Nora the Kitchen 'Splorer

Mincemeat and apple Chelsea buns

2012-01-02T11:07:00.000Z

In my book you can never have too many recipes that involve mincemeat. I adore mince pies, of course. And this mincemeat crumble tart is now an annual highlight of the post-Christmas season. But this week I also hit upon the idea of using the mincemeat in Chelsea buns. Because mincemeat basically is Chelsea bun filling, isn't it? But with nice little crunchy nuts. And rum. I also added some grated apple, inspired by the same combo in the crumble tart.

I was really pleased with the results - they were really quite delicious. The fruity, spicy filling, the sticky glazed top, the sweet, soft bread - it all came together beautifully. They tasted like Chelsea buns, rather than mince pies, so they'd be perfect for anyone with mincemeat fatigue. (Not me, obviously, but Mr 'Splorer was looking less and less impressed every time a tray of mince pies was whipped out of the oven.)

As a starting point for the buns, I used the recipe for cinnamon rolls from our fantastic bread course at Cambridge Cookery School. If you can judge the quality of a cookery workshop on how well used the recipes are a year later, then I think our splattered, dough covered recipe sheets speak volumes. The recipes really work (even without expert supervision) - I really must go back for another one of their courses.

Mincemeat and apple Chelsea buns

Makes 16

Buns

25g fresh yeast*

425g plain flour

75g butter

250ml milk

45g caster sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon mixed spice

a pinch of salt

Filling

40g soft butter

2 tablespoons caster sugar

1 teaspoon mixed spice

1 teaspoon cinnamon

2 small apples

150g mincemeat

Glaze

3 tablespoons milk

3 tablespoons caster sugar

Crumble the yeast into the flour. Heat the butter, milk and caster sugar until it's warm but not hot (just above blood temperature). Add the egg. Add to the flour with the spice and salt. Mix and turn out onto a floured surface. Knead for five minutes. It will be quite a sticky dough, so you might need to use more flour, but only add as much as you need. Put it back in the bowl. Cover it and leave to rise for an hour.

Peel and grate the apples finely. Give it a bit of a squeeze to get rid of the juice.

Gently transfer the dough onto a floured surface. Cut it in half. Roll half out into a square, about a centimetre thick. Spread over half of the butter and then the mincemeat and apple. Sprinkle on half of the sugar and spices. Roll up like a Swiss roll. Cut into 8 slices and put on a baking tray. Repeat with the rest of the dough.

Leave to rise for half an hour.

Preheat the oven to 220C/Gas Mark 7. Cook for about 10 minutes, until the tops are golden brown. Heat the milk and sugar together until the sugar melts and brush the glaze over the buns.

* If you don't have fresh yeast, you can use 14g dried active yeast. It will need to be activated and the way we did it at the cookery school was to put it in a bowl with 1 tablespoon of golden syrup and a splash of warm water. Then you cover it and leave it until bubbles appear on the surface.

These are best the day they are made, but you can perk them up for a few more days by heating them up in the oven before eating.

Gingerbread House #2

2011-12-30T21:29:00.003Z

Two years ago I made my first gingerbread house, with mixed results! This year I had another go. In fact, it was a group effort. I baked and assembled the thing and then got a couple of friends to decorate it. It was definitely more successful than last time. I seem to have mastered the art of keeping it standing up, which is good! In fact, it was still standing even when it only consisted of one wall, which is quite impressive.
I used the gingerbread recipe from Bake by Rachel Allen, which was a real pain in the bum to work with. You have to roll it out on the baking paper and slide it onto the baking tray - any attempt to lift or move it will surely end in disaster. However, it did taste good - and make enough for a house plus several batches of gingerbread biscuits.

So, as I still haven't quite reached gingerbread house perfection, here's this year's list of lessons learnt:

Always double check the dimensions of your bits of house. In this case, the two bits of roof didn't reach the middle. I was reliably informed by mathematically literate people that this is the fault of the recipe book, not mine. But, as I cut the templates out in paper, it wouldn't have taken a mo to check that the edges all matched up.
Flakes make wonderful thatching when there's a big hole in your roof. And excellent chimneys.
Icing made of 250g icing sugar / one egg white whisked up together is pretty much edible concrete and just the ticket for sticking a gingerbread house together. But next time another kind of icing that is thinner and solidifies less quickly would be better for decorating.
Don't get carried away with cutting out windows - remember you're going to have decorate all of them. Or your friends are. This house was a two storey number with a total of 10 windows, which lead to a few complaints as the ladies arranged lines of silver balls around each one.
Decorating a gingerbread house is an excellent festive group activity. In fact, there was talk of other festivities that could be marked with gingerbread. A Valentine's Day gingerbread house of love? An Easter gingerbread chicken coop? The possibilities are, as they say, endless.

Happy New Year!

Hot dogs

2011-12-18T20:30:00.001Z

Last night was the finale of series 2 of The Killing. You were watching, right? Personally I'm a jumper-obsessed Killing addict (with a slight crush on Brix this series) and generally getting very into all things Scandinavian. Mr ‘Splorer and I even took a little trip to Copenhagen inNovember (top travel tip: fly to Malmö in Sweden – it’s much cheaper and Malmö’s mainstation is a half hour train journey from Copenhagen central station). Even in early November, it waspretty much the most Christmassy place I’ve ever been – everywhere you turnedthere was another Christmas market or other festive excitement.

Eating our way around the city we discovered the wonders of (amongst other things) ...

... authentic Scandinavian cinnamon buns ...

... gløgg(mulled wine with fruit and nuts at the bottom) ...

... and the best hot dogs of my life from the stands on the street.

So when we wanted a suitable snack to accompany the last twoepisodes of The Killing, I thought ofhot dogs. Really good hot dogs with homemade buns and proper sausages and all thetoppings. What could possibly be better?

A quick Google got me to a Dan Lepard recipe for Onion seed hot dog rolls with fried onions and black onion seeds. I would really recommend the recipe for a really flavoursome, soft and chewy hot dog roll. I followed Dan's recipe exactly, so I won't write it out again. There's a total of 2 and a half hours of raising time, so not really for when you're in hurry, but it's really easy. Here's what it looks like:

Then serve with ketchup, mayo, mustard, gherkins and crispy onions, which it turns out you can buy in little pots for that authentic Copenhagen feel to your hot dogs. Oh, and a bottle of Tuborg and, if you've got one handy, a fine Scandinavian detective drama.

The great thing about these buns is that they have enough flavour to stand up against all those toppings. The challenge is now on to find a sausage that can do the same. I'm definitely going to have to eat a lot of hot dogs to sort that one out.

Beef goulash

2011-10-23T21:42:00.001+01:00

Because grey pasta is quite obviously the way forwards...

I am so happy about the onset of autumn. I have a new bright red coat and a cosy cashmere cardi to keep me warm. I have picked up my knitting again, ready to curl up with it on the sofa in front of the telly. And I am totally ready to fill my kitchen with hearty warming stews, fruit cakes and lovely soups.
The choice of goulash was mainly inspired by the fact I hadn't touched my little tin of Spanish sweet paprika. Considering the airport officials made me actually taste the stuff (and paprika straight from the tin ain't nice, I can tell you), this was one ingredient I didn't want to be languishing in the back of the cupboard.
So, hearty warming stews + paprika = goulash. In fact, there really wasn't much more too to it: beef, garlic, paprika, cayenne, carrots, onions, stock. Whack it in the oven for a couple of hours. And there you are. And if you're still in love with your new pasta machine, make some pasta to go with it. Not sure they're traditional partners (the recipe says to serve with boiled potatoes or rice), but I thought they went together fantastically well. The meaty, smoky, slightly spicy sauce soaks into the pasta - and goes just slightly grey! To be honest, it probably doesn't help that I got carried away in the supermarket and bought purple carrots...

Beef goulash
(Adapted from Juliya's Lithuanian Beef goulash in Forgotten Skills of Cooking by Darina Allen)

Makes two generous portions

440g stewing beef, cut into cubes
2 cloves of garlic, chopped finely
1 tsp sweet paprika
pinch of cayenne (or a bit more if you want)
sunflower oil
½ onion
3 carrots (any colour you like!), chopped into small cubes
20g flour
340ml beef stock

Preheat the oven to 160C/325F/gas mark 2.
Put the beef in a bowl with the garlic, paprika, cayenne and some salt and pepper. Mix well and then put to one side.
Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a frying pan and fry the onion and carrots until they're beginning to soften. Take them out of the pan. Add a little more oil and brown the beef quickly.
Put all the ingredients in a casserole. (My somewhat erratically equipped kitchen doesn't have a casserole dish, so I used an oven dish with some foil over the top.) In the original recipe, you put the casserole on the heat, but I didn't bother.
Put the flour in the frying pan with the heat still on, add the stock and stir to deglaze the pan. Add it to the rest of the ingredients. Put the casserole/oven dish in the oven and cook for 2-2½ hours. You're aiming for that wonderful falling apart tenderness of slow cooked beef.

When serving it with homemade pasta, I was originally going to pop the pasta onto the plate first, and then top it with the goulash. But Marcella Hazan is very strict about the importance of tossing your pasta with the sauce. And actually, she's damn right. It was amazing to see how the pasta drank up the quite runny sauce - and excellent not to waste any of those meaty juices!

Munching my way around Lyon

2011-10-16T15:46:00.003+01:00

I must admit that I had absolutely no idea that Lyon was a renowned culinary capital, up to its eyeballs in great ways with offal. I just happen to have a friend who is shacked up with a French farmer and their two gorgeous boys in a French farm about an hour from the city. So on the way home (already pleasantly stuffed with great cheese, wine, bread, frog's legs and Pastis), we thought we could pop by the place and see what it was like.

And it was fabulous. You should really go. We both totally fell in love with the place. It's a beautiful city with some of the best food I've eaten for a good long while. There's a beautiful market along the river, the people are extremely friendly, there are plenty of lovely old buildings ... Basically, it's heaven.
So, in the spirit of sharing our best bits, here's a little list of dos and don'ts based on our three days in town.

Do go to a bouchon (traditional Lyon restaurant) called Le Musée (2, Rue des Forces). Be prepared for excellent food, and fantastic service as the owner of the place sits down chummily at the table to explain the menu, going back over it to help with translation and using his own body to demonstrate which particular bit of the animal we're talking about. The whole thing is just hugely jovial and relaxing and delicious. As I said to Mr 'Splorer as we left, it was one of those meals that makes you think that the world is a wonderful place. (He did give me a bit of a funny look at that point, but it's true!)

Saucisson in brioche - such a wonderful combination.

Rabbit terrine with pistachio nuts - suddenly balsamic reductions make a whole load of sense!

Delicious, melt in the mouth pig's cheeks

Praline tart

However, don't foolishly assume that the door with the menu board and small tables outside it is the customer door of Le Musée. You might find yourself feeling like a right idiot two hours (and quite a few beers) later when you realise that you've been watching the back door and that the main door is round the corner.

Do go to Brasserie Leon (1, rue Pléney), which I found via Gourmet Chick, for a swanky meal if it happens to be one of your party's birthdays during your trip. But maybe go before you go to Le Musée. Being twice the price (it was over 100 euros for two) and a bit less laid back, Brasserie Leon did suffer slightly in the comparison. Even so, I would recommend it for some excellent and interesting food amid rather more sophisticated surroundings.

A cold 'barigoule' of seasonal vegetables with marinated raw salmon

A 'fondant' of lamb with tian of vegetables

A fillet of a fish called féra with Nantua sauce and crozets (little bits of pasta)

Some kind of delicious chocolatey dessert. Can't give any more details as forgot to photograph the dessert menu. (And there you were thinking I just had a great memory for food!)

But don't forget your map of Lyon at the hotel and then get hopelessly lost on your way to Brasserie Leon. Though if you do, rest assured that the ice-cream merchants of the city are a friendly bunch and happy to give directions to lost tourists, and that the restaurant won't bat an eyelid when you're 20 minutes late.

Do go to the Marché St Antoine and/or the Marché Croix-Rousse. They're pretty similar to each other, to be honest. But I just couldn't get enough the stalls piled high with luscious fruit and vegetables, stinky cheeses and beautiful breads. While there, I would highly recommend trying a pink praline brioche. And some kind of stuffed Algerian bread, whose name we couldn't quite catch but which was savoury and flakey and delicious.

Marché St Antoine

Pink praline brioche

Really tasty Algerian stuffed bread thing

Mmm, tomatoey meaty flatbreadiness.

Do order 'quenelles' at some point in your trip. We didn't (I wanted to at Le Musée but couldn't resist the pig's cheeks). We have two French friends familiar with Lyon. Quite separately, their first words on learning we'd been there were 'Did you have quenelles?' Bugger.

Don't be put off by the all the talk of offal that goes on in descriptions of Lyon. I'm a bit squeamish myself and can't even bring myself to like liver or kidneys (though I do maintain that I just don't like the taste of those little fellas). But as long as you know a few bits of French (or do your menu research in advance) so you know what to avoid, you're bound to find plenty to eat. If you're like me though, you might want to avoid andouillete (memorably described by my friend as 'bum-hole sausage').

We still have so much still to see and do in Lyon (as well as Gourmet Chick, Eat Like A Girl has a load of recommendations). I'm so glad that I have a friend living near there, so we can pretty much guarantee a return visit. So any more recommendations for Lyon would be very welcome. And also, does anyone know how the devil you make pink praline?!

Maple plum crumble

2011-09-06T08:00:00.000+01:00

Mr 'Splorer made the mistake of saying he didn't like crumble. Said it was like baby food. To be honest, I can see what he means, but I also took it as a challenge. Especially as there's nothing so British as crumble - I get very protective of my native culinary culture. A similar thing happened with gooseberries and rhubarb. Nothing gets me baking like the need to prove that British food is lovely.

So, it was time for crumble. A crumble to defend the honour of my nation. To be honest, despite the importance of the mission, I didn't look too long or hard. We had plums. Mr 'Splorer loves maple syrup. I found this Maple plum crumble on the BBC website. Perfect.

It was a winner - lovely, chunky, crunchy crumble and sweet, fruity filling. We replaced the almonds with walnuts because that's we had, and it worked really well. It seemed to convert Mr 'Splorer, though part of the secret seemed to be to serve it with copious quantities of ice cream!

Learning to make pasta

2011-09-04T21:06:00.002+01:00

My new toy

My new book

So, it's all about the Italian food round these parts! Making pasta has an extra nostalgic glow for me, as my parents used to make it when I was a kid. Breaking out the pasta machine for the first time, little sis and I reminisced about our childhood addictions to pasta dough. We loved the stuff, and Mum and Dad had to be vigilant to protect the dough from tiny thieving hands. I'm not sure whether I realised at the time that it is literally just eggs and flour - doesn't sound quite so appetising these days. The smell took me straight back to childhood, though, and I must admit I was a little tempted to give it a try...

First we made fettuccine.

Rolling it out was a bit messy, but we got there in the end!

We served it with Marcella Hazan's fabulous ragù, in direct contradiction to her suggestion that ragù should be served with tagliatelle. Which are completely different from fettuccine, obviously! Apparently, fettucine are the ones that you cut with the pasta maker, but tagliatelle are cut by hand.

We also made the famous Marcella Hazan tomato sauce with butter and onion, which is the most unbelievably easy thing I've ever made. You pop tinned tomatoes, a whole onion chopped in half and a wodge of butter into a saucepan, cook for 45 minutes. Extract the onion and that's it. Amazing. Pretty tasty too. Mr 'Splorer even preferred it to the ragù. Personally I think that's going a bit far, but it was a great sauce.

Then, today, I had a go at tortelloni. At least, I think they were tortelloni. I thought tortelloni were like tortellini, but bigger. But Marcella says tortelloni (and tortelli) are the same thing as ravioli. So I may have made tortellini instead.
The result was somewhat 'rustic', but I thought not too bad for a first try. I was mainly pleased that they didn't fall apart during cooking. The main issue was the point where they joined was a bit thick and stodgy, so I think I'll have to work on my technique there. But the filling was bloody lovely. Well, ricotta, spinach and prosciutto - what's not to like?!

For 2-3 people, you start by mixing 2 large eggs with 115g flour (I used 00 flour). Marcella says to whisk the eggs and then gradually incorporate the flour. In my two attempts, the eggs have always escaped and it's just been a case of mixing it and adding more flour until it's not really sticky any more.

Then you knead it, a bit like bread, for 8 minutes - until it's 'as smooth as baby skin'.

You divide the mixture into 6 equal balls. To put them through the machine, you squash the ball down with your palm.

Then you put it through the pasta maker, at the thickest level. Then you fold it into thirds and put through again (narrow end first), and then repeat a couple of times. Then you keep reducing the thickness of the pasta maker and putting it through. When you're making fettuccine, you can put the bits of dough through each thickness one after the other. But if you're making stuffed pasta, you just work with one bit of dough at a time (leaving the rest wrapped in clingfilm to preserve stickiness).

It took me a while to work out the method for making tortellini/oni, but this, I think, is how it's done.

The final product, glistening with butter and Parmesan. Pretty damn tasty, though there's plenty of room for improvement.

