Food faves- Pizza

My food faves are starting to get just a bit predictable and unoriginal at this point. 'Seriously, pizza? Everyone's favourite food is pizza you boring ass!' You might say. But I'm going to carry on anyway.  

Pizza is the fallback food. If you need to grab a quick, failsafe dinner with a mate before the cinema, you choose from one of the 5 million Pizza Express joints on the high street for an American Hot and some dough balls. If you're late home from work and want something easy to eat in front of the box, you hit the supermarket for a goat's cheese and caramelised onion 12-inch with salad in a bag, garlic ciabatta and a bottle of red. If it's a Friday night, been a long week, and you just wanna pig out, it's a super large Pepperoni Passion from Dominos with ice-cream and a 2-litre bottle of coke. 

Pizza is something you can dress up or dress down and can be amazingly good or horrifically bad. At its best it's a wafer thin crust topped with simple, fresh ingredients. Good ol' buffalo mozzarella and torn basil will do me, but I do like parma ham, rocket and ricotta too. And salami. And pesto. I could go on... (I am now starving and salivating over the Pizza East menu). But at its worst, it's a 99p dry piece of cardboard from the freezer section of the corner shop, or a 3am cheese-laden grease monster jobbie topped with questionable meat from the chippie/fried chicken/burger place down the road.  

99c pizza in NYC...damn good

I would be lying if I said that the only variety of pizza to grace my lips is the fancy kind with the good ingredients and proper base. I wouldn't stick any old pizza in my mouth, but I will occasionally slink to the Friday night pig-out style pizza for a Dominos (well, it's Papa John's actually). Is it proper pizza, worthy of Naples finest pizzerias? No, it isn't. But it's a guilty pleasure that I'm happy to admit to.  

Determining which pizzas are good and bad is easy enough. Making pizza is a bit more of a challenge.   It's probably because my oven isn't nearly as hot as it should be, or perhaps I go overboard on the toppings but sometimes my pizzas come out looking like a hot mess. They're not as good as I can get elsewhere, so I tend not to make them very often. Either I get a brick oven, or I need to keep practising...

Homemade pizza in China, with some dubious toppings

Another homemade attempt, not so pretty, but tasted pretty good

Dave's Birthday

I am not a neat cook. It pains me to say it but I cannot make my dishes look beautiful. Tasty maybe, but never beautiful. I've learnt to live with the fact that when my chicken and asparagus pie comes out the oven, it won't look anywhere near like the one my mum bought for us from Tesco's when we were younger, with the even golden pastry and the neat dimpled pattern round the edge. I can guarantee it will taste better, but the golden sheen on top will be uneven where I've splashed on the egg wash in a rush, some of the filling will be oozing out the side where I couldn't stretch the pastry quite far enough.

One particular area that I struggle with is cakes. Whenever I bake a cake, I always have visions in my head of how it's going to turn out. I think it'll come out just like it does on the shop. Every time I say to myself, 'this time, this time, it's going to look like it belongs in a book'.  But it usually ends up looking like a Victoria sponge with a bit of spew on top.

It was Dave's birthday and in honour of his favourite book, Herman Melville's 'Moby Dick', I decided to make a cake with a whale on it. I imagined a beautifully iced cake in dark blue, using lighter blue icing for the wave detailing, and a perfectly modelled, lifelike whale spouting water from his blowhole. I know, it sounds really dodge but it looked lush in my head. Getting home and realising that I had neither blue food colouring, nor the the right icing sugar, was not a good start. What I ended up with was this:

Horrif.  At least my picnic lunch of homemade sausage rolls, scotch eggs (with the soft yolk in the middle, yum), ham sandwiches, pitta chips and hummus in Regents Park made up for it. Preceded by the zoo, and followed by cocktails at Academy. Then we got home and ate the cake, and it was bloody delicious.

Dave doesn't actually look that impressed...

Food faves - Fish and Chips and snippets of childhood

Ahh the British chippy.  It's such an institution and has been written about so many times there's probably not much more to say about it.  I don't tend to go out for fish and chips much anymore because I'm so picky about what I eat; where it comes from, how it's sourced, if it's fresh...yadda yadda yadda.  But when I was younger I used to eat fish and chips all the time.  Actually, I've come to the realisation that I can pretty much map out my life through the prism of fish and chip shops.

Some of my most vivid memories have taken place around my local chippy.  This might seem unsurprising for someone who is completely obsessed with food and has probably frequented the chip shop more often than the average Brit, but they've essentially formed the core of my existence, with all of my life's occurrences hovering around them, like planets, orbiting the sun.  You are going to think I've lost the plot, but hear me out as I explain my life through the medium of chippy...

Chip Shop 1 - Chaplin's Fish Bar

The chip shop of my formative years, in Tonteg, near Pontypridd.  It was part of a small shopping area near my house which I went to almost everyday after school and on weekends.  Barratt's the Newsagents was across the way - I used to go there to buy sweets and once even tried to buy 27 pence worth of strawberry chews with only a third of the cash, so a stranger (remember how we all used to be afraid of strangers) had to lend me the money and my mum went mental on me.  Next door was the Happy Shopper, the scene of my first Curly Wurly, Chomp and Hubba Bubba, and also where I lost my Barbie's shoe on my birthday forcing my Dad to search all over looking for it.

