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Slack Lasagne
A blog based around the things I've got up to in the kitchen.
Saturday 4 January 2014
Wednesday 25 December 2013
Saturday's festive catering: part 4
Part 4
Now
the catering was all done I could leave the kitchen (admittedly in a
dreadful state) and spend some time with our guests. We variously
enjoyed cheese and biscuits and soup and bread and other savoury
snacks as
well as some mulled wine that Matt had made (not for expectant types)
or soft drinks or tea.
And then I remembered the mince pies, or the pastry at least. I am
currently in possession of a large quantity of cooking apples so was
planning on making a mixture of mince pies, apple pies and mince meat
+ apple pies. (I
had prepared the apple earlier in the day by peeling chopping and
whizzing in the microwave for a few minutes. The
mincemeat was not home made this would just be one ask too many.)
Once
I had rolled out the pastry (by now there was a bit more space as the
chocolate on the biscuit had set and they were all stacked up) there
was a further delay in proceedings because I couldn't find my round
cutters. After emptying the baking tin cupboard (again) and finding
they weren't there I had a search through various other drawers and
cupboards. I eventually found them (I say eventually but in reality
it probably only took about 5 minutes, but it was a very frustrating
5 minutes) and used my newly discovered trick of dipping the cutter
in flour before cutting 12 pastry
discs
to fit in my fairy cake tin.
I
also cut 12 little stars to go on top of the pies.
I don't know a lot about pastry but
what I have learnt is that if you want to avoid a soggy bottom you
should blind bake. What I learnt today is that blind baking tiny
pastry cases in a fairy cake tin is not very easy. They sort of
“grew” so that there wasn't much space for the filling so I took
the executive decision to sort of reshape the partly baked cases with
a measuring spoon (it has a nice, smooth spherical aspect to it). I
added the fillings, topped with the stars, put them in the oven and
returned to spend more time with our guests (this after all was the
main aim of the day).
I had had enough of the kitchen
now so delegated to Matt the important task of taking the pies out of
the oven when they were ready. This was risky:
* Matt gets easily distracted
* The light in the oven is broken
* I think that the thermostat is not
working perfectly which might explain why the biscuits were done in
super quick (in fact quite a few things about the oven are broken, we
might get a new one depending on the financial situation in the new
year, or maybe I could get an oven manufacturer to sponsor me!)
But Matt, did a good job - they looked just
right.
Time was flying by and some of our
guests soon had to leave, but not before we had had the ceremonial
first eating of the Bûche
de
Noel. I didn't partake of
the first round but I was assured by those who did that it was very
good. I would wait until later in the evening to find out for myself.
I
did however fancy a mince pie. Unfortunately, despite careful
greasing of the tin they proved somewhat difficult to remove, but
with a bit of digging with
a teaspoon they mostly came
out in tact (thanks
again to Matt). The weird
semi blind baking / reshaping didn't seem to do too much (if any)
harm and they tasted
pretty nice. (I must say that I am start to enjoy the whole home made
pastry thing; it seems to give a bit of kudos amongst other bakers
too!) Sorry, I neglected
to take a photo but I have plenty of witnesses to attest to the mince
pies'
existence.
After
a bit more savoury snacking ('tis after all the season for my
favourite wafer and processed cheese ball shaped snack) I decided
that it was time to try the Bûche
for
myself. I wasn't disappointed and I'm not usually a big cream fan. I
had been concerned about how to store the leftovers but it didn't
seem that this was going to be much of a problem. It would certainly
be gone in another 24 hours. And
I must say that the cherries were a wise addition, it added a nice
fruity dimension.
So
after all that I had sort of achieved 50% of what I had hoped to
bake:
*
Cheese straws: none made. These would have to be done for another
occasion.
*
Mince pies: 12 made. Including some apple pies and mixed mincemeat
and apple pies.
*
Brandy snaps: none made. Probably no bad thing, I would probably have
made a ghastly mess.
*
Yule log: 1 Bûche
de Noel made.
Very nice it was too. So
nice I'm going to make another at my mum and dad's house, mainly
because it's the best thing I can come up with to use the other half
tin of chestnut purée. Apparently mum has the right sized swiss roll
tin so I will finally find out what one of these looks like. But I'm
going to put a bit more of my own twist on it next time so maybe it
really can be called a “bouche (mouth)
de Noel”.