But let me give you recipe for the filling, which was so delicious that I kept nibbling at it while making the tortelloni. Maybe I'm not that put of by a bit of raw egg after all...

Spinach, prosciutto and ricotta filling for pasta
Adapted from The Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan

500g spinach
salt
2 1/2 tbsp finely chopped onion
75g prosciutto, chopped
45g butter
200g ricotta
1 egg yolk
60g freshly grated Parmesan
nutmeg

This recipe was originally with Swiss chard (and spinach as an option), but I found spinach much more readily available.

Wash the spinach in several changes of water. Take the spinach out of the water and put in a saucepan with just the water that clings to it. Add a large pinch of salt. Cover the pan and cook on a medium heat for about 10 minutes. Drain and, when cool enough to handle, squeeze out all the moisture and chop finely.
Meanwhile, put the onion, prosciutto and butter in a small frying pan. Cook over a medium heat until the onion is translucent. Add the spinach. Cook for 2-3 minutes.
Transfer the mixture to a bowl, and add the ricotta, egg yolk, grated Parmesan and a tiny grating of nutmeg. Combine the ingredients with a fork. Taste and add salt if necessary.

This makes enough for two quantities of the pasta above, so serving 4-6 people.

So, this has been my introduction to the world of making pasta. I feel that I have a hell of a lot to learn, but happily it seems that you can muddle your way through to quite a delicious bowl of pasta. My instructions above are a mere summary of the detailed information in Marcella's book, so I would really recommend buying it for more info. Especially as they've put on such a nice hardbook cover (but inside it's still the same classic that my parents used to make their pasta from).

Munching my way around Suffolk

2011-08-23T22:15:00.000+01:00

Last weekend Mr 'Splorer and I headed off for a lovely weekend to Suffolk. We stayed in a lovely B&B with generous and well cooked breakfasts (even if the artwork littering the walls did have a rather surprising abundance of bare bottoms). We went to Aldeburgh on the bus and queued for the obligatory fish and chips on the beach. And very good fish and chips they were.

But the real highlight (and let's be honest, the reason for my sudden interest in Suffolk) was our trip to The British Larder in Bromeswell near Woodbridge. Having followed the blog for a good few years now (I can recommend the Roasted Butternut Squash, Pomegranate and Chickpea Salad for a start), I had high hopes. Then the taxi driver taking us there started raving about a game medley he'd once had, describing it as one of those meals you just don't want to end.

Well, despite the hearty B&B breakfast and fish and chips on the beach, we did our very best to ensure that our meal never ended. Three courses, we had. Each. Oh, the sheer, unadulterated gluttony!

Mr 'Splorer's starter: Roasted beetroot and goat's cheese, filo crisp, candied walnuts and herb salad


My starter: Dingley Dell tasting platter: Smoked ham knuckle Scotch egg, pea and ham soup, ham hock puy lentil salad, smoked ham and chicken terrine (and Deepa's main course when she went - it was enough to feed two, in fact. To be fair the waitress did warn me it was big, but I threw caution to the wind.)

Mr 'Splorer's main: pan fried hake, summer vegetables, watercress emulsion

My main: Orford landed Dover Sole, sauté potatoes and samphire, brown butter lemon caper sauce

Mr 'Splorer's pud: Chocolate fudge cake, white chocolate jelly and roasted hazelnut

My pud: High House Farm loganberry pavlova

Clean plates!

And God, it was all so good. As I so often find, the highlights was starter and dessert. I'm still daydreaming about that ham and pea soup, that Scotch egg and that chewy, crunchy pavlova. In fact, I think that may well have been the best pavlova of my life - and I've eaten my fair share of meringue with fruit on top. But the whole thing was just flawless. Getting nothing wrong doesn't sound like high praise, but when you have a three course meal where every mouthful is complete unadulterated pleasure, that basically adds up to complete happiness.


Complete happiness

Fish tacos

2011-07-30T10:39:00.000+01:00

It's all about the Mexican food in this house. I got carried away while watching Mexican Food Made Simple and ordered a whole big box of Mexican goodies from the Cool Chile Co. A lot of chipotle based products, some tortillas and various other delicious bits and bobs. First I made corn and courgette tacos (the recipe is here, but it's the corn and courgette salad I made before on tortillas), which was wonderfully fresh and flavoursome.
But then I wanted to try something new. And I don't think that I've ever had fish tacos. They don't seem to have crossed the Atlantic in any great numbers. But Americans seem to love them. I'm not sure how authentically Mexican they are, but what could be better than a lovely corn tortilla wrapped around beer battered fish, splodged with chipotle mayonnaise, and sprinkled with some shredded cabbage, coriander and lime juice?

The recipe for the beer battered fish came from Tide and Thyme. I used 2 fillets (350g) haddock and that made loads of tasty fishy chunks. The chipotle mayonnaise was a combination of chipotle ketchup, mayo and lime juice. And it was really bloody delicious.

Chocolate apricot upside down cake

2011-07-25T18:25:00.001+01:00

Once again, I am entering We Should Cocoa by the seat of my pants. Today's the last day for entries, but I really wanted to enter this time as the extra ingredient was apricots. I love baking with apricots - an apricot and almond tart is one of the great pleasures of the world. But I thought that the addition of chocolate might work better with another fine fruity pud - the upside down cake.

And this is one of those cakes where everything went wrong. I (or, if we're being totally honest, Mr 'Splorer) had to go to the shops about 3 times to pick up things I thought we had but we didn't. My attempt at caramel split the moment it hit the cake tin. (Not caramelized enough? Any hints most welcome!) I made half the chocolate cake recipe, spread it on the apricots, decided it wasn't enough so had to make another half the recipe as fast as I could. (Luckily it was a 'just weigh it and mix it' type recipe.) And it took bloody ages to cook.

When it was done, it wasn't quite what I expected. The chocolate cake was denser than I imagined, and the apricots were rather subsumed within the cake mixture, rather than being a beautiful topping. And I think actually half the recipe would have been enough cake. But it was one of those recipes where your thought process goes along these lines: 'oh dear, this is a bit of a disaster ... doesn't taste too bad though ... must have another go at it soon ... I think I'll just have another slice ... hmm, that's quite nice actually ... now where's it all gone?'

I took some of it to work and received this in depth review: 'It was interesting cake. Tastier than it sounded, but I think this is due to your excellent sponge-making and good sticky apricot mush on top, which was zingy as well as sweet. Yumski!' Not too bad a write up, really.

So I don't think this is a polished and ready recipe but basically what I did was use the topping from this Bill Granger apricot upside down cake recipe and covered it in this old fashioned chocolate cake by Nigella. Might have to give both those recipes a try by themselves actually.

Ham and olive cake

2011-07-21T22:04:00.001+01:00

As I think I have mentioned before, I take a lot of flack (during work lunch hours mainly) for the number of foods that I don't like (raw tomatoes, mushrooms, mustard, custard, coffee, celery, soggy aubergine ...) But, dear reader, I promise you that I am working on it. That whole 'keep trying it until you like it' thing really does work. And also what works is getting other people to make you delicious meals. I date my new-found love of olives to a couple of amazing dishes: a prawn, olive and feta pilaf made by my big brother and a spaghetti puttanesca made by my friend Tom.

Now I'm a little bit addicted to them. Their salty savouriness really is quite marvellous, isn't it? And also, now that I like them a whole load of new recipes has opened up to me. Just wait until I start liking raw tomatoes (ugh!) - the sandwich possibilities will be endless...

My latest foray into olive based cookery is this ham and olive cake, a Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall recipe from the Guardian. You can find the recipe here. My Mum actually made it first, as little muffins, and it was delicious. So, when I signed up for a volunteer day with The Wildlife Trust raking hay and doing other helpful woodland-type tasks, and realised that a soggy over-margarined sandwich from the work canteen (quite possibly containing tomatoes) was not going to cut it, I thought of savoury cake.

And these big wodges were perfect at providing the energy required to rake hay through rain and sunshine. It's kind of heavy, so in future I might cut it a little more thinly! But, as Hugh suggests, it's perfect for all kinds of picnics and alfresco eating opportunities. Or packed lunches. Or, you know, just dinner in front of the TV. In fact, I'm struggling to think of an occasion which wouldn't be enhanced with a bit of savoury cake.

The cows weren't that impressed though. Holding out for the hay, no doubt.

Doubles

2011-07-16T17:00:00.007+01:00

I would like to dedicate this post to all the poor foreign types trying to cope with the British summer. This is Mr ‘Splorer’s third British summer. And he is, bless him, still struggling. He still goes out without a jacket if the sun is shining, in the naïve assumption that sun = warmth. He still doesn’t remember that the very instant the sun goes down, all warmth disappears. And he’s still trying to find some order in the chaos. After a couple of weeks in which a cold few days were invariably followed by a warm few days, he decided that that was a pattern. This helped him to greet the next patch of cold with equanimity, but I did feel that it would be unfair not to prepare him for the fundamental truth of the British summer: ANY weather could arrive at ANY time. That’s one theory about why we’re so into talking about it, apparently. And it is also why the moment the sun starts shining, it’s practically one’s national duty to dash outside, scooping up potato salads, quiches and sausages as one goes.

This is a recipe for the days in a British summer when the sun is not shining. For the rainy Saturdays when you squelch home from your Zumba* class muttering to yourself about inconvenient puddles and how it’s always raining at the weekend. It’s comforting but also tropical. In fact, you could eat it and imagine you're sheltering from the afternoon shower on a Caribbean island. Just don’t look out of the window.

Doubles are apparently a Trinidadian street food and the recipe is courtesy of the wonderful Maddhur Jaffrey and her fantastic World Vegetarian book (also famous in this household for her Korean pancakes recipe). They are really simple – chickpeas cooked with tinned tomatoes and some spices wrapped in fried flatbread and served with some splodges of mango chutney and spicey sauce. Maddhur gives a recipe for the flatbreads but I cheat and use bhatura, a Punjabi fried flatbread bought from my local ethnic food emporium.

It's one of those recipes that is so much more than the sum of its parts and has become a firm favourite in this household. It definitely cheers up Mr 'Splorer! And it's really quick and can be mostly cobbled together from basic larder ingredients: onion, garlic, tinned chickpeas, tinned tomatoes and spices. Just pick up your bread and you're away. Oh, and don't forget your condiments.

Doubles

(adapted from Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian)

Serves 2

1 tin of chickpeas

2 tablespoons vegetable oil

1 onion, chopped

3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped or crushed

1 tsp ground cumin

1 tsp ground coriander

1/4 tsp ground turmeric

1 tsp curry powder

1/2 tsp ginger

1/4 hot chilli, chopped finely

1/2 tin chopped tomatoes

Drain and rinse the chickpeas. Heat the vegetable oil in a frying pan over a medium heat and add the onion. Cook and stir for about five minutes before adding the garlic. Cook for another 30 seconds or so, then add the spices, followed by the chilli, tomatoes and then the chickpeas. Add about half a pint of water. Bring to the boil and then simmer until the liquid has mostly disappeared.

Serve with four warm bhaturas, mango chutney and hot sauce. Madhur says that the way they are served in Trinidad is with the filling sandwiched between two breads (is that perhaps where the name comes from?). However, I found that pretty much impossible to eat without getting it absolutely everywhere. After a few experiments, I recommend rolling it up and then wrapping in silver foil, like a burrito. Still not elegant, but it does reduce the chances of getting mango chutney down your front.

* Slightly cult-like but also excellent dance based fitness thing.

Butter sponge layer cake with elderflower buttercream and strawberries

2011-06-21T18:35:00.002+01:00

Sorry, I didn't mean to take a massive break there. I got a bit bogged down in wedding planning there for a bit ... But it all happened on 21st May, so I'm back now! Wanna see a few snaps?

Photo by Lauren McGlynn


Photo by Lauren McGlynn

Photo by Lauren McGlynn

Music by The Syndics (my brother and our friends!), photo by Lauren McGlynn

Photo by Lauren McGlynn

We had some lovely foodstuffs, mainly courtesy of the parents, who managed to cater for about 65 people over 3 days. I have a lot of cooking to do before I can live up to their fine example!


Menu board by my little sister, photo by Lauren McGlynn

Photos by Lauren McGlynn

Barbecued new season Welsh lamb
Photo by Lauren McGlynn

Our favourite Ottolenghi quinoa salad
Photo by Lauren McGlynn

Photo by Lauren McGlynn

And I made a heart shaped butter sponge layer cake with elderflower buttercream and strawberries.

Photo by Lauren McGlynn

What, you mean not every bride takes time out in the afternoon to ice a cake?

Photo by Lauren McGlynn

So, I had to share this recipe. The cake is from Darina Allen's Forgotten Skills of Cooking. It is her great-grandmother's butter sponge and when she says it's "the best sponge cake you'll ever taste", she really isn't lying. It is also a great sponge cake recipe because the cake tastes just as good the next day (after that, things start to go downhill a little, but it's still nice to eat for a few days more).
I'm not going to give you the recipe from the elderflower buttercream. We got the idea from Red Velvet Chocolate Heartache, but that recipe seemed to have much too much sugar in it. Suffice to say it was a mixture of butter, icing sugar and elderflower cordial. And strawberries are just strawberries, I guess! I sliced them for the filling (or more accurately my friend Ruth did - this was a wedding with many helpers!), but, as we were going for hearts, decorated the top with halves.

Darina Allen's Great-Grandmother's Butter Sponge

125g butter
175g caster sugar
3 eggs
175g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp milk

Preheat the oven to 190C/375F/gas mark 5. In the original recipe, Darina suggests using 2 x 18cm cake tins, but I used one (heart shaped!) one and then cut it in half. (The big cake above is two cakes each halved.) Either way, grease with melted butter, dust with flour and line the base with greaseproof paper.
Cream the butter and gradually add the sugar, whisking until soft and pale. Add the eggs one at a time and mix well in between. Sieve in the flour and baking powder and stir in gradually. Mix together lightly and add the milk. Pour into the tin(s). Hollow it in the centre. (I found this really rose up in the centre, so if you want a flat cake, really hollow it out.) Bake for 20-25 minutes if it's two cake, slightly longer if you're making one (about half an hour). When it's done, the cake will have shrunk away from the tin a little and the centre should feel the same texture as the edge. Cool on a wire tray.

And I promise to be back soon with more recipes. I've got a couple of new favourites that I really must share. I've become completely obsessed with my new book Food From Plenty, so I'll have to share one of the gems from there. And I'm starting a new challenge this Friday, in which my mates choose a recipe book and I cook for them from it, so that should get me exploring my cookbooks!

Ostrich Easter Egg: the winner!

2011-03-29T21:01:00.001+01:00

And the winner is ...

dum dee dum dee dum...

stickytoffeepud!

Congratulations! Please contact me with postage details within two weeks (by Wednesday 13th April) at norathesplorer at gmail dot com.

Thanks to everyone else for entering, including all my friends and family members who took a sudden interest in this blogging lark!

Whole wheat chocolate chip cookies - and win yourself a massive Easter Egg

2011-03-10T21:59:00.006Z

So, Hotel Chocolat (via the lovely Beth) offered to send me a free Easter egg. A 1.4kg Ostrich Easter Egg, which comes with a side order of a box of chocolates, a rocky road bar, a caramel road bar and a chocolate rabbit, to be precise. Worth a whopping £65 - which I believe is about £60 more than I spent on our two Easter eggs last year!

This is what it looks like on the website

And this is what it looked like on my bedroom floor. Nice carpet, eh?

And, my goodness, is it a lot of chocolate. The two egg halves are incredibly thick, and studded with all kinds of nice chewy bits. Mr 'Splorer swiftly took to referring to it as the dinosaur egg. I took half of it to work - and there was still some left at the end of the day! Some of the other half got turned into cookies, but it has taken us about 10 days to get through the rest of it, plus the box of chocolates and the bars. (10 days doesn't sound that long, but remember that Mr 'Splorer has the sweetest of teeth and I myself am never one to say no to a nice bit of chocolate.) In fact, even as I type we are just biting off the head of the rabbit, the last remaining bit. Yum!

It seems that the 1.4kg refers to the total weight, but 997g is still a pretty hefty egg.

But I don't want to imply that we haven't been enjoying it. This is a jolly good egg. (Ho ho ho - sorry!) Mr 'Splorer's just described it as 'the best Easter egg he's ever had'. And it is so nice to get an egg made of decent chocolate, rather than melted down advent calendar chocolates, or whatever it usually is. And all the bits on the side are just as full of chocolatey yumminess (though I must say the box of chocolates suffered from the age-old problem of not enough hazelnut praliney ones and too many pointless strawberry and coffee ones, but what can you do?!). I'm not sure I could ever actually bring myself to pay £65 for an Easter egg, but if you were looking to impress or spoil a (potential) loved one over the Easter period, or wanted to splash out on an Easter egg that makes all other Easter eggs feel a bit inadequate, this is the one for you.

And the good news is that Hotel Chocolat are offering another Ostrich Easter Egg to give away to one of my lucky readers. Go to the bottom of the post for the giveaway rules.