I digress...Yes, the fish 'n' chip shop was named after Charlie Chaplin.  Portraits of the eponymous actor and clapperboards adorned the walls, creating its black and white theme.  I remember going there after gymnastics/swimming/ballet classes and staring at the battered fish, hoping that one day I would be big enough to order it.  Until then, it was half a bag of chips and a fish cake, served in newspaper.  If I was very lucky I might have got a pie.

Chip Shop 2 - Top Fry Fish Bar

This originally named chippy graced the second half of my childhood on Gwaunmiskin Road in Beddau (Welsh for 'graves', yes, it is a shit hole).  It was part of another soulless row of shops, next to the chemist and a pet shop where I bought my first hamster, a Spar, where I spent many an hour buying banana milkshake, dairylea lunchables and apple and cinnamon cookies, and in my later years bottles of vodka and cans of fosters.  Next door to that was Fulgoni's newsagents, where my Nan used to take us for two chocolate bars every Friday (I always chose a walnut whip, Fry's chocolate cream, white crunch bars or a caramac) and we were always eyed beadily by the owner in case we stole 1p sweets.

The chip shop was bare and drab, unlike the luxury of Chaplin's which had seats and a bit of decor.  All top fry had was a signed, framed picture of a Welsh Darts Champion (who apparently my Nan was well acquainted with) and faded posters of deep fried rissoles and Clark's Pies.  But what it lacked in looks, it made up for in taste.  The chips were delicious, and by this stage I could have fish, or battered sausage AND mushy pies or whatever I wanted.

Chip Shop 3 - Family Fish Bar

By number 3 I was in university in Cardiff, and Family Fish was THE place to go for chips if you were a student, well, at least if you lived part of Cathays (aka studentville).   Over a period 5 years I must have frequented this place hundreds of times.  If I wasn't going inside, I was either walking past on the way to the pub, stumbling past on a night home, or walking back from the Salisbury Store after buying cheese for my sausage and cheese burgers, mars bars for ice cream with mars bar sauce and pitta breads for stuffing my super noodles in.

To be honest, I can't remember exact details, as most of the time I went there it was 3 o'clock in the morning.  But I could vouch for it even when I wasn't under the influence 2 bottles of lambrini and 3 vodka-lemonades.  The batter on the fish was always crispy, the chips always fat and soggy from being doused in vinegar (I prefer fat chips to crispy chips), the mushy peas were a wonderful hue of toxic green and the Clark's Pies - if you've never eaten one, make sure you do on your next trip to Wales - were as gorgeous as always, with pastry to die for.  Luckily I managed to avoid the battered burgers.

If I couldn't wait the 10 minute walk home to Family Fish, then there was always Cardiff's infamous Chippy Lane, although I think that's another story.

Chip Shop 4 - George's Fish Bar

The latest instalment in my chippy saga.  Unfortunately the closest China got to a fish n chip shop was the filet-o-fish meal from McDonald's, so I was devoid of the chippy for that portion of my life. George's is just round the corner from where I live and I always use it as a backstop for Dave's dinner if I get in too late to cook. Most of the time I'm walking past it with bags full of vegetables bought from the Turkish grocers on Green Lanes.

George's unfortunately doesn't rank among my favourites. I'm not sure whether it's because my taste buds have evolved since Chaplin's or whether it's just not very good, but the fact that it doubles up as a fried chicken joint as well as a chip shop just demonstrates that they're not concentrating on what's important.  The fish batter is soggy, and I'm sure the fish is neither fresh nor ethically sourced. It would do in an absolute emergency for chips alone, which are just dry and disappointing, but for a good fish supper I have to delve into London proper, or better still, the seaside.



I'm not sure what exactly I'm trying to get at here, apart from egotistically wittering on about mundane moments of my life and how chip shops are occasionally involved or nearby.  I suppose what I'm trying to illustrate is how a dish so simple and commonplace as fish and chips can mean so much.

Just mention the words 'fish and chips', and a hundred smells, tastes and memories come to life. Leaning against the hot glass and staring through the brightly lit warmers in anticipation; clutching the paper parcel on the way back home and breathing in the wafts of vinegar and grease; biting into the light crispy batter to find the warm, smooth slithers of white fish inside; finding the perfect fat chip - soggy on the outside and fluffy on the inside.  This all spells perfection.

Ooh, and below (and above) are my own versions, with mushy peas and Heston’s triple cooked chips to boot.

Food faves - Lasagne

A new place, a new job, a new start and an old favourite.  I am now officially a Norf Londoner, and have waved goodbye to Dave's mum's wonderful utensil-filled, fridge-stocked kitchen to my very own.  The moment I saw the kitchen, in fact, the flat had my name on it.  For a start it's twice the size of the living room, with more worktop space you can shake a stick at, just enough cupboard space for all my flours, spices and vinegars and best of all, a gas hob.  What more could you ask for. 