Tuesday 24 December 2013
Saturday's festive catering: part 3
Part 3
After a day mostly spent in the kitchen
with a brief trip out to buy cream, and an not insubstantial amount
of time spent chatting my festive catering now amounted to:
* some chilled short crust pastry
(destined for mince pies)
* some undecorated multi-spice biscuits
* a big pan of unblended soup
* a bowl of sugar and eggs
I was now on a mission to make my Bûche
de
Noel, this would require
focus and I must reveal that I was rather neglectful of visitors 3
and 4. After a quick hello I left them in Matt's capable hands, I
could hear one of my favourite board games being played so had no
concerns. I finally
whisked up the sugar and eggs, for quite a while on the highest
setting of the electric whisk. Then I carefully added the self
raising flour (65g)
and cocoa powder (40g).
In a most unusual display of care I actually sifted these into the
egg / sugar mixture – I don't know why but it seemed particularly
important not lose all the air that I had whisked in. When it came to
pour the mixture into the tin (you haven't missed an ingredient, this
is a fat free sponge) it looked basically like a chocolate mousse.
While
this baked (at 220ºC
for 10minutes)
I started the filling. I whisked 150ml of cream. In another bowl I
whisked (this recipe uses a lot of bowls and a lot of whisking) half
of the tin of chestnut purée (I did cut a corner here as the recipe
said you were supposed to sieve this but this just seemed crazy) with
3 tablespoons of hot milk, 1 tablespoon of hot coffee (you're
supposed to use coffee essence but I don't have any and there was a
little bit of coffee left in a cafetiere that Matt had made for
himself earlier) and 50g
of caster sugar.
You're also supposed to put brandy in but not being sure of the
alcohol consumption practices of our expected (and possibly
expectant) guests I left this out. Then
you fold the cream into the rest of it. And that's the filling.
The
next bit of the recipe seemed like it was going to be the tricky bit.
You have to take the sponge out of the oven and immediately turn it
out, remove the
greaseproof paper and roll
it up (the cake, not the
paper). I
prepared for this operation by covering a board in icing sugar to
turn the sponge out onto. The sponge turn out subsequently resulted
in an icing sugar bomb effect all over the work surface. It wasn't
until I later re-read the recipe that I realised you were supposed to
use caster sugar, which would probably have made considerably less
mess. I worked quickly but
the sponge rolling was entirely unsuccessful, despite following the
recipe's tip of scoring where the first roll would go. I ended up
with three separate pieces of sponge that sort of fitted together.
You then have to leave it to cool before adding the filling.
I
used this pause to decorate the biscuits. Time pressures meant that I
needed to keep this simple. I melted some plain chocolate and used
this to drizzle over the holly leaf shapes. We
had reached the ominous 5 o'clock when I was actually expecting
people to arrive. I had a lot of melted chocolate left and decided
that I would cover the Christmas tree shapes with this and then put
on a few silver balls. The
timing was bad because just as my haphazard decorating was going on
Matt's auntie who is an expert cake decorator arrived. But
I was not to be deterred. After
greeting our new guests I returned to the Bûche.
But
it was still not cool and despite my impatience I knew better than to
put a cream based filling in a hot cake.
So
I went back to the biscuits. I melted some white chocolate and used
this to drizzle over the angels / fairies (to which I then added a
bit of pink sprinkly sugar stuff) and to cover the snowmen (to which
I then added some multi-coloured hundreds and thousands).
Every spare work surface was now covered with festive biscuits
covered in chocolate that needed to set.
Then I dusted with cocoa powder (back to the recipe). I was rather pleased with the effect but thought that it would look even better with a supplementary dusting of icing sugar (recipe deviation) – it did. The scene was completed by the application of the plastic Christmas figurines (holly, father Christmas, reindeer) that Barbara, my mother-in-law, had kindly picked up for me (don't fret I have paid her back). For a first attempt it looked good but, as they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
To
be continued.......
(This would
be a really far too long blog if I don't split it up; you are after
all getting multiple recipes.)
Saturday's festive catering: part 2
Part
2
(You
can find part 1 here.)
So
far my festive catering amounted to a large number of (undecorated)
gingerbread (well, multiple spiced) biscuits and a lump of pastry.