In the meantime, I also wanted to mention the chocolate chip cookies that I made with this chocolate. I decided to take this opportunity to try a recipe from Good to the Grain, a recipe book that I probably never would have heard of if it wasn't for the lovely food blogs. But it is getting rave reviews all over the shop. And I found these Whole wheat chocolate chip cookies on the Blue Ridge Baker. They are made with whole wheat flour, so they feel a bit more virtuous. There was some talk on the blogs of them being a little salty, so I only used 1 tsp, instead of 1 and a half. And I wouldn't have wanted more than that. They had a pleasing saltiness, though I think they needed a bit more chocolate to counterbalance that. They seemed to come out a bit cakey, so I think next time I'd make them a bit smaller than specified. But apart from that, these were pretty damn good. They went down very well with Mr 'Splorer and the workmates, anyway!

Now, onto that giveaway...

HOTEL CHOCOLAT OSTRICH EGG GIVEAWAY

Rules

This giveaway is open to all readers over 18 with a UK address.

The winner will be chosen at random in a method of my choosing (which may or may not involve Mr 'Splorer, a bag and a whole load of bits of paper).

Closing date: midnight GMT Friday 25th March 2011.

There are two ways to enter. Either:

Like Hotel Chocolat's Facebook page or follow Hotel Chocolat on Twitter, and leave a comment on this blog post to tell me you have done so.

or:

Go onto Hotel Chocolat's website and find the product you would most like to receive for Easter and tell me what it is in a comment on this post.

....Or both! (For two entries.)

Oh, and there are A LOT of bloggers trying out and giving away Hotel Chocolat Easter goodies, so for more chances to win, check out the list here.

Good luck! And many thanks to Beth and Hotel Chocolat for sending me the delicious freebie.

Chai fruit and chocolate bread

2011-02-24T22:08:00.003Z

Once again, I am cutting it extremely fine on the We Should Cocoa challenge. But trust me, this is worth the wait, though I say so myself. The moment I saw the challenge, I thought of tea bread. Sweet bread dotted with juicy tea-soaked raisins. I also thought of this Cinnamon raisin bread, with a pretty swirl of cinnamon in the middle. And I thought of chai tea, one of my new favourite things, which is already full of yummy spices.
So I did a combination, with a bit of chocolate for good measure. I was a bit worried that it would be overkill of different flavours, but actually it worked really well. Every mouthful is a bit different, so it's quite exciting. Are you going to get chocolate? Plump juicy fruit? Citrusy mixed peel? Cinnamony squidgy bits? Oh, and when you toast it (which you must), the chocolate melts! So delicious.

I used the enriched dough recipe from the Cambridge Cookery School for cinnamon buns as a starting point for the dough. I was going to use fresh yeast but when I defrosted it, it turned to liquid! Not quite sure what happened there (any hints would be gratefully received on that one). So dried yeast it was. Maybe next time!

Chai fruit and chocolate bread

Makes 1 large loaf

100g raisins

100g currants

1 cup of chai tea (300ml)

14g dried yeast (or 25g fresh yeast)

75g butter

250ml milk

45g caster sugar

1 egg, beaten

450g plain bread flour

a pinch of salt

50g dark chocolate

50g mixed peel

1/2 cup caster sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

Mix the raisins and currants in a bowl and pour over the tea. Leave to soak overnight. When you begin the bread, put them in a sieve to drain.

Cover the yeast with a little warm water and cover with a cling film. Leave for a few minutes to "sponge" (get a bit bubbly). Meanwhile, heat the milk, butter and sugar gently in a saucepan - you want them to be just above blood temperature. Then add the egg.

Put the flour in a bowl, make a well and add the liquid mixture and salt. Mix it all together. Knead in the raisins, currants, chopped chocolate and mixed peel. Then knead for about 5 minutes on a floured surface. Knead in more flour if necessary, but try to use as little as possible. Put back in the bowl, cover and leave to rise for about an hour.

Roll out the dough into a large rectangle about 2cm thick. (Mine was a bit too thin, I think.) Moisten the dough, either with a little milk or tea, and then sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.

Roll up (from the long end, so you get a long thin sausage, not a short, fat one). Tuck the ends underneath. Place the loaf in a large bread tin* and leave to rise for about half an hour.

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas mark 4. Cook the loaf for about 45 minutes.

*The chocolate does make the loaf stick to the tin, so next time I'd line it with greaseproof or parchment paper.

Serve with chai tea!

Scrumptious outings

2011-01-30T19:34:00.003Z

Much as I enjoy pottering around on my own in the kitchen, my interest in food has also been taking me out and about in the last few months. In fact, it's been taking me to some really great places in the last month or so. In fact, I can't really believe how wonderful these events have been - not a single dud mouthful between them! So I thought I'd share. And recommend. Oh, how I recommend.

The Breakfast Club by What Rachel Ate

Rachel is one of my very favourite food bloggers. You know those bloggers, or chefs, who seem to get excited about the very same ingredients and combinations that you do? In the same way as the contents page of Nigel's Real Food reads like a list of my favourite foods (sausages, chocolate, sandwiches, ice cream and so on!), Rachel's every post feels like it's designed with me in mind. I have made, and loved, Courgette fritters with tomato and almond fritters, but I also have my eye on Strawberries with elderflower and pistachio yoghurt, Pumpkin and goats' cheese tart and Butternut squash falafel, amongst many other things.

And now she's doing pop-up brunches, afternoon teas and dinners in her home Brixton, so I gathered Mr 'Splorer, lil sis and lil sis's fella for a champagne brunch a few weekends ago. (The champagne was provided by us - I had some cava left over from New Year and lil sis's fella apparently has a cupboard full of champagne, as he works in the theatre and is bombarded with the stuff!)

We ate:

Grapefruit, lime and orange juice (which goes wonderfully with champagne!), whilst admiring our granola to take away. Which was later discovered to be so scrumptious I had to warn Mr 'Splorer off eating mine on pain of serious punishment.

Praline and custard pastries

Potato pancakes, poached egg, sausages and roast tomatoes (these tomatoes were eaten up with relish by the two non-tomato-fans in my corner - one of which was me).

Pumpkin and chocolate cake

And oh, how delicious it all was! You know it's been a good meal when everyone has different favourites. I was totally blown away by the praline and custard pastries - especially as I'm not usually a big fan of custard (or mustard, much to general amusement!). But these pastries were just so moist and nutty. Meanwhile Mr 'Splorer was a big fan of the cake and little sis loved the potato pancake/sausage course. But we all went away extremely happy and full. And pretty much as soon as I got home, I got in touch with Rachel to ask her to do a private event for me, so her wonderful cooking will reappear on these pages sometime soon. Hurrah!

Cambridge Cookery School's Daily Bread course

This was Mr 'Splorer's Christmas present. So I went along to, ahem, keep him company. I think the school is relatively new - it's definitely very shiny. We were there from 10am to 2pm and in that time managed to make a basic white loaf, enriched rye rolls, soda bread, sourdough (the dough for that was already ready) and Swedish cinnamon buns. Our teacher, the lovely Tine, also showed us how to make the basic white dough into focaccia and how to deep fry balls of the cinnamon bun dough into little doughnuts that can be rolled in sugar and then dipped in jam. And all this while handing out dozens of helpful tips about bread making. And she made Mr 'Splorer's day by giving him some of her sourdough starter!

Sourdough

Cinnamon buns ready to go into the oven

Rye rolls, brushed with golden syrup - my favourites. So delicious with cheese!

Soda bread, after we'd been at it to have with our smoked salmon mousse for lunch. Yum!

Some of the best focaccia I've ever had in my life. So soft and squishy.

Doughnut with jam

The day was not cheap (about £80 each), so it was a bit of a treat. But really, it was totally worth it. We learnt so much about bread making in general, had a wonderful lunch and had all the great recipes and LOADS of bread to take away. It was really inspiring too, and I am now determined to make enriched rye rolls my signature dish. And maybe doughnuts too...

The Secluded Tea Party by Miss Sue Flay

This came about as a tweet-up suggested by Deepa (who makes amazingly pretty jewellery, by the way), so this afternoon she, Ireena of Not Another Food Blog, Sarah and I headed to a top secret location to partake of an extremely decadent tea party.

Elderflower and grape fizz

Sandwiches with the crusts cut off!

Red onion and bacon tart

Chocolate macarons with a vanilla cream filling

Check out the homemade scone stand made from plates and a cup!

Homemade fruit scones with clotted cream and apricot and amaretto preserve

A rather lovely cup of teapigs chai tea to wash it all down with (each person had their choice of tea)

The absolutely spectacular 'decadent chocolate ganache cake'

She made these chocolate hearts herself

Miss Sue Flay herself, doing the honours

Moist and very chocolatey - all you could wish for in a cake!

It was all absolutely delicious and we had a fine old time, chatting about important issues of the day, such as sweet v. savoury, our trashy TV favourites and where to get a good meal in Cambridge. An absolutely perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

See also Deepa's review here.

So, I cannot recommend any one of these three outings highly enough. I feel extremely lucky to have partaken of such culinary riches - it's definitely cheered up my January.

Holiday eating

2011-01-03T23:19:00.000Z

I'm a bit behind, I think. All over food blogsville the talk is of new year's resolutions and of healthy soups with which to face post-festive heavy tummy syndrome. But I still want to talk about holiday food! (Though if you are after a good simple soup, you could a lot worse than this Spiced lentil soup I wrote about in October.) So, by way of a cheerio to Christmas and New Year, I thought I'd do a quick whizz through some culinary events of the last month of so.

In December, my great aunt sent me a cookie cutter out of the blue, presumably with a view to being on the receiving end of some cookies! I thought it was a reindeer, but a little light Googling later, I now know it's an elk. Which is great, because I can make the cookies all year round! The recipe for pepparkakor (Swedish ginger biscuits) that came with the cookie cutter was fantastic (though it made industrial quantities of cookie dough). I'll have to make some January elks and blog the recipe.

Mmmm, sloe gin!

For Christmas Eve I made a chocolate log, or bûche de noël. I used Delia's chocolate cake recipe, filled it with whipped cream and then made a chocolate ganache icing. Speaking of which, chocolate ganache icing is totally mental - all the recipes involve adding chocolate to hot cream. Which makes the chocolate split. I managed it the second time by melting the chocolate first and whisking it all up together immediately. But any more chocolate ganache icing tips would be gratefully received!

And the most important thing is that the ganache icing turned out really well. In fact, I was really pleased with my chocolate log - definitely one to add to the holiday repertoire.

This triumphant Christmas Day dessert wasn't strictly speaking one of my creations. Little sis and her fella made the Mont Blanc layer cake from a recipe by Dan Lepard. Layers of meringue, cream, chestnut purée and chocolate - amazing! And every dessert looks better with sparklers.

In the inbetweeny period between Christmas and New Year, little sis came visiting and we undertook a new cookery challenge - pork pibil. It's a slow cooked pork dish from Mexico. And it is, without doubt, the first recipe I've ever cooked from a YouTube video of a film director cooking it:

It took some speciality shopping, but I managed to find achiote (annatto seeds) and banana leaves in our local Chinese shop, of all places.

We marinated our meat overnight for extra achioteness.

and served it with rice, guac and pink pickled onions from Mexican Food Made Simple

However, this was one of those recipes where you think "hmm, that's quite nice, but I could make it a lot better. I want to make it again right now, and make it better". It wasn't as tender as we had hoped and it was rather watery - I really must stop buying meat from supermarkets! So I hope to be back with this one too. And if anyone has any great recipes for pork pibil, please do let me know.

For New Year's Eve, Mr 'Splorer and I produced a slightly last minute pomegranate themed dinner for a couple of friends. As so often happens, the best bits of the meal were right at the beginning and right at the end.

The tequila sunrises (using the tequila purchased for the pork pibil) were surprisingly fruity and delicious. I can only put it down to my home-made grenadine. I found the recipe here, but basically what you do is reduce pomegranate juice by half and then add equal amounts of sugar (so I started with 4 cups, reduced it to 2 and then added 2 cups of sugar). Mr 'Splorer and I have been living on orange juice and grenadine, which surely must be called a sunrise, ever since.

Mr 'Splorer made this amazing Pomegranate Jewel Cake from Nigella's Feast. It's one of those no flour, all eggs and ground almonds and lemons numbers, with a nutty, moist texture, and got polished off in record time! And it looks great - perfect for a celebratory occasion. Becky of Girl Interrupted Eating has posted the recipe already (with an orange zesty cream - yum!) here. Although we discovered that it goes surprisingly well with Ben and Jerry's chocolate fudge brownie ice cream.

And last, but not least, is the reprise of the Mincemeat Crumble Tart from love and a licked spoon. This is definitely going to become a seasonal favourite. This year I made extra mincemeat in preparation. Pastry, apples, mincemeat, crumble - heaven on a plate! Mr 'Splorer just had three portions. Oh, and it goes wonderfully with Greek yoghurt.

So, I hope you had a sparkling Christmas and New Year, and that the dreaded return to work tomorrow morning doesn't make you feel too fizzled.

Vine leaves stuffed with meat

2010-12-20T22:45:00.000Z

Wow. I looked away for a second and all of a sudden I hadn't posted for over a month, my list of unread blogs on Google Reader was up to 440 and it was very nearly Christmas. And I still haven't made any mulled wine or mince pies, let alone had another go at a gingerbread house after last year's disaster. Gah!

Anyway, one of the things I've been up to is hosting a Syrian Saturday. As you do! The idea came about because my friend Fran and I have spent the last year struggling to learn Arabic together with a very sweet teacher from Damascus. And whenever she runs out of things to do, she starts showing us photos of Damascus and talking about the souk and the Umayyad Mosque, and generally convincing me that I want to go to Syria as soon as humanly possible. In the meantime, Fran gave me a wonderful book called Damascus: Taste of a City. It's a combination of a description of walking around the city, with recipes interspersed, all provided by a Damascene brother and sister, so you really feel like you're being shown around by a local.

And it contains the wonderful line:

No matter how simple it may seem, you cannot cook Damascene food half-heartedly. You have to put your whole soul into it - preferably in the company of friends.

So I had to get Fran and a few other friends around to spend the afternoon rolling vine leaves and chopping up parsley for tabbouleh. And, of course, it was also the perfect opportunity to practice to my Arabic writing skills:

Clockwise from top left: stuffed vine leaves, mutabal and tabbouleh, s'fiha, mujadarra

It was all rather tasty, but I think that the real success of the day was the stuffed vine leaves. They were fun to do and easier than I had expected. We were a bit worried about putting in the meat and the rice in without cooking it, but a quick flick through Claudia Roden reassured us that that's what she does too. We did end up having to cook them for a little longer than advertised to ensure that the rice was cooked, but it's easy enough to scoop out a little stuffed vine leaf to taste it - it's not one of those things where you have to guess when it's ready.

I've never had meaty stuffed vine leaves before, but these little babies are yummy. They're covered in lemons during the cooking process, so they take on a really lemony flavour. And I love the pine nuts for a bit of extra taste and texture too. Oh, and apparently you serve the meaty ones warm (and the vegetarian ones cold). So, if we really must be Christmassy, you could totally serve these as a snack at one of those cocktails and nibbles parties people seem to have on adverts (but no one ever invites me to).

Vine leaves stuffed with meat

from Damascus: Taste of a City by Marie Fadel and Rafik Schami

serves 6 - 8

500g vine leaves

500g mince (beef or lamb)

200g long grain rice

1 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp pepper

1 tsp dried mint

2 tsp thyme

1/2 tsp cinnamon

2 garlic cloves

100ml olive oil

50g butter

100g pine nuts

3 lemons

Remove the vine leaves from the packet and wash them thoroughly to get rid of the brine. Remove the stalks from the leaves*. Divide the leaves into two piles: whole leaves and fragments / leaves with holes in.

In a large bowl, mix the mince and rice, then add the salt, pepper, dried mint, thyme and cinnamon and mix. Crush the garlic and mix with the olive oil. Add to the rice mixture and mix in.

Heat the butter in the frying pan and brown the pine nuts. Add the rice mixture and mix in.
To roll the vine leaves, place one whole leaf with the smooth side down, stalk end towards you, pointy it away from you. Spoon about a teaspoonful of the mixture into the middle of the leaf. Fold the sides over the mixture and then roll it up away from you. It shouldn't be too tight, as the rice will expand. The recipe emphasizes that holes are not acceptable, so if there's any filling showing through holes or rips in the leaf, set the leaf aside - you can use it to line the pan. Keep rolling the leaves up into small sausages.
When they are all ready, take a shallow, wide saucepan. Line the bottom and the sides with the broken vine leaves. Lay the stuffed leaves in the pan with the seam at the bottom. You want 2 or 3 layers and no more, with no gaps. Lay the different layers at different angles, so that no two are parallel. Slice the lemons and lay the slices on top of the vine leaves. Top up the pan with water to just over the lemons. Place a plate on top of the lemon slices to keep everything in place.
Put the pan on a high heat, cover and cook for 30 minutes (or a little longer in my case). Turn off the heat and leave for 5 minutes. Remove the lemons and serve the vine leaves warm.

*In yet another example of not spotting an instruction in a recipe until I come to blog it, I totally failed to remove the stalks. And to be honest, it was a bit fiddly trying to fold them into the parcels, but nobody choked on a stalk. Which was good.

