The Red Mangetout

Wednesday Night Pizza

2010-04-23T18:04:00.000+01:00

One of the things I dread most is a dinner rota. It's Tuesday, it must be spaghetti. Thursday night is curry. And Sunday? Sunday is the dreaded roast dinner, with the same meat and vegetables as we cooked badly last week.

Individually, there's nothing wrong with any of these for dinner. The banality comes from the inevitably of the same seven dishes wheeled out each week, rather than the food. Back in catered halls, I was initially impressed with the variety and quality of the menus. It was only after a few months when vegetable bake rolled round yet again that I began to dismay.

We didn't have a full rota when I was child, but there were some days that had dinner assigned. Saturday would be fajitas (My father eats everything with a knife and fork, even fajitas. He would go out on Saturday nights so we would take the opportunity to eat with our hands.) The horror of the Sunday roast, followed by a light dinner of taramasalata and pitta bread.*

I looked forward to Wednesday though. Wednesday was pizza night. My dad always cooked on pizza night, using a slab of stone to get extra heat in the oven, and gently pushing the dough to fill the pizza trays. I'd help make the tomato sauce, or mix the dough. I'd be first to volunteer for cutting up the kabanos, sneaking the end slices in to my mouth when I thought no one was looking.

Pizza with peppers, kabanos, olives, mushroom & an egg.

This recipe is far from authentic. It features the aforementioned kabanos (usually we'd buy it from the Polski Sklep, but in this part of Scotland I have to make do with ambient kabanos. Nice.) and a tinned tomato sauce. I'm sure most Italians would probably laugh in disgust. It's invented by a man who hadn't tasted pizza until his late twenties, and garnished with whatever leftovers can be scavenged from the salad drawer.

Ambient Kabanos. Next week - trance wiejska

*looking back, I realise this is quite a weird thing to have for dinner once a week for around 10 years.

Wednesday Night Pizza
Serves 2

Dough
175g plain flour
pinch of sugar and salt
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp dried yeast

1) Place all the ingredients in a bowl, and add a splash of warm water.
2) Mix until a smooth dough is formed - you may need to add more water.
3) Knead for around 5 minutes until soft and supple. Place in a oiled bowl, then cover with a damp cloth. Leave to rise for at least 30 mins.

Tomato Sauce
1 small onion
1 clove of garlic
1 tsp anchovy paste
1 tbsp tomato puree
1 can of chopped tomatoes
Sprinkle of dried oregano
Salt and pepper

1) Chop the onion and garlic as finely as you can. Gently fry them for 5 minutes, until soft but not coloured.
2) Add in the anchovy paste and tomato puree. Cook for 1 minute.
3) Pour in the chopped tomatoes, oregano and season.
4) Bring the pan to a gently simmer, and stir occasionally.
5) The sauce is ready once it's very thick and the chunks of tomato are almost totally broken down. Dragging a spoon through the pan should leave a clean line. This usually takes around 20 mins.

Thick tomato sauce

Toppings
I like kabanos, peppers, anchovies, capers, fresh egg, olives, mushrooms and mozzarella. Not necessarily all at once.

Assembly
1) Preheat the oven to the highest setting.
2) Gently stretch the pizza dough over an oiled baking sheet*. You'll need to prod and poke it in to place. Make it slightly bigger as it will shrink a little as you put the toppings on.
3) Spread a thin layer of sauce on the dough, and add your toppings.
4) Blast in the hot oven for 8-10 minutes.
*If you are really clever, you can stretch the dough on to a floured plate, and slide it directly on to a scorching hot baking sheet. This makes for a crispy crust, but runs the risk of your pizza disintegrating in to a heap.

Rhubarb & Ginger Ice Cream Tart

2010-04-05T15:25:00.000+01:00

I wanted to make something with rhubarb and ginger, and I was feeling inspired by the DB tian last month. I still had some of the pastry discs leftover (they keep really well), so I decided to make something a bit similar.

I stewed a little rhubarb, and then stacked this with plain ice cream (not vanilla, plain. It's amazing.) stem ginger and one of the pate sablee discs.

Rhubarb & Ginger Ice Cream Tart

It wasn't the prettiest dish, but it was so tasty. I loved the texture of the crispy pastry against the soft the ice cream and rhubarb. The spiciness of the ginger balanced nicely with the ice cream, and the tartness of the rhubarb.

None left

Easter Cake

2010-04-01T19:13:00.005+01:00

Having not one but two wedding cakes to make in the foreseeable future, I thought I should probably learn how to deal with fondant or royal icing. We were also visiting T's parents for Easter weekend, so I took the opportunity to make a bigger cake than I would normally and palm some of it off on them.

I started with the Simnel cake in from the April edition of Delicious. I didn't read it through before baking it, so I didn't realise you had to bake a layer of marzipan in to the cake. I didn't have any marzipan, and I don't like the stuff, so I skipped this step. I thought this might make the cake a bit dry, so I soaked the cake in marsala, lemon juice and sugar syrup before icing it.

I initially planned to do royal icing, but life got in the way and I ran out of time to do the icing in stages. Each stage has to be left 24 hours to dry, and I only had one afternoon. I went for fondant instead.

Trusty old Leith's came out. Syrup was boiled to the soft ball stage, then kneaded on the worktop with a spatula. It then stuck to the worktop, and made such a pathetically small ball of icing when I did prize it away that I gave up and binned it. Then I spent 15 minutes chipping the remaining sugar off the worktop with a knife. On the plus side, they played "Sit Down"by James on the radio and I still know all the words. That makes me feel very old indeed.

I decided to give another recipe a go before giving up and buying ready-made icing. This was much more successful; soon I had a rather large ball of sugar paste, and a kitchen covered in icing sugar. It took me several attempts to roll the icing out large enough to cover the cake, as it kept sticking. I only used icing sugar, but with hindsight I should have used some cornflour too to make it stick less.

Once I'd done the cake, I smoothed off any bumpy bits and tears with wet fingers and a paring knife. Classy.

