Secret Diary of a Foodie

Smoky rosé veal goulash with caraway seed and dill dumplings

2012-02-12T18:09:00.002Z

If you want hairs on your chest, this is the dish for you. Ideal for chilly weather and hungry guests. It may not have the finesse required for a dinner party, but for a boozy Sunday lunch with family and friends it's perfect - providing just the right amount of comfort and being rather easy to pull off and impress with.

I ordered a mixed box of beautiful rosé veal from Heaves Farm Veal at the end of last year and received a whole host of interesting and tasty cuts. Fillet steaks perfect for wiener schnitzel, shins for osso bucco, mince galore to make gently cooked ragu, braising cuts that I used for an Italian style pie (link here if you fancy a look http://bit.ly/uwuH4L), a topside that melted perfectly in a marsarla wine and porcini mushroom sauce, and a whole load more besides.

I've still got lots of it to use (look out for the schnitzel and osso bucco complete with saffron Milanese soon) and when trying to squeeze something into the freezer in the week was reminded about the brisket.

Brisket is from a really hard working part of the beast and so needs very gentle and slow cooking to break down the connective tissues and make the meat melt. It has a great flavour and takes on other flavours very well indeed, so lends itself to bold, slow cooked dishes like goulash.

After sampling some rather sorry dumplings in Prague alongside a goulash, I realised dumplings are ideal for adulterating - they take on other flavours perfectly so can act as a great complement to the dish you serve them with. Here I packed them with caraway seeds and dill - flavours that a goulash I ate in Vienna last year was filled with. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

For four:
For the goulash -
A brisket around 1.4k in weight, coated in salt and pepper and seared on all sides in a very hot pan with some groundnut oil until golden
2 red peppers, cut into strips
4 red peppers from a jar, and around 100mls of the juice they're held in
1 large carrot, peeled and cut into batons
2 celery stalks, cleaned and cut into batons
2 red onions, peeled and quartered
3 heaped tsp smoked paprika
600mls red wine
4 slices smoked streaky bacon
300mls water
2 tablespoons caraway seeds
2 tablespoons cornflour mixed into a paste with cold water

For the dumplings -
1.5 tablespoons caraway seeds
50g shredded suet - I use a light suet which works just fine
100g self raising flour
A handful each fresh dill and parsley, finely chopped
Enough cold water to form a firm dough
Quarter of a teaspoon smoked paprika
Sea salt and black pepper

To serve -
2 minced gherkins
Sour cream

Method:
- Preheat your oven to 220 degrees
- Into a casserole dish combine all the goulash ingredients apart from the cornflour mix and place into the oven for 20 minutes at 220, then reduce the heat to 165 for 2.5 hours
- Towards the end of the cooking, mix in a large bowl all the dumpling dry mix until combined, then add enough water to form a firm dough. Form the dumplings into small balls, you will get around 9, then set aside
- When the time is up on the goulash, remove from the oven and remove the brisket and set aside for 15 minutes to rest
- Whilst that's happening strain the liquor, catching it in another casserole pot or saucepan that can go on the hob and which has a lid. Out of the vegetables in the strainer keep the peppers, carrots and celery and put these into the strained liquor
- Heat on a gentle heat and stir in the cornflour until you get to a consistency of sauce that will coat the back of a spoon
- As this cooks a little, take the brisket and cut into large slices, then place it into the sauce so it's submerged
- The goulash on the hob should only be gently simmering on a low heat, and once the veal is back in it place the dumplings on top. Clamp the lid on and be very patient and don't peek until it's done - which will take 20 minutes
- Serve with a big glass of your favourite

Poulet Basque

2012-02-05T17:27:00.002Z

I'm lucky to have spent a fair amount of time in San Sebastian, the fabulous Basque capital, but that's not where I discovered this classic dish. It was actually introduced to me by my dad, who is without doubt the reason I am as adoring of food and cooking as I am.

My mum and dad have lived in France for the last decade after deciding that it's never too late to start again. Leaving England and the home they'd lived in for 25 years was a big gamble, to take my youngest brother (10 years old at the time) and to move to a country where they didn't speak the language was a scary, upsetting and exhilarating time.

It's this kind of bravery that is at the heart of a philosophy very personal to me and my life - the possibility of change through action. The idea that if you aren't happy with something in your life that you have the power to try to make things different, to make things better.

They bought Les Rochers, a small hotel in south west France, in a conservation village with incredible views into the valleys and of the mountains that they're perched on the side of. It's a special place not only because their balls and hard work have created a hotel and home that is beautiful, artistic and welcoming, or because the surrounding landscapes are breathtaking, but because it's full of so many great memories and whenever we visit they come flooding back.

Les Rochers has been privvy to a few parties over the years (including my wedding), lots of drinking and even more great eating (an essential in our family) and over the years I've been inspired by my dads fantastic cooking to recreate and adapt many dishes served in the restaurant.

Poulet Basque (as you'll find it named on the menu) always delights customers and without fail leaves me wanting seconds. The flavours are as vibrant as the colours of the dish, and in this version I like to use chicken legs for extra flavour, and to cook it all in one pot, leaving me time to do something else (like playing Scrabble, which is seen as a competitive sport at the hotel and undertaken at least twice a day when I visit).

For four:
4 chicken legs, skin on and seasoned with salt and pepper on both sides
2 red onions, finely sliced
3 picante chorizo cooking sausages, peeled and cut into batons lengthways
1 each of red, orange and yellow pepper, cut into strips
1 red pepper from a jar, sliced in the same way
Around 30 cherry / small tomatoes (sorry, I didn't weigh them, just counted them) - leave 10 raw
1 lemon, quartered
A couple of handfuls pitted black olives
600mls dry white wine
200mls water
100mls pasatta
2 cloves garlic, sliced
3 handfuls raw basmatti rice (probably inauthentic but means you don't need to cook it or another accompaniment separately later)
Olive oil for cooking
2 tsp smoked paprika
Sea salt and black pepper

Method:
- Preheat your oven to 180 degrees
- Lightly coat your peppers in olive oil and the tomatoes, pop them in separate containers into the oven for 1hr. Shake occasionally, you're looking for them to soften and lightly char around the edges
- When they're done, remove them from the oven and set aside
- Heat a dry frying pan on a high heat and after a minute or two add the chorizo (and either turn your extractor fan on full blast or open a door, as it creates some smoke). Turn the batons to get them darkening on all sides, then remove and set aside
- Into the hot chorizo fat place the chicken legs, skin side down. Cook on both sides until you've got them a light golden colour, then remove and set aside and add the sliced onions to the fat. Cook on a slightly lower heat for around 5 minutes, then add the garlic and paprika and cook for a further minute before adding the wine, water and pasatta. Bring all this to a simmer and then remove from the heat
- Into a large oven proof dish add the tomatoes, fresh tomatoes, roasted peppers and pepper from a jar, black olives, onions and garlic in the wine mixture, then the basmatti rice and stir it all together to combine, then lay the chorizo batons over the top and finally push the chicken legs into the mix (skin side up)
- Cover (lid or foil tightly wrapped) and cook at 180 degrees for 1 hour, the dish should be bubbling and the chicken juices running clear, pop it back in briefly if you need a bit longer
- Serve, giving a squeeze of lemon before eating

Camembert, black olive and apricot tart

2012-02-05T13:13:00.001Z

The whole Camembert was sat in the fridge, waiting to be eaten as I was waiting for inspiration.

Normally polishing off cheeses if a forte of mine, and my usual trick with Camembert is to bake it. Doing this is especially good after studding it with black garlic slivers, a coating of black pepper and a splash of white vino. But there’s only so much hot molten cheese that a girl can cope with, so I found myself searching for something different to do with it that would last longer than a single sitting.

A tart seemed ideal, and the trio of flavours balance one another very well indeed. There's real harmony between the salty olives, sweet bursts of apricot and the distinctive French soft cheese. And their combination is even better the day after baking (though letting it make it that far was a bit of a challenge).

The overall effect is pretty slinky and quite soft set, which feels extra luxurious when eaten. That said, I made the tart pretty rustic – olives just cut in half, finely diced apricot and the Camembert (including the rind) cut into long slices, but you could make the tart more refined if you wanted.

Do this simply by pureeing the apricots and adding them to the cream and eggs mix along with very finely minced black olives, and remove the rind from the cheese and dice it.

Makes one 9” tart

4 egg yolks and 2 whole eggs

300mls single cream

1 whole Camembert, cut into long strips

120g dried apricots, finely diced

20 stoned black olives (not that have been kept in oil) split lengthways

1 packet of ready to roll short crust pastry (because lifes too short)

A generous scrunch of black pepper

Unsalted butter for greasing

Plain flour for dusting

Baking beans / rice

9” tart case

Method:

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees

Lightly grease your tart case

Lightly dust a work surface with plain flour, and roll out the pastry until it’s around 4mm thick

Drape the pastry inside the case, gently letting it settle into the corners and not stretching the pastry, use your knuckles to press the pastry into the corners very carefully, this is important in having a well shaped base that will hold all the filling

Trim the excess top edges of the pastry, I like to leave a little extra to allow for shrinkage in the oven, when its done you can simply shave off the excess if its not shrunk, using a very sharp knife to do so. Don’t prick the base of the case

Place baking paper into the case and fill with baking beans or rice and pop into the oven for 25 minutes

Whilst that’s happening, whisk together the eggs, cream and black pepper

Remove the case from the oven and take out the baking paper that’s holding all the beans / rice, put the case back into the oven for 5 minutes

Remove from the oven and pour a little of the egg mix into the base, then lay as much camembert as you can lengthways across the tart, top with the olives and apricots, then the remaining Camembert, and finally pour over the rest of the egg mixture

Carefully place into the oven for 25 minutes. Half way through cooking remove the tart and use a fork to poke any of the exposed rinds back under the surface

When the time is up (and don’t worry if the tart has inflated a bit in the oven, it will settle back down) give it a little shake and if the centre wobbles like it’s very wet then put it back in for five minutes. You’re looking for a little movement in the centre but not much

Toulouse sausages with roasted red onions, spinach and puy lentils

2012-01-29T19:28:00.000Z

Can't be arsed? Then this dish is for you.

Little time and effort and good quality ingredients make this a real winner. Make sure you use good quality stock and high meat content sausages - and if you don't like Toulouse then swap them for a more simple herbed sausage.

For four:

1 or 2 sausages per person (number depends on levels of hunger + / greed)

500g puy lentils - boiled in unsalted water from cold until tender, should be around 20 minutes, then drained

300mls medium / dry white wine

500mls chicken, duck or pork stock

300g fresh spinach, drained

3 medium red onions, peeled, top and tailed and quartered

A handful of fresh parsley (flat or curly) chopped just before using

A clove of garlic, crushed

6 rashers smoked streaky, finely diced

Juice of half a juicy lemon

1 carrot, peeled and sliced into rounds

1 golden onion, finely diced

Unsalted butter

Olive oil for cooking

Extra virgin olive oil for finishing

Groundnut or vegetable oil

Sea salt and pepper

Method:

- Preheat your oven to 160 degrees, place the quartered onions into a roasting tin, drizzle with olive oil and place into the oven for 1 hour. You're looking for them to get golden and soft, don't let them get too dark

- Half and hour before the onions are ready to come out, heat a knob of butter and glug of olive oil in a saucepan on a medium heat, when the butter has melted and is beginning to foam add the diced onion, carrot and smoked bacon. Cook for around 15 minutes to colour and soften the onion and colour the bacon

- Add the lentils and garlic and combine with the onions and bacon, then add the wine, stock and lemon juice, combine and cover, simmer on a low-is heat for around 20 minutes

- Turn the oven up to 200 degrees

- Take the lentils off the hob, taste and season with salt and pepper, then decant into an oven proof dish

- Poke (couldn't think of a better verb) the sausages into the lentils, then place into the oven for 15 minutes for the sausages to cook right the way through

- Remove from the oven, take out the sausages and stir the spinach and parsley through as much as you can. Put back in the oven for 5 until they wilt, then remove and mix through properly, poke the sausages in again, then the onions and put back into the oven for 10-15 minutes
- Remove from the oven, serve and give a drizzle of extra virgin before eating

Smokey Mexican meatball soup with Willies Cacao

2012-01-21T17:35:00.000Z

Chili con carne is one of my favourite retro dishes. It fits in that category for me because it makes me think of the 70's (not that I was there) and growing up spending time at my grandma and grandpas, therefore giving it a firm place in my food history and heart.

That said, for all that fondness, we don't eat it all that often. Which I think is a bit of a shame and it makes me want to do something slightly different with it to change that - after all, I love the flavours of the dish, I think it's just the format I'm a bit bored with.

Cue a meatball soup. Soup can often be rather straight but meatballs are a great way to inject extra interest into them, and a few variations on the theme have been making an appearance at our house recently.

This might be the kind of soup that appeals especially well to the boys (often found to be soup shirkers). It's hearty, big and beefy, and packed with robust flavours and textures. Plus it's dead easy and quick to do, why not make up a big batch and take the leftovers to work? (You may want to take extra for greedy colleagues who might well fancy a taste).

One of the best bits of this is the special, deep dark smokiness created by the Willies Cacao Venezuelan Black. At 100% pure cacao it's incredibly powerful, certainly not for noshing on when you have a chocolate craving - this baby needs to be cooked with. Just a few tablespoons of the grated article added to the pot makes a serious difference, I highly recommend it.

For four:
500g minced beef
1 green chilli - deseeded if you're not into the hot stuff
1 large red chili, finely sliced - deseed again if you don't like it too hot
2 red onions, one peeled and finely diced, the other peeled and quartered
1 green pepper, finely diced
6 ripe tomatoes, diced
1 fat clove of garlic
100mls pasatta
1.5pt cold water
5 tablespoons red lentils
2 cans kidney beans in chilli sauce
3 heaped tablespoons grated Willies Cacao 100%, other pure or very high content cocoa chocolates are probably available but Willies is my preferred
1 large bunch fresh coriander
4 tablespoons ground cumin
Grated rind of 2 juicy limes
Juice of one lime
Sea salt and black pepper
Olive oil and unsalted butter for cooking
Natural yogurt or sour cream to serve

Method:
- Into a food processor place 3/4 of the coriander, 1 tablespoon cumin, the quartered onion, garlic clove, the half green chili, lime rind, several good scrunches of salt (be generous) and blitz until smooth. Then add the minced beef and blitz again until it's all minced and all the ingredients combined
- Using your hands form the mixture into balls, you should get around 20 of them depending on the size you make them, set aside on a plate
- Into a deep bottomed saucepan add a knob of butter, glug of oil and once it starts foaming on a medium heat add the onion, cook for a couple of minutes to start the softening of it, then add the green pepper. Cook together for around 10 minutes until both are really softening and the onion turning golden - you'll need to stir frequently to stop it catching
- Now add the ground cumin, stir to combine and after a couple of minutes add the diced tomatoes, half the red chili, both tins of kidney beans, lentils and water - stir to combine then put the lid on the pan and leave until it gets to the simmer. Once this has happened you'll want to leave it for around 30 minutes for the lentils to cook through
- Whilst this is happening, place a knob of butter and glug of olive oil into a frying pan and once it starts foaming on a high heat, add the meatballs - spacing them apart, don't let them get too close or they'll steam rather than fry, so depending on the size of your frying pan you may need to do this in batches
- Turn them a few times so they become nice and dark on several sides, then remove them from the pan and set aside
- When your soup has been cooking around 30 minutes and the lentils are cooked, add the lime juice and enough salt to season - you'll know by the taste how much it needs, but a good few scrunches should do it
- Now place the meatballs into the soup and put the lid on, poach for 6 minutes and then serve. A dollop of yogurt (if you're good) or sour cream (if you aren't) and a pinch of red chilli

Roasted pepper, tomato and red lentil soup with crisp chorizo and black garlic

2012-01-15T21:30:00.000Z

It's no secret I've been ill this week. I've tried to keep a lid on my moaning but lets be honest, when you're feeling rotten that can be a difficult task.

However, today I woke up feeling much better than I have been doing, and to celebrate this and my sore throat leaving me I decided to take a walk. My travels in Didsbury predictably took me round the charity shop circuit, where I chanced upon some cute little plates and bone handled knives and forks, all tarnished and loved looking. I snapped them up immediately.

To go with my bargain buys I decided to make a bargain dinner. This soup is very easy and economical but still has some extra added interest in the form of the black garlic. I used it to finish the dish, adding it to the top of the soup along with some more crispy chorizo.

Black garlic is a recent discovery in our house and it's one that's set to stay. It really is jet black, and you can eat it straight from the bulb. It's rather curious, squidgy and sweet, tasting like a cross between licorice and pickled onion. Yes I realise that flavour combo sounds vile, but it's honestly quite tasty and moreish, buy some and see what you think.