So, I hope you have a very merry Christmas, wherever you are, and it is full of mince pies and merriment.

Pa'chon (Korean vegetable pancakes)

2010-11-15T23:20:00.000Z

Don't make these pancakes if you're out to impress someone with your Masterchef style food presentation skills. Don't make them if you want to feel like every dish that wafts from your kitchen is a thing of beauty and precision. Because these babies fall apart like nobody's business. Well, they do in my clumsy hands anyway. I made them a few times and they got stuck to the pan, they fell to pieces when I tried to turn them over, they broke up when I tried to cut them into nice neat squares. But the point is that I once I started making them, I couldn't stop. They are soft squishy pancakes with nice crispy crunchy outsides. You can fill them full of all kinds of colourful, tasty vegetables and then you dip them in a combination of soy sauce and vinegar. I've tried them with prawns in and they are scrumptious. But the recipe is from Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian, which tells you that they work just as well with just the veggies. I love recipes like this, where you can just chuck loads of good stuff in and feel all virtuous. (The fact that you then fry it all is neither here nor there!)
This recipe also has some great associations for me. It reminds me of my fab work trip to Seoul last year, where I discovered that Korean food is fascinating and exciting, and meant that I recognised this recipe when I flicked past it in my new book. I am still on the search for a great Korean recipe to really get started on exploring Korean food, if anyone has any recommendations.
Plus it reminds me of two wonderful friends:
Rosalie, wedding blogger extraordinaire and my best friend since we were knee high to grasshoppers, because she very kindly bought me the book, having seen it on my wanted list on here - which I had taken down, thinking no one would pay any attention! I am so looking forward to working my way through this book - it's already bristling with pink post-it notes.
And Sarah, photographer extraordinaire and much missed partner in crime from my time living in Spain, because we'd hatched a plan to go to a Korean restaurant last time I was visiting Valencia. We were thwarted, but I think perhaps this is the recipe to keep her going until I return and whisk her there forthwith. It's a little taste of Korea, and I think it might be simple enough to manage with two very small children underfoot. (Just about!)

Pa'chon (Korean vegetable pancakes)
(from Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian)
Makes 3 large pancakes and serves 2-6, apparently (I'd go with 2 if it's all you're eating!)

Batter

85g plain flour
85g rice flour
1 egg, beaten
1 tbsp toasted sesame oil

6 tbsp vegetable oil
4-5 fresh shiitake mushrooms, stalks removed and caps cut into fine slices
60g red pepper, cut into fine, long slivers and then halved lengthways
60g green pepper, cut into fine, long slivers and then halved lengthways
1 red or green chilli, cut into fine, long slivers (optional)
2 spring onions, quartered lengthways, then cut into 5cm segments
1½ tsp sesame seeds
(NB.This is the list of veggies from the book. I don't like mushrooms, so used pak choi. I think this is one of those recipes where you can just throw on whatever you fancy.)

Dipping sauce
6 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tbsp toasted sesame oil

Mix the two types of flour in a bowl and slowly add up to 350ml (12fl oz) water (probably less). Madhur says you want a batter which is 'like flowing cream'. I wasn't sure what this meant and went for something like single cream, which worked out fine. Beat in ¼ tsp salt, the egg and the sesame oil until they're mixed. Leave for 30 minutes (or longer in the fridge).
When you're ready to eat, put 3 tbsp of the vegetable oil in a large, non stick frying pan (for which you have a lid) over a medium heat. When the oil is hot, add the vegetables (mushrooms, peppers, chilli and spring onions - or whatever you're using). Stir fry for about a minute, just to wilt them slightly. Add a pinch of salt and stir again. Take the vegetables out of the pan and turn the heat down a little. Add another tbsp of oil and add ½ tsp sesame seeds to the centre of the pan. Spread a third of the vegetable mixture over the seeds, then pour over a third of the batter. Cover and cook on a medium low heat for about 5 minutes, until the bottom is golden. Here Madhur says turn it over with a big fish slice, but I did it by flipping it onto a plate then sliding it back into the pan. Either way, turn it over and cook, covered, for another 4 minutes. Take the cover off, turn again and cook for 2 minutes. Turn again and cook without a cover for about a minute. (You're trying to get that crispy outside - yum!) Repeat three times to get three pancakes.
While you're cooking the pancake, you can make the dipping sauce by just mixing all the ingredients together. Don't try it by itself - it'll put you right off! But it works wonderfully with the pancakes.
When the pancake is ready cut into wedges or squares (I recommend scissors for this) and serve immediately with the dipping sauce.

Fatayer

2010-10-30T19:14:00.000+01:00

Back in the day, when I was an impoverished university student, I often used to spend holiday weekends helping my parents sell their assorted breads, buns and preserves at farmers' markets around the Welsh borders. Each market was assessed by me on the grounds of distance from home (i.e. how early I had to get up) and lunch options. Ludlow Food Festival was by far the winner: only 20 mins from home, an excellent lunch option range - and held in a rather nice ruined castle. The loser by some margin was Nantwich farmers' market. Absolutely bloody miles away and the lunch options were so bad I actually ended up leaving the market and heading into town*. Though I believe it was there that Dad and I met Clarissa Dickson Wright, one of the Two Fat Ladies, who went mad over our preserved lemons, used them in a demo and sent swarms of middle aged ladies over to the stall, elbowing each other in their attempts to scoop up the last jars.

Despite the brush with celebrity cheffiness, I would never ever do it again. The general public, I discovered, can be very rude, demanding and are obsessed with free samples. And my parents gave it up too - I think that the amount of effort required to get the food to their standards far outstripped the rewards.

However I do still have fond memories of the food they used to make. Bath buns, onion marmalade, fantastic bread - and something called bishak. This was a little bready pie with a simple filling of butternut squash and a bit of onion. Delicious! And I've always wondered about where they got it from, never having seen reference to it anywhere else. And when I saw this fatayer recipe in The Moro Cookbook I thought, 'Ah ha! The bishak prototype'. But a quick google search (why didn't I do it earlier?!) revealed that actually the bishak recipe is from Claudia Roden's Book of Jewish Food - which has been sitting on my bookshelf for about two years! I can't believe it's been there, under my nose for so long.

But now I get to play a game of 'compare the little pumpkin pie recipe'. So, first up is the Fatayer, which according to Sam and Sam of Moro, are from Lebanon and Syria, and usually stuffed with spinach and labneh. The pumpkin/squash version is a Moro innovation. Maybe they've been reading Claudia Roden....

Anyway, I loved these little pies. The filling is a mixture of squash (in my case) or pumpkin (if you're feeling hallowe'eny), feta, pine nuts and oregano, which is then parcelled up in flatbread. It's one of those recipes that demand a little fiddling about without actually being difficult, leading (in my case anyway) to a disproportionate amount of pride in the final result. The recipe suggested making four fatayer, but I made eight little ones instead - perfect for packed lunches.

Fatayer

from The Moro Cookbook

Serves 4

Dough

220g strong white bread flour, plus a little extra for dusting

½ tsp salt

½ tsp dried yeast

100ml tepid water

2 tbsp olive oil

Filling

800g pumpkin or squash, seeded and chopped into 5cm square chunks

½ garlic clove, crushed to a paste with salt

1 tbsp olive oil

80g feta, crumbled and mixed with ½ small bunch fresh oregano, chopped

1 tbsp pine nuts, lightly toasted

Put the flour and salt into a mixing bowl. Dissolve the yeast in the water and add the olive oil. Add this gradually to the flour and salt, mixing as you go. (Sam and Sam recommend doing this by hand.) When it's all been incorporated, transfer to a floured surface and knead for about 5 minutes. If necessary, add more flour or water. You're after a soft, smooth, elastic dough. Cover with a cloth and leave while you get on with the filling.

Preheat the oven to 230C/450F/Gas Mark 8. Toss the pumpkin in the garlic and olive oil. Season with salt and pepper. Transfer to a baking tray and bake for about 25 minutes, or until soft. Cool slightly and then purée. Check the seasoning and add more if necessary.

Roll the dough into four/eight balls, depending on whether you want four big fatayer or eight smaller ones. Roll each ball out on a floured surface until it's about 5mm thick. Try to keep the shape as circular as possible. Put ½/1 tbps (depending on number of pies) pumpkin in the middle of the bread, in a roughly triangular shape, then top with some feta and pinenuts. Use some water to moisten the edge of the bread and bring together to create a pyramid shape. Squeeze the edges together to seal the pie. Use scissors to trim any excess dough and squeeze together again.

Bake on an oiled baking tray for about 10-15 minutes. The dough should begin to colour, but not be totally crisp.

We served this with a wonderful chickpea salad from the same book, ,which was basically chickpeas, cucumber, tomatoes, mint and coriander in a dressing made of garlic, chilli, lemon juice, vinegar, olive oil and red onion. Really fresh and full of flavour.

*This was some years ago, so it may have changed. I don't mean to damn Nantwich's offerings forever and ever. But I'm not volunteering to go back and find out.

Spiced lentil soup

2010-10-28T22:01:00.001+01:00

I love a bit of Kitchen Nightmares - there's nothing better than a redemptive tale of people who initially resist an expert's advice, getting shouted at a bit, before realising that he was right all along and doing what he says, to the universal acclaim of all the punters. (Though that's not to say it can't get repetitive after four or five seasons... ) But I never really thought of Gordon Ramsay as a man who wrote cookery books I'd get on board with. But I think I might have been wrong.

I picked up Gordon Ramsay's Healthy Appetite in a charity shop a while ago, more for the healthy bit than the Ramsay name. It doesn't really look like I imagined a diet food book should look - lots of inviting, colourful recipes that encourage you to eat more good things, rather than obsessing over carbs, fats, etc. And if this recipe is anything to go by, this book is going to be a regular feature. Obviously a recipe for lentil soup is a fairly healthy place to start, and is also one of my favourites. But when I made this for the first time, I was blown away by how good it tasted, especially considering the negligible amount of effort required. All you have to do is fry some onions and garlic with some spices from the cupboard, add the lentils and some stock and cook it for a bit. If you want to make it fancy, you add some yoghurt, and mustard seeds and kalonji (black onion) seeds. Luckily, I'm a sucker for buying random spices for particular recipes, so I had both of those in the store cupboard, but I don't think it's a deal breaker.

Spiced lentil soup

Serves 4

275g split red lentils
2 tbsp olive oil
1 large onion
2 large garlic cloves
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
2 tsp garam masala
½ tsp ground ginger
½ tsp ground turmeric
1 tbsp tomato purée
800ml vegetable or chicken stock

For the extra fanciness:
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp mustard seeds
1 tsp kalonji (black onion) seeds
3-4 tbsp natural yoghurt
coriander leaves

Rinse and drain the lentils. Peel and finely chop the onion and garlic. Heat the oil in a pan and add the onion and garlic. Fry for about 5 minutes until lightly coloured. Add the spices and tomato purée, stir and cook for a couple more minutes.
Add the lentils and the stock. Bring to the boil and then turn the heat down. Simmer for about half an hour, stirring occasionally, until the lentils are very soft. If the soup seems too thick, add a little water. Taste and season if necessary.
My new friend Gordon instructs us to blend half the soup and then mix it with the chunky lentils. I've also tried it without the blending (not due an experimental nature, just not reading the recipe properly) and it was also good. It all depends how smooth you like your soup, I guess.
If you're getting fancy, heat the olive oil in a small frying pan and add the two types of seeds. When they start popping and bouncing around, tip the contents of the pan into the soup and stir.
Once the soup is in the bowls, top with a spoonful of the yoghurt, some coriander leaves.
Gordon suggests a side of warm Indian bread, which is really good, but not totally necessary.

Nutella cookies

2010-10-25T23:02:00.001+01:00

This is my extremely last minute entry for October's We Should Cocoa, hosted by Choclette of Chocolate Log Blog, in which we have been challenged to make something with chocolate and hazelnuts or cobnuts. I thought I was going to miss it, having been quite busy lately. But I just couldn't let this one pass me by, because chocolate and hazelnuts is such a winning combination. Plus, Mr 'Splorer's face lighting up when he got home and saw me spooning the best part of a jar of Nutella into a cookie dough was a delight to behold!

I got the recipe from A Chica Bakes, where it's called Chocolate and hazelnut biscotti, but to me these were definitely Nutella cookies. I thought it was about time I made some proper, American style cookies, having admired so very many recipes online. And I can really see why they are so popular - very straightforward to make and such a sweet treat. I think I overcooked mine a little, forgetting that I was aiming for that bit of squishy chewiness in the middle. And they needed to be a little further apart than in the picture on the right, but I only just managed to get them all in the oven as it was. And a bit of splurging never hurt anyone, right? I can't say as Mr 'Splorer or I were that worried about it as we tucked into these little numbers with a glass of milk (just like in the movies!) and an episode of Wallander. (Have you seen it? You really must.)
So, I'd really recommend this recipe - all you have to do to mix some Nutella and hazelnuts into a cookie dough, cook it for 10 minutes or so, and you've got yourself a huge pile of scrumptious, really chocolatey cookies.
The recipe is here.

Warm corn and courgette salad with a touch of spice

2010-10-12T19:54:00.002+01:00

Attentive readers will remember my tale of badmouthing Delia on Christmas Eve last year, only to find that a parcel containing Delia's Happy Christmas had been lurking on the windowsill (the quite frankly inadequate subsitute for under the tree) the whole time. Well, it seems that this is a family trait. Just before my birthday, my Mum started slagging off Mexican Food Made Simple by Thomasina Miers, of wonderful Wahaca fame. The recipes have got cheddar in, and feta and mozzarella in, you see. These are not Mexican cheeses. Where's the authenticity, the real Mexican ingredients, was the cry.

And so what do I get for my birthday? Not one, but two copies of Mexican Food Made Simple, one provided by Mr 'Splorer (who heard all this) and one from two beloved chums (who hadn't). Luckily, I would much rather have a recipe book that contains recipes that I can actually make at home, rather than one that maintains that if you're REALLY desperate, you could probably just about substitute something you can buy here, but you're missing the whole point of the cuisine and really you shouldn't bother. And luckily, so would little sis, who bagged herself a free copy.

And, if this recipe is anything to go by, this is a fantastic book. This salad was delicious - and so easy. You just cook up sweetcorn and a courgette with an onion, some chilli and garlic, and some allspice, then top with fresh coriander and mint. The mint, I must say, is a total stroke of genius - it really gives it an extra burst of fresh flavour.

A note on variations: the courgette is an optional addition to the original recipe, so feel free to leave it out. Also, I didn't have any allspice, but a quick google search suggested a mix of nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves. This worked very well (I was a bit worried it was going to make it seem too desserty but not so).

Warm corn and courgette salad with a touch of spice

adapted from Mexican Food Made Simple by Thomasina Miers

Serves 3 (or makes 2 dinners and 1 wonderful packed lunch)

3 corn on the cobs

1 courgette, diced into small pieces

slug of olive oil and knob of butter

1 onion, finely chopped

1 chilli, finely chopped

2 cloves of garlic, chopped

a few pinches of allspice (or a nutmeg/cinnamon/clove combo)

juice of 1 lime

handful of chopped coriander and mint leaves

Get your corn off the cob. Thomasina says to do this by popping it in a bowl and scraping a knife down along the cob at a 45 degree angle. I was confused by that 45 degree thing and just held it upright on a chopping board and chopped the corn off. The corn proceeded to go everywhere, so I'd go with the bowl in the future!

Heat the oil and butter in a pan on a medium heat and when it's hot, pop in the onion, corn, courgette and chilli. Cook until the onion is translucent (at least 5 mins), then add the garlic, allspice, and some salt pepper. Turn up the heat and cook for another 5-10 mins. Thomasina says that the corn should caramelize, which sounds lovely, but didn't happen for me!

Pour over the lime juice and scatter with the herbs.

I served this with avocado, refried beans (another great Thomasina recipe), corn tortillas, cheddar and sour cream. Yum!

And if you want to see how the professionals do it, here's a video of Thomasina herself showing how to make this.

Molten chocolate babycakes with raspberry and redcurrant sorbet

2010-09-25T19:30:00.006+01:00

Yesterday my beloved Mr 'Splorer turned 30. He didn't seem too excited about the prospect of a birthday. In his parents' house, birthdays are met with a cake and a sing song but not much else. But you don't turn 30 every day. Plus, how can I demand week long celebrations of my birthday, involving about ten meals out, if I don't make a bit of a fuss of him? So, I secretly took the day off and spent it preparing a three course meal. Which made me feel quite a lot like a contestant in Come Dine With Me. Especially with a menu that included scallops, a sorbet that didn't set properly and chocolate fondants. All Come Dine With Me staples!

Don't we have the most horrible curtains!?

But there was method behind it all - not just too many hours watching More 4 repeats of horrible people having dinner parties. Mr 'Splorer loves his seafood, hence the scallops. And I had to make something with chocolate and raspberries for the new blogging event, We Should Cocoa.