I dyed the remaining icing into several colours to decorate the cake with, and went crazy with some miniature cutters I was given at Christmas.

Fondant confetti shapes

They were still a bit dusty at this point from the cornflour, but I'll brush that off later when it's hardened.

Fondant chick

I had loads of icing left over so I tried to make a hatching chick. The egg part fell to pieces but the chick survived.

Easter Confetti Cake

Given that this is my first time making this type of icing, as well as my first attempt to cover and decorate a cake, I feel quite chuffed. The surface isn't entirely flat, and the shapes aren't uniformly spaced, but it looks like vaguely good.

Fondant Icing
Makes enough to cover & decorate a large cake.

450g icing sugar
50g glucose
1 large egg white
flavours and colours
cornflour for dusting

1) Put the icing sugar in a bowl, sieving it if it's very lumpy. Make a well in the centre.
2) Add in the egg white, glucose and any flavourings and colours you want to use (such as lemon, orange flower, peppermint etc).
3) Knead the mix in to a smooth dough.
4) Dust a large surface with icing sugar and cornflour, and roll the icing to the desired shapes.

TIPS
- You can use the white icing to cover a cake, and then colour and flavour the offcuts to use as decorations.
- A drop of blue colouring makes white icing seem even whiter.
- Keep the icing in an airtight bag or covered with a damp cloth when you are not using it - it dries out quickly.
- If it does start drying out, add a drop of egg white or water to the paste to make it more malleable.

Orange Tian - March Daring Bakers

2010-03-26T22:53:00.006Z

This month's challenge almost totally passed me by, and it was only last week I remembered I had to do it!

The 2010 March Daring Baker’s challenge was hosted by Jennifer of Chocolate Shavings. She chose Orange Tian as the challenge for this month, a dessert based on a recipe from Alain Ducasse’s Cooking School in Paris.

Again, I didn't feel very inspired by this recipe. As a child, I always thought my Dad was strange for not liking creamy desserts, but in the last few years I've started to agree with him. Whipped cream in particular sets my teeth on edge. (I still love clotted cream though, no worries there.) This particular challenge contained a rather large whipped cream element.

Anyway, on I ploughed. The whole point of Daring Baking is to try something you wouldn't otherwise. First up was the pate sablee. This is basically an enriched shortbread, so it forms a very crumbly, crispy pastry when baked. This came together pretty easily, although I had to chill it for over an hour before it was strong enough to work with. As I only wanted to make a couple of tians at most, I halved the recipe, cut out 4 large circles and cut out several smaller circles to make petit fours with. As soon the pastry came out of the oven, I recut it with the plating ring to ensure it was the right size and hadn't spread too much.

Pate Sablee: tian discs at back, petit four discs at front.

We had to make marmalade to use as a layer. I'd already made some Seville marmalade earlier in the year, so I melted some of this down with extra sugar and juice to create a slightly sweeter version that was more suitable for the dessert.

Sweetened Seville Marmalade

Next was the caramel. I have yet to make a successful caramel. Although this one didn't burn, it was way too runny, and was a little bitter. One day, I will conquer caramel. Not today though.

The bit of this challenge that I found most useful was learning how to segment an orange before. A video showing how was posted, and after watching AWT mumble away I managed to do a pretty good job. This is actually quite a useful skill for me, as I love oranges but often avoid them as I hate the pith. (Weirdly, my favourite dessert as a child was orange segments with Cointreau cream. My Mum thought this was ok but watching ITV wasn't. She obviously stopped reading the parenting book before the booze chapter.)

Finally the dreaded whipped cream. Gelatine was added, along with some sugar to stabilise the cream. I didn't find the cream much different, except now the texture was gluey as well as foamy. Ick. We were meant to fold in some of the marmalade at this point, but I opted for a shot of Cointreau instead. If anything was going to make whipped cream with ground up beef bones better, it would be booze.

Orange Tian

The final stage was assembling the dessert. Orange segments went on the bottom, then cream, then a pastry disc spread with marmalade. The whole thing went in the freezer for 10 minutes to harden up a little. Once inverted on to a plate, a little caramel sauce was drizzled over the top.

The final verdict was mixed. I loved the orange segments, and the crispy pastry was a nice contrast to the rest of the dessert. It was let down by the slight bitterness of the caramel and the sickly cream; I ended up being glad that I'd only made one. In future, I'd replace the whipped cream with Cointreau ice cream, or a thin layer of clotted cream. I like the tian idea for desserts in general, and it was quite fun assembling it upside down.

You can see the full recipe here.

Indulgent Chocolate Mousse

2010-03-26T16:26:00.005Z

Part of the reason I find myself flipping through Leith's quite so often is that it's great for basic recipes. It's Delia for people who know how to boil an egg. After a batch of meringues left me with several egg yolks, I sought out a recipe for a classic chocolate mousse.

Rich chocolate mousse - unfortunately I ate it before I could photograph the bubbles.

The 'classic' recipe used whole eggs, so I opted for the 'rich' version instead. It was pretty simple to make, although as usual, me and boiling sugar do not get on. The recipe calls for the sugar syrup to be boiled to short thread stage. The suggested way of testing this is to dip your fingers in the sugar and see if a short thread is formed. I didn't fancy putting my hand in boiling sugar (I have definitely been there and done that) so I got the ancient sugar thermometer out instead. Annoyingly, while 'crack' and 'softball' were marked, short thread was not.

I figured that if Prue Leith was telling me to stick my hand in boiling sugar, it can't be that hot. I boiled it to around 80C, although finding the sugar syrup table in the book later (why is it not indexed?) I found out that short thread stage is actually 108.3C. So there.

This probably explains why my mousses were a bit denser than I'd expected, as the syrup and egg yolks didn't fluff up as much as the book said they would. They were still pretty damn tasty, and I filled 5 ramekins with a gloriously thick chocolate goo. I used very dark chocolate, and I think in recipes like this, it is a travesty not to. The chocolate gets watered down with cream and sugar during the process of the recipe, so using a milky chocolate to start with will just dilute it even further. You'll basically have a homeopathic chocolate mousse, and that's not going to cure any ills.

