He’s on a roll

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The shorts are running around like idiots and every screen in the house is on – two tvs, two pcs and an Xbox – it’s no surprise I rarely get to read the papers any more – today’s are still sitting by the front door in their wrapping getting increasingly nervous that I’ll fail to give them the attention they deserve…

I’m clearly on a roll as I manage to cook something noteworthy for the kids lunch today –

Lamb meatballs with linguine

Take half a kilo of lamb mince and mix it in a bowl with olive oil, ground cumin, finely chopped red chilli, plenty of salt and pepper and a good handful of chopped herbs – I used basil, rosemary, thyme and mint. Form the mince in balls the size of a small apricot, fry them and set aside in a saucepan, then fry an onion and two cloves of garlic, finely chopped, and add to the saucepan. Now add a tin of chopped tomatoes, a teaspoon of caraway seeds and sea salt and ground pepper to taste. Let it all simmer for about 30 minutes.

In the meantime, ten minutes before the meatballs are ready, boil a pan of linguine until al dente. Finally drain the linguine and add to the meatballs, along with another handful of chopped basil (you can also add tabasco at this stage if you like it spicy).

Serve all together with a big dollop of soured cream…

Catch up time

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It’s been too long. Far far too long. I expect it’s typical of the amateur blogger – great expectations at the start, a spurt of enthusiasm for a few weeks then fizzle to nothing. So it is with renewed vigour that I sit here hoping to log another recipe or two.

Frankly the major challenge over the last six months has been talking the kids into eating something other than the same old stuff I trot out week after week.

Anyway – as luck would have it, I managed to take a photo of something I cooked recently, so I may as well commit it to e-paper –

Tuna Nicoise Salad

You need a lovely thick piece of fresh tuna to make this really good, although tinned can still work well. Bars and restaurants up and down the country attempt to wow us with this dish but it invariably ends up disappointing. Try this version – you’ll love it…

In a pestle and mortar, grind sea salt, black peppercorns and a pinch of cumin, then rub it all over the tuna. Put the tuna in a hot pan with some olive oil and sear for just  one minute on each side – no more – then set aside.

Boil a handful of new potatoes and when cooked, cut into slices the thickness of a pound coin. If you like, you can then fry them lightly in butter. At the same time, steam a handful of green beans. When they are just done, toss them in a pan with good olive oil, salt, pepper and finely chopped garlic for just 30 seconds and leave – they will soak up all the lovely salty, garlicy oil.

Tuna NicoiseBoil a few eggs for a few minutes until just hard boiled (hopefully the yolks will still be a litte runny) and peel.

Cut up a cos/romaine lettuce, a handful of plum tomatoes and a small red onion.

Now the dressing – a creamy one works best and if you have the patience (it’s really not that difficult to be honest) then I would do the following:

Separate an organic egg yolk into a bowl and add a teaspoon of dijon mustard, salt, pepper and a good splash of white wine vinegar and some tarragon. Now take a whisk and start beating while adding very slowly either very light olive oil or sunflower oil (It’s essentially a mayonnaise that you’re making – perfect for this salad). Keep adding oil until it reaches your desired consistency – for me that is thick and creamy…

Now to put it all together on a large plate. Cut the tuna into large slices and lay over the salad along with five or six anchovy fillets. then pour over the dressing and season further if needed.

Eat with really good stone baked organic white bread and a bottle of provence rose. Perfect for a hot/warm/rainy summer’s day.

Sunday 26th April

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Birthday and house move are approaching fast and I’m locked in an out-and-out battle with my ex landlord who has decided that rather than give my deposit back to me, he’d like to use it to pay for a long list of building works on his house (none of which are related to my stay of course) – now I remember why it’s better to own than to rent…

We go to Carcraft in Enfield (one of those huge car supermarkets) for a quick look at what’s on the market – not that I need a car right now, but mine’s on its last legs and I know that at some point in the next 12 months it’s going to finally give up the ghost and leave me somewhere half way up the M56 with nothing but a bag of murray mints and a towel to keep me amused while I wait to be rescued by the AA for the 10th time this year. From the moment we arrive til the second we leave, we are harassed by hoards of slimy, overzealous used car salesmen vying for our attention. At least five of them home in on us throughout the ten minutes we manage to stay there. I think I now know what it’s like to be a single woman in a cheap bar – constantly being approached by barely post-pubescent youths with ill-fitting suits and the charm of a dose of pig-flu trying any line they can to engage you in conversation. But I’m not playing ball – I try various tactics from smiling to scowling to pretending they are not there all. What I really want to do is tell them to bugger off and leave me a alone but my upbringing doesn’t allow for such bravado. I stick to the ignoring them tactic – it’s not really working, but at least I’m avoiding conversation. I notice a young couple sitting at a small Ikea desk who were not so lucky – they failed to hold the line and now they are stuck – like a pair of hapless wildebeest being savaged by a pack of hungry hyenas (and boy are they hungry right now). Luckily for us they have created the diversion we need and we make our escape relatively unscathed.
What I don’t really understand is how making people so uncomfortable that they want to leave as quickly as possible can be good for business. At some point I’ll have to bite the bullet and spend long enough in of of these places to go through with it and buy a car – but I make a promise to myself to delay the day as long as I possibly can – and to never risk this place again. I’ll be chancing my arm on ebay…