This is a new monthly chocolate challenge organised by Chele of The Chocolate Teapot and Choclette of Chocolate Log Blog. It involves making something chocolatey involving each month's extra ingredient, which this month is raspberries. I knew I'd have to participate, as I love that combination. Much better than strawberries and chocolate - a vastly overrated combination, in my opinion (though I'm nowhere near as passionate on this topic as little sis, who has been known to hold forth for quite some time on this matter).

So, the menu was as follows:

Roasted sea scallops wrapped in pancetta with tomato and gremolata

This was lovely, and also very simple and quick. I shall be exploring Curtis Stone's website further.

Sicilian fish couscous from my Sicilian food cookbook

This was good, but I think I'd like to make some changes next time I make it. So watch this space for a new, improved version!

Molten chocolate babycakes (a Nigella classic) with raspberry and redcurrant sorbet (discovered in Delicious magazine via Google)

There was nothing in the We Should Cocoa information about the chocolate and raspberries needing to be in the same creation, so hopefully the same plate is close enough. And I must say these two worked together rather wonderfully - the hot, sweet chocolate contrasted against the slightly sharp, cold, fruity sorbet. And, also it seemed very suitable for this time of year. A summer fruit sorbet to say goodbye to summer, and a warm, comforting pudding to say hello to the best kind of winter foods.

Of course all the magic happens when you dig into the babycake and find an oozing, gooey centre. (Hurrah, it wasn't all just like Come Dine With Me, in which they invariably overcook the chocolate fondant.)

I followed both pudding recipes to the letter, so check out the links above. They both went swimmingly and I wouldn't change a thing. I made the sorbet without an ice cream maker, stirring it up every hour or so, and didn't have any ice crystals. Hurrah! It could have done with another hour or so in the freezer, but once you were tucking in, it really didn't matter.

And check out Chocolate Teapot for the other entries.

Sunday round-up of deliciousness

2010-09-19T23:00:00.003+01:00

Breakfast
Quick skillet granola - one of those wonderful why-didn't-I-think-of-that ideas - you just cook oats and seeds with honey and butter in a frying pan (or skillet, if you must!) and you have instant granola.

Vegetarian delights
Vietnamese spring rolls - I love ordering these in restaurants and they look so easy and healthy. I might even bring myself to buy some peanut butter (ick!) for the dipping sauce.
Jamaican corn soup - a thick, tropical soup with coconut milk, sweetcorn and chilli. The perfect way to keep some tropical summer flavours going while warming yourself up with some spicy soup.
Corn fritters - another sweetcorn recipe from Food Stories, these fritters look so crunchy and good. Helen's suggestion of serving them with bacon has literally got my mouth watering.

Meaty feasts

Beef satay skewers with peanut dipping sauce - succulent, marinated cubes of beef, and another excellent reason to go peanut butter shopping.

Roast chicken and bread salad - only a salad in the very loosest sense of the word, but just the name of the recipe tells you everything you need to know!

Buttermilk "fried" chicken - a scrumptious looking recipe for chicken which is actually baked, from Bill Granger's new book.
Chicken katsu curry - in which the chicken is breaded and fried before being smothered in a curry sauce. It looks delicious.
Sicilian pork ragù with chocolate - I'm still slightly obsessed with all things Sicilian, so this recipe caught my eye. But I'm also intrigued to see what happens when you add chocolate and cinnamon to ragù. It certainly looks delicious.
Lumpia (Filipino spring rolls) - I've never ever heard of these deep fried rolls of pastry filled with minced pork, but they look extremely tasty.

Fishy bits
Fish tacos with mango radish salsa and sweet potato wedges - these tacos are made with fishfingers, one of my very favourite guilty pleasures, and look very tasty indeed.

Miso mackerel - a really tasty looking dish of mackerel marinated in sake, mirin and miso.

Masala mackerel with daal and salad - a dish inspired by festival food. Again, the mackerel is marinated, this time in a mix of Indian spices before being grilled.

A couple of breads

Coby's bread - this bread sounds too good to be true. No kneading required, crunchy crust, a centre full of flavour and a very forgiving recipe.
Pumpkin spiced bread - a wonderful autumnal treat made with pumpkin purée and some lovely spices. The pictures of it toasted with butter are so very inviting.

A single sauce
Garlicky red chilli hot sauce - a recipe from the New York Times that apparently has the potential to both make you famous and take you to the hottest day of summer. Sounds amazing!

Cakes, cookies, muffins and other assorted sweets

Chocolate orange panettone - as made in The Great British Bake Off, Ruth makes panettone, a real favourite of mine, look totally possible. And it's chocolate and orange - one of the very best flavour combos.

Chocolate chip cookies - making chocolate chip cookies is always a shortcut to the round-up, but these are from Nigella's new book, so definitely worth a try.

Cornish fairings - beautiful cracked biscuits with ginger and candied peel. Apparently they're traditional in the West Country, but I'd never heard of them.

Cañones de guayaba (guava cannons) - like a kind of fig roll with a guava paste filling, to be filled with queso blanco or fresh goat's cheese when hot.

Chocolate fudge cake - a recipe I need to dig out of the Ottolenghi cookbook, as it looks dark, dense and delicious.
Easy peasy chocolate cake - what every domestic goddess needs in her repertoire, this cake looks totally decadent smothered in shiny chocolate ganache icing.
Mother in law bran muffins - a proper handed-down-the-family recipe, the name makes these sound virtuous (and they are low in fat) but they look wonderful - soft and spicy.

Buttermilk currant cake - part of the wonderful History corner, this cake looks delicious, and also comes from the wonderful 'Currant recipe book', which makes a whole host of wild and wonderful claims about the wonders of currants, such as 'Currants give radiant vitality'. There's only one way to find out if this is true...

Puds
Frozen raspberry Kent mess - like an Eton Mess but with strawberries and frozen. I think freezing it was a stroke of genius. Surely the only thing better than a mess is a messy ice cream!
Blackberry Bakewell - I love Bakewell tart with all the fervour of a recent convert (my silly younger self wasn't a big fan of almond flavoured things) and a version with fresh blackberries sounds just perfect for this time of year.
Classic profiteroles - a perfect rendition of this fantastic classic dessert, which was one of my absolute childhood favourites. It's definitely time I gave these a go.

And finally...

Here's a post featuring the poem Jim, by Hilaire Belloc, a family favourite in my household. Altogether now, "There was a boy whose name was Jim..."

Pasta con le sarde

2010-09-05T20:46:00.001+01:00

We got back yesterday from a wonderful week in the west of Sicily and I'm quite pleased with myself for making my very own Sicilian dish within 24 hours of getting home. In fact, I spent quite a lot of the time there wishing I had a kitchen so that I could make use of the wonderful ingredients, rather than taking on the restaurant lottery. (This being Italy, we were generally successful, especially with pizza, but there were some dodgy moments, including some very strange - and massively overpriced - swordfish croquettes.) Next time I think we'll be renting an apartment and raiding the markets, bakeries and shops. In the meantime, I've been writing a list of the things I want to try making at home. It's quite a long list, so I thought I'd better get started! Luckily, in the spirit of holiday preparation, I bought myself a copy of Sicilian Food by Mary Taylor-Simeti. It's a stupendous book which combines a history of the island with loads of traditional recipes (and she's refreshingly honest about the ones she doesn't like very much!).

And the first recipe to get an outing in my British kitchen is pasta con le sarde, or pasta with sardines. It's the Sicilian national dish according to Mary and I had it a couple of times in Sicily, where it was generally served on a long curly pasta called busiate (see right). According to the book, the legend goes that Euphemius of Messina landed at Mazara del Vallo in Sicily in 827 with a Saracen army and instructed his Arab cooks to find some food. Because it was a fishing port, there were loads of sardines around. Then they found wild fennel on the hillsides, currants in the vineyards, and saffron and pine nuts in the market and mixed it all up. Oh, and there always seem to be breadcrumbs on top for a scrumptious bit of crunch.
When I made my version of the recipe, I skipped the fennel because I couldn't find any and, more importantly, I'm not a massive fan. If you do want some, the recipe specifies a large bunch of fresh wild fennel greens which are cooked for 10 minutes in salted boiling water. And the water is then used to cook the pasta. I added some capers, which seemed to be a very popular ingredient in Sicilian cooking, and some parsley for a bit of green. And it all worked rather well, I must say. In fact, I'd dare to say that it was a lot better that the versions we had in the restaurants (though I'm sure it's not a patch on what all the Sicilian nonne are churning out behind closed doors). The saffron flavour was lovely, and the sweetness of the currants worked surprisingly well. And I'm now a big fan of sprinkling crunchy toasted breadcrumbs on pasta. A very nice textural contrast. And Mr 'Splorer's reaction? "I'm so glad I married you." So I think he liked it!

Pasta con le sarde

(Adapted from Sicilian Food by Mary Taylor-Simeti)

Serves 2

4 whole sardines

½ onion (I used red, which is what we had in the house, and I think always goes well with fish, but I don't think it matters too much)

25g pine nuts

25g currants, plumped in hot water for 5 minutes

25g toasted almond slivers (optional)

4 anchovy fillets, chopped finely

1 pinch of saffron, soaked in a tablespoon warm water

a handful of capers (these are my addition so however many you like!)

200g pasta*

100g breadcrumbs
handful of parsley

lots of olive oil

*The recipe specifies bucatini or maccheroni. In Sicily it was busiate, which I suspect you can't buy in this country. I used fusili lunghi bucati because I thought they had a similar twisty turny long thing going on as busiate.

Cut off the head, fins and tail of the sardines. Remove the scales, slit the belly and remove the guts. Then holding the fish belly upward between the palms of your hands, run your thumb along the backbone so that the fish opens like a book, the two halves remaining joined along the dorsal ridge. Remove the backbone.

Put ½ tablespoon of olive oil in a heavy frying pan. Add the breadcrumbs and toast over a low heat until they are a rich golden brown. Set aside. (This made too many toasted breadcrumbs, but they're rather yummy!)

Fry the onion in 2 tbsp of olive oil over a low heat until it begins to colour. Add the pine nuts, currants, almonds, anchovies**, and the saffron and water. Stir and simmer for a few minutes.

Fry the sardines in 2 tbsp of olive oil, leaving two whole and mashing the other two with a wooden spoon.

Cook the pasta. Mix with the oniony mixture and the mashed sardines. Top with the other sardines and then sprinkle with breadcrumbs. Serve the breadcrumbs on the side for more sprinkling.

(The recipe says this really good cold, but I wouldn't know about that!)

** According the recipe you should 'melt' the anchovies in olive oil separately and that's what I did. But it just seemed to create more washing up, so next time I'm just going to chop them up and chuck them in!

And before I go, here are a few more culinary highlights from our trip:

Pane cu' la meuza - or a spleen sandwich with caciocavallo and ricotta cheeses. Not sure if this counts as a highlight for me (texture was a bit odd) but Mr 'Splorer enjoyed it!

Arancina - massive great ball of cheesy, ricey goodness.

Fish couscous, which came with a wonderful cinnamony fish broth

Rianata pizza, with anchovies, garlic, pecorino and oregano

Ice cream brioche sandwich (how do the Italians stay so thin?!)

Bellibrutti - little almond cakes at the Maria Grammatico pasticceria in Erice, as recommended by Mary Taylor Simeti. These ones were nice but we thought that all the other little morsels we tried were rather horrible - far far too sweet.

Ricotta tart and chocolate cannolo - yum!

Oh, I wish I was still in Sicily...

Saturday round-up of deliciousness

2010-08-28T10:00:00.018+01:00

... or a complete link fest! I can't believe how much wonderous food has been cooked, photographed and blogged since I last wrote a round-up. So, have a rifle through this lot and see if there's anything that tickles your fancy. In the meantime, I'm off to prepare for my Sicilian holiday. (Hurrah!) Back in a week or so.

Something yummy for dinner

Scarborough Fair egg and chips

Grilled courgette salad

Zucchini fritters with feta and dill and tomato salad

Spicy baked eggs with ham and tomato

Crab and samphire pasta

Szechuan chicken wings

Chicken with courgette, halloumi and honey

Hot smoked salmon and leek tart

Burmese coconut chicken noodles

Machaca burritos

Turkey burgers with brie and grilled apples

Crisp sweetcorn fritters

Scrumptious soups

Cucumber yogurt soup

Thai rice soup

Cheddar corn chowder with savory ham and cheese muffins

Bready things

Dinner rolls

White focaccia pizza with zucchini

Scugnizzo pizza

Pretzel corner

Soft pretzels

Soft and chewy sourdough pretzels

Cakes

Carrot cake

Rose & cardamom cake

Fudge cake

Vanilla apple bundt cake

Blackberry, apple and maple loaf

Blueberry loaf cake

Black and blue streusel cake

Mars bar crispy cakes

Banana and caramel cheeseless yogurt cheesecake

Other assorted sweet goodies

Fresh strawberry tart with lemon cream

Blueberry almond cookies

Pistachio brownies

Dan Lepard's blueberry and choc-chip cookies

Pierogi with blueberries

Peach shortcake

Chocolate truffles - as seen on TV

Blueberry beignets

Super creamy vanilla ice cream

Key lime pie

Cinder toffee

Peach and poppy seed muffins

Drinkies

Lavender syrup

Chicha de tamarindo

Butterscotch layer cake

2010-08-23T22:16:00.002+01:00

Another cake! This is the third I've made in two weeks (I also made a Lemon and raspberry griesstorte to celebrate my two year anniversary at work). I think it might be time I took a break from cake! But before I do, let me just tell you about this wonderful cake.
It came about because this weekend I needed to make a birthday cake for my great aunt. She and my grandmother are twins and they turned 80 on Saturday. Little sis and I were each assigned a birthday girl. She made a chocolate and almond cake for my grandmother, so I needed something a bit different from that. I spotted this beauty in How to be a Domestic Goddess. I've rather overlooked it over the years, but I'm so glad I've discovered this one. It's a perfect birthday cake - and includes making the most scrumptious caramel sauce.

Making caramel was quite exciting, actually. It's amazing what you can make with water, sugar and double cream - and a bit of vigilance. To my surprise, I managed not to burn it, and when you mix it with the cream, it's just heavenly. Mix half of that with a bit of cream cheese for an icing, drizzle some of the rest over, Jackson Pollock style. You're left with quite a lot of caramel left over, which is no bad thing. I left it behind with the parents, who bought some ice cream specially to eat with it.
You can find the Butterscotch layer cake recipe here.

Digging in!

Chocolate and hazelnut meringue birthday cake

2010-08-19T23:08:00.001+01:00

Yesterday was my birthday. I turned the grand old age of 28. It's a beautiful age, apparently. (So one of my friends was informed by a Polish lady we work with.) I took the day off work and had the laziest of days pootling around Cambridge and my flat. I had a bath at 1pm. I read a detective book set in Sicily as part of my acclimatisation in preparation for my upcoming holiday. I could afford to relax, you see, because my birthday cake had already been made, taken to work and devoured. (Though there is talk of Mr 'Splorer baking me another just for me and him.)

I toyed with the idea of making this dressy chocolate loaf cake. I still really want to make that cake - it looks so classy and sophisticated. But I decided that for a cake worthy of my birthday I needed drama. And I think meringue just screams drama. Not to mention a cake that contains the best part of five bars of chocolate. (No one tell Mr 'Splorer how much that means I handed over to Green & Black's!) So I chose this Chocolate & hazelnut meringue cake, from the wonderful blog Tartelette. Check out her post for some gorgeous photos of what it should look like! She's adapted the recipe from Martha Stewart. It's basically a rich chocolate brownie-like cake, with a meringue topping with bits of chocolate and hazelnut folded in. It's very rich and very delicious. Personally I wasn't sure that the chocolate in the meringue was really necessary, but it went down very well in some quarters. And I got buckets of positive feedback from the workmates. So, all in all, a highly successful cake and I would totally recommend the recipe.

I do, however, have one small gripe! Why, oh why, do Americans measure butter in tablespoons? (Or am I being unfair? Is it only some Americans?) Why would you decide to measure something solid in spoonfuls, especially assuming that you have a perfectly decent set of scales somewhere about your kitchen? Madness!

Oh, and before I go, I must just be a proud big sis and show you what I got from little sis for my birthday:

This is me 'sploring you see...

And here I have conquered a cake mountain!

Peach and blueberry cake

2010-08-08T23:18:00.000+01:00

This cake is a Nigel. We all know that you can rely on Nigel. And he really doesn't let us down with this cake. In fact, it's quite clearly going to become my go-to summer cake. It's the perfect cake for whipping up with whatever wonderful summer fruit you can find. Eat it hot and it's a really scrumptious fruity and almondy pudding, but wait for it to cool and the taste of the fruit really shines through. I've made it twice - once with the specified peaches and blueberries, and then with nectarines and blackcurrants. And when I came home with apricots Mr 'Splorer requested it again. (The poor lad got Apricot and Almond Tart instead.)

Just two small tips. Firstly, don't worry if there doesn't seem to be much cake mix compared to fruit. It rises quite a lot in the oven to reach the perfect fruit/cake ratio! And secondly, sprinkling a spot of granulated sugar over the top before it goes in the oven gives the top a lovely crunch. You can find the recipe here.