With hindsight, I think it might have been nice to swirl a bit of raspberry puree through as well. It is very rich, so a bit of fruitiness would balance that well.

Rich Chocolate Mousse (Adapted from Leith's Cookery Bible)

Makes 4-6 depending on ramekin size

70g granulated sugar
110ml water
3 egg yolks
170g very dark chocolate
300ml double cream

1) Heat the sugar and water in a small saucepan gently. Heat until it reaches the short thread stage (a thread of about 1cm between a wet thumb and finger, or 108C/227F). Leave to cool slightly.
2) Give the egg yolks a quick whisk in a large bowl to combine them. Slowly pour in the cooled syrup, whisking all the time. Continue until the mixture is thick and bubbly.
3) Melt the chocolate in a microwave or bain marie. Fold the melted chocolate in to the eggs.
4) In a separate bowl, whip the cream until it forms soft peaks. Gently fold this in to the mousse mixture.
5) Pour the mixture in to ramekins (maybe layer with some raspeberry puree at this point) and leave to set in the fridge for 4 hours.

Black and White Shortbread

2010-03-24T14:33:00.000Z

I have been shying away from some of the more frivolous cookbooks in my collection, and find myself returning again and again to the Leith's Cookery Bible. I quite like the way pages upon pages of it are filled with French sounding dishes I've never even heard of. The first chapters give advice on how to cater a buffet for 80 people and the basics of food hygiene. There are few pictures, and they are mostly pretty useless for the basic home cook - 3 ways to present apple flans?

Black & White Shortbread

I had a craving for shortbread, and I had some chocolate left over from the stall that needed using up. I love making shortbread, as it uses very standard store-cupboard ingredients. It's ideal for late night baking sprees when you can't be bothered to go to the shop. It's also easily jazzed up by whatever ingredients you have lying around (I'm quite a fan of citrus and herbs).

Two-tone Shortbread

As the chocolate helps seal in the moisture, these keep really well. Be careful not to leave them in a warm place, as the chocolate will melt. While this won't affect the taste, they might become a bit blotchy looking. The rice flour helps to keep the texture really "short", but if you don't have any, you can substitute it for more plain flour.

Black & White Shortbread (adapted from Leith's Cookery Bible)
Makes about 8

110g butter
55g caster sugar
110g plain flour
55g rice flour
100g white chocolate
100g dark chocolate

1) Preheat the oven to 170C.
2) Thoroughly mix the sugar and butter together.
3) Add the flour, and gently knead to make a smooth dough.
4) Roll out the dough on a floured surface, to about 5mm thick.
5) Use a biscuit cutter to cut out large circles. Reroll the scraps until you have 8 biscuits.
6) Put the biscuits on a tray, and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.
7) Bake in the oven for 20 minutes. They should be starting to turn golden.
8) Cool on a rack.
9) Melt the white chocolate in a small pot. Use a pot that the biscuits will only just fit in to, as you want it to be as deep as possible.
10) Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper. Dip the biscuits halfway in the white chocolate, and place them on the paper to cool. Put the tray in the fridge if your kitchen is warm.
11) Once the white chocolate has hardened, repeat steps 9 & 10 with the dark chocolate.

Australia Highlights

2010-03-20T17:48:00.003Z

The worst part about holidays is when you have to come back. After several flights, 47 hours without sleep, and a rather large duty free bag full of TimTams, we arrived back to a rather cold and gray Edinburgh. Without the motivation of sunshine and new cities to explore, I have been rather slow to readjust my body-clock. I've never really been one for the solo lunch extravaganza, so I've found myself passing through the days on nothing but bananas, toast and the occasional bowl of soup.

Evenings haven't been much better. If I'm tired I revert back to my past narrow eating habits, endlessly flicking through magazines and cookbooks in the vain hope that something will inspire me. It does not. I am ashamed to admit our dinners over the past few weeks have been pretty dire, as I have lost all focus in the kitchen. I want to cook, but I have no desire to eat, let alone photograph and blog about such uninspiring food.

Hopefully my mojo should return soon, and I shall return to more frequent blogging. For the moment, here are some photos from the trip.
We had breakfast at the Sydney Opera House. A seagull ate the leftovers.

Macarons from Adriano Zumbo. His shop was amazing, with some fantastic, wittily named creations. We found the macarons a bit hit and miss - the black sesame; coconut and pineapple; and forest fruits with pink pepper were delicious. The cherry and banana was synthetic tasting, and the lemon verbena with mint was way too vegetal.

The vanilla heart was our favourite, and I was impressed at how accurate the piping had to be to make hundreds of identical hearts to sandwich together.

Melbourne was my favourite city. I loved the lanes and we were lucky enough to stumble across Gill's Diner. Here we had what was easily the best meal of the trip. I had a rabbit pastilla, which was bursting with spiced meat and surprisingly juicy chunks of dried apricot. It was accompanied by black sesame crusted labneh and peppery salad leaves. T had chicken 'Three Ways' - a dainty breaded drumstick, a roasted breast and a chicken sausage. We finished off with a plate of crispy churros with a chilli chocolate dipping sauce. The waiters were lovely, and kindly fitted us in even though the place was packed and we didn't have a booking. It was all very relaxed, with the menu written on a blackboard and large communal tables. I'd love to find a restaurant like this in Edinburgh.

Another delight we found among Melbourne's lanes was Koko Black, a chocolate shop with a few branches around Victoria. We had a Chocolate Spoil in the cafe, featuring chocolate cake, chocolate shortbread, raspberry and cognac truffles (pictured above), chocolate mousse, chocolate ice cream and 2 hot chocolates. The chocolate mousse and ice cream didn't last long, as they were particularly delicious. I was totally chocolated out by the end though.

Onion Soup with Cheddar Croutons

2010-03-10T15:19:00.004Z

Up to the age of about 15, I was a bit of a fussy eater. I would often decide what to eat in restaurant by ruling out all the dishes that contained things I didn't like, leaving a choice of only one or two dishes. I got away with being fussy, because I was comparatively normal compared to my siblings. At least I ordered something from the menu. My brother would just demand new creations. Pizza Express was the restaurant of choice as they would happily make a pizza with no tomato, extra ham and extra cheese. I always ordered Mushroom or La Reine. ALWAYS.