Anyway, once back it’s time to make a simple Chicken Liver Pate…

Roughly chop an onion, a few cloves of garlic and a little chopped red chilli and fry in a pan with butter. After a few minutes add about 250g of chicken livers to the pan and continue to fry on a moderate heat. Next add half a glass of white wine, plenty of seasoning and cook for about five minutes allowing the wine to reduce and the livers to cook through.

In a blender, add a handful of chopped parsley and few tablespoons of cream cheese then add the liver mixture and blend to a smooth paste.
Turn in out into a bowl and top with  a large nob of butter which will melt and form a seal over the pate.

Leave it in the fridge – if you can bear to wait then give it a day before cracking it open…

New York

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The weekend is over (in fact it was a week this time, which made the goodbyes harder than usual, and the missing them less manageable) and now I’m on a plane bound for New York where I’ll be driven from meeting to meeting and probably get very little time to breathe.
By contrast, there will be plenty of time to eat. I fully expect to be fed at least fifteen times a day throughout the trip (thank god it’s only two days). It is little surprise that the American people are the size they are when you experience a typical business trip pretty much anywhere in the United States: wake up – breakfast in the hotel, taxi to meeting, breakfast in the corner of the meeting room (and before you say “hang on – you don’t have to eat two breakfasts”, just be honest with yourself – if the food is put in front of you and its free then I defy you not to eat it), coffee and biscuits all morning, lunch, more coffee, more biscuits, dinner and it continues. And just when you think it’s all over and you return to your room, get undressed, brush your teeth and approach the bed – there it is, taunting you – a little minty chocolate sitting on your pillow – the inclusion of the mint somehow suggesting that it can be eaten sans-guilt and that you might even get away with not having to re-brush your teeth.
I reluctantly reach for the little square, unwrap it, close my eyes and think of Mr. Creosote as it completes my day of gluttony. I need to go for a run…

Anyway – back to the plane – it’s Virgin Atlantic and the stewardesses are desperately trying to look like the ones on the ad (the one with the hoard of post-coital beauties, confidently strutting through the departure lounge on their way to ensure another plane full of middle-aged middle managers reach the climax they have been looking for – and failing to achieve – for so many years).
The reality of course is that out of the three in my eye-shot, I see (in order of attractiveness) a tank-shaped (that’s world war two tank rather than fish tank) brunette called Lisa-Marie whose voice does not match her physique (you know when you speak to someone you have never met on a phone over a period of time and then finally meet them? Whoever did that with Lisa-Marie must have had a shock), a fifty year old ex-headmistress called Shelley who’s nail polish has more chips on it than an Apprentice contestant’s shoulder and a nice chap called Bruce (no I’m not – that should give you an idea of how good things really are on board…)
Of course I’m being unfair (and failing to talk about food it seems) – they are all very nice and professional, and I’m getting a lot of work done, so top marks dear Richard.

Easter holidays

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It’s been far too long and this is but a brief return to dad at the weekend – I will be back though – just give me a few weeks and I’ll return from the land of the homeless and kick off again…

So here we are in Dartmouth in the heart of the English Riviera – a lovely seaside (or should it be estuary-side?) town full of anorak-clad tourists and resentful natives (which is bizarre given that the majority of the natives are only able to feed their families thanks to the anorak-clad tourists). We’re visiting Grandpa and Sally and good food is at the top of the agenda (after swimming, crabbing and generally playing havoc with my fathers customers in the gallery).

My job was pudding – and I decided to make something I haven’t made for years – Tiramisu – as taught to me by Barbara and Carol – two Italian friends who, like most Italians, know which side of their ciabatta is oiled.

For the uninitiated, there are two big Tiramisu debates – alcohol vs no alcohol; and Savoiardi vs Pavesini. According to the Barbara and Carol school it’s no alcohol and its pavesini every time (unfortunately the shelf stacker in Dartmouth’s shiny new Sainsburys didn’t have a clue what I was talking about so last night’s pud was made with sponge fingers – generally the closest a briton can get)

Anyway here goes –

Tiramisu
Separate four large very fresh organic eggs and add 6 tablespoons of caster sugar to the yolks (or more if you want it sweet) and beat with a whisk until they have roughly doubled in sized a turned from bright yellow to a rich creamy colour.