Now
I really was going to need to get on with the Yule
log. First thing was to
choose a recipe. I found a few ranging from the very chocolatey to
the less chocolatey (I
would be interested to know the link between chocolate and Christmas,
the best I can make up is that it's a high calorie food to set you up
with energy for the winter); with
anywhere between 4 and 6 eggs. I eventually settled on a less
chocolatey option with 4 eggs. The
main reason I chose this one was that it used whole eggs – I didn't
have to do any egg separation which is an operation I generally try
to avoid. It's ok when it's just one egg (as in the pastry above) but
becomes too risky when you've to separate lots of eggs and even
riskier when you don't have a good supply of spare eggs.
Other
reasons this was the best choice recipe:
*
It was titled Bûche
de
Noel which sounded way more exciting than Yule log. For a while I
thought that this translated as “mouth of Christmas” but wasn't
convinced this is the right spelling for “mouth”. A quick check
in the mini French dictionary confirmed that this is the case; bûche
translating as “log” so not really being that much more exciting
after all. (For reference mouth is “bouche”, which might be a
culinary delight awaiting invention.)
*
It
used chestnut purée in the filling and I have had a tin of this sat
in the cupboard for quite some time.
I
measured the sugar (100g)
and
cracked in the eggs and
my thoughts turned to decoration. I needed some small plastic
Christmas things to go on top of the bûche.
My
best bet would be Barbara, my mother-in-law. Although a quick phone
call revealed that she didn't own any she was conveniently just
finishing “work” (at a charity shop so it should really be called
“volunteer”). The convenient thing about this is that it is just
next door to the most comprehensive catering shop in Plymouth and she
kindly agreed to pick a few things up for me.
Then
I decided that I'd better go out and get some cream, and then by the
time I got back (I had to go to the 2nd
nearest corner shop because the first one didn't have the right sort
of cream) I needed some lunch, and then (after a little bit of cheese
on toast expertly prepared by Matt) a visitor arrived. It was just
before 2pm and I was under the impression that no-one was going to be
arriving until at least 5pm. I had based my entire kitchen schedule
on no-one arriving until at least 5pm. Nothing was ready for this
first visitor but Matt came to the rescue and made some more cheese
on toast. And then at about half past two the next visitor arrived
(along with some lovely flowers for yours truly).
Since
I hadn't really made a start on the “Bûche” I decided I should
put this on pause to focus on the “proper” food and get the soup
done. This was quite easy to do with sporadic conversation as it
doesn't require too much concentration (I make a lot of soup). 2
onions, 2 carrots, 2 sticks of celery, 4 leeks and 2 potatoes, all
into a big pan with a little bit of olive oil and sweated off. Then
after a bit of chatting I added enough hot water to cover it all and
then chatted some more until the veggies were nice and soft. Then I
poured in some red lentils (I suppose about 2 cupfuls) for thickening
and protein and let it all cook a bit more while I chatted a bit
more. (Matt would blend and serve later.)
I
tried to continue my food preparation whilst not being too
antisocial, but came to a bit of an impasse when I came to prepare
the tin for the log. The recipe said I needed a 23 x 33cm swiss roll
tin. I had a baking tray that was slightly thinner and longer and
found some sort of tin that was a bit shorter. I had no idea if this
tin was a swiss roll tin. I wouldn't know a swiss roll tin if it hit
me in the face. I think this tin must have come from my granny. I
was facing a quandary that (in the absence of a hotline to a certain
baking doyenne) would best be solved by a call to my mum (also a
baking doyenne in her own way). She recommended that I use the
slightly shorter tin that may or may not be a swiss roll tin. I
lined this and then the next guests arrived, I
think it
was just
before 4pm.
This was getting silly. I
still had a bowl of sugar and eggs sat on the side, and was expecting
a serious arrival of guests in an hour.
To
be continued.......
(This
would be a really far too long blog if I don't split it up;
you are after all getting multiple recipes.)
Monday 23 December 2013
Saturday's festive catering: part 1
Matt had arranged a bit of a
pre-Christmas gathering for his friends and family. It was unclear
to me just how many friends and family would be attending (I was
expecting somewhere between 3 and 20), so catering arrangements were
a little tricky but it seemed like a good occasion for me to get on
with some festive baking.