For two:
600g fresh tomatoes - any kind you like but make sure they're red
1 large red onion, peeled and quartered
1 fat clove of regular garlic, peeled
2 roasted red peppers - roast your own until they begin to char or used ones from a jar
3 handfuls red lentils, brought to the boil from cold water then drained and set aside, reserving 300mls of their cooking water
A small glass of red wine
1 tsp red wine vinegar / rice vinegar
3 cooking chorizo, peeled, diced and fried in a dry pan until they char at the edges
2 cloves of black garlic, skin removed and finely sliced - you'll find black garlic in Sainsburys next to the regular garlic
2 tablespoons creme fraiche
Virgin olive oil
500mls water - more if you like your soup more loose, less if you like it thicker
Extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt and black pepper

Method:
- Preheat your oven to 200degrees
- Place the tomatoes, red onion and regular garlic into a roasting pan, give a liberal douse of olive oil, scrunch of seasoning and place into the oven for 45 minutes, giving an occasional shake - you're looking for them to colour up nicely but not turn totally - see pic above for a guide
- Whilst cooking place the roasted red peppers, half the chorizo, red wine and vinegar into a food processor, once the tomatoes and onions are ready remove them from the oven, pop them into the food processor too and blitz
- The soup is pretty rustic but still a relatively smoothish consistency, if you like yours much thinner, simply pass through a sieve after
- Pop the soup mix into a deep bottomed saucepan and onto a medium heat, add the remaining water, lentils and their reserved cooking water, and cook for around 8 minutes with the lid on and on a medium heat until cooked through
- Ladle into bowls, top with the creme fraiche, a glug of your favourite extra virgin olive oil, the remaining diced crisp chorizo and black garlic slices - eat with some warm bread and a glass of your favourite

Prawn ramen with miso, homemade dashi and carrot noodle dressing

2012-01-15T19:27:00.000Z

A noodle dish of epic proportions. Not mine specifically - I mean ramen generally.

If you're a noodle addict (like me) you'll know what I mean, this is one of the best noodle dishes you can get. It contains delicious umami flavour, slurpy broth and long and slinky and wiggly noodles all spiked with prawns and crab sticks, a bit of Japanese seven spice pepper and some greens. Food for me doesn't get much more fulfilling.

This time I've used giant prawns and crab sticks. Yeah, the 'crab' sticks are pretty low rent, but there isn't a Japanese restaurant (authentic or otherwise) that I've been to which does this dish without them, and who am I to say what goes.

This dish is only complex in getting hold of some of its ingredients, it's not remotely difficult to put together once you've got them. If you don't live near / frequent an oriental supermarket very often then make life easy by ordering them all online and have them sent to you directly. You won't regret it.

What is ramen?

'Ramen' isn't actually a type of noodle (as I originally thought), it's the name for a dish of broth containing noodles. You can use all kinds of noodles to create ramen apparently, and soba are quite common - these are what I've used here.

What about dashi?

It's a liquor used as a stock base and base for dipping sauces and you can make it from several things. For ramen soup I create it using katsuobushi and kombu or wakame, the lattter two are dried seaweeds and you can use either. The former is known as the flavour of Japan, it's dried, boiled and repeatedly smoked skipjack tuna, which is then shaved so thin that it's almost transparent, carrying the most intense and fragrant smoked fish aroma. Also known as bonito flakes, and you buy them ready shaved.

The flavour these two ingredients create can't be substituted for anything else, and without it this dish won't taste authentic, but apparently dashi granules are readily available if you don't fancy making the real thing (though I promise it's easy once you have the two component parts).

Is the liquor dashi alone?

Once the dashi is ready I strain it into a deep bottomed saucepan over both white and red miso paste to complete the soup base.

White miso is reasonably sweet (and savoury at the same time) and brown miso is very savoury indeed, and together they make a great mix. I know for certain that brown miso is available in Sainsburys, but you may need that oriental supermarket for the white variety.

And finally, those carrot noodles...

Making the carrot noodles is done using a strange piece of kitchen equipment that looks like it belongs to the 1970's. Mine is from Amazon, it's called a 'vegetable spiralizer' if you fancy having a look and perhaps getting one. If you don't but you still want carrot for this dish then simply use a fine grater, it doesn't give the same look but the taste is still there and thats what really counts.

And there's only one final thing to say about this noodle dish now... Amie...this is for you x

For two and miso dashi stock leftover for another day:

Two large handfuls dried bonito flakes
1 large handful dried wakame
2.5l cold water
2 tbs white miso paste
2 tbs red miso paste
A handful fresh coriander leaves
2 spring onions, cut lengthways
One carrot, peeled and grated or spiralized
6 giant raw tiger prawns
6 crab sticks, cut in half
2 handfuls fresh, washed spinach leaves
Japanese seven spice pepper - known as 'shichimi'
3 packets fresh ramen noodles

Method:
- Place the bonito flakes and wakame into a deep bottomed saucepan and top with 2l cold water, bring to the boil and once rolling, reduce so it doesn't boil over and keep it going for 30 minutes
- While this is happening take another deep bottomed saucepan and put the miso pastes into it, set aside
- Grate / spiralise your carrot now, then by hand mix it all up with the coriander and spring onion, creating two 'balls' of carrot dressing
- Put a pan of boiling water on the hob to boil ready to do your noodles in
- When the dashi is ready strain it through a sieve directly over the miso pastes in the other saucepan, discard the contents of the sieve and stir the soup base to make sure all the miso pastes dissolve, leave on a medium heat to come to a simmer
- While this is happening, the pan of water should now be boiling, place the noodles in there at the same time as dropping the raw prawns and crab sticks into the soup liquor. Bring both the soup and noodle pan back to boiling and use some cooking chopsticks or a fork to gently break up the noodles. After a few minutes the noodles should be done so strain and set aside, once the prawns have turned pink in a simmering pan you can turn the pan off
- Get your ramen bowls, or just big bloody soup bowls - hell, use a serving dish if you're a greedy guts like me - and place your fresh spinach into the bottom
- Now top the greens with the strained noodles, followed by ladles of the soup broth and seafood, finished with the carrot bundles and a sprinkle of Japanese seven spice seasoning

Italian wedding soup with mini lemon, basil and chicken meatballs

2012-01-08T17:38:00.001Z

Happy new year dear blog reader...I hope your festivities were as food and drink filled (and fueled) as mine.

If like me, you're one of the millions of people now feeling a little wobblier than usual and craving healthier nosh, you may be kicking off your new years eatings in the same way.

Eating delicious and interesting food is important to me all year round, and I certainly don't believe that being 'good' has to mean being boring. At the moment our house is seeing the return of winter salads, broths, slinky vegetable crammed soups, and oriental aromatics. And these and a little extra gym time are already helping feelings of normality to return.

If you haven't tried this soup before I urge (actually, I plead) you to give it a go - once you discover how easy and tasty it is I'm confident it will make its way into your regular dish repertoire.

This Italian soup is usually laced with more indulgent ingredients - the delightfully salty percorino cheese, Parmesan, chicken sausage, eggs and breadcrumbs, I miss them out in my version of this classic but not to the detriment of the dish - the broth packs a punch, the fluffy little meatballs are aromatic and juicy, and the overall dish feels both healthy and delicious.

For two and some leftover for the next day (unless you scoff it all, which is a distinct possibility)
3 large / 4 regular carrots, peeled and top and tailed, top and tailed and grated. I use my food processor for this, on the fine setting
2 celery stalks, top and tailed and grated the same as the carrots
4/5 handfuls small pasta shapes - I used cavatelli but orzo or your favourite small shape will work too
350g skinless and boneless chicken thighs (or breast if you prefer, but thighs are cheaper, tastier and more succulent)
A large handful fresh basil
1 large red or golden onion, half finely diced, the remaining half left whole
A fat clove of garlic, smoked if you have it but if not don't worry
The rind of one unwaxed lemon
Sea salt and black pepper
1.5l chicken stock - if you aren't using fresh stock I'd suggest using pork stock cubes, they have a far better and more authentic taste than chicken cubes
A large glass of dry white wine
Unsalted butter
Olive oil for frying
Extra virgin olive oil for drizzling
A couple of handfuls fresh spinach

Method:
Start by making the dumplings
- Into a food processor place the lemon rind, chicken, basil, half onion, garlic, and lots and lots of salt and pepper. Blitz for a minute or two so the mixture is finely and thoroughly chopped and mixed
- Form into small balls, you should be able to get 12 or more out of the mix, depending on the size you make them, and set aside on a plate
- Once you've used all the mix to make the balls, place a knob of unsalted butter and glug of cooking olive oil into a frying pan and turn it onto a high heat. When the butter starts to foam place the meatballs into the pan. Cook them on all sides, you're looking to get them nice and brown, this should take around 10-15 minutes depending on your hob (am having to work on electric at the minute which seems to take a bit longer to do things) once nice and golden remove and set aside

Now onto the soup
- In a deep bottomed saucepan place another knob of butter and glug of cooking olive oil. Bring to temperature on a medium-high heat and once the butter begins to lightly foam, add the chopped onion
- Cook for around 6-7 minutes, stirring continuously, and once the onion begins to turn translucent (not brown) you want to add the carrot and celery. Stir and cook for a few minutes, then add the wine, stock, generous scrunch of pepper
- Bring to the boil and then add the pasta - make a note of the timings as 5 minutes before the pasta is done you'll need to add the meatballs to the pan to poach through
- Into the bowls you're eating from place a handful of fresh spinach (the hot liquor of the soup will cook the spinach through and keep its colour)
- When the dumplings are ready - a clue is that they'll float to the top of the pan, it should take just 5 minutes on a high heat - take the pan off the heat and ladle the soup and meatballs over the bowls with spinach
- Give a glug of your favourite extra virgin olive oil and eat

Syrup for Fizz

2011-12-23T18:16:00.000Z

I've been very ready and prepared this Christmas. Gifts, get-togethers, decorations, tunes, I even sent out cards (first time since leaving school, which was, ahem, some years ago). But despite all my festive planning smugness, there was one thing I'd forgotten. Lucky I had my lovely friend Holly to remind me of its existence: Syrup for Fizz.

You'll recognise Holly (blogger aka Recipes From a Normal Mum) from this years BBC2 show, The Great British Bake Off. She got to the competition final and was an all round superstar - her gingerbread house was a particular thing of envy.

Since finishing the Bake Off Holly's been getting involved with several exciting projects, one of which is presenting a show this week on BBC Radio Leicester. And earlier this week she asked if I'd like to come on the show to share a special Christmas recipe of mine. If you fancy a listen to my five minutes on air just click here: http://bbc.in/sxNfud

I made this recipe for the first time a couple of years ago, ahead of a house party held by Holly and her husband, Stu, and I wanted to create a festive drink that was chilled. Don't get me wrong, I love gluvine, vin chaud and mulled wine, but I also do like a glass of fizz (or two...) and I wanted to combine the feeling of Christmas with the chilled bubbles I adore.

The syrups flavours are wonderfully festive in their combination; cranberries, ground ginger, cloves, star anise, cinnamon, sugar and black peppercorns, for me they epitomise the flavours of Christmas and really do enhance affordable fizz. I like to use the syrup in Cava and Prosecco, Champagne of course works beautifully too, but it somehow seems wrong to adulterate those expensive, fizzy bubbles with this delicious, shiny pink syrup.

For one jar of syrup:
300g fresh cranberries
350g golden caster sugar
1 fat vanilla pod
3 heaped tablespoons ground ginger
10 cloves
2 teaspoons black peppercorns
7 star anise
2 cinnamon sticks
1l water

Method:
- Place all the ingredients into a pan and bring to the boil when covered, once boiling reduce to a medium heat so the pan is simmering and remove the lid, cook down for between 45 minutes and an hour
- When the mixture has reached a runny honey like thickness remove it from the heat, pass through a sieve and leave to cool
- Once cold decant into a jar for storage
- For use, place a teaspoon of the mix into the base of a Champagne flute or saucer, then top with fizz and glug. The syrup collects a little at the bottom of the glass so you may want to swizzle it a little to get the flavours running through it

Star anise rosé veal stuffed baby squid in romanesco sauce

2011-12-17T18:01:00.000Z

It may not be very festive, but this little dish brought a welcome dash of Spanish sun to a dark wintery lunchtime. I ate this and imagined being in San Sebastian's pintxos filled old town, or Barcelona scoffing them along side little tumblers of red wine, rather than chilly Didsbury still wearing my pyjamas (big night last night).

The squid are poached gently in the volcanic coloured romanesco sauce until they're tender and soft, the star anise scented veal warm, fragrant and hearty. And as well as tasting great, they look good on the plate - I'd happily dish this delicious and different dish up at a dinner party as a starter.

Romanesco is a rich sauce that's easy to make - using smoked paprika, roasted peppers, hazlenuts, red wine vinegar and bread. The texture is thick and there's a slightly sweet taste to it on account of the peppers and nuts, but the vinegar and paprika cut through it giving it balance. If you get bored of making a regular tomato sauce for pasta or fish then give this a crack - it'd be fab run through spaghetti or over salmon before baking.

Now, I'm not going to lie to you, this dish is a little tricky to make and you will need a food processor to do it. It's not that it's complex, just a little fiddly. Firstly, try and get baby squid that are all cleaned and ready for you, if you end up with squid like mine you'll need to spend some time cleaning them, and then the filling of the them is tricky - use a piping bag if you can, otherwise use the end of a teaspoon.

For two:

The squid and their stuffing -

10 baby squid tubes - completely cleaned and rinsed

300g rosé veal mince, mine is from Heaves Farm Veal. They deliver the veal to your door, but if you want to make it before you have chance to buy any, pork or a pork and beef mix would work very well

200mls pasatta

4 star anise

200mls white wine

One red onion, finely diced

One clove of garlic, finely diced

Sea salt and black pepper

Unsalted butter and olive oil for frying

Cocktail sticks

The romanesco sauce -

1 slice stale bread (crustless) blitzed into breadcrumbs

2 red peppers, diced roughly

100mls olive oil

50g hazelnuts

Half a teaspoon smoked paprika

One clove of garlic

Six medium tomatoes

One teaspoon red wine vinegar

Sea salt and black pepper

Method:

- Preheat your oven to 200 degrees, lightly oil the red peppers and roast for 30 minutes until they've softened a little

- Whilst they're cooking, gently sauté the onion on a medium heat until translucent, add the garlic at the end and when you can smell the aroma come out of the pan, add the veal. Brown the veal on all sides before adding a generous scrunch of salt and pepper, the wine, pasatta and star anise. Stir and cover, cook on a low to medium heat for 30 minutes.

- Once ready, discard the star anise then remove the mix from the pan and blitz in a food processor briefly to make the mix a little finer, if you don't do this you'll find getting the mince inside the squid is near impossible. Set aside to cool

- Place all the sauce ingredients into the food processor and blitz continuously until smooth and thick, transfer to a pan with a lid

- Now for the stuffing of the squid, carefully either spoon the veal mix into the pockets or pop it all into a piping bag and fill them that way - much quicker. Ensure you squeeze the mix right down to the end of the squid so you fill them up so they're nice and plump - then using a sewing action, secure them closed with a cocktail stick

- Once you've done them all they'll be likely to have bits of the mix all over them, give them a rinse so they're clean, then place them into the sauce and put the lid on. Turn the sauce onto a low heat and cook them for 20 minutes - you must cook them very very gently as otherwise they'll burst. Turn them over a few times during cooking to make sure they're evenly cooked through

- Serve with a glug of your favourite extra virgin olive oil and remember sunny days in Spain

Homemade black fettuccine with lemon buttered clams and tiger prawns, and roasted fennel

2011-11-27T21:08:00.000Z

Slinky, inky, glamorous...the shiny black fettuccine elevates what is a relatively simple fish dish to something altogether more special. Ideal for feeding guests you want to delight, like my parents who were visiting this weekend.

Making your own pasta is easy enough to do, finding the ink to transform it isn't so simple. I generally now get all my fish from the excellent Evans in Didsbury (where I purchased the delicious and juicy carpet shell clams and giant black tiger prawns - the best I've ever tasted) but sometimes they don't have everything I'm after.

Luckily the ace Fish Society sell cuttlefish ink at a great price, so I took advantage and ordered a few sachets when I placed an order for some other more unusual bits last week.

I cooked the shellfish in a simple and heady mix of white wine, butter, parsley, garlic and lemon rind, and then speckled it with flecks of roasted red pepper before serving it poured over the pasta, accompanied by some golden roasted fennel bulbs.

It's well worth remembering that if you're making your own pasta that you'll need somewhere for it to hang with the strands kept nice and separate so it doesn't form unpleasant clumps. I don't have a proper pasta airer, instead I use one of those white clothes airers. It may look amusing to see the pasta draped all over it but it does the trick perfectly!

The various flavours and textures of the finished dish married brilliantly - let me know what you think of this little fishy dishy and if you get inspired to recreate it or something like it.