Now take two 250g tubs of mascarpone and mix in with the beaten egg yolk mixture.
Whisk half of the eggs whites to stiff peaks (I’ll come back to this in a mo)
Brew a pot of very good very strong black coffee – enough to fill a large mug.

Next, take a suitable dish (best rectangular and not too deep) then take the biscuits and submerge each one into the coffee ensuring they get a good soaking but don’t get completely soggy (I normally dip for about a second) and place each one into the dish, side by side covering the bottom. After a little while check that they have gone spongy – if they haven’t just dribble a tiny bit of coffee over them to wet them a little more.

Now – this is where I departed from B&Cs recipe (and I think it worked) – firstly, add a few drops of vanilla extract into the mascarpone egg mixture, then fold in the two stiffly beaten egg whites. The latter makes the pud just a little lighter (so you can eat more).
Then spoon the mixture over the biscuits.

Depending on the size of the dish, you can either do a single layer, or two layers of biscuits – but you must end with a good thick layer of the mascarpone mixture on top. If in doubt stick to one layer.

Now put the whole lot in the fridge until about 20 mins before serving…
…and then comes my final departure. B&C would go for a simple dusting of cocoa powder just before serving (tastes lovely but if you leave it too long before serving it can get damp and looks bad). Last night however I went for finely grated Green and Blacks milk chocolate, which not only tastes brilliant, it also stays looking great however long you leave it.
That’s it – perfect with an orange muscat. (and even better a day later straight out of the fridge for lunch)

I hope you enjoy it Sally!

Christmas Day

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I’m not sure going into this in great detail makes sense, so I’ll just talk about what I cooked – The method was not revolutionary so I’ll assume you can wing it if necessary – and if you can’t then all you have to do is ask…
Roast the goose with a pork, sage, onion and apple stuffing (put in both orifices in little balls and then put back in the oven to complete cooking after the bird is taken out of the oven)
Roast Spuds and parsnips – par boiled before going into the oven (if you do this they will be soft inside and crunchy on the outside. If you don’t they will be dry and horrible)
Sprouts – par boiled for 5 mins until al dente then plunged into freezing water. Fried in butter, salt, pepper and garlic just before serving.
Carrots, peeled, cut into discs and sweated in butter with salt and pepper, peas (defrosted) 2 mins before serving to heat them through.
Bread sauce (do NOT buy ready made bread sauce – it’s disgusting) – onion and bay leaf in milk, heat up, strain into another saucepan, add breadcrumbs, add cream, add butter, nutmeg and seasoning – seriously – what could be easier??
Gravy – made from boiling the giblets with an onion and a carrot, straining, adding flour, butter, the liquid from par boiling the veg and all the lovely sticky bits from the bottom of the gooses roasting tin (with as much of the fat drained off as you can – greasy gravy is yuck) – then add wine or port and season.
Cranberry sauce, made with fried onions, cranberries, a shot of port and seasoning
I think that’s pretty much it – make sure you rest the bird for 20 mins before scarving – this is when you can turn up the oven to max heat to make sure your roast veg are nice a crispy!
One tip – for something like this where you have to serve up a load of different dishes all at the same time, I find it useful to put together a list with timings so you know when to prepare what, put what in the oven, on the hob, etc etc (I know, another list – but believe me it works)

Christmas Eve

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There is so much to cover with regards food, I’m going to cut straight to chase and avoid stories of family and friends. Besides, a helpful colleague of mine told me that one should avoid getting into the whole diary thing as what might be interesting to me certainly won’t be to you…

So – we’ll start with the Spicy Apple Chutney and go from there…
There are one or two key ingredients in this, beyond that you can chuck all sorts of things into it. This is what I did –
Peel a few bramley apples and chop into chunks along with a handful of roughly red onion, white onion, red chilli and finely chopped ginger. Grind a good quantity of spices – cinnamon, star anise, salt, black pepper and cloves.
Put the lot in a saucepan along with half a litre of malt vinegar and a couple of table spoons of muscovado sugar for about half an hour, then add roughly chopped cucumber and tomatoes and cook for a further 15 minutes. I also added a handful of pickled jalapenos for an extra little kick, and a teaspoon of saffron for colour and depth.
Spoon the contents into sterilized jars and leave to cool. That’s it.
Perfect for dark meat and cheese…

