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!