For four:
For the pasta -
600g 00 flour
6 free range eggs
A little glug of extra virgin olive oil
A scrunch of sea salt
2 teaspoons (2 sachets of what I purchased) cuttlefish ink (or squid ink)
For the fish -
1kg carpet shell clams - soaked for an hour in salted water before draining and rinsing - any that are damaged or open must be thrown away
12 giant black tiger prawns (ie raw), deveined and shell off - so three big prawns each which is just enough
3 fennel bulbs, quartered
300mls dry white wine
a handful of fresh parsley
Rind of two unwaxed lemons
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
Black pepper
Olive oil for frying
Extra virgin olive oil
One red pepper, cut into strips
Sea salt and black pepper

Method:
- Preheat your oven to 180 degrees, place your pepper into a roasting tin and bake until soft and just beginning to char at the edges - you'll need to move them around during the cooking so they dont stick as you're baking them unoiled, this means they'll dry out and become more intensely flavoured. Cook for around an hour then remove and finely dice once cool enough to handle. Set aside
- Into the small compartment of a food processor with a blade, add 3 tablespoons of butter, the lemon rind (I use a grater for this rather than big strips), parsley, a scrunch of salt and blitz until together, remove and set aside
- Into the large compartment of a food processor place your pasta ingredients and blitz until its come together as much as it will, which will be a slightly sandy texture. If you don't have a food processor, pour your flour onto a clean work surface, make a well in the centre and add the whisked eggs with the ink to the centre and bring together with a fork. Whichever method you use, once you have that sandy texture, it's time to bring the dough together and give it a good kneading. This will take around 5 minutes and once it's feeling silky and smooth to the touch rather than rough, you know it's done. Wrap it in clingfilm and place it into the fridge for half an hour
- Take your fennel bulbs, take the tops of them off so you have nice clean ends, then quarter them and brush with olive oil and place into the oven for an hour. You'll need to take them out a few times as you're cooking them to turn them over, ensuring all the edges get nice and golden
- Attach your pasta machine to your work top and once it's ready to use, take it out of the fridge and cut it into 4 segments, this makes it easier to work with. You'll need some help with this so the pasta doesn't get overly stretched as it goes through the machine, but it doesn't take long to do. As you're rolling it through the settings getting finer and finer, if the dough gets slightly wet or tacky feeling you'll need to lightly dust it with some more 00 flour - this will stop it dragging and tearing as it goes through the machine. I don't go to the finest setting that rolls out the dough into sheets as it's too fragile, I leave it one before that and then put it through the fettuccine blades, before draping (elegantly, if I do say so myself) on a clean clothes airer
Time to cook the dish...
- When you think your fennel have around 20 minutes to go, bring a large saucepan of water with some salt in it to a rolling boil
- Whilst it's coming to temperature take a large sauté pan (needs a lid) add a tablespoon of butter, glug of olive oil and heat on a high heat, once the butter starts foaming add the clams and prawns to the pan - stir for a minute then add the garlic, stir for another few seconds as you mix the garlic through the fish, when you can smell the aroma rising out of the pan add the wine and give the pan a shake, put the lid on it now (the fish will take around 6 minutes to cook)
- Take the fennel from the oven and set aside
- Place the pasta into the rolling boiling water and stir gently with a fork. If your water stops boiling place the lid on the pan
- Shake the seafood pan and lift the lid, now add the diced pepper and lemon parsley butter mix, lid back on you need to shake the pan gently so the butter melts into the fish
- As soon as your clam shells have opened up (this will happen after the prawns turn pink) and all the butter and herbs have mixed through the wine and fish juices, take it off the heat and leave the lid on to keep it hot
- Test your pasta and once al dente drain it
Time to plate the dish...
- Move it straight from the colander into four bowls

- Divide the fennel bulb quarters between the bowls, placing them in the centre of the dish. Now ladle over the prawns and clams, and once that's done spoon the liquor over the dishes, using it all up. Give a little glug of your finest extra virgin olive oil and serve. Don't forget you mustn't eat any that don't open, and you'll need a bowl at the table to put the empty shells

Rosé veal and lemon meatballs with roasted tomato and mascarpone sauce

2011-11-27T17:26:00.001Z

Rustic, homely, tasty, messy. Who doesn't like spaghetti and meatballs?

I'm usually a fan of making meatballs with bags of Parmesan and a 50/50 beef and pork mix - the fattiness of the pork elevates the beef, creating meatballs with a juicy texture and great taste, but I'm in possession of some of Cumbrias finest rosé veal, and such a beautiful product requires little adulteration.

You can see from the white flecks that the veal has a good fat content, essential for carrying flavour and keeping the meatballs moist and succulent. The veal is wonderfully tasty and I decided to accent it with a little lemon - it brings a light and complementary freshness to the meatballs, and with the roasted tomato sauce heavy with marscapone, the overall dish has flavours that are rich and delicate all at once.

You can order your own welfare reared rosé veal from Heaves Farm Veal via Alternative Meats, I heartily recommend giving them and their produce a try.

For 4:
1kg rosé veal mince
2 red onions, diced
The rind of one unwaxed lemon
3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
500g tomatoes - I used cherry, kept whole
200g mascarpone cheese
300mls pasatta
300mls rosé wine
Olive oil for cooking
Extra virgin olive oil for drizzling
2 garlic cloves, left whole and unpeeled
Unsalted butter
Groundnut oil / sunflower oil / vegetable oil
Sea salt and black pepper
1 packet of De Cecco spaghetti
Grated Parmesan to serve

Method:
- Preheat your oven to 170 degrees, place your fresh tomatoes and garlic cloves into a roasting tin, drizzle with olive oil and use your hands to run the oil over all the tomatoes so they're covered. Give a scrunch of salt and grind of black pepper, place in the oven and cook for 1 hour, shaking occasionally to get them starting to darken all over
- Whilst they're cooking, in a frying pan sauté your onions in some butter and olive oil on a medium heat, until soft and turning lightly golden. Once ready, add the lemon rind, a generous scrunch of salt, grind of black pepper and place into a food processor (smallest compartment with a blade attachment), add the Worcestershire sauce and blitz until smooth
- Take the veal mince and break it into a large bowl (the mince is nicely ground so I like to make the meatball mix by hand rather than using the food processor, which can create a very smooth texture) once the onion mix is cool enough to handle, add it to the mix and with your hands mix it through - it's a rather satisfying squidging action!
- Here's the secret...make a small burger out of the mix and fry it in a little oil until cooked and golden on both sides, then eat it - this is to test the seasoning. There'll be enough lemon but you may need more salt and pepper. Adjust the taste as you need in the mix, then make it into your meatballs and pop onto a plate
- Into a saucepan with a lid place your pasatta and wine, place on a medium heat and bring to the simmer for around 5-7 minutes - this is to burn the alcohol off, once thats done take it off the heat and leave to cool
- Remove the tomatoes from the oven once ready, squidge the soft garlic out of its skin, keeping the flesh with the tomatoes and discarding the skin, then pour the lot into a food processor (large compartment with a blade attachment) and blitz until smooth. Add a glug of extra virgin olive oil and the mascarpone and blitz again until smooth, decant the lot into the pastatta mix and combine
- In a large frying pan add some groundnut oil and on a medium heat fry your meatballs in batches until they're coloured on all sides. Once they're done drop them carefully into the sauce mix
- Once all are in the mix turn it onto a low-medium heat and clamp the lid on - the action you need here is to shake the pan gently getting them to move around, rather than using a spoon to stir them which will break them up
- Get your pasta water on with lots of salt in it, once boiling cook your spaghetti until al dente and then drain
- By this time the meatballs should be cooked through and the sauce gently bubbling - decant the spaghetti into a large bowl, top with the meatballs and sauce and serve at the table, letting everyone help themselves and make a terrible mess (part of the fun eh). Eat with lashings of Parmesan

Italian style rosé veal pie

2011-11-06T18:45:00.001Z

A special parcel arrived for me this week...Now, it's not unusual for special parcels to arrive at my house (the postman must hate me given the frequency of his visits), it seems like every week I have lovely purchases delivered - shoes, books, music, dresses, etc etc, but this weeks star parcel wasn't of any of those things, it was meat. Rosé veal to be precise. 10kgs of it.

It came from the fabulous Heaves Farm Veal company, a lovely family run business that rear rosé veal in Cumbria. It's because of them that an ardent foodie like me gets to enjoy a meat previously avoided for ethical reasons because their meat is welfare reared - having a fantastic taste and being guilt free.

There will be many veal recipes over these coming weeks and months as I work my way through the box of treats, but the chill that arrived in the air this weekend meant that first up had to be a pie.

Italian style is this creation; slow cooked rosé veal in white wine with pancetta, anchovy, garlic, carrot and celery - a light but substantial combination of ingredients that are made even more delicious when encased in puff pastry.

Pie for four (or two VERY greedy people):
1kg braising rosé veal
2 large carrots, peeled and diced
1 golden onion, peeled and diced
2 celery sticks, washed and finely diced
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
5 rashers smoked pancetta or streaky bacon, snipped up
Half a bottle of Italian dry white wine (I used pinot grigio)
8 anchovy fillets (not the fresh deli counter variety)
Half a pint of cold water
1.5 packets of puff pastry (I prefer the block rather than the roll)
A couple of tablespoons corn flour, mixed up with enough water to form a paste
A tablespoon sugar
A pinch of sea salt and several generous scrunches of black pepper
Unsalted butter
Buttered peas to serve
Plain flour for rolling out
1 egg for glazing the pastry

Method:
- Into a slow cooker or casserole dish place all the ingredients apart from the pastry, then turn on to cook slowly until the meat is tender and casserole like - this will depend on how you cook it and at what temperature, but somewhere between 3 and 5 hours ish
- Once done, remove the meat and leave it to cool (very important when you assemble the pie that you do so using a cold filling) and reduce the liquor on the hob on a moderate heat until it has gone down to leaving you with approximately a pint
- When you're at that point, mix in the corn flour very gradually (difficult to say how much is needed here as it will depend on how your pie has cooked) but add it a little at a time, stirring it in and waiting for it to thicken before adding more, you're looking for a gravy like texture
- When the thickness is as you like, continue to cook it for around 10-15 minutes to 'cook out' the flavour of the flour, then turn the pan off and add the veal and carrot mix to the pan, coating the meat in the sauce, then leave the lot to cool
Once the filling has cooled its time to make the pie
- Preheat your oven to 175 degrees
- Butter your pie dish and make sure your pastry has been out of the fridge for 30 minutes before you start using it
- Lightly flour a work surface and place the first full block of puff pastry in the centre, begin rolling it out remembering a couple of rules - keep running your hands over the pastry to see if its 'damp' feeling and if it is give it a little bit of flour to stop it sticking to the worktop or the rolling pin, and after rolling it one way, turn the pastry round to roll the other angle, rather than roll the pin the other way on the pastry whilst keeping it in the same place
- Roll the sheet out enough so that you can lay it inside the pie case (you might need to keep picking it up and draping it in the case to see if it's big enough) and once its done lay it in there and gently press into the corners and edges of the case
- Pick the pie dish up in one hand, and using the other hand with a sharp knife trim off the excess hanging over the edge, you do this by bringing the knife up from underneath and running the blade along the edge of the dish, slicing the pastry off
- Once done fill the pie with the mixture and then brush the edge that will join to the top layer of pastry with egg, before rolling out the remaining half block of puff and laying it over the top
- Make a cross hole in the centre of the pie so the steam can escape, then use the back of a fork to press the edges of the pie to the side of the dish, sealing it shut
(decorate as you feel appropriate or otherwise)
- Pop into the oven for 1 hour 10 minutes until golden brown and bubbling (over the edge probably)

- Serve with buttered peas

Bloody Mary chicken with Jerusalem artichoke and chorizo

2011-10-16T19:15:00.000+01:00

Starting a new job is an exciting and nerve wracking time, but this week I was greeted with bags of enthusiasm, interesting projects, and Jerusalem artichokes.

No, not to work on (how to advertise the curious, knobbly tuber would be an interesting brief alright), these were given to me by our new business director, Jim. A chap who has what sounds like a big enough small holding to allow him to give some produce away, and an obsession with good food and eating it that's akin to my own.

I arrived back at my desk after a meeting and found a pile of the vegetable in front of my laptop, I squirreled them away inside my handbag and it was then the recipe cogs began to whir. Their taste is mild but distinctive - I could see them working very well blended in a soup, made into a gratin, or for something a little different - a remoulade, using them instead of celeriac.

If you've not tried them before they've a very interesting texture - the centre of them when cooked is soft and yielding like a boiled potato (they're part of the same family) but the outer is slightly tougher and more fiberous.

But what to make with them on this occasion? After a fun and boozy weekend I wanted to do something with very little involvement. Something that I could throw into a pot and leave in the oven whilst I took a walk to appreciate the sun shining in Didsbury (and a wander around the clothing and jewelry boutiques, you might be sure).

This dish does just that, and it greeted me with a scent so tantilising when I got home that I struggled to concentrate until it was ready. The combination of flavours marry beautifully, creating an intensly flavoured and exsquisitely coloured liquor, given an extra poke and edge through the Bloody Mary ingredients and wine - the Jerusalem artichokes really suit a boozy sauce.

I used cooking chorizo from Morrisons deli counter and have found it to be incredibly good - decent fat content and heavy on the paprika, it lends a lovely, light smokiness to the dish overall and is worth making a trip to Morrisons to buy if you don't usually shop there.

For two:

200-300 grams Jerusalem artichokes, peeled (bit of a pain but worth doing) and rinsed

6 chicken thighs, bone in or out (I used bone out) and skinless, trimmed of excess fat

3 carrots, grated on a fine setting

2 chorizo sausages (I used ones that were around 3" each in length) peeled and cut into rounds

1 red onion, diced

2-3 large ladles of chicken stock (I used homemade but a cube will be fine too)

2 celery stalks, finely diced

1 large glass of white wine

250mls pasatta or tomato juice

A teaspoon of Tabasco

A large shot of vodka

A generous scrunch of black pepper

4 rashers of smoked streaky bacon, snipped into little pieces

Around 10 cherry tomatoes, left whole

Olive oil for frying

A few pinches of flat leaf parsley, cut up

Bread to serve

Method:

- Preheat your oven to 175 degrees

- Place a casserole pot (one that has a lid) onto a medium-highish heat and add your bacon, a slug of olive oil, celery, onion and chorizo, fry until they're colouring nicely, then add the carrot and tomatoes and continue cooking for around five minutes
- Now add to the pan the wine, pasatta and vodka, along with lots of black pepper. Place the lid on the pan and pop it into the oven for 1 hour
- After an hour remove the pot and add the Jerusalem artichokes, cover again and put the pot back into the oven for 20-30 minutes until the artichokes are soft (use a knife to see). Add the parsley to the pot and serve at the table, using some nice baguette to mop up the juices. Best eaten with some vino on the go

Banana and pecan loaf cake with toffee icing

2011-10-09T22:08:00.000+01:00

After three months at grandmas I can't tell you how many cakes I encountered. Every day I'd return home and there'd be at least one new cake to eat. Sometimes more than one. One day when rooting around in the 'naughty cupboard' I found six cakes. I'm not kidding - six.

It's a good job I don't really like sweet baked goods, otherwise I could have been suffering from rotten teeth and a rapidly expanding waistline, but every now and again a little cake is exactly what's needed. And after a big week moving home and city, an easy, grandma style, restorative cake was called for.

The thing I really like about banana cake is it doesn't feel too naughty even though it is of course, quite indulgent. Fruit being in it means I can scoff the leftovers at breakfast and feel entirely justified in doing so.

I made this cake in my food processor, this is because I lost my electric whisk in the move and I'm too lazy to do it the old fashioned way - you can make it whichever way you prefer of course, but the food processor will mean you get to eat it sooner and that might help make your decision...

This recipe will make 2 loaf cakes. For the loaf:
4 small-ish bananas, or 3 big 'uns - I like to use ones that have very dark skins, their flavour is more banana and caramel-like and their flesh is much softer
160g self raising flour
1.5 tsp bicarbonate of soda
200g golden caster sugar
100g unsalted butter
2 heaped tablespoons creme fraiche
The seeds from a fat vanilla pod
2 handfuls of pecan nuts, or use walnut halves if you prefer
2 eggs, beaten
A pinch of salt

For the toffee icing:
2 tablespoons salted butter
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons milk
125g icing sugar, sieved
A few pecan halves for decorating the top

Method:
- Preheat your oven to 150 degrees
- Cream the butter and sugar together until fluffy, then add the eggs, creme fraiche, vanilla seeds, butter, salt, bicarbonate of soda, and bananas and mix again. Then add the flour and mix for a final time. Stir in the pecan nuts by hand.
- Grease two loaf tins with butter and pour the mixture between the two tins. Pop into the oven and bake for around 40 minutes - depending on your oven this may take longer or slightly less, simply shake the tin and when the cakes no longer wobble in the centre, spear the centre with a knife and if it comes out clean then they're ready
- Remove from the oven and turn out onto a cooling rack
- Now for the icing, which must be done when the cake has completely cooled and not before
- In a pan place the butter and both kinds of sugar and cook on a medium heat until the sugar has totally dissolved, if it doesn't completely dissolve it will leave you with icing that has a granular texture
- Add the milk to the pan and stir into the mix, turn the heat up and continue stirring as it cooks, for a minute, then remove from the heat
- Pour over the cake and dot the top with the pecan halves, wait for the glassy icing to cool before eating. Goes especially well with a strong black coffee.