Thursday round-up of deliciousness

2010-08-05T19:34:00.001+01:00

The Google Reader is absolutely heaving again, so it's definitely time for another round-up. And there's been a lot of deliciousness around this week. I hope you find something that makes your mouth water and your tummy rumble. (Mine certainly is after collating all this!)

Dinner ideas
Donna Hay's Lemon Parmesan risotto - a really simple idea, but one that reminds me that I really should make risotto more often. It looks so scrumptious.
Southwest black bean burgers with avocado cream - I'm slightly obsessed with Mexican flavours at the moment, and I do like a veggie burger, so this sounds right up my street.
Chipotle beef tacos with caramelized onions - more Mexican flavours, this looks really tasty - and like the perfect thing to do with my delicious Smoky Chipotle Sauce from the Cambridge Chilli Farm.
Cullen skink - a wonderfully named Scottish soup/stew made with smoked fish, mashed potato and served with poached eggs. It looks so comforting and delicious.
Steak burgers with Stilton and ale - a really mouthwatering combination of flavours. Who could resist a juicy burger with ale-y onions and melted Stilton oozing on top?
Chilled cucumber soup with borage and sour cream - a refreshing, tasty option perfect for summer. We've just to wait for summer to come back now!

Puds, cakes and cookies
Elizabeth David's chocolate mousse - a really simple recipe - just chocolate, eggs and sugar. And Darina assures us that it's "undoubtedly the best".
Chocolate, raspberry and hazelnut swiss roll ice cream cake - this was the July Daring Bakers' challenge. I couldn't participate because it involved making two types of ice cream - and I only have the tiny freezer compartment at the top of my fridge! But when I finally get a decent kitchen with a proper freezer, this is the version I'm going to make. I love all these flavours and it looks just spectacular.
Chelsea buns - I adore Chelsea buns. One of my very best childhood memories is my Grandad bringing me and my sister two Chelsea buns - each! These ones look perfect - sticky, shiny and squishy.
Blackberry yogurt cake - a beautiful loaf cake, studded with blackberries bleeding out their delicious juices.
Orange scented chocolate chip cookies - it feels like every round-up contains a chocolate chip cookie recipe, but I love the orange/chocolate combination and these look perfect. I might actually get around to making them!
Chocolate hazelnut palmiers - which basically involve rolling up puff pastry with Nutella, hazelnuts and cinnamon sugar, slicing it and baking. Doesn't that sound amazing?
Little ginger cheesecakes - they look like cupcakes, but are actually little cheesecakes which Marie made with preserved ginger steeped in Teachers Scotch Whiskey. Such a cute idea.
Chocolate & hazelnut meringue cake - a recipe adapted from Martha Stewart, which is a flourless chocolate layer topped with a hazelnut meringue layer. It looks beautiful.
Carrot cake cookies - another Martha Stewart recipe with carrot cake cookies sandwiched around a cream cheese filling. A really cool take on one of the cake worlds' greats.
Malted prune loaf - this looks like a kind of superior malt loaf, and a perfect way to start the day, as Madalene did, accompanied by a cup of builders tea. Yum! (And while we're on The British Larder, I really want to visit Madalene's newly opened pub and restaurant of the same name.)

Asian flavours
Vietnamese chicken and mint salad - a Nigella recipe with "cool and crisp" flavours, which looks just delicious.
Beef rendang - Lizzie describes this as "rich, thick, unctuous and intensely beefy" and the photos are making my mouth water!
Duck, orange and honey stir fry with lots of greens - I love stir fries as a tasty way to include a big pile of veggies in one meal, and I love duck, and I think it's about time these two things met up. And you just know that the orange and honey is going to work wonderfully.
Sichuan style cold pork belly & cucumber in a hot garlicky sauce - just the name is enough, isn't it? Well, if it's not, go and check out the photo. It sounds and looks absolutely delicious.
Jap chae - a Korean beef stir fry with noodles, described by Gary as "a lovely plate of noodles". As I have yet to find a Korean dish I don't like (well, apart from rotten fish) I really want to give this a try.
Vietnamese Caramel Shrimp Banh Mi - I have heard tell of Banh Mi (Vietnamese baguette sandwiches, as far as I understand) on the food blogs, but have yet to try one myself. This version looks both extremely delicious and totally do-able.

Snacks and sides
Oven dried salt 'n' vinegar crisps - homemade crisps, isn't that a fine plan? And soaked in vinegar, too. A light, crispy - and healthy - snack.
Piedmont stuffed peppers - a really simple Delia recipe involving roasting peppers with anchovies, garlic and cherry tomatoes. I love roasted peppers with a huge passion, so this sounds like a great way to jazz them up a bit.
Perfect mayo, plus herby potato salad - I have had no luck making mayonnaise recently, so I'm hoping this classic recipe from the Roux brothers will come to my rescue. And a herby potato salad sounds delicious.
Homemade soda farls, morcilla & eggs - actually, I'll skip the morcilla (Spanish black pudding) but the soda farls remind me of childhood trips to my grandparents' house in Belfast, where I was always scoffing as much soda bread as I could get my hands on.
Sausage picnic bread - why take sausages and bread to your picnic when you can combine them in one wonderful package? The perfect portable picnic food.

And finally, for the Spanish speakers amongst you, check out these Valencianas de chocolate, prepared for a food blogger meet up in Valencia. Why didn't they have those when I lived there?!

Gooseberry Meringue Pie

2010-07-28T23:09:00.001+01:00

Gooseberries are a bit of an obsession of mine. Partly because I love them and they were something I always missed when living abroad. And partly, I think, because they seem to be so damn elusive. I have a vague idea that they're in season in the summer, but for two years in a row I have made the mistake of waiting for them to crop up in the shops. Which just doesn't seem to happen. This year I bought one lot in the local farmer's outlet - and then never saw any again, despite returning there, then traipsing around most of Cambridge and popping to a PYO farm. And now I think it's too late, unfortunately.
As it happens I was listening to the Food Programme this week and they were talking about the rise of the blueberry at the expense of native British soft fruits. They're easier to transport, apparently, and have had a good marketing campaign as a superfood*. So I feel most patriotic expounding the virtues of the gooseberry!
And I've made at least one convert. Mr 'Splorer was sceptical at first, having sneaked a raw gooseberry from the fridge. (You can't leave any food lying around in this house without it being snaffled - he blames it on growing up with three brothers. Apparently you had to move pretty fast!) But when I explained that the green ones weren't for eating raw and then made this gooseberry meringue pie, I think I managed to convince him that they are a scrumptious dessert ingredient.
This was a very forgiving recipe. First I had another pastry disaster, but I've decided I just got used to making pastry in sub zero temperatures this winter and I had forgotten how fickle it could be. Then, having made the pie the day before and left it in the fridge, I managed to pretty much freeze it, with bits of cling film forming ugly dark sticky patches on the top of the meringue. But I left it out to defrost and it tasted like nothing had happened. But please note that it looked a little prettier when it came out of the oven!
But prettiness isn't everything - and it tasted great. The sharpness of the gooseberries worked wonderfully with the sweet meringue.
So, all that remains is to give you the recipe. I had the idea all by my lonesome, but luckily the clever people at waitrose.com had had it before me, so I didn't have to make it up as I went along. I used this recipe, only changing it by adding elderflower cordial where it says water to the gooseberries. It didn't taste very elderflowery, so maybe I'd add a bit more next time. Oh, and I only made half the recipe, which actually produced eight portions, rather than the four it should have. That never happens to me!

*There was also an article online if you're interested in the invasion of the blueberry!

Sunday round-up of deliciousness

2010-07-25T23:00:00.000+01:00

I warned you, didn't I, that a round-up of deliciousness might pop up any time? Well, my Google Reader was creaking under the weight of the all the deliciousness so I decided tonight was the night. Wednesdays aren't very convenient these days, as I have taken to attending a salsa class with Mr 'Splorer (one of the advantages of a Latin American hubby is that he will dance!). So, rather than collating blog posts, I am generally to be found attempting to dance Cuban salsa under the instruction of an extremely flamboyant Cuban by the name of Leandro, who shouts "I see you!" at random participants from time to time.

Anyway (!) we'll see how the round-up timetable works out. In the meantime, check out some of these delights. Just writing this up has made my tummy rumble!

Scrumptious suppers from around the world

Kuksu - a Maltese spring soup, made with broad beans and kuksu (Israeli cous cous) or pasta. Perfect for my new ability to eat broad beans!

Tomatoless Beef and Squash Curry - a "hot, pungent and slightly sweet curry" made for someone who doesn't like tomato - and was apparently delicious.

Chicken cacciatore - which promises "minimal effort for maximum flavour" and looks like the perfect supper dish to have up your sleeve.

Syrian Fajita(ish) - which looks like a wonderful combination of flavours, with a tahini sauce and parsley salad.

Ginger tofu, ginger beef style, with Chinese five spice rice - described as the best tofu you'll ever eat. Dipped in cornstarch and fried in canola oil (which seem to be cornflour and rapeseed oil respectively for Brits!), it looks crunchy and delicious.

Ga Kho - a Vietnamese dish of caramelised chicken, a spicy, tangy dish that looks absolutely scrumptious.

Haddock with braised lettuce - apparently a French dish originally, this dish with lettuce, peas, haddock and eggs looks like a really fresh and delicious supper.

Home made hummus and pitta - apparently home made hummus is a bit of a faff, if you want to get it right, but it looks so good I might have to give it a try. And the pitta breads look lovely - just like the ones my parents make. And Helen says they're easy!

American style cakes, cookies and puds

Peach blueberry cobbler - a wonderfully summery dessert and a great alternative to crumble. I just love discovering all these American wonders through blogs.

Old fashioned apple pandowdy - a dessert that is apparently similar to a cobbler - a fruity layer covered in a biscuity topping. Scrumptious!

Key West Cake with Mango Mousse and Ginger Cream - a gorgeous tropical layer cake, drenched in rum syrup, which involves making a rather delicious looking lime ginger curd.

NY Times Cookie Recipe - which is probably my fiftieth chocolate chip cookie recipe on here, but it is apparently approaching chocolate chip cookie nirvana. You have to rest the dough for 36 hours to enable the egg to absorb into the other ingredients. Intriguing...

Squidgy brownies - another classic for which you're always looking the ultimate recipe - and this looks like a serious contender.

Blueberry lemon muffins - these are apparently lighter than a normal muffin and not too sweet. I love the sugary tops and can just imagine scoffing a whole load with a lovely cup of tea!

Other lovely little sweet bits

Frozen raspberry Eton mess - a stupendous idea, that also contains lemon curd. What a perfect summer dessert. I must make it quickly before the sun disappears!

Strawberry, pistachio and orange cakes - really cute little cakes made roasted strawberries with orange blossom.

Morir soñando (To die dreaming) - a Dominican drink made of orange juice, vanilla extract and sugar. With a name like that, you've got to try it, haven't you?

Peach and plum freeform pie with fresh nutmeg streusel - a really gorgeous looking dessert stuffed full of scrumptious fruit.

Dressy chocolate cake - a really classy looking loaf cake, which is cut into three so that you can pop in some jam, and then iced in a mixture of melted chocolate and sour cream. A serious contender for my birthday cake! (Not for another month, but a girl has got to plan...!)

Puffed peach pancake - a wonderful breakfast dish of risen batter with lovely fruit, which apparently is also made with apples. I think I might have to try both.

And finally...

Heston Blumenthal's triple cooked chips - these look so perfect and so very edible that I'm more than willing to take on the faff of cooking them three times, and drying and cooling them in between.

Beetroot burgers with barley, broad beans and goat's cheese

2010-07-13T23:22:00.001+01:00

This might just look like a normal bit of dinner to you, but to me, it's a bit of a breakthrough. And not just because it's something tasty that came out of a diet book! No, it's because broad beans and beetroot both used to figure fairly highly in my dislike list. But, as I get older, I do seem to be crossing off quite a few entries in that list. So when they arrived in the vegetable box, I thought it was time I added these two to my repertoire. Plus, I'd heard tell that broad beans could have their little jackets taken off to make them less bitter.
So, after an appeal on Twitter yielded the suggestion of beetroot burgers from common law sis-in-law* and goat's cheese as a good combo with both from Sarah of Brock Hall Farm (makers of goat cheese from Shropshire, not far from my childhood home), this was my dinner. The recipe for beetroot burgers came from The Nordic Diet, a book donated by the common law sis-in-law as she had a spare. I made the beetroot burgers pretty much as specified and served them with pearl barley, but with some goat's cheese and broad beans.

Beetroot burgers

(Serves 4)
500g raw beetroot, grated (the book says half red beetroot and half yellow, but I only had yellow, and only 400g of that, so topped it up with potato)
100ml oatmeal (have only just noticed that says ml - I used 100g!)
3 eggs
1 shallot, very finely chopped
4 tbsp finely chopped dill
2 tbsp finely chopped thyme
2 tbsp finely chopped parsley
salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp rapeseed oil, for frying

Mix the ingredients (minus the oil) in a bowl and put into the fridge for an hour. Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas Mark 4. Form flat cakes of the burger mixture with your hands. Heat the oil in a frying pan and fry the cakes until golden on both sides. Transfer them to an ovenproof dish and put in the oven for 20 minutes.

Barley, broad beans and goat's cheese
(This one's a bit more approximate!)

200g pearl barley
1 bunch of parsley, chopped
1 bunch of thyme, chopped
1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
100g soft goat's cheese (I used the entertainingly named 'Wobbly Bottom')
150g broad beans, podded

Cook the pearl barley according to the packet instructions. Fry the garlic until golden, then add parsley and thyme and fry for about a minute. Cook the broad beans in boiling water for about 4 minutes. Drain and when cool, peel off the outer skin. Mix everything together along with the goat's cheese.

And the verdict? Pretty damn good, actually! I don't think that they are meant to be served with bread, what with the dietiness, but who can resist home made focaccia brought home from a spectacular parental feast?! I took another one to work for lunch today and found myself hankering after another at about 3pm. Which is traditional 'dreaming of chocolate' time, so I think that's a pretty full conversion to beetroot.
The broad beans were also much nicer out of their jackets (though taking them off did make the skins look and feel quite a lot like a blister - sorry!) and added a touch of freshness to the barley. Oh, and according to the book, barley has all kinds of stupendous minerals and whatnot so eating it made me feel mighty virtuous.
So, having had three beetroot burgers today, now I'm just waiting for the pink pee!

*A workmate said that calling her 'common law sis-in-law' sounds like we don't get on - which isn't true! But can't think of a snappy way to refer to her. Any suggestions?

Very full tart

2010-07-11T22:55:00.000+01:00

Following the success of the Quinoa salad from Plenty, when a few chums popped over recently, I decided to give another recipe a go - a Very full tart, aka a tart stuffed to bursting with roasted vegetables, feta and ricotta. And served it with more Quinoa salad. And, though I think I marginally prefer the salad, the guests pronounced this tart to be the triumph of the meal.
But it didn't start off very triumphantly, I can tell you. My shortcrust pastry (a Rachel Allen recipe) went all fall-y apart-y, which meant that I couldn't get it thin enough to cover the bigger tin, which meant that I had too many roasted vegetables for my tin. And then it all shrank while it was blind baking, leaving little holes in the bottom, despite my best efforts at patching it up. Disaster! Luckily, I used my years of cooking experience to work out that I should set some of the vegetables aside for a later tart and wrap the tin in foil to prevent any possible spillage. And it worked - and came out looking rather scrumptious, though I say so myself. I liked the way it was full of loads of different roasted vegetables, so it was one of those dishes where every mouthful is different. And I love the way Ottolenghi recipes use loads of herbs to give you a result that's bursting with flavour. I'll definitely be making this one again.
I got the recipe from Gourmet Chick. But it really is time I bought that book...

PS The Wednesday round-up of deliciousness will be back at some point. I'm stilling storing up recipes, but I never seem to be in on a Wednesday night - especially what with this AMAZING weather. Maybe I'll surprise you all by doing it on a Tuesday! (Oh yes, I know how to live dangerously.)

Daring Bakers: Chocolate Pavlova with Chocolate Mascapone Mousse

2010-06-27T12:00:00.066+01:00

The June 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Dawn of Doable and Delicious. Dawn challenged the Daring Bakers to make Chocolate Pavlovas and Chocolate Mascarpone Mousse. The challenge recipe is based on a recipe from the book Chocolate Epiphany by Francois Payard.

I have been a bad Daring Baker. There were a few challenges that just didn't appeal - and they tend to be a lot of effort, so you don't want to end up with something you feel lukewarm about. But who can resist chocolate pavlova with chocolate mascarpone mousse? And there's a mascarpone cream thrown in for good measure. Not to mention the strawberries and raspberries that I added for extra yumminess.

But, to be honest, I'm not sure I would make this again. Each individual bit was fairly easy, but by the time you've made a chocolate meringue ...

... a creme anglaise ...

...which is then incorporated into a mascarpone cream, and a chocolate mascarpone mousse...

.. (not to mention the trauma of splitting the first lot of chocolate into a lumpy oily mess - what a waste of 70% Lindt chocolate!) you're expecting something pretty amazing. And it was only pretty good. Each individual part was yummy, and I liked the contrast of the meringue and the mousse. But I think I would have been just as happy just with the mousse. But then I do love a chocolate mousse.