Next, the Game Terrine – I’ve been looking forward to doing this for ages…
I used a couple of pigeon breasts, six pheasant thighs, some venison steak and 300 g of sausage meat. Cut all the meat into thin strips and colour in a hot frying pan them put in a large bowl. add the sausage meat, a couple of handfuls of breadcrumbs, a glug or two of cognac, salt, pepper and olive oil. Fry a finely chopped onion and add to the mix, then add lots of chooped fresh herbs – thyme and parsley for me…
Mix the whole lot up and put it into a greased, lined loaf tin and put in the oven in a bain marie at 180c for an hour and half. Take it out, let it cool, turn it out, cut it up and eat it with the chutney…

By this time the Christmas gang had arrived and it’s time to eat.
We start with Tuna and Scallop Ceviche
I practiced this a few weeks ago knowing that I wanted to cook it for Christmas Eve – it was brilliant then and it was even better the second time – and it is seriously easy to do:
Take fresh tuna steak and cut very finely into slices. Now take fresh scallops without the roe and again slice very thinly.
Lay the tuna and the scallops onto separate plates and add the following:
Finely chopped red chillies, red onions, and coriander, lots of lime juice, olive oil, salt and pepper.
Leave it to marinade for about 15 minutes and serve with lovely bread. Simple and completely fantastic…

And then to continue in fishy fashion we continue with one of my favourites – a really good Fish Pie that my sister taught me – you must try this one…

I used a mixture of fish and seafood – a monkfish tail, fillets of plaice, haddock and trout – to be honest it doesn’t matter what you use (although the monkfish works very well as it stays nice and meaty when the pie is cooked), a handful of peeled raw king prawns and a handful of scallops (cut in to pieces if necessary) depending on size.
Take the fillets and put them in a frying pan skin side down with a knob of butter and heat gently for a few minutes. Turn them over and take the pan off the heat. While the pan is cooling, carefully peel the skin off the fillets. They should not be cooked at this stage. Take a large dish and rip the fish into pieces and place in the dish, then leave to cool.
Now take your pan and make a roux (butter, then flour, then milk) and add 1/3 of a bottle of white wine, a couple of tablespoons of Dijon mustard, tarragon, salt and pepper to taste. When it starts to thicken, add cream. It should now taste great 0 if it doesn’t adjust accordingly. Make sure the sauce is quite thick as liquid from the fish will thin it during cooking – it should be the consistency of custard (not crème anglais).
When you come back to the fish, there should be liquid in the bottom of the dish that has come out of the fish as it cooled. Drain this away before adding the cooled sauce and mixing thoroughly.
For the topping, peel and par boil potatoes, then once cooled, grate them into a bowl with a huge lump of butter, salt, pepper and finely chopped capers (a must).
Put the topping over the fish mixture and place in an oven at 180c for 35 minutes.
Leave it to calm down a few minutes before serving…

Goat’s cheese tarts

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It’s the weekend again and the shorts are back!

I pick them up at 5 and we come straight back for our now traditional meal of penne with tomato, garlic and basil sauce (with a dash of cream of course)In the morning we go to Tesco (I know, I’m sorry but we don’t have local shops any more and I can’t afford Waitrose at the moment – I will sort this out at some point I promise) and I notice that egg sizes at Tesco have gone all MacDonalds – you can now only buy eggs in Medium, Large and Very Large…Just pick up a carton of 6 medium eggs and have a look inside. Tiny. That’s what they are.

Anyway – we get the food for the weekend – the obligatory pain au chocs, nibbley bits for Saturday night in front of the telly, and the main ingredients for our DATW meals. I also spend half an hour thinking about what I’m going to cook this Christmas – it’s started already – by the time we get to the day I’ll have a full spreadsheet with timings covering every minute of the day and every single things that will pass through anyone’s lips throughout a three day period. Bit sad really. Someone told me the other night that lists are something specific to our generation and that our kids manage without. How can that be? Lists to me are the very foundation of my ability to function as a human being – in fact there are very few things I can achieve without a line or ten on a piece of paper…We get back and I get going with our lunch – lasagne – I’m not even going to bother – there isn’t a cook book in the land that doesn’t cover this one…
Anyway – Saturday night and after the kids go to bed I decide to use up some left over puff pastry – Goats cheese and red onion tart
I use a baking tray with the moulds for making little tarts and pies (about 5cm in diameter). Grease the tray and cut the puff pastry (bought not home made) to fit the moulds with a litte bit sticking up out above the tray. Fill the cases with a couple of spoonfuls of mild goats cheese (spoon the cheese loosely so that you don’t have densely packed cheese). Then fry a red onion in a pan with a little butter and a spoonful of sugar until is softens. Spoon the onion over the tarts and put in an oven at 190c for 10-15 mins, until the pastry is golden brown and the cheese is bubbling. Serve with rocket dressed with balsamic vinegar and olive oil…