Cupcake tortillas

2011-10-09T11:44:00.000+01:00

I was facing a dilemma: Should I make the tortilla and fill it with peas and fluffy goat's cheese, or with piquant pepperoni and roasted peppers?

I know. In light of other (far more) pressing global concerns, my lunch is rather insignificant. But nevertheless it was a conundrum I was facing this week. Then the answer struck me - the cupcake trend may be over, but I could use their colourful silicone cases to make miniature tortillas with both fillings, no compromise required. Yes, I could have my cake and eat it (excuse the pun, I couldn't resist).

These'd be ideal at a party, several varieties stacked high on a cake stand. Finger food that's pretty and a little bit different - and they'd also work a treat as a lunchbox snack.

The filling ideas are vast, so if you don't like the two I made simply substitute those ingredients for others you prefer, ideas could include:

Crisp chorizo and Manchego cheese
Sun-dried tomato and fresh basil
Gorgonzola and walnut
Good old ham and cheese
Prawn and fresh chili

For 12 cupcake tortillas:

10 eggs

100g cheddar cheese

6 rounds of goat's cheese cut off a log

A handful of frozen peas

4 of the small orange fresh peppers, or one large red/orange pepper

Olive oil

Sea salt and black pepper

6 slices of pepperoni - I chose a pepperoni that's rounds would fit inside the case. If you get one that's larger simply slice it up into strands

2 heaped tablespoons creme fraiche (full fat or reduced)

12 silicone bake cases

Method:

- Preheat your oven to 180 degrees

- Lightly oil the pepper or peppers and pop into the oven for 30 minutes, you're looking for them to start to colour and really soften, not turn black

- When it's done, take it out of the oven and leave to cool, leaving the oven on

- Lightly oil the silicone cases with olive oil (the silicone should make them easy to come out but I've not always found this to be the case, the oil helps the process along a bit)

- Lay the oiled cases out onto a baking sheet

- In a jug (easiest for the pouring) mix the eggs and creme fraiche together with a fork until combined, then add a generous scrunch of salt and lots of black pepper

- Using your fingers remove the stalk end of the pepper and its seeds from inside. Then tear it into strips roughly

- Now to start filling the cases...

- A handful of peas in six of the cases then a round of goat's cheese in each, and some of the roasted peppers in the other six cases and a pinch of the cheddar cheese. Fill the cases half way up with the egg mixture, then add more peas to the pea tortillas, and the pepperoni slices topped with more roasted peppers to the others. Then finish them by pouring the egg mixture into the cases again, filling them up to the top. Drop a few little olive oil dots onto the top of the cases and pop into the oven for around 20-30 minutes.

- You'll know when they're done because when you give the tray a little shake there'll be no wobble in the centre.

- Remove from the oven and leave for 10 minutes in their cases, before turning them out onto a cooling rack. Piling onto a cake stand before eating is optional but cute.

Oriental chicken meatball soup with noodles

2011-09-03T19:38:00.002+01:00

Restorative and healthy food of the highest order. When feeling a little run down (or in my case, like you've been overdoing things), chicken noodle soup really does hit the spot. But yeah, you might have guessed, in my world it's got to be oriental.

I got the idea for this dish from a lovely blog called Tes at Home which I found through Tastespotting. The image alone whet my appetite and I knew instantly when looking at it that I needed to cook it as soon as possible. So post Friday night fun, today became that day.

The dish takes a little while to cook if you haven't got any homemade chicken stock hanging around, but it's relatively easy and mainly involves putting the pot on the hob and leaving it be - so low involvement even though it takes a while.

Making it will reward you with deliciously clean and aromatic oriental flavours and the lightest, fluffiest little chicken dumplings. As you might imagine, the dish would benefit from some red chilli so if you're into the hot stuff add a little to the meatball mixture, and on serving, be prepared to not want to share it with anyone else.

For two:
1 whole chicken
2 large knobs of ginger, sliced length ways
6 spring onions, 4 top and tailed and 2 top and tailed and finely sliced
1 clove of garlic
A handful of fresh mint
A shot of light soy sauce
10 star anise
A tablespoon of black peppercorns
3 carrots, peeled and roughly chopped
2 onions, peeled and quartered
2 egg whites and 50mls water together in a bowl with a little salt
3 celery stalks, roughly chopped
A couple of drizzles of toasted sesame oil
Skinny rice noodles, made up as per the pack instructions and cooled ready for use
Sea salt flakes
A clean tea towel

Method:
- Start by removing the breasts of the chicken from the carcass - you do this by slicing down the top bone either side and cutting the breasts away. Discard the skin and set the breasts aside
- Now remove the chicken legs and place the carcass and legs into a deep saucepan with the celery, onion, carrot, half the ginger, star anise and black peppercorns
- Cover with enough cold water to cover the lot and put it on the hob on a medium heat. Simmer uncovered for 3 hours then turn the heat off and leave it to cool a little
- Whilst its simmering you can make the meatballs (I made 20 smallish balls from the mixture). Into a food processor combine the other half of the ginger, garlic, 4 whole spring onions, sesame oil and a scrunch of salt and blitz until they form a paste, add the chicken breasts and blitz again until its all finely minced and the ingredients are all combined. Then using your hands simply make up the small meatballs and then place on a plate into the fridge to firm up
- Remove the chicken legs and pick off any meat from the carcass and set them aside - you don't need this chicken meat for the recipe but it tastes delicious and you can use it in something else another day
- Strain the liquor through a fine mesh sieve and discard all the vegetables and bits
- Add the soy sauce to the pot and b ring the strained liquor to the boil, once boiling take it off the heat and stir in the egg whites, stir through and leave for a minute, then strain again through a fine mesh sieve - the egg helps collect loads of the impurities
- To make the liquor super clear and clarified, you can now either use a special muslin sieve, or you can fashion one out of a clean tea towel and an extra pair of hands. Take a clean saucepan and hold the tea towel to the top of it, forming a well in which to pour the liquid into, then do this gradually, whilst holding onto the tea towel to keep it suspended. Pour all the liquid through it and the towel will catch all the nasties and leave you with a saucepan of clear and clarified stock
- Pop the liquid onto simmer gently and add enough cold water to the pot to give you enough liquor for two of you to eat (depends on how much it reduced before really so this isnt exact)
- Now whilst the pan is on a medium heat, pop your chicken meatballs into the pan. Once they're done you'll find they float to the top - this takes around 6-7 minutes. As the meatballs start to float more impurities will come to the surface - you simply need to skim these off with a ladle
- Place the rice noodles into the pan to heat through along with the spring onion and shredded meat
- Ladle into bowls, eat, and feel good

Gorgonzola, serrano ham and fig flatbread pizza

2011-08-26T21:08:00.003+01:00

It started out as a humble little flatbread with a couple of toppings. But by the time I got home, the idea for it had turned into something more akin to a pizza - crammed with decadent toppings and a rich, slow roasted sauce on which to sit them.

I chose these ingredients because I love each of them individually, and because when combined they contrast beautifully and taste as vibrant and bright as they look.

The base sauce started out as a simple oven roasted tomato, olive oil and red onion blitz, but I fancied making it extra slinky with the addition of some mascarpone and this became the smooth and buttery orange base for the other toppings - it's an easy and useful sauce to know how to make because it can be used in all kinds of things from soups to pastas to gratins.

The natural inclination here might be to use basil as your herb of choice to finish the pizza off, and it would certainly taste splendid, but I want to hang onto the last vestiges of the summer a bit longer and the fragrant mint works with the figs to do just that - its fresh bright taste lifts the rich flavours of the pizza perfectly.

For 2/3 people
340g spelt flour (made up of half white and half wholemeal)
1 teaspoon yeast granules
1 cup of warm water
1 teaspoon of runny honey
4 ripe figs
150g gorgonzola, cut into strips
700g fresh tomatoes, cut into quarters
2 red onions, peeled and quartered
Extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons mascarpone cheese
A handful of fresh mint leaves
A handful of stoned black olives
Freshly ground black pepper and sea salt

Method:
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees
- Place your tomatoes and red onions into a roasting tin and give a liberal dousing of olive oil and grind of black pepper and little scrunch of salt, mix with your hands and place in the oven for 1hr 15mins - stirring them every fifteen minutes
Now onto the dough, which needs lots of extra flour on your work top to stop it from sticking
- Add 2 scrunches of salt, honey and the yeast to the cup of warm water and leave for 10 minutes
- In a mixing bowl place the flour and onion seeds, make a hole in the centre of the dough (reserving a bit for kneading) and pour the water in, then using your hands mix it all together until you've formed a ball of dough
- Turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead gently for a couple of minutes, then place it into a floured bowl and cover with cling film for an hour
- When the tomatoes are done take them out and put into a food processor with the mascarpone cheese and blitz until smooth
- Take the dough out of the bowl and turn it out onto a floured surface and roll it out in one single piece, either round or square - depending on the shape and size of the baking sheet you'll be cooking it on
- Lay it onto a lightly oiled baking tray and bake for 11 minutes. Remove it from the oven and now you're ready to add the toppings
- Pour as much of the sauce on as you need (I had extra left over) and use the back of a spoon to smooth it out to the edges of the flatbread
- Then drape on the serrano ham, gorgonzola and figs, give the figs a drizzle of olive oil and the dish a grind of black pepper and place back into the oven for 9 minutes
- After 9 minutes remove it from the oven and dot the olives over it along with the mint leaves and some more olive oil
- Cut into wedges and devour - drink of choice to accompany it is optional, though I had gin and it worked very nicely indeed

Crab cups

2011-08-22T18:42:00.000+01:00

I so wanted crab rangoons tonight (who doesn't take pleasure in deep fried trashiness from time to time?) but after lots of hard work at the gym recently I'd have felt just too guilty if I'd indulged in those naughty parcels of tastiness.

But there'll be no tears before bedtime for me, because luckily I was surfing Tastespotting and up popped a great idea and dish substitute - I could get my crab in crispy coating fix without some of the fat induced guilt.

Using gyoza wrappers as the casing, they're simply placed into a lightly greased muffin tin then sprayed with a little oil and baked until crisp. Once done you can fill them full of all kinds of things - I chose a fresh and crunchy mix of crab meat, spring onion, minced ginger, lime juice, quark cheese, mint leaves, bean shoots and Japanese pepper.

The best thing about these is how easy they are to do, and I cant stress quite how simple they are - they were made and devoured within just 30 minutes. Plus they look so cute, so would be perfect as canapes at a dinner or drinks party - bake the skins off beforehand and pile them full of lots of different fillings before people come round - easy and impressive.

For 9 crab cups
100g white crab meat
3 tablespoons quark cheese
Juice of half a lime
A small pinch of chopped fresh coriander
Half a teaspoon minced ginger
1 spring onion
A handful of fresh bean sprouts
9 gyoza skins
Spray cooking oil
Japanese pepper
A scrunch of sea salt

Method
- Preheat your oven to 180 degrees
- Spray your muffin tin and place in the gyoza wrappers into the indentations, then spray the gyoza skins with the oil and sprinkle them with salt. Bake until turning golden - this should take around 10 minutes)
- Combine the remaining ingredients (apart from the Japanese pepper and mint leaves) in a bowl and set aside
- Remove the shells from the oven once done and leave to cool for 5 minutes
- Pile the filling into the shells and top with the mint leaves and Japanese pepper
- Job done

Vietnamese style noodle salad with crab and candied star anise peanuts

2011-08-21T15:20:00.001+01:00

It certainly doesn't feel like the summer's over round my gaff. At 24 degrees it's just delightful in the garden this afternoon. Perfect place for a lunch that allows me to indulge my love of Vietnamese food.

As a hardcore noodle addict I use to worry about the summer and my noodle eating - what would I do when it got too hot to indulge in broth based slinky noodle creations? How would I get my much needed fix? Well, the Vietnamese do it with aplomb, and their bun salad (no baked goods included) allows me to enjoy my much loved noodles nice and chilled and super tasty.

This isn't a strictly authentic version but it is very close, and if you're into all things oriental then you'll hopefully love it all the same.

The candied nuts are really delicious. I'm off chilies still but using the star anise powder (or five spice if you can't find it) really does bring the Asian vibe to them deliciously. The quantities in this recipe will make more than you need for the dish, but they make a great snack to enjoy with a beer so won't go to waste.

For two:
As many medium thickness rice noodles as you'll eat (I use one broad sheet for two here) made up as per the pack instructions and sat waiting in cold water
200g white crab meat
2 spring onions, finely sliced
2 carrots, peeled and finely grated
A handful of mint leaves
A handful of coriander leaves
3 tablespoons palm sugar - grated
1 large knob of ginger, finely grated or minced
Juice of two limes
150g salted peanuts
Half a teaspoon ground star anise powder (and if you cant get it from your Asian supermarket then use 5 spice instead)
A generous scrunch of sea salt
30mls water
75g white sugar

Method:
- Start with the peanuts, place the nuts, sugar and water into a small pan and cook on a lowish heat. The process takes around 15 minutes - basically cook the peanuts keeping stirring them until the sugar water reduces right down and you get a granular sandy texture (as in the pic) this is normal and keep going, stirring all the time, basically they'll get darker and darker and go from being dry and sandy back to being golden and liquid. When you've got a good dark caramel colour over them add your scrunch of salt (I like salt so the double helping from the nuts and this is good, balances well with the sugar) and your star anise or five spice powder, stir through and then pour out of the pan onto a baking sheet - leave there to cool
- In a large bowl place the grated carrot, then the noodles - now combine them with your hands, pulling the noodles up and mixing the carrot through it - this salad really does need to be done by hand, much easier
- Into a bowl place the grated ginger, lime juice and palm sugar and mix with a fork. Now using your hands flake the crab meat into this mix - its also a good idea to do this because if you feel any shell you can get rid of it before eating
- Pour the crab and dressing mix over the noodles, then add the mint, coriander and spring onion and same as before, mix the ingredients together with your hands until its all combined
- Place into bowls ready for eating, top with the candied nuts and top with some extra fresh mint leaves. Devour

Sundried heritage tomato, roasted yellow courgette and taleggio galette

2011-08-08T22:27:00.000+01:00

Perks of the job like this are something I'll definitely miss. Not many work places give you access to delicious ingredients you might otherwise find difficult to get hold of.

Before now I've had fantastic crab, fish and wines (not to mention non edible treats such as serving dishes and glam light fittings) but the second I saw the heritage tomatoes make an appearance on the menu I knew I'd have to get myself a kilo.

I love how irregular and multi coloured they are, pretty and unusual and entirely unlike anything you could buy in our supermarkets. But it aint all about good looks, they taste fantastic too.

I was supposed to make this galette over the weekend, but had a bit of an encounter with a bee sting in my mouth, resulting in anaphylaxis and stint on a drip in QMC (it's all high drama with me y'know) so tonight is the first time I've had chance.

The amazing yellow globe courgettes came from my good friend Zoe, she (well, her dad) grew them and kindly passed them on to me. I've kept one to stuff it with tasty things, but the creamy yellow discs of the other two I decided would complement the sun dried tomatoes and salty taleggio cheese beautifully.

A galette seems to have a number of definitions. Sometimes made with a bread-like dough, sometimes with a pastry, the contents can be filling or savoury but the the wonderful thing about it is its rusticity. No pie dish? No problem - simply pile in the fillings and crimp up the edges. Et voila.

In fact, it's so easy you'd be able to whip one up as an impressive dinner party starter no problem. And the filling ideas are endless, expect a crab and pumpkin related combination soon...

For four:
750g heritage tomatoes
100g finely grated pecorino cheese
2 globe courgettes, sliced in rounds around 4mm thick
1 pack of shop bought shortcrust pastry - taken out of the fridge about 20 minutes before you need it
350g taleggio cheese, diced or in slices
A handful fresh marjoram
500mls extra virgin olive oil
Full fat milk for brushing the pastry with
Sea salt and black pepper
A little plain flour for dusting

Method:
Start with making the sundried tomatoes

- Cut the tomatoes up into a mixture of quarters lenghth ways and simple slices - it all depends on the haul you end up with as to what would look best - it's some variety you're after
- Preheat the oven to 100 degrees and lay the tomatoes onto a non stick baking sheet and bake for 2 hours
- Remove and place them into a bowl, add a generous scrunch of salt and grind of pepper, and then drizzle them in extra virgin olive oil - enough to cover them. Set aside (they'll keep several days under the oil if you want to make them in advance)

Now onto the galette
- Preheat your oven to 190 degrees, brush a baking sheet with olive oil and lay the sliced courgettes onto it side by side (not overlapping) you may need to do this over a few sheets to fit them all on
- Brush the tops of all the courgettes now and give a grind of black pepper (no salt as the cheese is salty enough)
- Bake in the oven for around 25 minutes or until they've started turning golden at the edges - you don't
- Just before they're ready to take out of the oven, roll out the pastry onto a lightly floured surface until its around 5mm thick - don't worry about the edges being ragged, you'll be folding them in anyway
- Take the courgettes from the oven and move them with a fish slice to a plate, then re oil the base of the baking sheet and drape the pastry onto it
- Lay the taleggio chunks or slices straight onto the pastry (leaving nearly an inch border at the sides), then top with layers of the courgettes until it's completely covered, followed by the heritage tomatoes (I chose a pattern but it really doesn't matter)
- Bring the edges in to form a crust, and then brush the pastry with milk
- Bake for 30 minutes before removing and sprinkling on the grated pecorino, then put it back into the oven for 15 minutes
- Once ready, remove from the oven, drizzle with some of the oil that the tomatoes were covered in and give a sprinkling of the marjoram and a little scrunch of salt
- Eat (chablis went beautifully but another rounded or crisp white would be great also)

Pan-fried scallops with white bean puree, roasted heritage beetroot and herb oil

2011-07-20T21:39:00.000+01:00

The beautiful beetroots caught my eye, jewel like in the vegetable isle, and I simply had to have them.