One of the first meals I cooked in my lovely kitchen is an old family favourite - Lasagne.  More British than Italian now I'm sure (with chips, seriously?), I've been eating this ever since I can remember.  Apparently my Dad got it from an the owner of an Italian restaurant he knew, or something like that, and I just love it.  It's one of those dishes that I just can't order in a restaurant for fear of it not tasting the way I like it, the way I grew up with. I'd go round to friends' houses when I was little and their Mums would  make lasagne, or shepherd's pie, but one bite in and I refused to eat anymore, because 'it doesn't taste like my mummy makes it'.  I think I wasn't allowed back to a lot of friends houses for sticking my foot in it like that.  

I've made very few changes to the way my Mum made my lasagne.  As you can see I make the pasta sheets myself, and I now add celery and carrots when I'm sweating the onions to give it even more of that delicious umami flavour.  I'm not going to write the recipe as I'm sure everyone has they're own, and it's so simple. I fry the onion mixture with combined with chopped peppers, bacon and mushrooms, add tomato puree and red wine, then minced beef, chopped tomatoes, mixed herbs and beef stock (not in exactly that order), and let it all simmer for as long as I can without gobbling it all up.  A couple of pasta sheets, a bit of bechamel sauce and a handful of cheese later and this layered dish of gorgeousness emerges from the oven to be devoured within seconds.  No matter how much of this stuff I make, it always seems to be eaten in one sitting.

Behold the messiness of my kitchen 

Back to basics 3 - Ravioli

I got a pasta machine for Christmas and was very excited about cooking my own pasta.  A few people who had pasta machines told me there wasn't really much point in making pasta and that it didn't really taste much different to fresh pasta, and certainly didn't taste any better that shop bought.

Whatever they said didn't stop me from wanting to cook my own pasta.  Firstly, I judgementally thought that they couldn't be making it right if it didn't taste that good, but secondly I am obsessed with cooking things from scratch, to the point of ridiculousness.  

I would cook everything from scratch if I could, as I'm sure every foodie would.  I suppose I love it because I like to see what's going into everything I eat, and because it feels like a big achievement cooking something most people usually get from a packet.  But now there's no going back.  Now I can't buy anything from a packet if I know I can cook it.  At first it was just pesto, hummus and guacamole.  Now it's fast becoming pastry, mayonnaise, bread and...pasta.  I don't know where it will stop.  It drives Dave mad, because every night's cooking sesh turns into massive faff.  Soon I'll be rearing my own cows, churning my own butter and growing my own wheat just to make a bechamel sauce. 

The ravioli was delicious.  I filled it with a mix of smoked salmon, dill, creme fraîche and black pepper, and dressed it very simply with a few tomatoes, parsley, parmesan and olive oil.  The two don't really sound like good combination, but it worked pretty well.  I loved making the pasta. The dough was simple to make, and the rolling process was quite therapeutic.  I felt like an old washer woman drying my clothes through one of those wringer things.  It was a little thick if anything as the picture might tell, but the second attempt a few days later was much more successful.

I think I'll certainly be making ravioli from scratch from now on...   

Food faves - Linguine ai frutti di mare

Sometimes there's nothing I love more than a big bowl of pasta. I know gastronomically it's not very exciting, and I'm perfectly aware that Italian cuisine has so much more to offer, but sometimes this is all I need.   Linguine ai frutti di mare, or in Layman's terms seafood pasta, is my favourite of them all.  A gigantic bowl of this with a rocket salad, a few slices of garlic bread and a large glass of wine spells perfection for me.  Easily in my top five favourite foods.   

I'd love to tell you that I first discovered this dish while summering in Naples, in a small family restaurant down a cobbled backstreet somewhere, and the old lady who owned it told me how the recipe had been passed down through generations and the seafood had been caught locally that day by her nephew.  

I probably discovered it when I was eight in a caff on Taff street in Pontypridd, made using frozen mixed seafood from Makro (a glorified cash and carry for those of who aren't fortunate enough to have visited the Trefforest branch) and cheapo spaghetti, as a change from my usual ham, egg and chips.  When I was younger I always wanted the most exotic and most expensive thing on the menu  - and still do probably -  and whenever I went to an Italian restaurant this was always what I chose.  

Nowadays I like to think I'm a bit more discerning about where the seafood I eat comes from, as a lover of all things fresh and local, so I don't eat it all the time.  I adore seafood. If I lived near the sea I'd probably eat it all day everyday, and would probably turn into a giant clam.

Ahem, anyway...here's my take on linguine ai frutti di mare:

I am terrible at recipes, so I'm going to do this Elizabeth David style.  For two people, add enough linguine to a large saucepan of salted (and I mean salted) boiling water.  Meanwhile, put a couple of handfuls of scrubbed clams and muscles into a saucepan, add a glass of white wine, cover, and cook on a high heat for 3-4 minutes until they have opened, then set aside. In a frying pan, throw in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil (not extra virgin) and heat, then a chopped clove of garlic and a chopped red chilli to the pan.  Add two tablespoons of tomato puree and stir for a couple of minutes, then add the cooking liquor from the mussels and clams.  Bring to the boil and then simmer for a few minutes until reduced.  Add a handful of large uncooked prawns and some cherry tomatoes chopped in half and cook for a couple of minutes, until cooked through.  Then add the mussels and clams, and bunch of chopped parsley, and stir through.  Season with salt and pepper - I always like a lot of cracked black pepper in this dish.  Toss the seafood with the drained pasta - sometimes I add some of the pasta water if the sauce is looking a little dry.  Sprinkle on some shavings of parmesan cheese, serve with a salad, garlic bread and a glass of wine and yum yum yum.   