Eventually I got bored of this and started eating like a normal person. I even went to the other extreme, picking the thing on the menu that I thought I would least like, just to get over the fussiness. I knew I'd conquered it the day I ordered a Four Seasons pizza (Olives! Capers! ANCHOVIES!)

However, the one fussiness that I couldn't seem to shake was cheese. Mozzarella, cream cheese and Boursin were the only cheeses I'd eat, and only then when combined with other ingredients, preferably strong enough to mask the flavour of the cheese. I remember a family holiday in France, where a particularly insistent waitress asked if I wanted to share a cheeseboard with my parents. No amount of reasoning in English would dissuade her, but a firm "Je deteste le fromage" got the message through. On a field trip at uni we were served macaroni cheese, and just the smell of it made me want to heave.

Onion Soup with Cheese Crouton

I still want to get over my dislike of cheese. I'm slowly getting there. I'm usually fine with cheddars, brie and mild goats cheese. Parmesan and blue cheese still freak me out, but maybe one day I'll get there.

I thought onion soup and cheesy croutons would be a good way to introduce cheese into my diet. I went with a recipe from "Roast Chicken and Other Stories" by Simon Hopkinson, even though I was initially skeptical of pureeing the soup and adding cream. I really liked the tanginess of the vinegar and the wine, and a crouton added interest to the otherwise boringly silky texture.

Smooth Soup and Crunchy Crouton

Onion Soup (from "Roast Chicken and Other Stories")
Makes 4 portions

3 large onions
110g butter
50ml white wine vinegar
250ml dry white wine
600ml chicken stock
300ml double cream

1) Chop the onions into fairly small pieces. Sweat them in the melted butter with salt and pepper in a covered saucepan on a very low heat. After about an hour, they should be very soft and mushy but not coloured.
2) Add in the vinegar, and simmer until it is almost completely evaporated.
3) Add the wine, and reduce by two thirds.
4) Now add the chicken stock. Bring the soup to a simmer and cook gently for 30 minutes.
5) Puree the soup, and return to the heat. Stir in the cream, and reheat the soup, but do not boil. Check the seasoning and serve with a toasted cheese crouton (or 4).

Tiramisu - Daring Baker's February Challenge

2010-02-27T10:24:00.003Z

Another month, another challenge!

The February 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen and Deeba of Passionate About Baking. They chose Tiramisu as the challenge for the month. Their challenge recipe is based on recipes from The Washington Post, Cordon Bleu at Home and Baking Obsession.

I can't say I was overly thrilled by this month's challenge. I'm not a major fan of tiramisu (or Italian food in general. Shock Horror.) and the baking element was rather minimal. I did enjoy making the pastry cream though.

First up, the ladyfinger biscuits. This step was pretty straightforward, although my batter didn't make as many biscuits as the recipe said it would. I was really impressed with how professional the biscuits looked (if you squinted a bit and ignored the wonky bits). So impressed, I forgot to take any pictures.

Next I made the mascarpone cheese. This was an absolute nightmare. I heated cream in a double boiler, trying to get it to 88C. It got to about 70C and stopped. Long slow heating of cream makes clotted cream, and I could see the yellowy crust forming on my cream. I love clotted cream, but this was not the right occasion! The recipe said I would see small bubbles forming as the cream reached just below simmering point. Instead, the cream suddenly thickened and went very very stiff. I added the lemon juice just in case the process was still salvageable. There was no curdling, and I couldn't see any whey in the mixture. I strained the cream in cheesecloth. After leaving it overnight, there were two drops of whey underneath the cloth, and the cream was as solid as butter. It tasted like mascarpone, but the texture was too firm. I left it out to soften at room temperature.

Tiramisu

The zabaglione was next on the list of components. This thickened up nicely, although the lemon zest made it look lumpy even when it wasn't. I would have added the lemon at the end to give flavour but without making the texture so lumpy.

Moving on, it was time for the pastry cream. I'd made this once before for chocolate eclairs, and it had been a bit of a disaster. I was determined to get it right this time, and kept the heat so low that it took ages to thicken up and cook. It came out really well and I finally felt like something in this recipe challenge had gone right!

Finally, I made up the sweetened whipped cream, and assembled the tiramisu. The recipe said you needed a pint of coffee. I used about a quarter of that to soak the ladyfingers. I have absolutely no idea who is getting half a litre of coffee in to 25 sponge biscuits. The recipe said to use an 8inch square dish. Mine was 8.5 inches, so I thought it would be fine. After putting a few of the biscuits down in the first layer, I realised I'd be lucky to fill half the dish.

Finished Tiramisu

It tasted pretty good, and it was so rich that even though I'd only made a half size portion, I still got 6 platefuls out of it. I served it up to T's parents, who were in raptures over it, and were ridiculously impressed when T told them I made the ladyfingers and the mascarpone.

(As a side note, the next morning I was ill, and the sight of that tiramisu in the fridge turned my stomach so much I hid it in the freezer. Even typing this now is given me memories of nausea, so I think that it will sit in the freezer until I give in and throw it away. It's not bad, it just has negative connotations now.)

I didn't rate the recipe at all. Every stage seemed inaccurate or poorly explained, and the quantities were either too large or too small. So for that reason, I'm not going to link to it or write it out here. Hopefully next month's challenge will be a bit more inspiring!

On the plus side, I now have a bottle of marsala to swig every time the ironing gets too much.

Salted Caramel Macarons

2010-02-22T12:42:00.000Z

My first three attempts at macarons were pretty disastrous. Even looking back at the photos is making me cringe at how bad they were! My first go at a recipe from the Ottolenghi cookbook also entered into the "FAIL" category. I saw a few other blogs having success with the Ottolenghi macaron recipes, so I decided to remedy two fails with one baking session.

