Recipes with Julie Van Rosendaal: Food fit for a king

On May 6, King Charles will be crowned alongside Camilla, the Queen Consort, at Westminster Abbey in London.

There are coronation celebrations planned across the country, with many gatherings involving food, of course.

Their majesties shared a quiche recipe featuring spring ingredients — spinach, broad (or fava) beans and tarragon — for The Big Lunch, an initiative that has coordinated over a million community gatherings since 2009.

Buckingham Palace has also announced three official recipes, developed by some of Britain's most beloved chefs: Adam Handling, Ken Hom and Nadiya Hussain.

• Bookmark cbc.ca/juliesrecipes to keep up with all of Julie Van Rosendaal's dishes.

We spoke about some of the recipes you can whip up this week on the Calgary Eyeopener.

The Big Lunch Coronation Quiche

A deep quiche with a crisp, light pastry crust and delicate flavours of spinach, broad beans and fresh tarragon. Eat hot or cold with a green salad and boiled potatoes — perfect for a coronation lunch!

Note that in Canada, cream is not as heavy as double cream in the U.K. 

At over 50 per cent butterfat, the cream from Vital Green Farms is, otherwise you might want to reduce the quantity of milk by about half.

I've also called for large versus medium eggs, which are more common here.

To streamline the process, start with thawed frozen pastry — enough for a single-crust pie.

Recipe adapted slightly to suit our Canadian kitchens courtesy of the King, the Queen Consort and The Big Lunch.

Ingredients

Pastry:

• 125 g flour
• pinch salt
• 25 g cold butter, diced
• 25 g lard (or shortening, or more butter)
• 2 tablespoons milk

Filling:

• 125 ml (½ cup) milk
• 175 ml double cream (or whipping cream)
• 2 large eggs
• salt and pepper
• 100 g grated aged cheddar cheese
• 180 g cooked spinach, lightly chopped
• 60 g cooked broad/fava beans or soya beans (or edamame)
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon

To make the pastry, sieve the flour and salt into a bowl. Add the fats and rub the mixture together using your fingers until you get a sandy, breadcrumb-like texture.

Add the milk a little at a time and bring the ingredients together into a dough. Add a bit more milk or water if it's too dry.

Cover and allow to rest in the fridge for 30 to 45 minutes.

Lightly flour your work surface and roll out the pastry to a circle a little larger than the top of your tart tin and approximately five millimetres thick. Line the tin with the pastry. Cover and rest for a further 30 minutes in the fridge.

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Poke the pastry in several places with a fork, then line with parchment or foil, add weights (dry beans, coins, pie weights, sugar) and blind bake for 15 minutes, until just set.

Whisk together the milk, cream, eggs, salt and pepper. Scatter half of the grated cheese in the base, top with the chopped spinach and beans and herbs, then pour over the egg mixture.

If required, gently give the mixture a delicate stir to ensure the filling is evenly dispersed in the shell.

Sprinkle over the remaining cheese and bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until set and lightly golden. Serve warm, at room temperature or cold.

Serves: 6.

Nadiya Hussain's Coronation Aubergines

Nadiya Hussain won The Great British Bake Off in 2015 and baked Queen Elizabeth's 90th birthday cake the following year.

She's back with an exquisite vegetarian (and easily vegan, if you use plant-based yogurt) recipe for King Charles' coronation.

The dressing pays homage to arguably the best-known British coronation dish — the original coronation chicken invented by florist Constance Spry and Rosemary Hume, founder of the famous Le Cordon Bleu cookery school, for the banquet of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth in 1953.

Recipe from Nadiya's Fast Flavours by Nadiya Hussain.

Ingredients

• 225 ml olive oil
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 small onion, grated
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 aubergines, sliced 1 cm thick (about 600 g)

Dressing:

• 200 g Greek yogurt
• 2 teaspoons curry powder
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons mango chutney, finely chopped
• 2 teaspoons whole milk

To serve:

• crispy fried onions
• raisins
• chopped fresh coriander

Start by putting the oil in a bowl with the minced garlic, onion, paprika and salt. Mix really well and set aside with a pastry brush.

Pop the aubergines onto a tray (they can overlap). Take the oil mixture and brush the aubergine slices generously with the oil on both sides until you have finished all the mixture. Set aside.