Food faves - The Ultimate Burger

Every so often on a Saturday afternoon, my Dad would make us burgers.  They weren't exactly a gourmet revelation; most often frozen burgers, american plastic cheese and burger baps from tesco (I had to have the ones without the sesame seeds on top because I didn't like them), but whenever my Dad suggested burgers for lunch I would go through the roof with excitement.  

My sister and I would draw up a questionnaire of vital and not-at-all pointless questions to quiz the family on how they wanted their burger.  It looked a little like the below - don't judge the crapness as it took me bloody ages.  It's actually a very accurate representation of what my handwriting looked like circa 1998: 

If you can actually read this, you'll see it's a very comprehensive set of questions.  I typically wanted everything and as much as I could get of it (although I didn't want my bun toasted and I hate cooked pineapple).  When it arrived at the table, I spread a ton more mayo on my bun, added more lettuce and carefully stacked everything neatly on top of each other - lettuce at the bottom, followed by one slice of cheese, bacon, burger, cheese on top, pineapple and tomato.  It was truly the ultimate burger.  It looked ginormous and far surpassed the size of anybody else's.  I grabbed my weapon of greatness, opened my mouth as widely as I could, and took a big bite, trying to get everything in at the same time.  Burger juice ran down my hands, the bun was crumbling apart in my fingers, and my family threw disgusted remarks at me.  It was bliss.

Years later and the ultimate burger still exists, although in a slightly more foodie-friendly form.  Burgers are of course made by hand, using a combination of steak mince, onion, egg, parsley, ketchup, pepper and oyster sauce (it doesn't draw out the moisture like salt does), and I make them as big as I can get them without getting disdainful looks from my fellow diners.  All the trimmings still exist, although the plastic cheese is usually substituted for cheddar or monterey jack, and the pineapple, bacon and lettuce (probably something peppery rather than good old iceberg) still remain.  If I have time I make my own mayo, and have been known to make my own burger buns, but if time is of the essence and I want one NOW, I have to make do with what's on hand.

Here's one of my recent efforts, complete with potato wedges.  That's a mighty fine burger. 

Back to basics 2 - Roast lamb dinner

I've never cooked a roast dinner before in the traditional sense. I've cooked roast chicken with all the trimmings (thanks to Simon Hopkinson, delicious) and pie with veg and gravy a thousand times, although in my family a Sunday Roast constituted lamb or beef, occasionally pork and never chicken, so it doesn't count in my book.  I've even cooked a Christmas dinner before, but that was in China, the meat was cooked on the BBQ and I was hammered, so I can't even remember cooking much of it.  It was apparently very nice.

Why have I never cooked a roast dinner before? Probably out of fear of not doing it as well as my nana.  Nana used to cook us a roast every Sunday, and still does whenever I go to visit. Everyone thinks their family's Sunday dinner is the best, but my nana's is definitely the best. She's cooked it so many times I think she's becoming a roast dinner.  She drinks the cabbage water after the cabbage is cooked (apparently it's very good for you), and sticks her bare hands into the oven takes her roasties while it's still 200 degrees. My nana's Sunday lunch tastes unlike any other roast I've ever eaten.  Others may shudder; the slightest hint of pink sees the meat banished back into the oven for another two hours until it's murdered, and her vegetables are cooked until all the goodness is boiled out of them, sweetened with sugar and salted with, well...salt.  Sounds gross? Well, it's not.  It's bloody lush.  

So when I came up to visit my sister last week and she asked me to make here a Sunday lunch I bloody well went for it.  I wanted to jazz it up a bit but my creative flair, or whatever there is of it, had to take a back seat, as Helen wanted it all done as Nana makes it. I couldn't even honey glaze the carrots, although I was allowed to cook the lamb as it should be - rosy pink in the middle. 

I crammed a lamb shoulder with the deliciousness it deserves, ample amounts of garlic and rosemary, and served it with home-made mint sauce, roasties, roast parsnips, carrots, peas, a yummy gravy made with the meat juices and of course, Yorkshire puddings.  I know, I know, they're meant to go with beef, but what's a roast dinner without Yorkshires? 

Chocolate fondant and ice cream for dessert and that's a damn fine lunch.

Helen tucking in

Sunday lunch plus chocolate fondant makes for a full family

Food faves - Steak Frites

Another post series here - don't know whether this is down to my anal habit to categorise things or just because this post would look a bit silly on its own.  All the dishes in this series I've cooked countless times, because I love them.  Again, they're mainly simple dishes, down purely to my love of uncomplicated good food, cooked well.  

The first dish is my ultimate favourite and unbelievably simple steak and chips.