I had some egg whites already aging in the fridge, but I enjoyed weighing out 60g of them. I love doing everything by weight, mainly because I can't be bothered to get jugs and spoons out and create extra washing up. I don't know how Americans cope with cups. Have you ever tried scraping out peanut butter from the corners of a measuring cup so you can use it to scoop out another ingredient? It's lame. Buy a scale! Then you can just dump everything in one bowl!

A major problem with my last bunch of macarons was the lumpy mixture. They tasted ok, but macarons are meant to look a little bit pretty too. I don't have a food processor, so I gave the ground almonds and some of the icing sugar a bit of a bash around in a pestle and mortar before sifting them through a fine sieve.

I was also more confident about what the batter was meant to look like. It should be sturdy enough to pipe without running in to one big puddle, but soft enough that it will smooth down in to domes when left. After very carefully folding the sugar and almonds in to the whipped egg whites, it was obvious that the mixture was too stiff, so I got to give it a couple of good beats to get it down to a softer consistency.

After I'd piped all the macarons and topped them with some chopped peanuts, they sat by the radiator for a bit to form a skin while the oven preheated. In they went for 8 minutes, when I checked them to see if they were browning too fast.

Salted caramel and peanut macarons

YAY! While they were still underdone, every single macaron had a smooth topped dome, and some impressive looking feet. Another 4 minutes in the oven had the shells nicely starting to brown, and me dancing around the kitchen in triumph.

Finally with feet and smoothness!

Although I think that cooking is about making something that tastes good, there is always an element of presentation that I've struggled with. I don't have the patience to spend hours making things look perfect when all I want to do is eat them! So although my macarons had good feet and smooth tops, some of them were more ovoid that circular, so not a complete success, but good enough for me.

Once the shells were cool, I sandwiched them together with dulce de leche spiked with crushed peanuts and sea salt. I should have chopped the peanuts smaller and thickened the caramel more, as it was a bit oozy, and some of the larger peanuts made the macarons sit wonkily.

The smell when I opened the tin I'd stored them in was amazing, although I was a little disappointed that the peanut flavour wasn't that strong when it came time to taste them. However, after leaving them for 48 hours the flavours intensified, but the macarons lost a bit of their crunchiness. I would probably use more peanut next time to get the flavour and the texture.

The recipe is copied out here for your delectation.

Spiced Apple Compote with Buttermilk Pancakes

2010-02-17T11:17:00.002Z

I am possibly the least sporty person ever, and I can name the sporting events I follow on one hand: The Boat Race and the Winter Olympics. (I don't think Dancing on Ice counts as a sporting event.) I've been to a rugby game at Murrayfield a couple of times, but I just don't get sport.

I attempted to stay up for the opening ceremony of this year's games in Vancouver, but there was no way I was going to make it. So instead, I decided to watch the highlights while tucking in to a Canadian themed breakfast.

Buttermilk makes all things better and pancakes are no exception. That magical acidity reacts with the heat, flour and eggs to get things really light and fluffy. Buttermilk is traditionally the leftover liquid from churning cream in to butter, but most stuff you can buy on the high street is made by adding bacterial cultures to milk. You should be able to get buttermilk at any large supermarket, farm shops, delicatessens or healthfood stores. However, if you can't find it, you can substitute it for milk soured by 1 tablespoon of lemon juice or white vinegar per 250ml of milk. I've also subbed plain yogurt diluted with milk to a thick pouring consistency, with similar results.

Buttermilk Pancakes with Spiced Apple Compote

Normally I'd want these pancakes with berries and yogurt, but fresh berries just don't seem right in February. Instead I made simple spiced apple compote to go with my pancakes. The spices give it a warmth, and I used vanilla sugar to give the apples a bit of extra oomph.

Spiced Apple Compote
Serves 2

2 eating apples
A good lump of butter
2tsp cinnamon
0.5tsp cloves
4tbsp vanilla sugar (alternatively use caster sugar and a dash of vanilla extract)

1) Melt the butter in a saucepan over a low heat, and peel, core and roughly chop the apples.
2) Add the apples to the melted butter, along with the spices and sugar. Stir everything up, and cover with a lid.
3) Gently cook the apples for around 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. The butter should start to brown, and the apples will be soft enough to cut with a spoon, but still retain their shape.

Spiced Apple Compote

Canadian Buttermilk Pancakes Makes about 12 medium pancakes

150g plain flour
130ml buttermilk
0.5tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
3 eggs

1) Sieve the flour, baking powder and salt in to a large bowl, and make a well in the middle.
2) Dilute the buttermilk with 75ml water and pour this in to the well. Gently whisk in to the flour.
3) Add the eggs one by one, whisking until you have a thickish smooth batter.
4) Heat a large non-stick frying pan on a medium high heat, and coat with vegetable oil or butter.
5) Pour a small ladleful of batter into the pan, and cook for around 1 minute on each side. The pancake should puff up and be nicely browned.
6) Serve immediately.

Goat's Cheese & Onion Tartlets

2010-02-13T11:42:00.005Z

I've been doing a cake stall in the evenings at a late night shopping event, and have found the savoury items go down just as well as the sweet. Although I love the bacon scones, I wanted something vegetarian too.

Goat's cheese seemed like a good idea, as did caramelised onions. I couldn't find a recipe I liked, so I winged it a bit. I thought this was one of the simplest recipes I make for the stall, although having typed it all out, it begins to seem quite complex! There are quite a few steps, but they can be done in stages over several hours.

Goat's Cheese & Onion Tartlets

I think they taste nicest served fresh out the oven, but they've had good feedback on the stall when I've been serving them at room temperature. They also keep well and will happily be reheated.