Put one large or two small (if you have them) griddle pan(s) onto medium heat (these are great on the barbecue, too, FYI).

Griddle in batches on both sides. They take approximately two minutes on each side. You will know they are ready when the flesh looks saturated, less spongy and softer. Pop onto a plate, overlapping, ready to serve.

Make the dressing by combining the yogurt, curry powder, garlic, salt and mango chutney and giving it all a really good mix.

Add a few tablespoons of whole milk to loosen the mixture just a little.

Drizzle some of the dressing over the aubergines, saving some to serve on the side.

Sprinkle with fried onions, raisins and coriander to serve.

Adam Handling's Strawberry-Ginger Trifle

This unique trifle from Dundee-born chef and London restaurateur Adam Handling layers Yorkshire parkin (a sticky, chewy gingerbread made with treacle and oats) with British strawberries, ginger custard and generous dollops of whipped cream.

To streamline things, start with any gingerbread cake for the base rather than baking the parkin from scratch, and/or make a batch of custard using Bird's Custard Powder, adding a bit of grated ginger if you like.

Recipe by Adam Handling, edited slightly for Canadian kitchens.

Ingredients

• fresh, thawed, frozen or roasted strawberries, for serving

Yorkshire parkin:

• 150 g golden syrup
• 150 g butter
• 40 g black treacle (or dark molasses)
• 150 g brown sugar
• 150 g self-raising flour (or 150 g all-purpose flour + 1½ teaspoons baking powder + ½ teaspoon salt)
• 115 g oats (many recipes use quick or coarsely ground for finer bits)
• 2 large eggs
• 1½ teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg (optional)

Strawberry jelly:

• 500 ml strawberry juice (or 350 g frozen strawberries, thawed and blended)
• 125 g sugar
• 1 packet plain gelatin or 1 tsp agar powder

Ginger custard:

• 8 egg yolks
• 130 g sugar
• 100 g all-purpose flour
• 500 ml 2 per cent or homogenized milk
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger

Candied pistachios:

• 50 g pistachios, toasted if you like
• 50 g sugar

Cream:

• 1 cup whipping cream, chilled
• 50 g icing sugar
• a few drops vanilla

For the Yorkshire parkin: Preheat the oven to 350 F. Melt the butter, syrups and brown sugar in a saucepan.

Place all the dry ingredients into a mixer and combine them. Add the wet ingredients and mix until incorporated.

Finish with the eggs and beat for a few minutes, until smooth and pale.

Pour into a parchment-lined eight or nine-inch square or round baking pan (or a loaf pan) and bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until springy to the touch. Cool completely.

For the jelly: Put the juice and sugar in a medium saucepan and sprinkle the gelatin or agar overtop. Let sit for a few minutes to soften, then heat, stirring to dissolve.

LISTEN | Julie Van Rosendaal explains how to make these royal recipes:

For the custard: Place the milk and ginger into a saucepan and heat until just before it reaches the boil. Remove from the heat and leave to the side to infuse for 20 minutes.

Whisk the egg yolks and the sugar together, add the flour and then pass the infused milk through a fine sieve into the egg mixture. Whisk together and then transfer back into the saucepan.

Place the saucepan back on the heat and whisk continuously, until the custard reaches 85 C and thickens. Transfer to a shallow bowl and place some plastic wrap or parchment on the surface as it cools.

To make the candied pistachios: Put the pistachios on a piece of parchment or foil on a baking sheet, and heat the sugar in a small skillet with a splash of water (a couple tablespoons), swirling the pan until it turns a deep amber colour, like maple syrup.

Pour over the pistachios and tilt the sheet to spread it out into a thin puddle. Set aside to cool completely, then bash into pieces.

Whip the cream with the icing sugar and vanilla to stiff peaks and transfer to a piping bag, if you like.

To assemble the trifle(s), crumble or chop the parkin into small pieces and layer in a trifle bowl or individual glass dishes or glasses. Top with a few pieces of fresh or roasted strawberry, then pour over some jelly.

Refrigerate for at least an hour, or until set. Spoon over some custard (or pipe it in) and then spoon or pipe dots of cream over top.

Scatter with candied pistachios just before serving.

Serves: About 6.