 I remember the first time I cooked it properly.  I was living in France and absolutely in my element.  I was still clinging to Elizabeth David's 'French Provincial Cooking' and Simon Hopkinson's 'Roast Chicken and Other Stories' (is there a post where I don't mention him?! I'm obsessed!) where I took all my recipes when I wasn't cooking Japanese food.  I went to the market for two pieces of entrecôte, bought a cast iron grill pan and hung onto their every word.  I made sure it was room temperature, seasoned with black pepper, brushed with oil and lay it on to the super hot pan.  After a couple of minutes (timed to the second at the time), I turned it over, added a big knob of butter to the pan and watched as it foamed up and turned a delicious nut brown.  Another minute or two and a sprinkling of sea salt and it was done.  So easy. And just beautiful.

Over the years I've improved it and made sauces to go with it but I've never strayed too far away from the original, because I just love it is.  My Dad made us tournedos rossini once and I loved it, but have never been able to make it myself.  Once I get the steak home I just can't bring myself to do it - it's just calling for a simple sauce, a few chips and a salad.  I will get round to the bigger stuff one day when I'm all grown up I'm sure.

One of my favourite things to serve with steak is aligot, a horrendously rich and gooey and yummy mashed potato dish with tomme de cantal cheese blended into it.  One plate of that stuff and you're floored, but I'll save that for another day...

On this occasion it was good old steak frites, made with onglet on the recommendation of the butcher as I was on a budget.  A little tough but so flavourful, I see why they call it butcher always wants to keep it to himself.  Accompanied by my take on beurre Café de Paris, a green salad and homemade bread, followed by chocolate pots, it was the perfect meal.  And then we followed it with a 5 hour marathon of Come Dine With Me.  Get in.  

Back to basics 1 - cheese soufflé and vinaigrette

Okay, so I'm going to start a series of posts dedicated to simple and classic food, done well.  Each week I cook food of varying degrees of difficulty from all over the world, but there still remain a few gaping holes in my repetoire that all budding amateur cooks need to master.  These are timeless dishes that I've always wanted to know how to make.  They're not always difficult, and often use the simplest of ingredients, which is another reason I'm cooking them- my cupboards are almost always empty, save the staples.

You know the kind of thing I mean. Classics - beef bourguignon, moussaka, steak and chips, a traditional roast dinner. Beyond this are a whole whack of other components and techniques that go into making a dish - puff pastry for a steak and ale pie, meringues for your baked alaska, custard for creme brûlée.  I suppose they're the kind of thing fellow foodies ask if you've made before and you always answer 'of course, all the time!' for fear of looking stupid.  Each time I perfect one of these dishes or master a skill, I feel like I've ticked another box and am one step closer to being a good cook.  Before me lines up another list of tasks to tick off the list, always slightly more difficult than the last - beef wellington, lobster bisque, meat glaze, millefeuille, pannacotta....

First up to the plate was cheese soufflé with a green salad and vinaigrette. Appalling, I know, but I have never made a soufflé before or for that matter a vinaigrette. What can I say? In China I was too busy cooking Chinese food, in uni I was too busy experimenting and in France I spent more time in the patisserie than anything else (plus I was going through this crazy Japanese cooking phase).

I think people shy away from dishes like soufflé because of an over-dramatised fear of it collapsing, which is the culinary equivalent of having 'failure' in giant letters stamped on your face. But it really wasn't that difficult, and I don't think it should be reserved for special occasions, fancy restaurants and trips back to the 80s.  Stick to the recipe as it largely relies on precision and timing, which is not usually my bag.  I stayed safe with Delia for this one (I'm not a big fan but she knows the staples), and it worked wonderfully.  Cheesy, light and fluffy, it went brilliantly with the salad and sharp vinaigrette (note: why have I never made vinaigrette before?! I think I have to put this down to always intending on doing it, then realising I have to chop more stuff when I'm already too hungry, so just dash oil and vinegar on my lettuce - oops).  Did it rise? Well, ish.  I'll let you judge for yourself...

Welsh wonders...rarebit and a welshcake

It was St. David's Day yesterday, and what a better way to celebrate my Welsh heritage with a traditional slap up Welsh meal. 

Wales doesn't exactly evoke images of gastronomic heaven, given that our national dishes essentially comprise of cheese on toast, seaweed and fruitcake.

What goes in Wales's favour however, is our itsy bitsy size and a varied landscape: verdent, lush rolling hills (thanks to that lovely rain we all relish), lots of sea, and a bucket load of countryside which enable us to benefit from wonderfully fresh and local food.  As a result, we have a range of produce which is becoming rather well known in the UK, including (but certainly not limited to) delicious cheeses, beautiful Angelesy sea salt and the jewel in the crown, succulent, spring lamb.

I think the Welsh food board should employ me as chief marketer after that plug.

With all that in mind, what did I cook for St. David's Day when I returned home from work last night? Welsh rarebit and welshcakes.  Not exactly making the most of the amazing produce I so dutifully praised a minute ago.  To be honest it was a bit of a last minute decision, only actually realising it was St. David's day the evening before, and having to make do with the very small amount of food in our cupboards.  I'm not even sure if the cheese was Welsh!  But the thought was there, and I'll make sure I do it properly next time. 