I had a long list of all the things
that I wanted to make:
* Cheese straws
* Mince pies
* Celebrity chef (the one who does all
the “science”) inspired gingerbread Christmas tree
* Brandy snaps
* Yule log
In addition we needed something
slightly more nourishing to feed ourselves (and our guests if they
chose to partake) so additionally needed:
* Soup – I had four leeks in the
fridge destined for this
* Bread – to go with the soup. Matt
would be responsible for this via the bread machine
* Cheese – courtesy of the
supermarket.
I had intended to make the gingerbread
tree the night before the gathering but to be honest after a tiring
day at work and once I had been to the supermarket (for the above
cheese – I even bought some pregnancy unfriendly types for the
occasion, which in my current condition is quite a taunt to my
palette – and some other supplies) I didn't really feel like
spending the estimated 3 hours in the kitchen. And let's face it
these time estimates in recipes are always inadequate. Instead I
spent some quality time with the TV on Friday night (Matt was at his
work night out so I had my choice entirely).
But Saturday would be a busy day in the
kitchen. I started with the mince pies. Well, the pastry anyway. The
recipe I used today was 100g butter rubbed into 200g plain flour and
then 25g icing sugar and an egg yolk stirred through (I am now left
with one egg white). For some reason I decided not to use the food
processor for this, maybe because I thought I might need it for
something else later, but it was pretty quick anyway and I put the
pastry ball away in the fridge to chill until mince pies were called
for.
Going by the rule of “do the most
difficult thing first” I should have really started getting on with
the Yule log now. Instead I decided to make some gingerbread. Not the
fancy tree, just some plain biscuits. The last time I made
gingerbread
I wasn't entirely satisfied with the outcome so I used a different
recipe today. This one required you to melt 100g brown sugar (I used
the dark & soft type) with 125g butter (I used unsalted but am
really not convinced of the necessity of this) and 4 tablespoons of
golden syrup (very difficult to measure). You then stir that all into
the dry ingredients of 325g plain flour, 1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of
soda and 2 teaspoons of ground ginger. I was unhappy about this level
of spicing so also added a generous sprinkle of cinnamon and a bit of
ground nutmeg – hopefully this would make them taste even more
festive. I mixed it all up but it seemed really sloppy. I took the
risk of adding a little more (1 tablespoon) flour and the mixture
seemed to improve a bit. I rolled it out to an estimated 0.5cm in
preparation of cutting.
Proceedings were now delayed slightly
while I emptied the baking tin cupboard (yes, I realise I am very
fortunate to have a whole cupboard of baking tins) to find the
festive cookie cutters. They were obviously right at the back but I
did find lots of things that I had forgotten that I had in the
process. Proceedings were then delayed slightly further as I realised
that I needed to give the cutters a bit of a clean before they could
be used and I decided that I may as well do a load of dishes at the
same time.
Back to the food preparation, I chose
the cutters I wanted – holly leaves, Christmas tress (still
thinking about my original plan), angels / fairies (depending on your
preference) and snowmen (I could also have had Father Christmas,
reindeer and candy canes but decided that less is more in terms of
biscuit forms) – and set to cutting out the biscuits. Now comes the
best thing that I learnt all day....
Dip the cutter in flour before cutting.
I have never done this before but it was specifically mentioned in
the recipe. I can't believe I have never done this before, the
festive shapes just dropped out, none of that annoying getting stuck
in the cutter and poking to try to to remove it. If you've never done
this before you should try it. It really was a revelation.
Anyway 4 angels / fairies, 4 trees, 4
snowmen, and numerous easily cut holly leaves later (as well as a
nondescript shape made with the leftover dough) I baked the biscuits
at 170ºC
for just 7 minutes. The recipe said 9-10
minutes but I didn't want to risk them being too tough, especially
after I had added that extra flour. The trick here is not to worry
that they are still softish when they come out of the oven. I removed
them onto a cooling tray, where they “solidified”. They
could have some festive decoration added later.
To
be continued.......
(This
would be a really far too long blog if I don't split it up; you are
after all getting multiple recipes.)