It's more the kind of thing you'd hear a women utter when it comes to shoes / handbags / clothes (delete as appropriate), but I get just as (and sometimes more) excited by interesting ingredients. Perhaps its a sigh of age. More likely it's my gluttony.

Today was Mathews birthday and I wanted to do something for him I've not done before. Hmmm, am sure in other households when a wife says this on her husbands birthday she means something different...but in my world it means cooking something new and interesting, and the colourful beetroots certainly tick that box.

These flavours and textures work brilliantly together - earthy, sweet, creamy and fragrant, plus the overall dish has a bit of a special feel about it in that it doesn't feel overly familiar, and the combination of ingredients are a little different.

For two:
10 scallops (preferably with roe, I had to get a mix but go for with roe if you can)
1 can canellini beans, rinsed and drained
1 can haricot beans, rinsed and drained
Good quality extra virgin olive oil
A handful each of fresh mint and basil leaves, picked from their stems
Juice of half a juicy lemon
A fresh bunch of small heritage beetroots
A small handful of watercress leaves, picked from their stems
Sea salt and black pepper
Unsalted butter and olive oil for frying

Method:
- Preheat your oven to 190 degrees. Top and tail the beetroots and rinse them to remove and dirt and place them on to a baking tray, then into the oven for 45 minutes
- Put your herbs, a generous glug of extra virgin and a scrunch of salt into a food processor, give it a squeeze of lemon juice and blitz for a minute until the herbs are as blended as they'll get
- Place the drained beans into a saucepan and cover with just enough water to cover them, put the lid on the pan
- Wash your scallops to clean them of any grit or nasty membrane bits, then set aside to keep them dry
- Put a knob of butter and a little glug of olive oil into a frying pan ready for cooking
- When you're 10 minutes off the beetroot being ready, turn the pan on to get them cooking. Once they are boiling which should take about 5 minutes, cook for a couple of minutes then drain them and pop into a food processor. Add a generous glug of extra virgin, scrunch of salt, grind of pepper and the remaining juice from the lemon, then blitz for a minute or two. Put the bean puree into a bowl and put it in the oven to keep warm
- Turn the oven off, remove the beetroot from the oven and (with your asbestos fingers!) gently rub the skins to peel off the beetroot skins. Then place them in a bowl, give a light drizzle of extra virgin and scrunch of salt and mix together, then half each with a knife. Pop the bowl into the oven just to keep them warm
- Put the frying pan with the butter onto a high heat and once the butter begins to foam place the scallops into the pan. Cook on one side for 1.5 minutes ish, then turn over, cook for a further 30 seconds then turn the heat off
- Leaving the scallops in the cooling pan (the residual pan heat will continue to cook the scallops until they are ready) get ready to plate up
- Take your plates and using a spoon drizzle on the herb oil, followed by the bean puree, then the halved beets, then the scallops dotted amongst them, and finally the watercress leaves on top.
- Eat and enjoy with a glass of something very cold and slightly dry - we had a rioja rose that worked perfectly

Vietnamese beef pho with rice noodles

2011-07-17T19:36:00.002+01:00

Heady, fragrant, aromatic and cleansing - pho is one of my top noodle dishes of all time.

And it's this favourite dish of mine I decided to break the blog silence with - what else would do? You see, for the last four weeks we've been a bit busy...living like hobos...out of bags and boxes...at my grandmas.

I know how it sounds, but grandma is a rather cool lady. Nifty in her little Mercedes, off out with her girlfriends from the golf club whenever she has the chance, and she likes a good glass of wine or two. Being here is really quite good fun. Plus I get to use all her antique dinnerware (see pics for a lovely duck egg blue set).

But, this isn't a move for the long term - it's temporary whilst we find our next house. This time up north in Manchester where I've been offered a fantastic new job, so I'm soon again to be Hannah-the-Planner, I can't wait.

Enough of me, on to the dish...
Given I'm still off the chillies, this is the ideal noodle dish for me to devour because that the dish itself is entirely without heat- if you want a dose of the hot stuff you simply add some shredded red chilli before eating.

There are a couple of ways you can make it; as a labour of love, or a quick hit - and both ways yield excellent results.

The long way:
If you have the time to get hold of some beef bones and oxtail, then roast, boil, skim and simmer with peppercorns, carrots, celery, peeled onions and the aromatics for several hours before clarifying with egg whites, you'll create an intense, rich, deeply flavoured stock.

The short way:
But if you're lacking time you can use a fantastic cheat ingredient instead - canned beef consomme. Its flavour still delivers the beefy taste you need and mixes well with the additional aromatics and you don't have to go through any of the pain to get there.

Perhaps one version is for weekend eating - put it on in late morning then eat it early evening, and the other version is post work - cooked and on the table within an hour.

The recipe below is the short version, which isn't completely authentic I know pho aficionados will say, but is still incredibly aromatic and delicious.

Pho for two:
10 whole star anise
1 cinnamon stick
2 lemongrass stalks, halved through their centres
1 very large thumb of ginger, cut roughly into stalks
2 teaspoons of whole peppercorns
1 heaped tablespoon sugar
2 tablespoons Thai fish sauce
2 cans beef consomme (Baxters one is very good)
800mls water
A small handful coriander
A small handful fresh mint
A small handful Thai holy basil
Rice noodles - I like the wide variety for this, however many you like for two
2 sirloin steaks
1 teaspoon sesame seeds
Black pepper - ground
5 radishes, sliced very finely (and carefully) on a mandolin
A couple of handfuls of beansprouts
One lime, cut into quarters

Method:- In a large saucepan combine the consomme, ginger, lemongrass, cinnamon, star anise, sugar, fish sauce and lime juice. Simmer for 20-30 minutes with the lid on
- Whilst this is happening heat a dry frying pan until its very hot, and season your steaks on one side with a sprinkling of the sesame seeds, salt and black pepper before putting them seasoned side down in the pan. Now season the other sides whilst they're cooking ready for when you turn them. Cook them for 3 minutes before turning over. Cook for 3 minutes this side then remove them from the pan and set aside on a chopping board. Leave for 5 minutes before slicing thinly with a knife
- When you're around 10 minutes from the pho being ready, cook your rice noodles as per the pack instructions, by the time the water has boiled and they've cooked you should have both things ready at the same time
- Strain the noodles and separate them into two large pre-warmed bowls
- Strain the pho and all its contents through a sieve into another saucepan, then pick out a few of the star anise and the ginger from the colander, and put them back into the saucepan with the liquor (I like to do this for decoration, they shouldn't be eaten)
- Add the radishes and bring it back to the boil
- Place the sliced steak over the rice noodles along with a handful each of the bean shoots, holy basil, mint and coriander, then ladle over the hot liquor

An adventurous Scotch egg

2011-06-04T15:17:00.000+01:00

A classic dish given an international slant, now that's what I like. This flavour fusion really tickled my taste buds, I hope it does yours too.

To surround each petite and delicate soft boiled quails egg I've used a single fresh basil leaf, Italian sausage meat - quality pork with lots of fat and fennel seeds, then encased it in a double layer (yeah baby, the double-dip technique) of my beloved Japanese panko breadcrumbs.

These are a lovely naughty little snack and would also make a great canape or pre dinner party nibble - why not serve them inside closed egg boxes for a bit of playful table theatre.

For 10 Scotch eggs:
10 quails eggs, each pierced at one end
250g panko breadcrumbs, given a scrunch of sea salt and generous grind of black pepper
3 chickens eggs, in a bowl and beaten
100g plain flour
10 large basil leaves
400g Italian sausage meat - if you cant get hold of it buy a high pork content quality sausage, remove its skins and mix into the meat by hand a tablespoon of fennel seeds
Around 1.5l oil for frying, groundnut or vegetable
Kitchen paper
Rocket leaves, Parmesan shavings and a little extra virgin olive oil to serve
Sea salt

Method:
- Taking a pin carefully pierce the more pointed end of each of the quails eggs - it's easiest to do this with a pin rather than the tip of a knife given the eggs are so small and fragile
- Fill a small pan with a couple of inches of water and bring to a light simmer, then carefully slide the eggs in and leave there for 1.45 minutes - a rather exact times I know, but they are very small and getting them to that softish boiled point means being precise
- Once they're ready remove them and empty the pan, then put them back into the pan and let it sit in the sink with the cold tap running gently into it to cool them down. Leave the eggs cooling like this for around 5 minutes
- One by one peel the eggs now. Do this on kitchen paper and basically using your palm press gently and firmly on the egg that's lying on its side until its shell just cracks (just be careful not to press too hard) now there is a crack in the shell you can peel the shell back on its very thin membrane - it's easy enough. Once you've done them all rinse them too to get rid of any shell bits
- Take your Italian sausage meat and place around a meatball sized amount in the palm of your hand, using the heel of your other hand flatten this sausage meat until you have a thinnish layer of it over your hand, now place on the basil leaf, the egg on top of that
- Now gently close your hand, effectively beginning to wrap the egg and leaf up in the meat, bring the edges together and the sides, totally sealing the egg inside. If there are any holes or gaps patch these in with a little more of the meat, finally, roll them gently between your palms like you would a meatball, making the shape as round and compact as you can. Repeat the process with all 10 and then place them in the fridge for half an hour
- When you're ready to cook them, get your production line ready with the flour in a bowl at one end, panko in a bowl at the other end and the whisked eggs in another bowl in the middle
- Go through the process of coating each first in the flour, then the egg, then the panko, then back to the egg, and into the panko once more. Repeat until all of them have been done
- Place the oil in a deep bottomed saucepan and heat it up for around 10 minutes on a medium heat, you don't want to fry the eggs on too high a heat as they'll cook too fast on the outside and wont cook the meat all the way through. To test the temperature of the oil drop a scrunch of the panko breadcrumbs into it, they should just lightly sizzle
- Cook the eggs in two or three batches so you don't crowd the pan and make them steam, cook them and turn them over if the oil doesn't cover them, cooking them until golden on all sides which should take around 8 minutes or a bit longer
- Remove and drain on kitchen paper, then serve with a simple rocket and Parmesan salad

A chocolate cake for adults

2011-05-31T17:51:00.000+01:00

If cakes had personalities this one would be moody, dark and intense. Not surprising given its ingredients; Guinness, cocoa, buttermilk, mascarpone, white chocolate, dark chocolate and vanilla pods.

I made this damp and rather sophisticated creation not just because my husband is a cake addict and as a wife I like to please him, nor because I'd been dying to use some of the 50 giant vanilla pods my dad sent me from France, but because today at work it was my turn in this weeks Rate My Cake.

I introduced Rate My Cake at the office to give us some tasty, playful fun once a week, bringing us ladies together over sweet baked treats. But what began as a light hearted (WI style) affair quickly turned rather serious and competitive (army style - strategic and deadly), and I've since heard it referred to as Cake Wars.

You don't need to introduce this game at work in order to make this cake though, fear not. But, it is rather impressive tasting so would lend itself well to a dinner party, or it would perhaps make a nice gift for a cake or chocolate loving friend. Alternatively, bake it and scoff the lot yourself.

You can't really taste the Guinness in it once its cooled, but its partly the black stuff that gives it its colour and damp darkness. The base is dense but not overly so, and the white ganache coating perfectly balances the darkness with a spike of vanilla infused sweetness.

PS...I originally got the recipe for this from the gorgeous Hummingbird Bakery on Stylist.co.uk and have adapted it a bit and changed the frosting - and in case you're wondering, I'm currently in the lead in Rate My Cake!

For one cake, 23" diameter:
1 fat vanilla pod
250mls Guinness
250g unsalted butter
80g cocoa powder, sieved
400g golden caster sugar
2 eggs
140mls buttermilk
280g plain flour
2tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2tsp baking powder
A scrunch of sea salt

The ganache frosting
1 fat vanilla pod
120g mascarpone
100g cream cheese
100g good quality white chocolate, broken into pieces
3 heaped tablespoons icing sugar, sieved
25g unsalted butter
Dark chocolate for grating

Method:
- Preheat your oven to 170degrees
- In a saucepan place your Guinness, deseeded vanilla pod and stem and butter and cook on a low heat until the butter has melted, then remove from the heat
- Add the beaten eggs and buttermilk to the pan and stir to combine, then add the sugar and sieved cocoa
- In a large mixing bowl combine the sieved flour, baking powder, bicarb and salt and then pour over the pan contents
- Using a hand blender (or do it all in your Kenwood if you have one) bring the mixture together until its all combined and is nice and glossy and thick
Top Jamie Oliver tip alert...
- Take your cake tin or silicone mould (make sure its a deep one as otherwise the mixture will overflow) and tear off enough baking parchment so that it will fit inside and give a good overhang. Now scrunch the parchment up into a ball and run it under the tap, soaking it through
- Now straighten it out on your work surface and butter one side of it, and now you can lay it into the baking tin with the butter side up. The paper being wet will mean you can get it into the corners properly and it wont pop out
- Pour the mixture into the tin and pop into the oven for 40 minutes. Depending on how your oven behaves 40 minutes might be enough, but mine needed an extra 12 on top - basically check it at 40, if there is no wobble in the centre then spear it with a knife and if it comes out clean its done. If not keep going and check and spear it regularly - you want to remove it as soon as its done and the knife comes out clear
- Leave it for around 20 minutes before lifting it out by its paper (with the help of someone else so that you have all four corners covered and don't make it crack down the centre) and pop it onto a cooling rack
- If your cake sinks in the middle don't worry, simply use a bread knife to cut some of the top off to even it up
- Once its totally cooled (don't frost it or move it until it is) pop a plate on the top and turn it over, peel off the baking parchment and then turn it back onto the rack, now put your cake stand or whatever its going to be staying on over the top and turn it back over ready for icing )you will effectively be icing its bottom)
- Into a glass bowl over simmering water (that isn't touching the glass) break your chocolate and scrape the seeds out of your other vanilla pod
- Once the chocolate has melted take it off the pan of water and onto a work surface. Add to the bowl the icing sugar, butter, mascarpone and cream cheese and using your hand blender bring it together until its all combined
- Now its time to get plastering (don't worry if you cant get it smooth its all part of its charm). Using a spatula smooth the ganache over the top of the cake and then around the sides until its been covered, finally give it a liberal grating of dark chocolate and then set it aside for the ganace to set a little - this will take around 30 minutes
- Devour - goes well with a cup of tea or a slug of dessert wine.

Halibut baked with fennel and chorizo, and Jersey royals with samphire in mint butter

2011-05-29T21:45:00.000+01:00

I didn't decide to cook this just because I wanted to use my new serving dish (a charity shop bargain purchased this weekend for just £3) though it was a bit of an extra incentive.

The dish actually started with the halibut, samphire and chorizo, and I'm so pleased with how the combination of flavours turned out I can see it making a regular appearance at our dining table.

The fennel and lemon base is a fantastic accompaniment to all kinds of baked fish, in this case I used halibut but you could use any other firm fleshed fish if you cant get hold of it. It's well worth hunting out the samphire, it tastes of the sea and has a succulent, crunchy texture that is complemented very nicely by the mint butter.

For two:
Two fillets of halibut
2 cooking chorizos (these are around 3 inches each in length) diced and dry fried in a pan until crisp, then set aside
One large fennel bulb, finely sliced on the mandolins finest setting
One large red onion, finely sliced on the mandolins finest setting
Juice of three lemons
150mls extra virgin olive oil
A small handful of fresh chervil, or if you cant get it, use the fennel tops
2 cloves of smoked garlic, if you cant get smoked then use regular, one finely sliced the other left whole and peeled
A handful of fresh mint leaves
A large knob of butter (unsalted)
100g fresh samphire, rinsed in cold water and drained
As many Jersey royal potatoes as you want to eat
Black pepper

Method:
- Preheat your oven to 200degrees
- Add the butter, whole clove of garlic and fresh mint to your food processor and blitz to create your mint butter, set aside
- To a roasting tin or pot with a lid combine your fennel, red onion, sliced garlic, lemon juice, olive oil and several scrunches of black pepper and combine together with your hands, put a lid on or cover it with foil and then place into the oven for 15 minutes
- Place your potatoes into a pan and cover with water and a bit of salt
- When there are 5 minutes left on the fennel and onion mixture turn the potatoes on to boil with the lid on the pan
- Remove the dish from the oven and take the lid off, mix together and add the chorizo to the pan, then lay the fish fillets over the top and put the lid back on, put back in the oven for 10 minutes
- Once the potatoes are done (they should be ready a good few minutes before the fish) remove and drain them and let them sit steaming in a colander
- Heat a frying pan on a high heat and add a small knob of unsalted butter, add the samphire and toss in the butter heating them through. Now add the potatoes to the pan and toss together with the samphire and add the mint butter to the pan, keep tossing the pan until the mint butter has melted and covered the potatoes and samphire, don't worry if the potatoes break up a little, it will help get the buttery flavour into them
- Remove the potatoes from the heat and then the fish from the oven
- Tip the potatoes and samphire into a serving dish, then carefully take the fish and fennel out and decant onto plates or a serving dish
- Top the fish with the fresh chervil or fennel tops and eat

Serrano, chicory, pear and dolcelatte salad, with walnuts and a honey dressing

2011-05-29T14:02:00.000+01:00

After a rather good run of health, last night my tummy sabotaged an evening out with an old friend, cutting the event short. Today I've decided to feed it lots of good things and try to persuade it to go back to behaving itself. Fingers crossed.