I jazzed it up to make it a proper meal, and instead of doing the rarebit on toast, I spread it on pork, and served it with braised cabbage and mash.  I thought the pork would go well with the rarebit, especially as I used cider instead beer, and a little more mustard, making for a classic combination.  Rarebit, for those who aren't aware, is basically a white cheese sauce. 

I won't write the recipe as I attempted that and it turned out terribly! I'm terrible at recipe writing as I usually add my ingredients to taste and don't write them down, which I should.  Essentially I made the rarebit by making a roux of butter and flour in a saucepan, added cider gradually to make a smooth sauce, and then somewhere along the way chucked in mustard, worcestershire sauce, cheddar cheese, a little double cream, breadcrumbs and salt and pepper, to make a thick paste, and spread them on grilled pork chops.  It's important to make sure the paste is quite thick, hence the addition of the breadcrumbs, because otherwise it'll melt all over the damn place.  I served them with creamy mashed potato and braised savoy cabbage à la my nana with some red wine vinegar to make a very hearty and delish St. David's day meal.  I finished them with Welsh cakes and ice-cream for dessert, for which I can give you the recipe, and is by the way super easy.

Welsh Cakes
Makes 10...ish.

225g self raising flour
110g butter
1 egg
1 tsp mixed spice (or a combination of cinnamon and nutmeg, as I didn't have any)
85g caster sugar
A handful of sultanas
A little milk

-Rub the softened butter into the flour and mixed spice to make breadcrumbs, then add the sugar, egg and sultanas.  Mix together to make a dough, and add a splash of milk if a little dry.
-Role out the pastry until about 5mm think and use one of those wavy cutter things to cut into rounds.
-You'll need to have a heavy, preferably cast iron griddle pan to cook the Welsh cakes (perhaps I should have mentioned that before), if you don't have one, use a frying pan I suppose, but I've never done it that way before, so don't blame me if it messes up.  Wipe the pan with a thin layer of butter.
- Heat the pan to a medium heat and place on the Welsh cakes.  Cook for about 2-3 minutes on either side until brown, although I like mine burnt, so I leave them there a little longer.  Make sure you watch the heat as you want them to cook through evenly.
-Remove from pan and dust with caster sugar, or make a jam sandwich if you like.
-Eat them all at once and watch yourself get fat.

Playing with pancakes...

I love pancakes.

They're simple, incredibly versatile and bloody delicious, and if those three factors don't constitute good eating I don't know what does.  If you had virtually nothing in your cupboard, you would probably still have the ingredients to whip some up, comprising essentially of flour, eggs and milk.  They're insanely easy to make, and most cuisines have at least one variety of pancake, so you can eat around the world from the comfort of your sofa for no more than a few pence and a frying pan.

You can have them sweet- in the form of Scotch pancakes, fluffy American pancakes, tincy wincy and ever-so-sweet Dutch pancakes, super-thin French crêpes or in typical British sugar-and-lemon style. Or you can eat them savoury, as the wholesome buckwheat Breton galette, in Russian blini form, as the Indian rice-based dosa, steamed and stuffed with Beijing duck à la Chine or filled with meat and cheese as the central European palatschinke.

Making pancakes should certainly not be limited to pancake day.  Because they are amazing.  End of.

 
Of course, I did make pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, both sweet and savoury, but a few weeks earlier I felt peckish (as always) and couldn't wait until the day in question, so turned to my fast-becoming favourite food writer Simon Hopkinson for a pancake fix.  I'm sure this won't be the first time I mention this terribly peremptory but incredible cook, he is brilliant and I love his style.

I made his 'Harry's Bar Custard Pancakes',  a recipe taken from the famous Venetian bar and restaurant opened in the 1930s.  The dish is essentially pancakes filled with creamy, thick custard, baked in the oven and then doused in Cointreau, before being set alight.  The recipe called for 4 shots' worth of Cointreau which in retrospect might have been a bit excessive, and admittedly I'm not very good at the whole fire thing as I wuss out, but the taste of sugary, buttery pancakes filled with custard and rounded off with the bitter-sweet orangey taste of Cointreau was a fabulous combination.  I will definitely try this again, not least so I can do the flames bit properly next time. 

A few weeks later I played it safe for Shrove Tuesday with a classic ham, cheese and spinach galette, with traditional, thin crêpe style pancakes for dessert, with sugar, lemon, honey, ice cream, and all that jazz.  Galettes are one of my favourite types of pancakes, a Breton speciality made with buckwheat flour that I had on many occasion when I lived in Brittany a few years ago. 

The addition of the buckwheat flour gives the galette a great latticed pattern.  When you add the batter to the pan over a high heat, hundreds of tiny bubbles rise in the pancake and form holes which look super cool.  I was surprised by how authentic they looked, was immediately whisked back in a daydream haze to some small-town crêperie in France where I munched down galette after galette.  They have beautiful dark brown colour with a slightly sweet and wheaty, wholesome flavour. I filled the galettes with chopped ham, grated cheddar and baby spinach before shoving them in the oven for a few minutes to let the cheese melt.  Followed by masterful flipping from Dave, and a stack of pancakes for dessert....