Saturday 21 December 2013
Wednesday's cocktail muffins
I had yet again failed to meet the customary work based
requirement of bringing in something nice to eat. The occasion this
time was my birthday, and the excuse was a very busy week. Things
still hadn't really settled down but I was determined to provide
something tasty for our team meeting. The previous evening a friend
had come round for dinner and I'd done our now almost classic curry
(mushroom, chickpea, sweet potato) and had finished it off with half
a tin of coconut milk. So now I had half a tin of coconut milk left
over. In my experience there are very few things to do with half a
tin of coconut milk.
I had a concept in mind.... a kind of pina colada in cake form. I
would need to achieve this before work so time being limited I would
stick with muffins as the cake form, I know what I'm doing here. I
didn't have a precise recipe but there are lots for sort of fruity
muffins which I felt fairly confident that I could adapt.
The usual muffin method applied:
1. Mix the dry ingredients: 280g self raising flour, ½ teaspoon
bicarbonate of soda, ½ teaspoon salt, 100g caster or granulated
sugar.
2. Mix the wet ingredients: 1 egg (beaten), half a 400ml tin of
coconut milk (approx – it might have been slightly less), 100g
tinned pineapple (chopped up into little bits with kitchen scissors –
try not to add too much more liquid or it'll all get rather soggy!),
90ml vegetable oil
3. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients: it should
look like a lumpy batter, not a smooth dough
4. Transfer to muffin tin and bake: this gave me an opportunity to
use the new muffin cases that my mum had bought me for my birthday.
She knows how to spoil her little girl – I will only ever buy for
myself the plain white ones and recently have been using cupcake
cases (rather than muffin cases) which are the wrong shape for my tin
but I bought them by accident and refuse to let them go to waste. I
finished off by sprinkling a little bit of desiccated coconut over
the tops (we have a lot of desiccated coconut for some reason so I'm
always pleased to find an outlet.
5. Bake at 190ºC
for about 25minutes (until they look golden and pass the skewer
test).
I took a risk in taking these to work without conducting a taste
test myself. Even Matt, my husband, didn't do a taste test. I was
doing well for time so just in case I also made some mincemeat
muffins too and some nutty gingerbread ones that I made made whilst
waiting for our visitor the previous evening. The pina colada muffins
went down particularly well with the female contingent of the team
(80%, but 85% of the meeting attendees) and I was assured that they
performed both in terms of flavour and texture.
I got to try one myself later that evening as I took all the
leftover muffins to our last dancing class of the season, and it
really was rather good. Again, it was the ladies who were most
forward in testing out my new creation – I suppose it is a fairly
feminine flavour of muffin but I'm sure that men would get a lot of
enjoyment out of them too if they could overcome their bravado. The
others were enjoyed too, in class or at the pub at our end of term
gathering. I'd recommend you give mincemeat muffins a go if you would
like to serve home-made mince pies but can't be bothered with the
pastry. And I think I'll be trying out some more cocktail based
muffins as the season demands. These ones could even perhaps have a
slosh of coconut liqueur added to them on future occasions.
Saturday 30 November 2013
Tuesday and Wednesday's pasties
Due to another mistake (on my part)
with the internet shopping we had ended up with a rather large
quantity of onions. I had meant to get some white/brown onions and
some red onions but had inadvertently ordered all white/brown. With a
busy few weeks ahead there are going to be limited opportunities for
using these conventionally so I was in need of a bulk onion
operation. The obvious would be onion soup but we have been eating
soup (leek/potato/lentil or pumpkin/sherry) most days of the past
week so I was looking for something a bit different. What came to
mind was some kind of onion tart. This would have the bonus of
providing me with an opportunity to practise my pastry skills.
Whilst perusing for a recipe I came
across a few possibles for a tart but was distracted by one for
pasties. After consulting with Matt, my husband, I decided to go for
the pasties. One of the main purposes of this baking would be to
contribute to a train picnic so pasties were imminently more sensible
than tarts.
I started off making the pastry. The
recipe I had was for onion and Wensleydale pasties. I didn't plan to
do onion and Wensleydale, I planned to invent my own filling, but the
pastry would be universal. On this occasion I was going to attempt
flaky pastry. I was somewhat overwhelmed by the long long list of
instructions (14 steps) but on closer inspection these didn't seem
too awful, just detailed. I was also somewhat overwhelmed by the
amount of butter called for (175g), but I suppose that is what
happens when you decide to make pastry. The recipe said that you have
to divide this into 4 even parts, which gives the puzzling mass of 4
x 43.75g. I am yet to discover the kitchen scales that measure to two
decimal places but I did a pretty good job and got them all within 2g
with just a tiny bit of adjustment.