Goat's Cheese & Caramelised Onion Tartlets
Makes about 24

170g plain flour
55g butter
30g lard (use vegetable lard if making this vegetarian)
2 onions
150g goat's cheese
A little olive oil
Salt & Pepper to season

1) Begin with the pastry. Rub the butter and lard in to the flour along with a pinch of salt, until the mixture looks like coarse breadcrumbs.
2) Add in 2-3 tablespoons of cold water, and gently mix to form a dough. You may need to add a bit more water, but the pastry dough should be quite flaky and dry.
3) Wrap the pastry in clingfilm, and chill it in the fridge for at least 2 hours. Overnight is better.
4) Once the pastry is suitably relaxed, flour your work surface, and preheat the oven to 180C.
5) Roll out the pastry to about 3-4mm thick. You might need to knead it a little before it rolls properly.
6) Using a large biscuit cutter, cut out circles of pastry. Gently push these into a non-stick muffin tin, to form the tartlet cases. Reroll any scraps until you have 24 cases. (If the kitchen is warm, or the dough is getting too soft, chill the formed shells in the fridge for 30 mins or so.)
7) Place a small square of foil or greaseproof paper over each tartlet shell, and fill it with baking beans. Bake it blind for 7 minutes, remove the beans, and bake for a further 5 minutes. Remove the shells from the tin and cool on a rack.
8) Meanwhile, finely chop up the 2 onions. Cook them with some salt and pepper in a covered pan on a very low heat for about 30 minutes. Stir occasionally.
9) Once the onions are cooked, put 1 tablespoon of onion in to each tartlet shell. Thinly slice the goat's cheese and top off each tartlet with a slice of cheese and a sprinkle of black pepper.
10) Put all the tartlets on a tray, and bake for a further 15 minutes at 180C.

Banana & Peanut Butter Smoothie

2010-02-02T12:31:00.000Z

Like a lot of food bloggers (and certainly a lot of Scots) I like to start my day with a pint. Luckily for my liver, it's usually a pint of banana and peanut smoothie.

Bananas are probably one of my few textural phobias. I don't mind when they are ripe, but if they are over or under ripe they set my teeth on edge. Just thinking about that starchy mushy stuff is making me shudder.

Despite this, I can't bear to throw them out, and there's only so much banana bread you can make. Instead, I blend them up with milk and peanut butter to make a rather delicious smoothie. (Prepare yourself for some of the dullest photos I have ever published.)

Banana & Peanut Butter Smoothie

While this is a bit of a fatty combo, it does make for a pretty healthy start for the day. The banana is one of the 5 a day, plus it's a great source of potassium. The peanut butter has lots of vitamins and minerals, including selenium. One of the few interesting facts I still remember from my dissertation is that low selenium consumption in a population can be linked to the prevalence of HIV within that population. As I am not really a big consumer of dairy products, I also like having the milk in there, it's probably the only calcium I get.

The banana's sweetness really comes out in this drink, but it's balanced by the saltiness of the peanut butter. Putting it through the blender makes it very foamy, which adds a creamy richness that shouldn't really be there with semi-skimmed.

Mmm, foamy.

Banana & Peanut Butter Smoothie
Makes 1 pint/550ml

1 banana
1 generous tbsp of smooth peanut butter
350ml milk

Put everything in a blender and mix thoroughly.

For an extra twist, add ice cubes or chop and freeze the banana before blending.

Chocolate Brownies with Chestnuts & Figs

2010-01-29T00:05:00.001Z

The only cookbook I got for Christmas was Ottolenghi. This was good, as my cookbook shelf is full, and I didn't want the usual semi-novelty cookbooks I usually seem to receive ('101 Biscuit Recipes' anyone?)

I had a packet of chestnuts in the cupboard leftover, so I decided to make Khalid's Chestnut & Chocolate Bars.

The digestive base was easy enough, and the chocolate mix for the top was also very simple, with the most strenuous part being chopping a large pile of chestnuts, figs and white chocolate. It went in the oven, and came out very, very, very wobbly. So it went back in the oven for another 10 minutes and was still wobbly. The recipe said it wouldn't be totally cooked, but I didn't expect it to basically look the same as when it went in. I put it in the fridge to see if that would harden it up. Maybe the chocolate would set solid.

A few hours later, it was still way too wobbly. I tried to turn it out of the tin (luckily I'd used a silicone one) but it was obviously going to end in disaster. I gave it another 10 minutes in the oven, but it was STILL wobbly! I shoved it back in the fridge as I was not in the mood to deal with a massive pile of fail goo at that moment.

The next day I was immersed in the domestic bliss that is the life of the self/un-employed. After warming up with bouts of bed making, laundry and sweeping, I decided to deal with the fail. I thought I might spoon some over ice cream and bin the rest.

It had set! I was not expecting that at all. A bit of a push and it popped out of the tin in one lovely firm lump, and sliced up with a crisp finish that is just so satisfying.

After all the abuse I'd put it through, I wondered whether it would taste any good. The chocolate mix was flourless, so although it was firmer than it should have been, it was still moist, almost like a giant truffle. The chestnut and the figs were there, but weren't as overpowering as I'd worried they might be, but not really that flavourful either.

Chestnut & Fig Brownie Bars

I guess I'll have to give this another go before I reject the recipe altogether, but I wasn't that impressed. It was just digestives with a eggy ganache on top, with no stand out flavours or textures. Not offensive, but just not that amazing either.

January Daring Bakers - Nanaimo Bars

2010-01-27T11:28:00.005Z

The January 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lauren of Celiac Teen. Lauren chose Gluten-Free Graham Wafers and Nanaimo Bars as the challenge for the month. The sources she based her recipe on are 101 Cookbooks and www.nanaimo.ca.

I first discovered Nanaimo Bars while driving round the Canadian Rockies. I left mine in the car while checking out a lake, and it melted. When we got to Peyto lake, I buried it in some snow, and by the time I returned to the car, it was solidified again. Woo!

As well as being excited to make Nanaimo bars, I was also interested in gluten free Graham crackers. I've had a lot of requests for GF stuff on the stall, and I wanted to know what Graham crackers tasted like.

I couldn't find sorghum flour anywhere, and internet searches revealed that UK sorghum is rarely truly gluten free. Instead, I used more white rice flour to replace it.

The Graham crackers were otherwise uneventful. As mentioned in the recipe, the dough is very sticky and soft, and quite hard to work with. Despite flouring the surface loads, only 2 or 3 crackers out of each attempt were sturdy enough to make it off the worktop and on to the baking tray. Patience and a lot of re-rolling was necessary.