 I think I'm gonna go make some pancakes now.  Yum.

Mouthfuls of mezze

Over the weekend I needed to book a table for lunch in Covent Garden with my lovely and dear friend JayJay.  We're both fairly fussy, I was seeking to avoid the chains and the tourist pap that can be found in those haunts,  we also wanted somewhere cheap, and good.  We settled on Souk Medina, a North African restaurant near Seven Dials.
"Yummy", I thought, "I can't wait to have Morrocan food tomorrow".
Then I decided I didn't want Moroccan food tomorrow, I wanted it today, as well as tomorrow.  So as per my annoyingly impulsive nature, I set to work straight away on making some Moroccan/Middle Eastern (there's a crossover) treats for dinner.  I don't, by the way, just sit around conjuring up what to do for dinner- as much as I would like to- it was my day off.

The mezze dishes are probably my favourite and the ones I cook the most.  North African and Middle Eastern cuisine can be so much more than this, but I'll save your boredom for another post.  Mezze is essentially the Middle Eastern version of Spanish tapas, it's snacking food, made up of little bites, food you can eat with your hands, and dips with which to dip flatbreads or pitta into. I can say with some conviction that it's the most well known style of this cuisine in the UK too, encompassing household names like falafel, dolma (stuffed vine leaves), baba ganoush and the ubiquitous hummus. 

Middle Eastern cuisine uses some of my favourite ingredients- pine nuts, raisins, chickpeas, tahini, coriander, mint, greek yoghurt, cumin, paprika...I could go on.  These ingredients are so versatile and easy to play with, if you have some or any of these lying around, you can quite successfully make something Middle Eastern in flavour.  Unfortunately, on this occasion, I had barely any ingredients but for a tin of chickpeas and the spices, so didn't create the arabian extravaganza I was imaganing, but I still managed to make the mezze staples of falafel and hummus, with some spicy meatballs with parsley, and my first attempt at pitta bread, which came out thicker than expected, but were still delish.

I've been cooking the majority of those dishes for years, and have had the recipes memorised since my first housewarming when I cooked them, but this time, I turned to the Goddess of cookery, Claudia Roden, who is one of two food godesses, the other being Elizabeth David.  I got her famed 'Middle Eastern Food' for Christmas, and absolutely love it.  The book is so well researched it's almost overwhelming at first, but that's nothing to detract from its brilliance. Like all cookbooks I treasure, there's a story behind every dish, and brilliant little insights about where they found it and what memories it evokes.  It's the kind of cookbook that makes you want to cook right now, and I can't wait to cook from more than the 'mezze and hors d'oeuvres section'. 

The meal at Seven Dials incidentally, was lush.  In authentic surroundings, the low tables and loads of cushions initially looked inviting but were in practice quite difficult to eat from, but they were fun nevertheless. Jay chose a lamb tagine with prunes and I went for couscous topped with spicy North African merguez sausage and vegetable broth.  Nothing too flashy, good flavours and delicious.   I accompanied my meal
with sweet, fresh mint tea that I couldn't get enough of.  Typically we gorged ourselves on too much of the cumin-tinted hummus and flatbread so that we could barely eat any of the main courses, which were of gigantic proportions anyway.  If anyone's in the area and especially in posession of a Taste London card, I would recommend it.

Cool quail canapés

One might wonder what all the fuss is about with the humble quail egg.  For one they're a lot more expensive than regular chicken eggs. They're also fairly similar in taste, but for a slightly more concentrated eggy flavour, and obviously, a hell of a lot smaller.

But I for one would like to make a fuss, if only for the immense power of the quail egg.  Yes, that's right, these beautifully proportioned, miniature morsels have a hidden power, and it's three-fold.  Firstly they have the ability to make any dish a hundred times cuter, and are great for adding hard boiled to a salad, and perfect for appetisers, thanks to their itsy bitsy size.  Secondly, they add a huge boost to the poshness rating of any dish (I once had them cracked raw onto steak tatare, how's that for all out queasiness and clichéd French starter?), and lastly they have the capability of making you feel like a giant whenever the mood strikes.  I also love them because they remind me of the miniature fried eggs I used to pretend-cook with in my toy kitchen. 

A few days ago I found myself with a box of quails' eggs in my possession, and had a brainwave (which very rarely happens) playing on the cutesy/appetiser/giant theme, making an English breakfast-in-a-bite.  Essentially they are towers made with fried bread, a slither of sausage, crispy bacon, and a majestic fried quails egg sitting on top.  I love the idea of piling all the components of an English breakfast altogether as they go so well, and always save a little portion of each item until the end, when I stack them all on top of each other with the fork, and then plunge it all in to the unbroken yolk, and swirl it around the plate, soaking up the juices.

The experiment, which I'm sure has been done before, worked really well, and although slightly heavier and a little less dainty than the regular canapé, at least it'll fill you up, unlike half the paltry excuses for food I see swanning around on silver trays at some events.  You could always play around by adding black pudding for that extra fat factor, or beans, if you were daring enough, or just jazz it up with pretty sprinkles of crispy bacon.  They will also be PERFECT for the participant-themed fare for my Eurovision party.  Yes. I know.  Loser.