You rub the first (near) quarter of
butter into the flour and then mix it to a dough with cold water and
a teaspoon of lemon juice. I am not sure of the role of the lemon
juice but this was the first time I'd made this so I wasn't about go
fiddling with the recipe. Then you knead it and chill it. This recipe
called for a lot of chilling which makes it a good multi-tasking
option (laundry in this instance). Once chilled, you roll out the
pastry. The recipe specifically stated that it should be rolled out
to a 15x45cm rectangle. I was not about to be getting my tape measure
out so sort of estimated this too. I also found that it was very
difficult to get a rectangle shape and ended up with more of an oval
really.
The next step was described as flaking
the next (near) quarter of butter over the bottom and middle third of
the rectangle. I assumed it meant that you had the 15cm horizontally
and the 45cm vertically (which was actually the opposite arrangement
to my pastry). “Flaking” the butter seemed like a rather complex
operation, certainly not one I could achieve before the butter melted
in my hand, so I grated it instead. I used one of those little
graters that you get in hot chocolate gift packs at Christmas time
which was surprisingly satisfying. You then fold the pastry up like
an envelope and chill it again. Once chilled, you repeat all of that
with the third (near) quarter of butter; and then again with the
final (near) quarter. Incidentally, it got easier to roll to a
rectangle with each stage, but still not perfect.
By now it was getting late and, having
been busy multi-tasking, I had neglected to make the filling. I
decided that it would be wise to go to sleep and do that the next
day. Having originally planned this project to use a load of onions
but when it came to it I had a change of heart. I made a more generic
vegetabley filling with onion (x1), celery (x1 stick), carrot (x1),
leek (x2) and plenty of seasoning. I sautéed this all off on the
hob, by which time I needed to get off to work, so the pasty assembly
would have to wait until later.
I rolled out the pastry for the final
time and then cut it into nine square(ish) pieces (the recipe said
eight but nine seemed to fit better). I dolloped a bit of the
vegetable filling onto the squares and then augmented with some
cheese, we had some feta and my favourite brand of soft cheese with
garlic and herbs to use up so I did 4 with the former and 5 with the
latter. It became apparent that I had made far too much filling and I
didn't manage to use up either of the cheeses either. The closure of
the pasties proved the most technically demanding part of the process
so far. I managed it but not in a very neat manner. These would be
rustic looking pasties.
The recipe then told me to “flake the
pastry with a knife”. I had no idea what this meant so sort of
scraped one of the pasties but this just looked weird so I didn't do
anything to the rest of them apart from snipping to let out steam.
They go went into a very hot oven for 8
minutes and then had further 20 minutes or so slightly cooler. I had
a peek midway and was appalled at the volume of fat they appeared to
be swimming in so did a careful pour away of some of this. I took
them out of the oven when they looked golden. As it was now past 10
o'clock the taste test would have to wait until the next day.
In the morning I started the
preparation for our train picnic. This involved putting 2 pasties
each (1 each of the soft cheese with garlic and herbs and feta) into
a plastic tub. This left 5 pasties for me to distribute at work. 5 is
a difficult number to distribute because it's clearly not enough for
everyone. My criteria today were:
1. Pregnant people
2. People who got wind of the pasty
situation and asked for one
3. People who were extra-specially
nice.
My pregnant colleagues devoured one
each for elevenses; I devoured one for a mid-afternoon snack – I
couldn't resist as every time I opened my bag I got a whiff of pasty
goodness; and I gave the final one to the colleague I had been
working closest with that day. The consensus was good. Indeed someone
actually declared me to be a cooking wizard!
I had to rapidly augment our train
picnic due to the quick post-work turn around time to get the train.
I added baps (cheese and tomato plus feta and guacamole), yoghurt,
crisps and malt loaf (pre-sliced). The pasties were definitely the
highlight (although the feat and guacamole bap came a close second).
The pastry was crisp and the filling delicious. My pastry confidence
has improved and I plan to reprise the pasty creation for a wider
audience.
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