I got the idea for this salad earlier this week in Ilkley whilst up there for a meeting. Our chairman ordered a chicory, Prosciutto di Parma and Parmesan salad over lunch and the second it arrived I had dish envy (despite my sea bass and roasted squash being excellent).

On the drive home I was preoccupied by thoughts of firm and slightly bitter chicory stems and rich and salty air dried ham, and I put them on the shopping list the second I got in.

These two flavours partner excellently with the mild blue, creamy cheese dolcelatte, and by adding the shaved sweet pear, shelled walnuts and peppery rocket before bringing it all together under the umbrella of an intensely honey flavoured and quite thick dressing, create a salad of interesting textures and harmonious, balanced flavours - it would make an ideal side salad during the impending bbq season, or to an Italian meal.

For two:
A bag of rocket, washed and ready to eat
1 large head of white chicory, stems carefully removed and separate
A large hunk of dolcelatte cheese (as much as you like depending on how 'good' you want to be)
A handful of shelled walnuts, lightly broken up
A couple of slices of air dried ham, I used Spanish Serrano here but choose your favourite
A firm fleshed pear, halved and then (carefully) sliced on the finest setting you can get it on a mandolin
2 tablespoons each of runny honey, extra virgin olive oil and white wine vinegar
A pinch of salt and grind of black pepper

Method:

- In a clean and empty jar with a lid combine the honey, white wine vinegar, a pinch of sea salt and black pepper, and shake until completely combined. Taste for seasoning, depending on how sweet your honey is you might want to add more vinegar to balance the two, but ultimately you want to be left with a dressing that's clearly led by the honey, but not overpowered by it.
- Get a large serving dish or salad bowl and place in your rocket, pear slices, chicory stems and toss them together by hand until all mixed up
- Crumble over the dolcelatte, the walnuts and then tear the air dried ham and roll it up into little bundles before dotting it over the salad.
- Finally drizzle the honey dressing over the salad and serve.

Olive oil roasted cauliflower with feta and mint

2011-05-08T17:49:00.000+01:00

Who fancies joining a food movement requiring little effort? I'm convinced that this dish could rescue the cauliflower from plummeting popularity and sliding sales.

Try it, I guarantee you'll never have thought this knobbly white vegetable could taste this incredible - it's soft textured inside but has deliciously chewy edges, with the olive oil and seasoning making it very luxurious and moreish indeed.

Leave the feta out and have it as a side dish to joints of meat, feta in and have it with baked fish, or eat it as we did for late lunch today and enjoy it all on its own - there are lots of possibilities.

Plus it's very easy and inexpensive - another couple of reasons this recipe is a winner and a must try. I hope you give it a go - if you do why not pass the recipe on to a friend, I wonder how far it could get and if we could help save the poor old cauliflower from being forgotten.

For two as a main:
1 large head of cauliflower, cut into florets
Good quality extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt and black pepper
Half a block of feta, crumbled
A handful of fresh mint leaves, laid on top of each other, rolled up and then finely cut (this is called chiffonading)

Method:
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees
- Place the florets into a large bowl and pour over several generous glugs of extra virgin olive oil, now add a few scrunches of sea salt and black pepper to the florets, and toss together with your hands, add more olive oil if it's disappeared and you have sides of the florets that have none on them
- Transfer the florets to a roasting tin and bake for 40 minutes, turning over every 10-15 minutes so that they become nice and dark evenly around them
- When they are golden, soft and have some quite dark edges it's time to remove them
- Put them into a serving dish and crumble over the feta, then sprinkle on the mint and toss together
- Serve

Speckled spelt 'pizza' with Roquefort and walnuts for when you've been naughty

2011-05-07T20:56:00.001+01:00

Who says being good means suffering at the altar of self denial? Spelt flatbreads topped with bright green loveliness are a great way to pack in the goodness when you've overdone things somewhat.

Last Saturday night I had a bit of a crazy one. I didn't intend for it to be quite so wild, but sometimes these nights take you by surprise don't they.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't expect not to drink a drop, and I suppose when seeing a very old friend who can really put it away that going overboard is a distinct possibility. But last Saturday night the-princess-of-darkness-Ciara-O'Reilly and I really went to town and drank six bottles of fizz.

Yes you read that correctly - six bottles. Between just the two of us. It's obscene. Especially considering we didn't have a scrap of food to eat either.

I had a really great night, the kind that makes me wistful about old times and longing to live closer to good friends. But Sunday came and went with me in bed feeling wretched, and by bank holiday Monday I still had an enormous hangover and struggled to do anything.

Needless to say food this week has been that of ease and virtue. Next time with Miss O'Reilly, I shall make sure to tread a more reasonable path to enjoyment.

The brief when considering what to make for supper this evening was to cram in as much greenery to feed my poor body and mind as possible, but often when forcing as much 'good' stuff inside me as I can leaves me feeling a bit bored and uninspired. Not today - this green spelt 'pizza' is a seriously tasty way of being good.

For two, and with two flatbreads left for something else:
A couple of handfuls of rocket
2 spring onions, finely chopped
1 small red onion, shaved very finely on the mandolin
1 fennel bulb, shaved very finely on the mandolin
A couple of tablespoons walnuts, lightly crushed
Around 70g crumbled Roquefort
The juice of one juicy lemon
1 ripe avocado
100g shelled broad beans (easiest done after boiling briefly and then cooling in cold water)
2 tablespoons natural yogurt
A handful of fresh mint
Good quality extra virgin olive oil
A heaped teaspoon black onion seeds
Sea salt and black pepper
340g white spelt flour
1 teaspoon yeast granules
1 teaspoon honey
1 cup of warm water

Method:
Start with making the dough - which is rather soft and wibbly before cooking so needs lots of extra flour on your work top to stop it from sticking - Add 2 scrunches of salt, honey and the yeast to the cup of warm water and leave for 10 minutes
- In a mixing bowl place the flour and onion seeds, make a hole in the centre of the dough (reserving a bit for kneading) and pour the water in, then using your hands mix it all together until you've formed a ball of dough
- Turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead gently for a couple of minutes, then place it into a floured bowl and cover with cling film for an hour
- Take the dough out of the bowl and turn it out onto a floured surface, cut into quarters and roll each out each in turn into as round a shape as you can make
- Lay them one at a time on a lightly oiled baking sheet on a baking tray and bake for 11 minutes until you've baked all four. Remove them from the oven and turn the oven off
- Pile them up separated by baking paper, this will stop them cooling down and getting stuck to each other, and will keep them just crisp enough
- In a food processor combine the broad beans, avocado, yogurt, mint, a scrunch of sea salt and a generous glug of extra virgin olive oil, and blitz until its formed a smooth paste
- Into a mixing bowl combine the razor thin red onion, spring onion, razor thin fennel, lemon juice and a scrunch of sea salt and mix together with your fingers, then add the rocket and combine gently again - you want to keep the rocket from going soggy
- Use half the avocado mixture on each of the 2 flatbreads and smear it over the breads like you would a tomato sauce on a pizza
- Cut the breads up on a chopping board and move them to a plate (I find it easier to cut them up before piling everything on them)
- Now pile up the fennel and rocket mixture onto each of the slices
- Top with the crushed walnuts and dots of the Roquefort cheese, then eat

Vietnamese style summer rolls with rare sesame tuna and fresh herbs

2011-05-07T15:51:00.000+01:00

These rolls are packed with freshness and flavour, making a perfect light lunchtime dish when the weather's warm and humid.

Along with the juicy tuna steak I filled the rolls with crisp cucumber shards, spring onion, rice noodles, corriander, mint and basil. Use Thai holy basil if you can find it but I'm really struggling to, so am growing my own instead.

You can make them with all sorts of fillings so long as you cram in the herbs - that's the key to them being so fragrant, then use the dipping sauces to get in some chilli zing and tart sweetness to excite your tastebuds even more.

For two:
One tuna steak
A tablespoon each of black and white sesame seeds
A teaspoon sea salt
Oil for frying
8 rice paper roll sheets - get them from an Asian supermarket or order them online easily enough
Skinny rice noodles made up as per the pack instructions, then cooled under cold water and drained - I used one large sheet of rice noodles
A teaspoon toasted sesame oil
Quarter of a large cucumber, cored and cut into fine strips
2 spring onions, top and tailed, cut in half and finely shredded
Half a red onion, peeled, halved and very finely sliced
A handful of fresh mint, finely chopped
A handful of fresh basil
A handful of fresh corriander - roots chopped finely, leaves left whole
Juice of half a juicy lemon
A tablespoon fish sauce
Two heaped teaspoons grated palm sugar
Sweet chilli sauce (bought, I don't make my own or at least not for this)

Method:
- To give your dressing time to steep make that first, simply combine the lemon juice, palm sugar and fish sauce in a pot and stir, then set aside
- Turn your oven on to 50 degrees and lay your cold rice noodles out onto a baking sheet, bake in the oven for around 20 minutes - this is only to dry them out so the rolls don't get soggy, not to cook them. Turn them over once whilst drying
- Onto a small plate sprinkle out your sesame seeds and salt, and lay the tuna steak onto the plate, turn it over on both sides and all edges until its covered in the seeds and salt
- Heat a frying pan on a high heat, add a drop of oil to the pan and wait for it to get hot. Take your tuna steak and place it into the hot pan - cook for a minute on each side and then the edges (longer if the steak is thicker - just remember you want it to be rare inside)
- Remove the tuna from the pan and set on a chopping board, slice into strips then break those strips into the flakes, set aside
- In a bowl combine the herbs, spring onions, red onion, cucumber and sesame oil and toss together with your hands, now add the tuna to the mixture and combine gently
- Take the noodles out of the oven
- Fill a large bowl with water that's a hot as your hands can stand, place a plate in front of you to work on
- Take one of the rice paper sheets and submerge it in the water for around 20 seconds, or until it has just turned soft, remove it carefully so it doesn't tear and lay it out on the plate in front of you, smoothing out any bubbles or folds
- Lay some rice noodles down first, horizontally and closer to you than the centre of the sheet - a small bunch, and then on top lay the herb and tuna mixture
- Bring the sides in on the rolls as in the picture and then fold the bottom edge that's closet to you up and over - attaching to the brought in edges. Now as you would with a spring roll, tuck the ingredients down into the envelope you've created, and begin folding it over into a roll, roll it over and over until its totally closed, sealed and you have your summer roll ready. Repeat with the other sheets until all the mixture is used up
- Decant the sweet chilli sauce into a pot or glass, and do the same with the fish sauce and palm sugar dressing into another glass
- Plate the rolls together (for prettiness!), dress with a few more fresh herbs and serve with the dipping sauces

Summer risotto of broad beans and watercress with a tomato vinegarette

2011-04-30T10:39:00.000+01:00

The colours alone are reason to make this dish, and it tastes as fresh and vibrant as it looks.

Risotto is a really filling meal and for me can often seem a bit overly heavy - especially when it's laden with cheese or has meat running through it. But yesterday evening I needed to cook something that didn't involve going to the shop (simple case of couldn't be arsed rather than any debilitating reason stopping me from moving).

We always have in loads of different pulses, types of pasta and rice, and last night it was the fat arborio that took my fancy.

This risotto is just creamy enough to comfort without being too heavy, and it's packed with flavour. The summer-time ingredients of shelled broad beans, Parmesan and fresh and peppery watercress are brought together by the tomato vinegarette, and I very much like how the tomato's juice collects around the edges of the risotto making it more light, loose and delicious.

Ok, so we're not strictly into the the summer yet, but it's a dish that helps me think we're nearly there.

Risotto for two:
250g arborio rice
90g grated Parmesan
1 large glass of dry white or rose wine
1 red onion, finely chopped
1 fat clove of garlic, finely minced
Light chicken or pork stock - I'm not sure how much I used as I didn't measure it, certainly more than a litre - you simply need to make up another batch after the first litre has been used, and stop using it when the consistency is right and the rice cooked perfectly
300g shelled broad beans - to shell them easily I take them from the freezer and put them on the hob in a pan of cold water, when the water is on the way up to the boil and they're all floating, drain them and rinse them in cool water, this par-boil makes them far easier to pod
6-8 plump and juicy tomatoes, diced - I used a few cherry and a few plum that I had in
A glug or two of rice vinegar
Extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt and black pepper
A couple of handfuls of watercress
Unsalted butter and olive oil for frying

Method:
Start with the vinegarette so the flavours have time to steep.
- Into a bowl combine the tomatoes, half the minced garlic, rice vinegar, a generous scrunch of salt, grind of black pepper and a couple of glugs of olive oil. Stir and taste the seasoning, adjusting if you need - it should be balanced between the rich olive oil and the zing of the vinegar, and neither should overshadow the tomato's juice. Set aside until you need it - but not in the fridge
- Boil the kettle and make up around a litre of stock (cube is fine if you haven't got fresh, I used a pork stock as I find it has a much nicer flavour than the synthetic chicken you can buy) and have it sat on the hob on a low heat, keeping hot
- Fry your onions in a knob of butter and big glug of olive oil until turning translucent (not golden at all) and then add the rice to the pan, stir to coat all the grains
- Turn the heat down to a low-medium heat and add the glass of wine to the pan, stir and stir until the wine has cooked into the rice, then begin adding your stock ladle by ladle. Stirring a couple of ladles in at a time before adding the next. The trick with risotto is to cook it quite slowly (as in on a moderate heat), to continually stir the rice to agitate the starch and make it creamy, and to gradually add the stock. It gives your arms a bit of a workout but it's worth it.
- Make up more stock if you run our and the rice still isn't cooked through
- After around 20 minutes you should nearly be there (all rices vary and it will depend on how hot you've got your hob) but when the rice has fattened right up and is only slightly al dente, add the broad beans to the pan
- Cook for around a minute - you only want them to just cook through - and then make sure you have a consistency you like - not too 'wet' but not too separate either, run a spoon across the base of your pan to reveal the pan, and the risotto sauce should slowly creep back over it, thick but still looseish
- Turn the heat off the pan and add the Parmesan and half the minced garlic, stir through to combine. Then add a generous grind of black pepper. Taste the seasoning, see if you want salt or more Parmesan
- Ladle into bowls and add your watercress to the top of each, then spoon over your tomato vinegarette, add another light grating of Parmesan, a glug of extra virgin olive oil, and eat

Rose veal ragu tortelloni with toasted walnut and rocket pesto

2011-04-19T11:57:00.000+01:00

Veal is a newly discovered meat for me. The stories of veal calves being treated terribly put me off a long time, but then I picked up on the rose veal movement and suddenly I could buy it and feel good about it.

I tweeted the foodie community about where to get hold of some and Heaves Farm Veal messaged me, their Cumbrian product looked perfect and I placed an online order with one of their stockists, Alternative Meats.

My order included shanks for making osso bucco, casseroling steak, escalopes for wiener schnitzel, bones for making stock and some minced veal.

This haul is stashed in the freezer at the minute, the osso bucco has a particular dinner party night and two guests names on it, the wiener schnitzel is for Mathew and I to bring back memories of Vienna, and the braising cut is begging to be turned into a goulash with dumplings - but given the weather hotting up somewhat unexpectedly this might well have to wait.

The veal mince is very good indeed. Its taste is sweet and delicate and the meat tender and juicy - lending itself perfectly to a ragu. I decided to strike out and make my first tortellonis with this dish, and I have been delighted with the results - the tortellonis are very easy to make once you get the hang of them.

Given the clement weather the sweet ragu needed a light dressing to go with it, so I decided to make a slightly different kind of pesto. This one majors on rocket and toasted walnuts and it produces a very nutty and delicious result.