Oh and I ended up with far too much mascarpone cream - a whole measuring jug full of the stuff and you really don't need that much for drizzling. But it seems to be slowly disappearing from the fridge, so I think it was a hit with Mr 'Splorer - that may be to do with the fact that it tasted quite a lot like vanilla ice cream!

If you want to try the recipe for yourself, you should find it here.

Wednesday round-up of deliciousness

2010-06-16T23:25:00.001+01:00

Evening. It has been another very busy couple of weeks in blogsville, so without further ado, please find below my most dribbled over posts:

Cakes

Super moist chocolate cake and to-die-for Nutella frosting - surely the name of this recipe speaks for itself? Doesn't it sound amazing?
Crapabble Bakery's vanilla cupcakes - these cupcakes look like little ice creams! So so cute.
Welsh cakes - another addition to the list of "oh, I haven't had those for far far too long and I really don't know why".
Layer cake - a three layer whipped brown butter and vanilla birthday cake. It looks totally spectacular, and this is only the cake section. Frosting to follow!
Almond-raspberry cake - a beautiful, moist cake with some lovely raspberries in the middle.
Caramel apple loaf cake - a very naughty looking loaf cake!

Other sweet things
Strawberries with elderflower and pistachio yoghurt - a really fresh summery idea for dessert.
Apricot almond tart - one of my most favourite puddings and this version looks so pretty.
Apricot crostatas - cute little freeform parcels of delicious fruit.
Pecan tart - a wonderfully sticky sweet looking dessert that I really must get around to trying.
Buckwheat cinnamon pancakes with cherries - lovely risen pancakes, though I wish I could get my cherries from the end of the garden!
Gratitude cookies - aka Nigella's chocolate mint cookies. Chocolatey cookies with chocolate chips in and a pepperminty, chocolatey icing.
Cinnamon bread - a squishy squashy sweet looking loaf. Yum!
Mango sorbet - made with dark rum and lime. Doesn't that sound like an amazing combination?

Assorted savoury goodies
Pizza Napoletana - a scrumptious home-made pizza, topped with home-made tomato sauce with chorizo, ham, cheddar and mozzarella.
Stir-fried okra with Chinese sausage - a couple of ingredients I don't cook with too much, but which look like a really tasty combination.
Peas with prosciutto - a wonderful looking dish in which you cook the peas for 10 minutes, and apparently magic happens.
Ottolenghi's black pepper tofu - just read Helen's description of this intense, hot dish and you will want to make it immediately.
Chicken piccata with buttermilk mashed potatoes - this looks so scrumptious and crunchy, and I do think there might be evenings when bashing a bit of chicken might be most therapeutic.
Smoked fish tart - or maybe it's a quiche. Whatever it is, it looks scrumptious. (There's also an asparagus and spring onion one, if that's what you fancy.)
Sri Lankan coconut fish curry - a gorgeous combination of fish, coconut milk, tomato, curry leaves and chillis.
Rockamole - a Nigella recipe for guacamole with blue cheese. What a stupendous idea!
Murgh Makhani - aka butter chicken, which is one of my favourites and this photo looks incredibly edible.
Vegetarian shepherd's pie - one of the most popular recipes on one of my favourite blogs, so I've got to go give it a try.
Spaghetti with broccoli, anchovy and walnuts - a simple summer supper that sounds delicious.

Pad Thai - a simple, tasty looking version which contains pickled radish. Intriguing.
Parsley soup - I love parsley and love the idea of a dish where it is the star flavour.

Two drinks
Rhubarb and orange cordial and rhubarb vodka - these look like the two drinks that I need to take me through the summer!

And finally, Gemma of Dressing for dinner recommended this Quinoa salad, from the Plenty cookbook. I made it and was blown away. It's so unbelievably good. In fact, I offered Mr Splorer ice cream for pudding (and this is an ice cream fanatic we're talking about) and he said he'd rather have more salad. More salad. Instead of ice cream. Unprecedented. Plus it makes a really good lunch to take to work.

Munching my way around New York

2010-06-13T22:53:00.004+01:00

I didn't really want to go to New York, spoilt little madam that I am. It was a work trip that had meant I'd had to rush around a lot in the week running up to it, so I was a bit frazzled. And I hadn't had a weekend at home, just hanging out with Mr Splorer, for ages. Plus, I wasn't sure about hanging around a big, scary, strange city by myself. I really think that if I could have swapped the ticket with someone else, I'd have done it.
But my God am I glad I went. I just LOVED it. And it was actually a great city to hang out in by myself - plenty of people watching and street food eating, not to mention tootling around the gorgeous Central Park.

I only had a couple of days of holiday, but I did my best to eat as much as I could! Unfortunately the 30C heat kind of took away my appetite, so there's still a long, long list of things I want to try. Luckily, what with Mr Splorer being Costa Rican, New York is a handy stop-off point for trips home. I'm thinking winter, so I can stuff myself stupid in the name of warming myself up!
Anyway, I didn't do too badly. Here's a little summary:

First up, Lansky's Old World Deli was just around the corner from where I was staying (in the Upper West Side) and served me up this Lansky's Special - a triple decker sandwich with pastrami, corned beef and coleslaw, with extra coleslaw and pickles on the side. I am very rarely, if ever, defeated by a sandwich, but I only ate half of this. And then had no dinner. Also, I have no idea how you're supposed to go about eating it. I guess one of the advantages of travelling by yourself is that no one can see you spill coleslaw and corned beef all over the tablecloth!

My parents had hit town a couple of weeks before and recommended the Taco Grill, again right around the corner from the flat I was staying at. I had an extremely tasty chicken burrito served to me by a Chinese couple. And in fact the restaurant opposite offered a Chinese-Latin menu. I was a bit disappointed when on closer inspection it had two parts to the menu, rather than combining the two in one. It could have made for some interesting dishes.

The Upper West Side is really a great place to stay, as also just around the corner was this fantastic shop, Zabars. It was a culinary wonderland - downstairs was full of cheese and bread and all kinds of good things. I picked up some rugelach for the office, which went down very well. Upstairs had loads of cooking equipment - my Mum was unbelievably chuffed with the lemon squeezer she got there.

This is a mere fraction of the cheese available in Zabars. No longer can I moan about the American continent's lack of interest in decent cheese - turns out it's just not true. (Though Costa Rica still has a long way to go in that department...)

I went on one of those hop-on hop-off bus tours, which gave me great views of the city streets ...

... and one of the tour guides (possibly the grumpy old lady who told a couple off for talking while she was talking!) mentioned the farmer's market at Union Square, which had a fantastic selection of things to eat - including some all-American apple pies.

And I came across a nice guy called Felix drawing a really long line of faces on the ground.

We also went past this sign, which I took a picture of because I thought it sounded like a good idea. Then, catching up on the Food Programme on iPlayer, they mentioned it as a really great place to eat. So I'll add that to the list of places to go next time!

Next up was the Shake Shack in Madison Square Park, recommended to me by the lovely Hilary. It's obviously a popular spot, as there was a massive queue, even at 4.30pm. In fact, the queue is obviously a permanent fixture, as you can have a look at a webcam on their website to see how long it is before you go.

So, was the queue worth it? Well, the beer was pretty standard and the chips were OK, but the burger was fantastic! It's the first time I've had a sweet bun with my burger and it worked so well. The meat tasted so meaty and savoury - just delicious. I'd queue up there again!

Finally, on Sunday I went to an area called Flushing in Queens (end of subway line 7) for some Chinese food. I based my sampling on a map from the New York Times that I found via this post from The Wednesday Chef. It was a great place to get street food, but the problem with being by myself is that I had to eat all of these 12 won ton with spicy sauce by myself ...

... which was extremely pleasurable, but rather filled me up! I picked up some pork buns and spring onion pancakes and ate them a bit later in Central Park. Yum.

I also took a few bagels from H&H back home, so that Mr Splorer could get a taste of bagels. We had our poppy seed bagels with salmon, brie and cucumber. Blooming lovely.

Just so that you know that it wasn't all good, I ate a disappointing red velvet cupcake from the Magnolia Bakery (all icing and no taste) and a tiny $10 sandwich at JFK airport. No photos of those, I'm afraid. But apart from these blips I had such a great time eating my way around New York and am already planning my to-eat list for next time!

Wednesday round-up of deliciousness extraordinaire

2010-05-26T23:02:00.001+01:00

Well, now I'm officially back in town, I couldn't skip the Wednesday round-up, could I? And this is going to be a whopper, as I've been away for so long. So, we have so many entries, that I'm going to have to introduce a little order here. So, here is the Wednesday round-up complete with categories for easy navigation:

Meaty/fishy savoury

Spaghetti with sardines, rocket, chilli, lemon and anchovy breadcrumbs, which sounds like a fantastic combination with minimal shopping required.

Creamy lentil soup with Serrano ham, a proper rustic soup, with some cream for a bit of class.

Cumin and Chili Shrimp with Roasted Corn & Poblano Polenta, an amazing looking plate of food, with crunchy prawns and squishy polenta.

Balsamic glazed grilled chicken, perfect summer fare for popping on the barbecue.

Cochinita pibil, or citrus roasted pork, which is a Mexican recipe that little sis and I have earmarked for our next culinary challenge.

Homecured gravadlax and no-knead poppy seed bread, what a wonderful thing to be able to produce from your own kitchen.

Fishfinger enchiladas, which sound so crazy they might just work. I love fishfingers, I love enchiladas, it must be time to combine the two!

Scotch eggs, which look so delicious I'm determined to make them my picnic regular this summer.

Chicken burgers with lime and lemongrass and spicy slaw, a really fresh, zesty sounding recipe from Bill Granger - I really need to get some of his books.

Spinach pesto pasta with paprika grilled chicken, which sounds like a really interesting, tasty combination. I really like the idea of spinach pesto.

Vegetarian

Baked chickpea burgers, bright orange burgers packed with flavoursome things like garlic, ginger and coriander.

Shakshuka, an "Israeli dish of eggs poached in a spicy tomato sauce", aka my very next weekend brunch.

Sweetcorn cakes, which are "packed with juicy popping nuggets of corn" - and perfect served with a poached egg.

Zucchini pancakes with yogurt sauce, flavoured with feta and mint, which are apparently even better the next day - don't you just love recipes like that?

Spinach and curried pumpkin tart, a wonderfully colourful tart flavoured with curry and cumin.

Risi e bisi, a thick soup (not risotto) of rice and peas, which are two of my favourite things ever (though it is, of course, only veggie if you use vegetable stock).

Salads

Carrot salad with harissa, feta and mint, which is apparently "hot, spicy, punchy with lemon, salty with crumbled cheese, bright and minty, green and fresh".

Herbed potato salad, with a tangy vinaigrette - a very tasty looking variation on one of my very favourite things to eat in the summer.

Cakes

Oatmeal shortbread, which is like a kind of massive Hob Nob. Need I say more?

Big berry birthday cake, a vanilla bean birthday cake, studded with blueberries, iced with vanilla whipped buttercream and topped with a gorgeous pile of berries, not to mention fork candles!

New York cheesecake, a recipe which looks so good it might lead me to infidelity to Nigella.

Doughnuts, with jam, nutella, lemon curd or perhaps just cinnamon sugar. Mmmm, I might just have to make a batch of each.

Rum, raisin and apple loaf, just the thing for an afternoon snack - and another one that gets better the next day.

Olive oil cake, with rosemary and chocolate from a rather good sounding new cookbook on baking with wholegrain flours.

Honey cake, a historical recipe from a 1964 recipe book, which apparently really delivers on honey flavour.

Other sweets

The best Bakewell tart recipe, a delicious tea time treat (and I always want to try a recipe that bills itself as the best!).

Hollygog pudding, what a wonderful name! A proper old fashioned stodgy pud - great to have on standby for when the weather gets cold again (which we know won't be too long).

Eve's pudding, another stodgy pud, but this time with some scrumptious apples in the bottom.

Chocolate chip cookies, there may be about a million recipes floating around, but these ones do look particularly good.

Whole wheat chocolate chip cookies, which also look particularly good! Too many chocolate chip cookie recipes, too little time.

Bumbleberry pie, with another fabulous name, this pie is full to bursting with fruit - blueberries, blackberries, rhubarb and strawberries.

Rhubarb recipes (can you tell I love the stuff?!)

Rhubarb crumble ice cream, my idea of ice cream heaven. Put two desserts into the bowl, not me...

Rhubarb and rosewater breakfast sundae, with layers of roasted rhubarb, muesli and fromage frais.

Rhubarb curd shortbread, similar to millionaire's shortbread, but with ginger flavoured shortbread and rhubarb curb. Such a good idea.

Rhubarb, almond and orange cake, with orange being a wonderful combination with rhubarb, this sounds just scrumptious.

Rhubarb and lemon curd pots, a recipe that's apparently been passed around all over the place - always a good sign. A wonderful sounding combination of rhubarb, lemon curd, Greek yoghurt and ginger biscuits.

As this is the result of sifting through hundreds of blog posts, I'm sure I've missed a few highlights (feel free to add your own recommendations below!), but hopefully there should be something for everyone there. Especially if you like rhubarb. I feel duty bound to mention that there have been lots of recipes for asparagus around, but I'm afraid I really can't get into the stuff. But if you like it, you really should be surfing the blogs at the moment.

Oh, and one more recommendation from good old word of mouth. A workmate made this Lemon cheesecake with Greek yoghurt and honey and I loved it. It looks very easy too. Just the ticket for a summer dinner party, especially as you make it the day before.

Summer return

2010-05-24T22:41:00.001+01:00

Well, seeing as summer seems to have well and truly arrived (for the moment anyway...), I can't really still be on a spring break! Though, of course, I have been meaning to come back to this little space for some time now. But while I've been away you can rest assured that I have still been eating - and taking the odd snap. So, I thought I'd start off with a little summary of what I've been up to since we last met.

I went to Southend-on-Sea on Good Friday and ate some good thick English seaside chips to escape from the wind and rain.

I went to Harrogate for a work conference and had a delicious pan Asian meal at Orchid (even better because it was on expenses!) ...

... and a sandwich and cake at the famous Betty's tea rooms, which was nice enough, but I wasn't left with a clear idea why everyone who heard I was going to Harrogate raved about it. But I was pleased with the gingerbread squirrel I took back to Mr 'Splorer. It's not every day you can purchase a gingerbread squirrel.

I did like Harrogate, though, and not just because it was sunny. Some lovely old buildings, lots of bright flowerbeds and suitably chatty Yorkshire taxi drivers. The hotel was a little bit something out of The Shining though - and then they put me in Room 101. Dun, dun, dunnnn!

I went to London for the day and managed to have lunch at Wahaca and dinner at Moro, which is pretty much my idea of Hispanic food heaven. I'm glad Moro was on the parents though - that place is pricey.

(The Moro snaps seem to have gone awol - sorry!)

Then I went to visit my friend in France who lives on a farm and ate A LOT of cheese, some of which was goats cheese made by said friends boyfriend's mother.

It was absolutely wonderful to sit in a proper French farmhouse kitchen eating cheese from the goats across the farmyard, even if the weather was a bit rubbish. They've never had so many subsequent days of rain and cloud, apparently - bet they'll be clambering to have me back!

And in between these travels, I've been doing the odd bit of cooking at home, with highlights including...

... Dim sum-style pork dumplings from Foolproof Chinese Cookery, a book I only originally bought at a charity shop because it had a recipe for Crispy aromatic duck, but which has proved to be a big hit round my way. This dumplings are so delicious - and just fiddly enough to make you feel clever, without actually demanding any real dexterity. I promise to post the recipe soon.

Another wonderful recipe I discovered was Turkey and sweetcorn meatballs with roasted pepper sauce from the Ottolenghi cookbook (you can find the recipe here, so you don't need to wait for me to post it!). Extremely tasty, both the meatballs and the sauce - well up to the high Ottolenghi standard that one has learnt to expect.

So, I think that's us pretty much caught up. All that's left now is for me to seek out some wonderful recipes to take us through the summer. Oh, and to appeal to you for any tips for things and/or places to eat in New York. I'm off there for a few days next week with work (yes, I am officially the jammiest person in my office, but I feel I've been through enough stress at work recently to deserve it!). So that'll be a couple of days eating in expensive restaurants on expenses on my best, most professional behaviour, and a couple of days by myself eating cheap food and
spilling sauces down my front. I've found a wonderful post by The Wednesday Chef on her favourite New York restaurants, so that should be a good start. But any tips would be most gratefully received, especially for rather informal spots where you can eat by yourself without looking like a loser!

Spring break

2010-03-29T22:36:00.000+01:00

Just to let you know that I'm going to take a short break from writing the blog. I'm feeling the need to take a step back for a moment, to relax in the kitchen for a while, to cook old favourites and ugly mishmashes of whatever's in the fridge. I'm sure I'll be back soon, especially as there's a new camera in the post... In the meantime, happy cooking!