Graham Crackers

I didn't really like the taste. The honey flavour was a bit sickly, although the texture was very similar to digestives, which are often cited as the nearest thing the UK has to Graham crackers. I ground up the rest to use in the base of the Nanaimo bars.

I pretty much followed the recipe, except for the coconut. I failed to measure how much was left in the packet before writing the shopping list, so I only had half the amount needed. To make up for the missing coconut, I added in some oats as well.

Nanaimo Bars

The custard layer was incredibly thick, and it wasn't helped that the current weather meant that the kitchen as freezing, so the butter was very hard. I was worried that the custard powder made it taste chalky, but I hoped the other elements would make up for this in the finished product.

Finally, I topped the bars off with dark chocolate ganache. It was tricky to stop the warm chocolate seeping in to the custard layer, so it was important to cool the chocolate and work quickly to stop the custard melting. Once the chocolate layer was chilled, I turned out the bars and cut them in to shape.

Coconut, oat, almond & chocolate base, custard filling, chocolate topping.

They were just how I remembered. The sickliness of the Graham crackers was lost in the chocolate and coconut of the bottom layer, and the chalkiness of the custard had also disappeared. The chocolate topping mirrored the bottom layer nicely. Another great challenge from the Daring Bakers!

Hot Spiced Mead - A Winter Warmer Cocktail

2010-01-25T21:15:00.000Z

Although the German market in Edinburgh disappeared long ago, the Highland market was around until New Year. When we visited on New Year's Day, we all had sore throats from the partying the night before, as well as sore heads. After some tasty burgers from Well Hung & Tender, we found a stall selling hot mead, which we hoped would be soothing as well as restorative.

It was indeed both, and quizzed the girl behind the counter for the ingredients. Mead, wine, honey, sugar, apple juice and spices were in there, but she wasn't sure of the quantities.

I'd forgotten about it until the other day, when perusing the alcoholic offerings of the local deli in search of something to cheer me up in the darkest days of January. Some mead was purchased, quickly spiced, heated and drunk.

Cinnamon, cloves, star anise, mace.

I left out the apple juice, but reduced the alcohol content by gently simmering the drink for a minute or so before serving. I used a similar selection of spices to that of mulled wine - cinnamon, cloves, star anise and mace. Without the apple juice, I substituted a good squeeze of lemon to make it a bit fruitier. Annoyingly, it was only after I finished drinking that I thought I should have put a shot of Cointreau in there to get a zesty edge to the flavour.

Hot Spiced Mead

Hot Spiced Mead
Serves 1 - but can be easily multiplied to make more, you don't need to add more spices unless you are making more than 4-5 portions.

2.5 ladles of mead
1.5 ladles of white wine
0.3 ladles of sugar
1tbsp honey
good squeeze of lemon juice
1 star anise
1 cinnamon stick
4 cloves
1 blade mace

Place everything in a saucepan, and stir to dissolve the sugar and honey. Simmer the liquid gently for 30 secs to soften the alcoholic impact (but don't boil it all off!) and serve.

Duck Confit

2010-01-23T14:37:00.000Z

I have been fighting the urge for the last month to make endless puns about Cold Confit Farm, and seeing something nasty in the fridge. While T is a knowledgeable type, unfortunately this knowledge does not include pre-war satirical novels. Or iconic French ways with water fowl.

When I first suggested making duck confit, T did not sound impressed. The idea of duck legs encased in a kilo of fat did not sound appealing. However, I bloody love a bit of duck confit, so stocked up on legs and fat and got to it.

I went with a Valentine Warner recipe, as I felt his enthusiasm and simplicity would be better than going with something more complex and elaborate. The recipe began by curing the duck for 2 days, with salt, herbs and juniper berries. Gin flavoured duck!

Then the legs were simmered in fat and white wine for 2 hours on a very low heat. I didn't quite have enough duck fat to cover the legs, so I topped up the pot with a little lard. Yum.

We had stuff in the fridge that needed using up, so it was a few days before I excavated 2 legs from the tub of fat and stuck them in a hot oven for 15 minutes. To go with it, I stewed some lentils in herbs and red wine, and sauteed some potatoes in the duck fat I'd scraped off the legs.

Duck Confit

It lived up to and beyond expectations. I think it helped that the potatoes were some of the best I've ever done, and the earthiness of the lentils helped to tone down the richness of the duck a bit. But that duck...! It was tender, flavourful, with crispy skin and the residual taste of the aromatic cure. If I could have gnawed on the bones I would have.

Look at the crispiness!

Duck Confit (From 'What To Eat Now' by Valentine Warner)
Makes 8

Salt
Pepper
Rosemary
Thyme
Juniper berries
8 duck legs
750g duck fat
150ml white wine

1) Rub each duck leg with salt and pepper. Layer in a tub with sprigs of rosemary and thyme, and some bruised juniper berries. Leave for at least 24 hours, and ideally 48.
2) Brush the salt and aromatics off the duck legs, while melting the duck fat in a pan on a low heat.
3) Arrange the duck legs in the pan with the fat, and add the wine. I found arranging them in an overlapping circle worked best - the shinbone from each leg rest on the thigh of the one next to it, so the meat is submerged. Duck fat melts at quite a low temperature, so you can do this without worrying too much about spitting fat or getting burnt. If you can't get all the meat under the fat, add more fat.
4) Adjust the heat so the fat is barely bubbling. The lower the heat, the better. Put a tight lid on the pan and check it frequently to see if it's too hot or cold.
5) After 2 hours, take a leg out and try to push the meat away from the bone. It should fall off with a bit of pressure, but obviously don't take it off the bone yet! Just give it a prod to see if it is coming away from the bone. If it still seems too solid, put it back in the pan for another 20-30 minutes.
6) Once the meat is releasing from the bone, gently stack the legs in a glass, china or plastic container. When the fat is cooled (but still pourable) pour this over the legs. The fat will help seal the legs from bacteria, so they will last for ages in the fridge.
7) When you want to eat the confit, put your oven up to about 200c, or its highest setting. Excavate the required legs from the fat, and put them in a deep baking dish (quite a lot of fat will come out of them so you don't want it slopping over your oven.) Cook for 15 minutes until the skin is crispy.