The power of matcha (cupcakes)

There seems to be a sort of matcha craze going on at the moment. For those of you who aren't familiar with this super green stuff, matcha is a Japanese green tea made from shade grown tea leaves, which has been ground into a powder.   I only knew about it as a green tea used in desserts- to flavour ice cream, cakes and hot and cold drinks.  Artisan du Chocolat do an amazing matcha and white hot chocolate, the two flavours make an absolutely delish combination.

Unbeknownst to me, matcha does a lot more that desserts.  Apparently it's so concentrated that it contains bundles of antioxidents, nutrients and all that shiz, which can increase your metabolism (read: lose weight) and improve your mood (read: make you a super super happy person). 

I don't know whether a celebrity has been spotted sipping matcha milkshakes or some health expert has been waxing lyrical about this stuff in the latest issue of Women's Weekly, but all of a sudden matcha has risen in the popularity stakes, especially at work.  A new matcha product arrived recently, to add to our other two, and customers have been enquiring as to its powerful properties.  Of course, I didn't know about any of the health benefits, I just thought it went well in desserts.

"Yes, it's great, and has a lot more antioxidants than regular green tea", I answered one of the curious customers, while reading off the back of the packet.

"Do you feel drinking matcha makes you happy?", asked another. 
"Well I use it in cupcakes", I replied, "and cupcakes make me happy."

Green Tea Cupcakes

Makes 12

This recipe has been adapted from the Hummingbird Bakery recipe for green tea cupcakes.  Their recipe calls for 20g of matcha in the frosting, which I was a felt was a little overpowering.  It's also pretty expensive- about £10 for my 20 gram pot! I was using premium matcha though so this might have been slightly more concentrated.

4 green tea bags

130ml whole milk
120g plain flour
140g caster sugar
40g butter, at room temperature and cut into cubes
1 egg
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
pinch of salt

for the frosting-
250g icing sugar
80g butter, cut into cubes
10g matcha powder, plus extra to decorate
30ml whole milk

1. Put the green tea bags into a jug and pour over the milk.  Cover the jug and leave to infuse for a few hours or overnight if possible. 

2.  Preheat the oven to 180°C. Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a bowl and add the butter.  Using an electric whisk or wooden spoon, mix all the ingredients together until the butter is all incorporated.

3.  Take the teabags out of the milk, add the egg and vanilla extract, and beat together lightly.  Pour the egg and milk little by little into the flour and sugar mixture, then whisk for a few minutes until all incorporated and the mixture is smooth.  Don't overbeat.

4.  Once the mixture is smooth, spoon into cupcake trays lined with paper cases, and fill until about two thirds full.  Place in the oven and leave to cook for 20 minutes, or until golden brown and spongy to the touch.

5. Meanwhile, make the frosting.  Pout out the icing sugar and add the matcha powder, then add the butter and cream together until mixed in well. Add the milk and beat until the frosting is smooth, light and fluffy.  Wait until the cupcakes have completely cooled before spreading the frosting onto them. 

Enjoy!

A weekend of baking madness...

Since I've returned from China I've been baking crazy. As I've mentioned in my earlier posts, we had a pretty shitty oven in our apartment, that was essentially a grill, and I couldn't make much more than cookies or flatbread. My attempt at a victoria sponge cake ended up like this, two frisbees sandwiched together by jam and buttercream:

I also remember having to go to at least 5 or 6 shops to try and get all the ingredients, trying to find butter and icing sugar was like, well, I'm rubbish at analogies, but it was bloody difficult!

My favourite ingredient of the moment is pastry. Choux, sweet, shortcrust, puff...you name it I've been making it. I try to always have some in the freezer, so I tend to make it in batches. That way I can whip up a pie or a tart at short notice for dinner or dessert- okay, I know I sound like a right domestic wifey woman, but who doesn't want to eat treacle tart and apple pie all the time?!

Another foray into baking- delish treacle tart

So one weekend, one of my rare weekends off from work, I went a bit nuts. It was meant to be a trial run for the Christmas gifts I was making for people (I went complete domestic goddess this Christmas and made presents, mainly because we couldn't afford to buy any), but kinda spiralled out of control. Ironically, and this is always the way, the practice gifts I made worked much better the real gifts that I actually gave to people. Why is that?! Whenever I make something for the first time, it always seems to come out surprisingly well, but the next time I do it, it never turns out as good as the first time. Grr! Anyway, I'm babbling. Here's what I made. By the end of the weekend it was safe to say that Dave was full to bursting and I had a lot of work to do on the Wii fit.

As well as shortcrust pastry, a mandarin cheesecake and some cheese straws, I made...

Pesto - for Saturday's pesto pasta

Puff pastry-

Chicken and green bean pie - using some of the homemade pastry!

Caramelised red onion chutney-

Ring doughnuts and sea salted caramel shortbread -

...and a gingerbread house

And the finished product for Christmas...which, although twice the size and complete with candy canes (which were a bugger to make!) and gingerbread people, still didn't turn out as well as the first one...