncan’s fourteen-year-old son, takes after his dad on the cooking front.  He surprises the family with his own recipe for Gourmet Mac Cheese, but as he doesn’t share the ingredients, I can’t pass the recipe on.

There’s lots of eating of yummy sandwiches in the book, too, and meals from a lovely pub in Putney called The Jolly Gardener.  

But the best meal I had while doing the research for this book I didn’t manage to fit into the story. It was at a venerable restaurant called Joanna’s in South London’s Crystal Palace area. Joanna’s is famous for their mussels, so my friend and I started by sharing the mussels in white wine, butter, and garlic, served with very fresh crusty artisan bread from the bakery next door. We had a debate over whether or not to lick the bowl. Then on to Roast Belly of Suffolk Pork, Savoy cabbage, creamy mash (mashed potatoes, sometimes with other root vegetables,) and Kentish apple & ginger sauce . To finish, we shared my absolute all-time favorite dessert, Sticky Toffee Pudding.  Everything was to die for. And it was a good thing I had a long walk down the hill to the train, because I needed it.

Okay, now I’m starving. And planning what to eat on my trip to London in just a few weeks. Oh, and what Duncan, Gemma, and Kit can cook in the NEXT book.



You can read more about Deborah and THE SOUND OF BROKEN GLASS at her website.