Ingredients:
This will make enough tortelloni's for 2 people to eat over 2 nights. The pesto batch will last a while as you'll only need a bit of it for this dish - just make sure it's covered in extra virgin in the fridge so it doesn't perish - same for the sundried tomatoes.
500g veal mince
400mls pasatta
1 golden onion finely chopped
1 tablespoon sugar
One clove of garlic, minced
One glass of white wine
10ish cherry tomatoes, halved
Extra virgin olive oil
2 bags rocket
A big handful fresh basil leaves
40g grated Parmesan
50g walnuts, lightly toasted in a dry frying pan
A tablespoon pine nuts, lightly toasted in a dry frying pan
250 grams type 00 flour
3 eggs
Sea salt and black pepper

Method:
Start with this very simple ragu, and make sure its cold before you make the tortellonis - the next day is best as it gives the flavours enough time to deepen
- In a deep saucepan or sautee pan, fry the onion in some butter and olive oil until translucent and turning gently golden, then add the veal mince and fry on a medium to high heat, you want to leave it as long as you can before turning it so that it gets nice and golden on its edges
- After around 10 minutes of cooking add the garlic clove and cook for a minute or two, then before it catches add the wine and pasatta, the sugar and a generous scrunch of salt, and turn onto a very low heat and let it blip and reduce for an hour or two
- Once its ready let it cool, preferably overnight.

Now on to the pesto and sundried tomatoes
- Preheat your oven to 100 degrees and lay your cut tomatoes cut side up onto a baking sheet, then bake for 2 hours
- Whilst baking pour some olive oil (as much as you think will cover the tomatoes) into a clean jar and add about a quarter of a clove of finely minced garlic, mix together and let it steep until the tomatoes are done
- Once done remove them from the oven and pop straight into the jar, give a generous scrunch of salt and some black pepper and mix carefully so the garlic oil covers all the tomatoes - because they're warm they'll start to absorb the oil and be even more juicy and tasty
- Place the rocket, basil, pine nuts, garlic, Parmesan and walnuts into food processor and blitz until it's all finely chopped, keeping the food processor on drizzle in olive oil until it forms a paste, then decant into a clean jar and top with more olive oil until its totally covered. You can put it straight into the fridge now but you'll need it to have been out for an hour before using it for this dish as otherwise the oil will be too set

Onto the tortelloni's
- In a food processor place your eggs, flour, a tablespoon of extra virgin and a generous scrunch of salt and blitz until the dough comes together
- Turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead with some more flour for just a minute or two until its no longer sticky and is springing back nicely, then place in a floured bowl and cover with cling film for 15 minutes
- Break the dough into quarters and put a quarter through the pasta machine at a time. Mine has 7 thickness settings and I find these stuffed pastas work best at setting 6. 7 is great but its just too fine and if they get any holes in they just explode in the water - 6 is easier to work with and still feels and tastes great
- Roll your pasta out and lightly dust it before putting it back through the next setting to stop it dragging through, then lay the long sheet in front of you
- Using a sharp knife trim the ragged top and bottom edges off, then cut the pasta into large squares
- Turn the square diagonally towards you, so its like a diamond, dot a teaspoon of the veal mince into the middle of the pasta and then using a pastry brush, brush water around the edges of it and fold it over so the top and bottom edges meet as in my pic, so you now have a triangle in front of you with the flat long edge facing you

Here comes the slightly tricky bit but you'll soon get the hang of it, have a look at the pictures above as I find they are easier to understand the movement than a written description. If you're still struggling then google it and look at lots of different pictures, and failing that you could make simple ravioli instead
- Place your thumbs on the bottom long edge and bring your fingers down around the sides so that the long edges hook round, as in my picture, now fold these edges around your finger a bit like a ring, and carefully brush a bit of water on the edge that will go on the underneath, then stick the edges together
- Place the tortelloni in a floured plate and repeat until you've used all the mixture or as much as you want
- When you're ready to eat bring a pan of salted water to a rolling boil and drop them all in and put the lid back on
- When they all start bobbing to the surface (1-2 minutes and no more) they're done, carefully drain them and then leave them in the colander in the top of your pan
- I plate them by picking them out with two spoons and arranging them on the plate nicely fanned out with their points facing the plate edge (this is of course optional and in no way alters the taste!) once they're on the plates, stir your pesto and start dotting it over them and the plate, then dot on some of your sundried tomatoes, a light grating of Parmesan, a scattering of the crushed walnuts and drizzle of extra virgin
- Eat

Spelt flatbreads with haloumi, capers and homemade sundried tomatos

2011-04-12T21:51:00.001+01:00

Ok so they're not sun-dried, that'd be difficult seeing as we've only had a week of sun. And actually I don't have the patience to wait weeks for them to slowly bake anyway. Instead, these flavour packed and intensely sweet tasting beauties are done in the oven, and they're really easy to do.

I've made these purely after eating the delicious ones at Flatplanet in London on Monday. The bread not only has a wonderfully nutty taste and crispy but soft centred texture, it's widely eaten by people who struggle with wheat - ticks all my boxes.

Instead of doing a traditional tomato sauce for the base I've used a red pepper dip I've recently got into. It's full of flavour and is a bit different, and it works very well in complementing the flavour of the capers and haloumi, tasty tasty.

Think of this simple dish as a cross between an open sandwich and a pizza - loads of options for interesting toppings and making the dough is incredibly easy (trust me, I don't do baking and this recipe is foolproof).

For 4 flatbreads, and toppings for just 2:
340g wholegrain spelt flour
1 cup of warm water
1 teaspoon yeast granules
1 tablespoon runny honey
2 red peppers cut into strips
3 tablespoons natural yogurt
6 tomatoes, quartered
Half a clove of garlic, finely minced
One avocado, sliced finely
A tablespoon of drained capers
A handful of fresh rocket
8 slices of haloumi
Sea salt and pepper
Extra virgin olive oil - the best you can get hold of
Groundnut / sunflower oil

Method:
Start with making the sundried tomatoes
- Preheat the oven to 100 degrees and lay the quartered tomatoes onto a non stick baking sheet and bake for 2 hours
- Remove and place them into a bowl and dot with the minced garlic, a generous scrunch of salt and grind of pepper, and then drizzle them in extra virgin olive oil - enough to cover them. Set aside

Now it's time to make the dough
- Add 2 scrunches of salt, honey and the yeast to the cup of warm water and leave for 10 minutes
- Make a hole in the centre of the dough (reserving a bit for kneading) and pour the water in, then using your hands mix it all together until you've formed a ball of dough
- Turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and knead gently for a couple of minutes, then place it into a floured bowl and cover with cling film for an hour
- Preheat your oven to 200degrees and place the red pepper slices and a dressing of olive oil into a roasting tin, and roast for 4o minutes until they've softened and begun to char around the edges
- Remove from the oven and pop into a blender and blitz with a little salt. When they've cooled in the food processor after about 10 minutes add the yogurt and blitz again, decant into a bowl and set aside
- Take the dough out of the bowl and turn it out onto a floured surface, cut into quarters and roll each out each in turn into whatever shape it comes out in until they're around 5mm thick - I like them not being uniform and being a bit random, adds to their character!
- Lay 2 of them side by side onto a lightly oiled baking sheet on a baking tray and bake for 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and bake the remaining 2. Remove them from the oven and turn the oven off
- Pile them up separated by baking paper, this will stop them cooling down and getting stuck to each other, and will keep them just crisp enough
- Heat some frying oil in a frying pan on a medium high heat and fry your haloumi slices on each side for around 2-3 minutes until its nice and golden, then remove it from the pan
- Turn on the grill
- Take both of the flatbreads you'll be using and place them onto a clean surface, dollop half the red pepper sauce onto each and using the back of a spoon smear it over as you would a tomato sauce on a pizza base
- Now place on the flatbreads the capers and haloumi, and grill both of them for a few minutes
- Remove and dot on the tomatoes, avocado and drizzle over more of the extra virgin olive oil from the tomatoes over the breads, then top with some rocket and cut into large pieces
- Eat

Liberty launch and crab cakes with red pepper dip and avocado salsa

2011-04-11T21:00:00.051+01:00

Today we visited Liberty. Not for shopping (well, not specifically for shopping, though of course some was done whilst there) but for a personal project that we've been working on with them.

Without boring you with the intricate details we've sold in a range of original Parisian artworks, beautiful creations that were hand made to brief for some of the worlds most known and loved fashion designers between the 20's and the 90's. Pretty exciting stuff really.

My parents are in possession of nearly 500 of them and we've already sold 60 ahead of the opening date. Without being all Hannah-the-Planner about it buying one is chance to own an original piece of creative Parisian history, one that unites art, design and fashion. Ok, pitch over.

Well nearly - here's the link to our site should you like to download the full collection (prices available on request) www.theLDcollection.co.uk or if you fancy a look at them in the flesh, they're currently residing on the 4th floor at Liberty, looking rather splendid.

As well as installing the artworks out of hours (it felt a thrillingly eerie being alone in the closed store) we did a little bit of eating too.

Plum Valley. Good friends of mine wont find this a surprise, I hold them in very high regard and think they're the best dim sum Ive ever had in London (even though I am unable to eat chillies at the moment). On this lively Sunday night in Chinatown we squeezed into a dark booth and ate our way around the dim sum menu, all were a delight but the black cod and ginger was the star of the show.

Right next door to Liberty is a great place called Flatplanet. They serve spelt flat breads with a variety of organic toppings and were the perfect way to begin Monday with their breakfast creation, along with some great coffee inside their quirky, cool little cafe. If I lived locally I think I'd be in there daily.

After some shopping in Liberty followed by hanging out in the sunshine and having some cocktails we strolled over to Pho, the restaurant dedicated to (and named after) Vietnam's most well known street food. There we shared a large bowl of the beautiful rich but light beef stock with rice noodles, steak, mint, holy basil and coriander. The liquor was incredible (if they bottled it I'd buy it) and I have returned with new insight into the dish - expect a recipe very shortly.

I sat on the train on the way home making notes about new dishes I wanted to create, combinations of flavours to try based on what I'd seen this last 24 hours. Such sessions usually make me impatient as I want to eat the new ideas there and then, but tonight on the way home this feeling escaped me - for we had sat patiently waiting for us in the fridge some little crab cakes I'd made on Sunday morning ready for our return.

The secret with cooking these and achieving a light but crisp outer is to chill them enough to really firm them up - so a couple of hours is ideal but if you can make them the day before (good for forward planning and preparing) they'll be perfect.

For 9 cakes and food for 3:
Two baking potatoes, baked and cooled
3 slices white bread, crusts removed and left to go stale before blitzing into crumbs
300g white crab meat
10 large king prawns, pulsed in a food processor briefly
1 spring onion
A handful of fresh basil leaves, rolled up and finely sliced
1 heaped teaspoon wholegrain mustard
Juice of half a lemon
A generous handful of fresh parsley finely cut
Three red peppers, cut into broad strips
3 tablespoons natural yogurt
Extra virgin olive oil
Sea salt and black pepper
1 avocado, diced
5 medium sized tomatoes, diced
Half a clove of garlic, finely diced
3 tablespoons rice vinegar
Plain flour for dusting
Unsalted butter and groundnut/sunflower oil for frying

Method:
- Cut the peppers into strips, dress with some olive oil and roast until they begin to char at the edges in an oven at 180 degrees. Once done remove and leave to cool
- Place 2/3 of the peppers into a food processor and blitz, adding the yogurt and some salt and pepper, then decant into a bowl ready for later. Reserve the remaining third of the strips for once the dish is done.
- In a separate bowl combine the chopped tomatoes, avocado, garlic, rice vinegar, a slug of extra virgin olive oil and some salt and pepper, mix together and set aside
- In a mixing bowl combine the crab, mustard, parsley, lemon juice, spring onion, king prawns, bread crumbs, mashed potato and salt and pepper and mix together with a fork until all the ingredients are combined but still separate. Using your hands bring the mix together into the crab cakes. Set aside on a plate and chill them for at least 2 hours, or up to 24.
- When you're ready to cook them remove from the fridge and lightly dust all over with plain flour
- Heat a frying pan on a medium heat with a knob of butter and frying oil, and once it starts to foam place the fishcakes into the pan. Fry on each side for 4-5 minutes then they'll be ready
- Plate the cakes, dot the red pepper dip around the plate and then follow that with the avocado salsa, then place the remaining sliced and roasted red peppers on the top of the cakes and finally the shredded basil leaves

Polenta dusted sweet potato gnocchi with tomato salsa

2011-04-07T22:25:00.000+01:00

I was in possession of a rather large sweet potato (its size isn't of relevance to the taste of the dish but I had to mention it, the thing was gigantic) but I wasn't sure what to do with it, so I decided a little experiment was in order.

I'll be honest with you, these aren't as easy to make as ordinary potato gnocchi. They're rather sticky so you can't roll them out as easily or neatly, or cut them into cute little pillows, and whilst cooking I thought they'd all joined together in the pan as a single orange mass. I'm perhaps not selling them as I should, but trust me - kitchen alchemy will occur and they're well worth the work.

I served them with a light and easy tomato salsa, a scattering of Parmesan and a simple baked salmon fillet encrusted with crushed crisp pancetta and fennel seeds (mega easy, simply crush together in a pestle and mortar and press onto the side of a skinless salmon fillet and bake for 7 minutes exactly at 190 degrees).

For two:
400g sweet potato, roasted until cooked, then cooled, peeled and mashed
160g plain flour
A few gratings of nutmeg
25g grated Parmesan and more Parmesan for dusting
Sea salt and black pepper
A few pinches of ground nutmeg
A few handfuls polenta
3 or 4 juicy tomatoes, diced finely
One spring onion, top and tailed and finely cut
A teaspoon rice vinegar
A few glugs of extra virgin olive oil
Half a clove of garlic, finely chopped

Method:
- In a bowl combine the chopped tomatoes, spring onion, olive oil, vinegar, a scrunch of salt and pepper and the garlic and set aside
- In a large mixing bowl place the mashed sweet potato, then give a scrunch of salt and pepper and the nutmeg
- Bring a deep pan of salted water to the boil ready for when the gnocchis are all made, once boiling put the lid on and turn it down
- Use a fork to combine the mixture, gradually add the flour and Parmesan to the potato until its all combined - you might want to use a hand part way through to get this all done. Don't be scared that its a bit sticky, it'll all come good
- Lightly dust a clean work surface with a mixture of plain flour and the polenta, then turn out the ball of gnocchi and lightly and briefly knead it in the flour and polenta until its a little less sticky
- Break it into 2 pieces and then gently roll each out in turn until they're like flattish sausages, then cut them into roughly 1cm wide pieces
- Once all of them have been cut as in the picture above, lightly sprinkle over some more polenta to cover their cut edges
- Now sweep them off the work surface (as if you were sweeping crumbs away) and onto a plate - this is the easiest way to get them into the pan to cook
- When you're ready to cook them, make sure the pan of water is a rolling boil, then pour them all into the pan off the plate and put the lid back on
- They'll take a couple of minutes to cook and you need to just stir them once. They'll be ready once they start bobbing up to the top
- Drain them once ready then pour them back into the pan, give them a scrunch of salt and pepper, a glug of olive oil and a grating of Parmesan. Plate the gnocchis and drizzle the tomato salsa over the top, then devour

Roasted red pepper houmous - ready in less than ten minutes

2011-04-06T10:39:00.000+01:00

We don't really keep 'snacky' things in the house. I guess it's to do with the way I was raised - convenience and junk food at home were entirely foreign, the only way they entered was if you snuck them in.

Instead, we had a pantry and fridge full of interesting ingredients, all of which needed combining and cooking to create something to eat. I hated it growing up but value it having been that way now. Not just because it's made me dislike junk but because it helped get me into cooking.

That said, when I got home from work this evening (feeling rather ravenous) and realised it was going to be a couple of hours until supper because Mathew was out, I regretted the lack of quick nibbles available to me.

Cue a quick dip made with store cupboard ingredients. This one was ready to be wolfed down (or savoured, whichever your appetite will allow) within just 10 minutes. Sure its not as fast as a bag of crisps, but it's tastier by miles.

Enough for several snacks or as a dip for a few people:
One can of chickpeas, drained
1 roasted red pepper from a jar - drained
One clove of garlic
A squeeze of lemon juice
Sea salt and black pepper
One tablespoon tahini paste (get it from delis, continental supermarkets or Sainsburys)
Pitta's to serve (I use the wheat free jobbies but the regular are great too)
100mls extra virgin olive oil and more for drizzling

I recommend using the best olive oil you can find because it makes all the difference. I like to use a DOP (the Italian protected status of origin mark) as the flavour I find to be fantastic and well worth the extra couple of £'s. I've tried dozens of extra virgin olive oils and if you want my view, the Sainsburys Taste the Difference Sicilian is exsquisite.

Method:
- Into a food processor place the chickpeas, garlic, tahini, red pepper and olive oil, a generous grind of black pepper and scrunch of sea salt and blitz until quite smooth (or as smooth as you like)
- Decant into a bowl and using the back of a knife poke holes into the houmous to create little pockets, then drizzle with more extra virgin olive oil so it pools in the wells, and give another scrunch of salt and black pepper
- Toast and cut up your pittas and then eat dipped into the tasty coral coloured houmous

Crispy chilli and salt squid

2011-03-28T22:29:00.000+01:00

This is a bit of a Chinese takeaway guilty pleasure of mine, whether it's one of a few dishes being eaten on an evening in, or devoured all on its own when you're feeling ravenous after a night out.