Wednesday round-up of deliciousness

2010-03-17T21:11:00.001Z

Evening all. I hope you've all been having a lovely St Patrick's Day. And if you haven't celebrated yet, let me suggest you cook something! The Daily Spud has hosted the most amazing Paddy's Day Food Parade - soda bread, scones, colcannon, boxty and about a gazillion other cabbagey, bacony, potatoey, or just very green, good things.

But if you overdose on the Guinness, apparently these Spiced pork buns are just the thing for a hangover. In fact, I think they look just the thing for all kinds of occasions - scrummy spiced pork surrounded by fluffy, glutinous dough. And while we're in pork territory, Korean Noodles in a black bean sauce with pork and vegetables and Stuffed pork chops both also look very tasty indeed.

There were some rather tasty vegetarian options around this week. I thought that the Individual potato and onion tartes tatin and Paneer tikka were both the kind of ideas that you look at and think "Yes! Why have I never thought of that?" and I'm dying to give them both a go. This Coconut red lentil soup has a wonderful combination of flavours. And for the vegetarians like my Dad (i.e. not proper ones!), let me send you over to see these Fish balls in nut sauce - a dish just dripping in double entendres! And they look very tasty too - an excellent alternative to meatballs.

Now, chocolate. Always a winner, especially in some of the sweets I spotted. Hazelnut and chocolate is one of my very favourite flavour combinations, so I was very excited to see these gorgeous Hazelnut and chocolate cupcakes. These Two tone chocolate muffins have chocolate truffles in the middle - a marvellous idea, I'm sure you'll agree! This Chocolate mud cake looks like a much more serious affair altogether - dense, dark and moist. And finally, it really is time I tried Whoopie pies, generally accepted to be the next big thing. And that recipe is blue-ribbon-winning, so it looks like a great place to start.

Next, this Lemon upside down cake looks so pretty. The caramelised lemons on top look chewy and sweet and scrumptious. This Lemon tart 'Amandin' is a wonderful variation on Bakewell tart - I've just got to seek out the 'Amandin' nut mix. And I'm always a sucker for a rhubarb cake, so this Forced rhubarb and yoghurt cake is right up my street. It looks all moist and squishy. In fact it would be a marvellous addition to this amazing Mother's Day afternoon tea. One of these days I'm going to do that properly, with a cake stand and everything, just like Jules.

And finally a couple of delicious desserts with which to impress your friends. Salted butter caramel ice cream sounds spectacular - I REALLY need to get an ice cream maker! In the meantime, I shall be making Blueberry blintzes, which are crepes filled with ricotta cheese and pan-fried, before being covered in blueberry sauce. Yum yum yum!

Irish soda bread

2010-03-15T23:17:00.001Z

I'm going to start this post with a little advice. I know Christmas is not really top of the agenda, but I urge you to squirrel this snippet away for a few months and dig it out again in December. And the advice is: never, ever, whatever you do, slag something off on Christmas Eve. As you might imagine I speak from experience here.
Picture the scene: all the family sitting around the fire, all the presents wrapped up nicely and sitting on the window sill (there was no tree - hurumph) and I start explaining how Delia really doesn't do it for me. I believe I said something about her being quite scary and her recipes not working for me. And then, lo and behold, what do I find upon opening my Christmas present from my dearest grandmother? Why, it's Delia's Happy Christmas. Aaargh! I wasn't disappointed by the book - I'm always willing to give a chef another go, but I just WISHED I hadn't said that. Hence the new-found determination to only praise on Christmas Eve. In fact, I think the same could go for the week or so preceding one's birthday, actually, just on the off-chance.
Anyway, from the moment I saw the book, I knew the best way to save the situation was to cook something from the book and write my grandmother raving about my conversion to Delia's camp. And shamefully, it's taken me until March to do it. But at least I chose something seasonal - Irish soda bread. I'm submitting it to The Daily Spud's Paddy's Day Food Parade in time for St Patrick's Day on Wednesday.

I'm sure there'll be plenty of soda bread around blogsville this week, but for me, it's the highlight of visiting my relatives in Belfast. Well, that and the scones. (Though scones can be a little stressful - I have been told off by my grandfather for toasting the butter side first!) And this recipe was fab - stupendously easy and tasty. It had a good crunchy crust (make sure your bread knife is ready for the challenge!) and made the best toast ever. Most of the work was in finding buttermilk (Sainsbury's) and pinhead oatmeal (a health food shop).

Irish Soda Bread
275g wholemeal flour
75g plain flour, plus a little extra
50g pinhead oatmeal
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1½ tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
1 egg
1 284ml carton of buttermilk
a little milk
1 tbsp rolled oats

Preheat the oven to 190C/Gas mark 5. Grease a baking tray. Put the flours, oatmeal, bicarbonate of soda, salt and sugar in a large bowl and mix. Beat the egg and buttermilk together and add them. Mix with a fork and then your hands to form a smooth dough. Shape the dough into an oval, add a dusting of flour, brush with milk and sprinkle with oats. Use the blunt side of a knife to make indentations diagonally across the bread.

Bake for 50-60 minutes, then put on a wire rack to cool.

So, have I been won over to Delia? Well, almost. There's just one niggly thing. What kind of cookery book index files soda bread only under I for Irish? (Am I just being too fussy?!)

Waffles

2010-03-14T22:21:00.000Z

Is there anything in the world more decadent than ice cream for breakfast? I know there's certainly no better way to make Mr 'Splorer happy! And somehow it seems like acceptable thing to do if you pop on top of some waffles. Because, let's be honest, waffles are for being topped with as many delicious, sweet (unhealthy!) things you can get your grubby little mits on.

Although I am new to this waffle business, I must admit, so I could be making some huge assumptions here. In fact, I don't really know when I'd last had a waffle before this morning. I think of them as rather an unusual treat round these parts (and have trouble not singing 'waffley versatile' to myself when the word waffle comes into conversation). But now I have my wonderful waffle maker on hand, waffles are due to become a regular fixture in my house. Not least because they're so yummy - and so easy. Whip up a quick batter, pop it in the machine for a few minutes and there you have it. Perfect for breakfast, pudding, late night feasts and any number of special occasions.
This recipe comes from Bake by Rachel Allen. That book is amazing - every time I want to make something, I find the recipe there. It's become my first port of call. The only thing is that I made half the recipe and got 5 waffles out of it, instead of the stated 10 - maybe my waffle maker is a whopper! Here's the quantities I used:

Waffles

100g butter
200g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
50g caster sugar
2 eggs
300ml milk

Melt the butter and cool. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt, and mix in the sugar. In another bowl, whisk the eggs and mix in the melted butter and milk. Pour the mix into the dry ingredients and whisk together until the batter is smooth.
Heat the waffle maker and ladle in some batter. (My maker took about a ladleful and a half for optimum waffling.) Close the lid and cook for about 4-5 minutes.

Sprinkle with icing sugar and top with something yummy. My serving suggestions are blackberries and maple syrup or Nutella. Though the internet is bursting with other ideas, many of which I shall be experimenting with, so watch this space!

Wednesday round-up of deliciousness

2010-03-10T22:16:00.000Z

Oh dear, this blog seems to have turned into a long list of Wednesday round-ups of deliciousness. Must stop making rhubarb swirl cheesecakes and letting Mr 'Splorer cook, and get making some delicious things of my own. Having just bought a waffle maker off someone at work on a bit of a whim, I suspect you might see a waffle recipe or two here soon. Or, if anyone has a good one, do feel free to let me know! I'm planning to become the waffle queen of Cambridge before the end of the month. (And determined not to make one batch and then let the machine gather dust at the back of the cupboard for years to come!)
Anyway, onto the deliciousness. First in my Google Reader is Dense orange and almond cake, aka "the most perfect afternoon cake ever". Another marvellous option for afternoon is these Milk chocolate banana brownies - I can just imagine how moist they must be with the banana. In fact, as usual I seem to have come across lots of desirable cakes! There's also a classic Dundee cake, which Hilary describes as the fruitcake for people who don't like fruitcake. Well, to be honest, I'm not sure those people should be allowed any, because us fruitcake lovers will want to scoff the lot. Next is this Nutella pound cake, which contains an entire jar of Nutella, which is pretty much all you need to know! And then there's a Cornish Saffron cake to belatedly celebrate St Piran's Day. And these English Champagne rhubarb muffins look like a wonderful thing to do with rhubarb.
There were also lots of lovely biscuits around and about. Check out these Blueberry and cream cookies, Chocolate hazelnut cookies, Anzac biscuits and Honey Graham crackers. I'm intrigued to try the Graham crackers, as they seem to be such an American favourite that hasn't really made it over here. And of course the Anzac biscuit is another exotic one!
And if you're in need of a pud, or perhaps even a dessert, rather than a snack, I also have some stupendous tarts and pies for you. Take a look at this simple, elegant Chocolate tart - so chocolatey and gorgeous. Then we have a couple of apple numbers - always a winner in my kitchen. First of all we have these Apple and cinnamon mini pies, which look really simple, not to mention containing one of my all time favourite flavour combinations. Then we have Raymond Blanc's Apple tart 'Maman Blanc'. I didn't see him making it on TV, but it obviously looked amazing, because it appeared on two separate blogs - The Caked Crusader and Mainly Baking. So I feel that the recipe has been well and truly tested - and found to be a good one by all accounts! The final pie is this Maple hazelnut pie - something much more unusual, but it looks simply amazing.
Next we have some soups. I always seem to include soups, but they are such a marvellous, versatile foodstuff. And so comforting when spring just keeps on refusing to pop its head around the corner. So take your pick from Chicken and sweetcorn soup, Roasted butternut and cumin soup with crispy chorizo and Cauliflower cheese soup with Irish beer bread. Such a wonderful collection of soupy flavours. And if Irish beer bread isn't up your street, there's also this Casserole dish baked bread - a wonderful, rustic looking loaf that would be wonderful with a spot of cheese and soup.
But on days I'm after a more substantial supper, I'll be making myself a Sicilian spaghetti cake - a big wodge of spaghetti mixed with bits and bobs, and baked in an oven. Or perhaps a Broccoli and bacon flan - what a great way to use up your leftover green vegetables in a delicious dish. Then there's Turkey and sweetcorn meatballs from the Ottolenghi cookbook - I've been meaning to try that recipe for ages and it looks so, so tasty. And finally, for something a little more exotic, Ants climbing trees. Just the thing to put our new wok through its paces!

Wednesday round-up of deliciousness

2010-03-03T21:30:00.000Z

Ah, the weeknight dinner. After a rushed breakfast and an invariably disappointing canteen lunch (though I can't say they're not adventurous - goat curry was on the menu today), dinner is our opportunity to rustle up something scrumptious. Ideally something nutritious, tasty and quick - the holy trinity of supper, if you will. Well, I think I've spotted a few contenders for future weeknight meals. For a start, there's this Rigatoni Al Forno - tubes of pasta with bechamel and meat sauces. I think it looks like lasagne without the hassle! Also in the pasta corner, we have this delicious looking Penne alla vodka. I've wanted to try that for such a long time, and the step by step pictures make it look fantastically easy and delicious. And for a non-pasta based dinner, I definitely want to try these Mint and parsley meatballs.

Next up, I seem to have spent quite a lot of the week lusting after chicken based dishes. I don't know if it's me or blogsville that's developing the obsession, but I defy you to take a good look at Chicken with lentils, Fondant potatoes and ricotta stuffed chicken, Red chile chicken and rice with black beans and Chicken biryani without wanting to dash off to your local chicken emporium. And for a little poultry balance, here's a fantastic looking recipe for Steamed quick duck confit, which involves steaming, roasting and grilling to recreate the deliciousness of a traditional confit.

Moving on, I spotted three Mediterranean ways with cheese. May I present Gougères (French Cheese Puffs), Butternut squash calzone with sage and leeks and Empanada de jamon york y queso. (The last post is in Spanish, but there's lots of pictures.) My only problem with those three is where to begin! Or for something a little more exotic, I have a couple of Chinese recipes for your delectation: Jiaozi dumplings and Steamed glutinous rice in lotus leaves. Two extremely fine examples of the squishy sticky tastiness of Chinese food.

Right, the sweets. I'm reading a fascinating book called Taste: The Story of Britain Through Its Cooking at the moment. I'd love to get my teeth around some of those old fashioned dishes, so I was delighted to see some historical options around. The Caked Crusader is promising a whole series of historical recipes, starting with Richmond Cakes, from a 1907 recipe book. And they sound yummy. As does Sussex pond pudding, a traditional English suet pudding with a whole lemon in the middle. I'd better make that before summer comes though - it looks very warming indeed!

I'm not sure about the historical precedents for putting beetroot in your cake, but I think it's about time I gave it a try. I'm not a massive fan of beetroot, but I love the look of both this Beetroot, walnut and hazelnut cake and these Beetroot chocolate muffins. Two excellent ways to top up on whatever vitamins it is that beetroot has in it.

And next in the section for stupendous sweets, I wanted to include Easy moist lemon cake - you can never have too many recipes for lemon cake in my book. This week's prize for most fantastic use of decoration definitely goes to Katie's skull sugar cookies - stupendous! And finally we have Carrot cake inspired cinnamon buns - two of my very favourite things in one sticky, sweet bun. Yum!!

And that's it for tonight. I'm off to sit down with a cup of tea, a chocolate cake made by Mr 'Splorer and an episode of Mad Men. Heaven!

Wednesday round-up of deliciousness

2010-02-24T19:06:00.000Z

Before I begin tonight, I'd like to invite you to put yourself forward to write me a little round-up. It's been a while since I had a guest poster for this little feature, and I always enjoy reading other people's picks so much. Plus, at the moment, all the recipes featuring mushrooms, aubergines, olives, fennel, coffee, etc are being instantly eliminated. Yes, for a food blogger I have a fairly long list of dislikes, as my friends never tire of informing me. My justification is that I have very refined taste buds, and therefore tastes are stronger in my mouth, or something. Not sure there's any scientific basis to that, but I'm working on saying it with such quiet authority that no one will question me. Anyway, if you do fancy doing a round-up, email me at norathesplorer at gmail dot com and we can talk details.
And now, to the food! First into the round-up bucket this week was this Beef Ragu Papardelle with Gremolata from Food Stories, a slow cooked sauce made with beef shin, sprinkled with a mix of parsley, garlic and lemon zest to add a bit of zing. Yum! But if you're after a slightly simpler pasta dish, can I send you off in the direction of Bucatini all'amatriciana from The Pink Peppercorn? It's a sauce made with just bacon, onions, tomatoes and chilli - simplicity at its best. And for a spot of Spanish pasta (for the Spanish speakers among you), head over to La Cocina de Lechuza for Fideos con almejas - a Spanish version of Spaghetti alle vongole.
Bread is something that I'm always intending to make, but very rarely do. And sourdough bread is one of the best, but also one of the most intimidating. So I was delighted to see Sourdough for Dummies at Just Cook It, with day by day instructions for making your starter and all. With that level of detail, I think even I could become a bread making queen. Though in the meantime, I might just 'settle' for Wholemeal banana bread from Cooking at Marystow. What?! It's still bread, isn't it? Oh, and while we're on bread, check out this round-up of the Monthly Mingle at Life's a feast - the theme was chocolate and bread and there is A LOT of good stuff in there.
Moving on, I spotted this Cauliflower and caramelised onion tart at Smitten Kitchen, which looks absolutely scrumptious, minus the mustard layer (yes, add that to the list of my dislikes!). These Egg Baked Potatoes from The Daily Spud combine two of my favourite ingredients, and it's such a great why-didn't-I-think-of-that idea. Another great combination is this Broccoli Cheese Soup from The Urban Spork. And while we're still in the savoury arena, I also rather liked the look of both this Honey seared salmon with sesame noodles from The Goddess's Kitchen and this Chicken and 3-rice salad from What Rachel Ate, which both look like tasty, nutritious dinner options. And I'll be saving up this recipe for Grilled Zucchini Rolls from Apples and Butter for the summertime - can't you just see yourself sitting in the park with a swanky picnic, popping one of these babies into your mouth, while the sun beats down on your face....? (Can you tell I'm officially sick of winter?)
But, perhaps the way to appreciate winter is to stuff your face with cake, safe in the knowledge that no one's going to see your wobbly bits for a while. And if that's your policy, I have a few recommendations for you. Just within the realms of cake, there was a host of triumphs this week: Brown sugar bundt cake from Let Her Bake Cake, an Apple cake which is almost a pie from The English Kitchen, Almond, orange and lemon cake from Not Another Food Blog, Lemon curd and blueberry loaf cake from Chocolate Teapot and the most gorgeous Lemon cupcakes from The Red Deer. But that's not it for sweet stuff, oh no. For a start, there are these lovely Tozzetti, or Italian hazelnut biscuits from Broxholm Road, which look all crunchy and nutty. These Carrot and cardamom muffins from Gin and Crumpets look so spicy and soft. And I can't finish without mentioning these Black Sesame dessert dumplings from Hollow Legs - very exciting and delicious-looking!
And before I sign off, I must just thank Sarah of Simply Cooked for her Happy 101 award - thank you so much Sarah! My 10 things I love and my nominees are in my post here, and if you haven't checked out my nominations, I highly recommend you have a look.