Even though I generally buy it in, it's actually an easy dish to create at home, one that involves two of my favourite ingredients; chillies and salt. Both are very important in our house. You could say I've got a bit of an addiction to them both, so a dish such as this that majors on each is a real winner.

I like the soft squid being encased in the hot, salty, crispy and light coating - and rather than a batter such as tempura, using a dry coating made from cornflour creates a brilliantly crunchy and fine outer.

I find it's partly the tingly heat and naughty amount of salt that makes these so delicious and moreish - so if you'd rather eat something less naughty salt-wise then perhaps make something else.

A snack or starter for 2:
2 large fully cleaned squid (I didn't use the tentacles but you can, I just used the pocket. You could also use baby squid if you prefer) cut into strips and scored lightly in a cross hatched fashion on what would have been their inside
4 heaped tablespoons cornflour
1/2 teaspoon Szechuan peppercorns
1 teaspoon five spice powder
2 teaspoons sea salt
1 teaspoon Japanese sansyo pepper (mixed Japanese pepper that you'll get from Asian supermarkets or online)
1/2 teaspoon dried chillies
A spring onion and half a deseeded red chilli finely sliced for garnish
A few sprigs of coriander
Groundnut oil or vegetable oil for trying

Method:
- In a pestle and mortar combine the salt and Szechuan pepper and grind into a powder, then add it and the the five spice and sansyo pepper into a bowl with the cornflour and mix thoroughly
- Bring the oil (at least a couple of inches of it) to temperature for around 7 minutes in a deep saucepan on a medium- high heat
- Place the squid pieces into the cornflour mix until they're all covered, then turn the saucepan of oil onto a medium heat and carefully lower the squid in
- Fry the squid making sure you turn it over if they aren't totally covered, for 1 minute, then carefully remove and drain on kitchen paper
- Pile into a bowl and dress with the coriander, chillies and spring onions, give another scrunch of salt and shake of the sansyo pepper, then eat

Courgette ribbon carbonara

2011-03-24T19:57:00.002Z

First post of the year post work. I'm loving the nights drawing out, though the window of opportunity is still small.

I came home earlier in the week and cooked a Thai prawn soup and some sticky jasmine rice, it's a quick dish but by the time it was ready to eat it was dark and I couldn't take a decent picture, so tonight I knew I was on for a bit of a challenge to get this ready in time.

And indeed it paid off. The humble carbonara is one of those dishes that you can rustle up very quickly, perfect for mid week suppers when you're pressed for time. I got it ready in just 30 minutes.

You'll read about and hear of lots of ways of making a carbonara, but when I've tried some of them in the past I could never be guaranteed a good result - but this recipe does so long as you work fast.

Instead of dicing the courgette for this I chose to ribbon them on a fine setting on the mandolin (mind your fingers). I like how the slender, flat ribbons fold gently amongst the linguine, trapping its light, creamy sauce in between their folds.

Dinner for two:
One large courgette, sliced length ways on a fine setting on a mandolin
5 egg yolks
100g grated Parmesan
150mls single cream
Black pepper and sea salt
6 rashers smoked pancetta or 4 rashers smoked streaky bacon, finely cut
Linguine for two
Extra virgin olive oil for drizzling
Olive oil for cooking
One clove of garlic, finely chopped
A handful of mint
A handful of chives
3 ladles of the boiling pasta water, taken from the pan before the linguine is strained

Method:
- In a measuring jug or bowl combine the cream, egg yolks and Parmesan, whisk together with a generous grind of black pepper and scrunch of sea salt
- Bring a large pan of water to the boil with some rock salt, and when its a rolling boil put your linguine on to cook, which usually takes around 10-12 minutes
- Whilst that's cooking heat a large frying pan up on a medium-high heat and add a glug of olive oil, then add the smoked pancetta/bacon and fry for around 5 minutes until its turning crispy, then add the courgette ribbons, continue to cook for around 5 minutes, carefully turning them over in the pan so they cook on all sides but don't break up
- When they've all been covered in the oil and are turning translucent, add the garlic to the pan, whilst that's cooking for a minute (toss it through the courgettes) ladle out 3 ladles of pasta water into the egg and Parmesan mixture
- Now quickly drain the pasta, then add the pasta into the courgette pan, toss it through the courgettes, turn off the heat and pour the cream mixture into the pasta pan with the fresh herbs
- Stir the mixture through the pasta and courgettes, it will thicken slightly with the heat
- Decant the pasta into bowls, drizzle with a little extra virgin olive oil and eat

A sort of strudel

2011-03-20T19:32:00.000Z

No trip to Austria's capital would be complete without a recipe inspired by one of the native dishes.

A fine dining version of this dish knocked my socks off when I tried it at Riegi on my birthday, it's a combination I'd never have thought up myself and is one of those delights to discover.

This is obviously a rustic version, and whilst it doesn't have the finery and delicacy of the one at Riegi, the golden roasted cauliflower really works with the salmon and ementhal and would make an ideal mid week supper or easy dinner party dish.

I've called it a sort of strudel because a strudel usually has a smooth top, but for extra texture, ease and presentation I chose to bunch it up instead.

I'm feeling rather tired (not even got out of my pyjamas today!) so making a roux for a bechamel was out of the question (I also hear they're rather out of fashion these days, not that it matters but I'm curious as to why) so I opted instead to make a very quick and easy sauce that tastes the same but uses cornflour - which also has the benefit of being ideal for anyone that doesn't eat wheat so is a useful recipe to know generally.

Leaving the sauce to cool before preparing the dish is very important so that the salmon doesn't get cooked until it goes into the oven. It means when you work with the sauce that it looks a bit lumpy (as in the pic) but believe me it will go back to being silky and smooth once it's cooked through.

For two strudels that will feed up to 4 (and some cheese sauce leftover):
2 salmon fillets, 3 of them cut length ways into thin strips, the other 1 diced
6 sheets of filo pastry
A large knob of unsalted butter, melted ready for brushing with when needed
250g grated ementhal cheese
1 teaspoon mustard (English or Dijon are good, it's only enough to give depth not overpower)
1 pint whole milk
1 cauliflower, cut into its florets
A generous grate of nutmeg and black pepper
Sea salt
Olive oil
6 heaped tablespoons cornflour mixed with enough cold water to form a paste
A bunch of fresh chives, cut finely
A few handfuls of French beans, trimmed
A large knob of unsalted butter

Method:
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees
- Place the cauliflower florets into a roasting tin and drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper and mix through with your hands until all the edges have been dressed in the oil and seasoning
- Place in the oven for 45 minutes, removing half way and turning the florets over so they get browned on all their edges
- Once done remove from the oven and leave to cool
- In a pan combine a knob of butter, the milk, mustard, nutmeg and some seasoning and bring to the simmer, then add the cornflour and turn the heat to low and cook the cornflour flavour out of the sauce as it thickens, for around 10 minutes. Keep stirring so it doesn't catch on the bottom of the pan. After around 10 minutes add the cheese and stir until its combined, then taste for the seasoning and add salt as you feel you need.
- Once this is done leave the sauce to cool
- When you're ready to eat, preheat the oven to 180 degrees and get your butter melted
- Lay one sheet of filo on a lightly floured surface and brush butter along one edge of it, then lay another sheet over the buttered edge (you're trying to increase the size of the filo base from one sheet to nearly two, and the butter joins them) then butter the centre of the filo sheet and lay another sheet over the centre of the join (this is to strengthen the base)
- Take a couple of tablespoons of the firm cheese sauce and place them on the centre of the base, then lay some of the salmon strips across this, top with some more cheese sauce and then the cauliflower, before some diced salmon and a sprinkle of chives
- Butter the surface of all the filo that's now exposed and you can start bringing the edges up and bunching them in the centre top as in the pic
- When its all bunched up brush the strudel with more melted butter all over and carefully slide a fish slice under it to pick it up before moving it to a buttered baking dish
- Bake for around 25 minutes and towards the end of the cooking time boil the kettle and place the beans into a saucepan. After the 25 minutes turn the heat up to 200degrees and cook for around another 7-10 minutes or until it's nice and golden brown, and whilst this is happening cook the beans until they're tender, which should take about 4 minutes
- When the beans are cooked strain them and add a knob of butter to the pan they were cooked in, along with the remaining chives, heat through briefly to melt the butter and add the beans back to the pan, then remove from the heat
- Now remove the strudel from the oven and serve half a strudel per person, serve on top of the chive buttered beans and drizzle with the remaining chive butter

A Viennese whirl

2011-03-20T15:39:00.002Z

I didn't expect turning 30 would be quite so enjoyable. But being surprised by my lovely husband with a trip to a city I've wanted to visit for a very long time was the perfect way to say goodbye to one decade, and hello to the next.

This food fans is a bit of a lengthy post, but you'll be rewarded with a Viennese inspired recipe after this post which I'll put up later today.

Vienna is a fairy tale city, even though the weather wasn't great, the beautiful architecture and sculpture wowed by day and when lit up by night made me tingle. If buildings could talk then Vienna's I'm sure would have many tales to tell.

The sense of creative history really draws you in and is almost overwhelming. Visiting galleries in the museums quarter where we stayed had me wondering about the lives lived by artists I love who'd inhabited the city, it's a special place that can evoke such feelings.

Though it's not all about history. The creative vibe is alive and kicking and can be seen in impeccably designed and eclectic boutiques, bars and restaurants - the Austrians have a real European sense of design, style and glamour.

It's all this that makes Vienna such an enchanting city. Then comes the food.

We tried lots of local dishes and ate close to the hotel in the museums quarter, and ventured further a field to the first district to sample the delights of Riegi - the fine dining restaurant clearly after (and in my opinion deserving of) its first Michelin mention or star, and Steirereck - Vienna's most famous restaurant boasting 2 Michelin stars.

The veal weiner schnitzel at the cosy and theatrical La Boheme was crispy and light, we ate it with herb buttered potatoes and washed it down with beer - a really great meal, and as our first in Vienna it set the tone for the service we received for the whole of our trip - friendly and very welcoming, the Austrians are lovely people.

Gulash we had a few times - once at the cafe at the Leopold Museum (after seeing an exhibition of a favourite artist of mine, Egon Schiele, and then going on to the Museum of Modern Art or MUMOK) a fine dining take at Steirereck and then again at the airport on the way home. Each was delicious, each was different - but I think I've unpicked what makes it authentic so expect an entry soon.

It was Riegi that we ate at on my birthday. They have two different 8 course tasting menus, Mathew had one and I the other so we could share and compare. It was delicious, beautifully presented and with just the right amount of table theatre and playfulness that for me keeps it about the food but makes it entertainment also - like the vial of vanilla oil that was dropped into a rich and salty duck consomme to help give it balance.

I especially liked how the ingredients in some of the dishes somehow tasted like hyped up versions of themselves. I've no idea how the kitchen did this but Id like to find out.

The baked turbot that was heavily scented with coriander root and basil and accompanied by an intense and salty bisque was outstanding, as was a thin sliver of salmon and cauliflower strudel - which reads like it wouldn't be that appetising but it honestly blew me away. This is why I chose to make a version of it as my Vienna tribute dish which I'll list after this post.

Steirereck we went to after a visit to the Hundertwasser museaum Kunst Haus Wien - Hundertwasser is an artist I've liked for a long time. His work has a really organic quality to it but at the same time his palate is more vivid than that of nature. Seeing his works in the flesh made me realise he wasn't just an artist, his later works had a real sense of graphic design too.

As well as creating art he designed buildings all over the world and had a sound philosophy on urban planning that I'm sure we could learn from today. I don't know what the professional view is but it seems to me like he is to Austria what Gaudi is to Spain.

Anyway, after tottering around on the wonky floors of the Kunst Haus we meandered through the foggy day into the Stadt Park on our way to lunch.

Steirereck is in a fantastic modernist building overlooking the river and the park, it's a quirky building that's different from all sides and I couldn't wait to get inside to see the interior. We went in on the ground floor and walked into a large, contemporary white gloss bar area with big glass counters and walls housing vast cheese collections - very trendy.

Then we were taken upstairs to the more formal dining room, a glamorous and paired back interior with starched linen, copies of Relais & Chateaux on every table, antique silverware to eat with, and a sculptural ceiling of real beauty. The service was as silver as I've ever had - and even Mr Toad (the bag I'd bought myself for my birthday) got a stool to sit on rather than be placed at my side on the floor. Oh my.

We chose 5 dishes each from the menu and lunch became a 2.5 hour affair resulting in no dinner being eaten that evening due to this gluttony.

Once our orders had been taken little cards detailing the ingredients arrived at the table ahead of the dish and were placed in front of us, I rather liked reading the ingredients and seeing if I could pick them out on my tongue. Here's how one read:

Lamb with Jerusalem Artichoke:
- Lamb loin roasted on the bone with cooked and raw Jerusalem artichoke
- Rosa Bianca aubergine steamed in pandan leaf
- Sauteed and raw marinated horse mushrooms with mushroom herb
- Dried elderberry compote
- Aubergine and mushroom broth infused with dill
- Pandan oil

As you might expect I pocketed the cards for my memento box.

The dishes were exquisite and their presentation like pieces of art (which makes me smile when I see them, but sad to have to eat them). Even the butter got the starred treatment - noodles of it with pea shoots and petals, it's the little touches.

My shredded veal dish with chive dumpling was delicious and the most refined of comfort foods to ever pass my lips. A pike dish with nashi pear, black pudding and wasabi was elegant and complex, and another pike dish, this one confited in cardamom stock and served with braised beetroot sheets was as delicate and tasty on the tongue as it was on the eye.

The cheese selection was quite overwhelming, here's when knowledgeable and trained waiting staff come into their own - our chap advised us which to go for based on what we each liked, and we weren't disappointed.

The meal ended with some schnapps (well, when in Rome...) and a little silver platter of handmade chocolate discs that were then added to in front of us from a striking trolly housing hundreds of slivers of different dried citrus fruits. They were an installation in themselves and tasted delicious. And being introduced for the first time to the 'buddahs hand lemon' was a nice touch (so to speak) even though he is an ugly bugger.

In four days we didn't get to see half the things we'd have liked to, and have already started planning our return visit. Vienna also now becomes one of the cities to make it onto our
if-we-win-the-lottery-where-we'd-buy-places-in-list.

Beef in Guinness pie with black pudding

2011-03-13T19:38:00.000Z

Here's the thinking: Mathew loves pies. It's national pie week. Mathew loves Guinness. This week is Saint Patricks day. I love Mathew. A dinner decision easily made.

Bit of a classic pie is this, but I couldn't resist trying something different with it and the addition of black pudding brings an extra layer of richness to the dish.

I'm especially pleased with my 'artistic' shamrocks (though if I didn't say they were shamrocks you might not have guessed) but as cute as they may be, it's the taste that counts, and this pie is packed with it.

When cooking with Guinness I always find I need a little sugar to help counter its deep, dark bitterness. That's also why I chose to serve it with crispy roasted sweet potatoes - they're soft, chewy and sweet and complement the pies liquor perfectly.

Pie for 4:
700g feather steak or any other cut that's good for braising
80g diced black pudding, fried until crispy
2 cans of Guinness
4 carrots, peeled and cut into rings
2 celery stalks, roughly chopped
2 golden onions, peeled and quartered
A couple of teaspoons of cornflour, mixed up with water
One packed of ready made shortcrust pastry
A couple of tablespoons plain flour
2 bay leaves
Sea salt
A few generous pinches of ground black pepper
Sea salt
One egg, beaten just before using
Extra virgin olive oil
4 medium sweet potatoes, boiled until tender, then quartered and left to cool
Peas to serve

Method:
- In a slow cooker (or you could do this in the oven in a pot with a lid) combine the beef, carrots, onion, celery, bay leaves, a couple of pinches of black pepper and Guinness, and cook on a low setting for around 6 hours until the meat is tender and coming apart.
- Strain the slow cooker contents through a fine sieve, catching the liquor in a pan. Pick out the carrots and meat and set aside, discard the onions and celery.
- Bring the liquor to the simmer and cook until its reduced in volume by around half, and add the cornflour to thicken the sauce - cook it for another 10 minutes to cook the flavour of the cornflour out. Once this is done remove it from the heat and add the carrots and beef back into the sauce along with the black pudding and leave to cool
- Once cooled, place the pie contents into a pie dish, and brush the edge of the dish with beaten egg
- Preheat the oven to 200 degrees
- Now roll out the shortcrust pastry on a lightly floured work surface, and drape it over the dish. Crimp the edges of the pie around the dish and cut off the excess, brush the pie with the beaten egg and if you have done shamrocks (not essential!) place them on the egg washed pastry and then brush their tops too
- Put the sweet potatoes into a roasting tin, drizzle with olive oil and salt and pepper and put into the oven along with the pie (the pie on the shelf above the potatoes) give the potatoes a shake a few times to make sure all their edges get crisp
- Cook them both for around 30-35 minutes, until the pie is bubbling at the sides and nice and golden, and the potatoes are crisp
- Serve with peas