Spicy Bacon & Cheddar Scones

2010-01-18T16:46:00.003Z

If I were the Pioneer Woman, I'd tell you this recipe makes my skirt fly up. If I was Deb of Smitten Kitchen, I'd tell you you'll regret every minute you wait to make this recipe, and then post a picture of my cute baby. If I worked for Word Of Mouth, I'd say that I subbed Cheddar for Gruyere as I was staying true to my working class roots. If I was living in London, I'd worry about whether I should reveal that half the ingredients were PR freebies, start writing about unctuous pork, and then get so stressed out that I'd just blog about going to Tayyabs for dinner instead.

It's not skirt wearing weather, I don't have a cute (or plain, or ugly, or any type at all) baby, I'm not that working class, and all of the ingredients were bought with my own money. So there.

I've been doing an after work craft market in a bar, so I decided to make some savoury items to capture the crowd who aren't up for a pint of beer and a chocolate cupcake. After sifting through a huge pile of cookbooks for inspiration, I settled on the spicy bacon & gruyere scones from 'Bake' by Rachel Allen.

Bacon & Cheddar Scone

I changed from gruyere to cheddar for purely economic purposes. Baking is a fairly low margin product. When you add up the number of hours of labour I put in, minus costs, I'm lucky to make anywhere near minimum wage. Every penny counts in this game. Although I did buy free range bacon, because I'm not that cheap.

The recipe was fairly simple, although I was worried that the mixture was looking rather dry after adding the butter. I'd forgotten that buttermilk came in later, which took it to the other extreme of being too wet. The recipe says not to knead the dough, which is hard, as it doesn't seem to want to come together. Although the dough is quite sticky, it is fairly robust. This makes it quite easy to scrape the scones off the counter and on to the baking tray without them falling apart.

They rose really well, and had that stretchy look around the edges that is the mark of a good scone. Most of the time I don't try more than the crumbs of stuff I've made for the stall. Eating the produce is not great hygiene, as well as depriving me of much needed profit. However, there was a small blob of dough leftover that wasn't really big enough to sell, so I baked that as well to try it.

They smelt fantastic coming out of the oven, and I could barely wait for them to be cool before eating the mini one. The outside had a bit of crunch, while the inside was soft and airy (buttermilk is one of the best ingredients for airy baking, it's just a bit tricky to find!). The cheese flavour was clear, with a subtle spicy tingle from the cayenne. When you hit a lump of bacon, it went to the next level of deliciousness. The pre-cooking followed by baking meant that the bacon was crispy, and the fat had rendered in to the surrounding dough. My limited grasp of English vocabulary is not enough to describe how great these scones are.

Airy texture, with bacon peeking out.

Spicy Bacon & Cheddar Scones (From 'Bake')
Makes 10-20 depending on cutter size

450g plain flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp salt
30g cold butter
110g bacon, cooked and finely chopped (this cooks down to less than 110g, use more if you love bacon)
110g cheddar, finely grated (use gruyere if not being cheap)
1 egg
375ml buttermilk (or milk)

1) Preheat oven to 220C, Gas 7
2) Sift the flour, baking soda, cayenne and salt in a large bowl. Rub in the butter until it looks like fine breadcrumbs. Mix in the bacon and cheese.
3) Combine the buttermilk and the egg in a jug, and add it to the dry ingredients.
4) Stir until the mixture forms a dough. Turn it out on to a floured surface, and gently fold to fully incorporate all the ingredients.
5) Roll the dough out to about 2cm thick, and cut out the scones. I used a 3inch cutter to make monster scones, but you could use a smaller cutter, or even cut the dough in to squares.
6) Place the scones on a floured baking tray and bake for 10-16 minutes (depending on size). Cool on a wire rack for as long as you can bear, and then eat warm.

While these are best eaten straight away, they can be reheated at 160c for 6 minutes, although this does make the outside a little too crunchy. Sprinkle with water before reheating to minimise this.

Raspberry & Whisky Porridge

2010-01-15T17:51:00.003Z

I can't say I'm a major porridge fan. I didn't eat it as a child, and have been put off as an adult by poor catering porridge as suffered in various youth hostels and halls of residence. However, it is cheap and filling, so I do give it a go every now and then.

I'm always looking for new ways to pep it up. Chocolate and ground hazelnuts are always nice, as is dulche de leche and dried fruit. Today I tried a variation based the Cranachan porridge served by Stoats.

Raspberry & Whisky Porridge

I cooked the oats in a mixture of half milk and half water, and sprinkled in a pinch of salt and a fair bit of sugar. Then I added dried raspberries, which softened up as the porridge cooked. If you had fresh or frozen raspberries they would be even better. While rummaging through the cupboard for more Scottish ingredients, I found a whisky miniature. In it went.

Gloopy & Boozy

The porridge was a bit looser than I would have liked, and some of the dried raspberries were a little bitter. The whisky added some nice warmth to the bowl, which was welcome in this weather. I lasted a good 9 hours on this, so it was a good start to the day, although maybe not if you have to drive to work.

Tarte Tatin

2010-01-06T21:26:00.005Z

For New Year, we had T's brother, and 2 of their cousins staying in the flat. We had tickets for the outdoor concert in Princes Street Gardens, and the temperature was forecast to be -5C that night. With a few extra mouths to feed, and a warming meal needed, I decided to make a roast dinner followed by tarte tatin.

I attempted a tarte tatin last summer. It didn't go well. The pastry was undercooked and underwhelming, and the caramel wasn't sticky enough. I was determined that this one would be better, and decided to go with trusty old Leiths' recipe.

The first thing I noticed is that the pastry wasn't puff, or even ordinary shortcrust. It had rice flour as well as wheat flour. The pastry came together quite easily, who needs a food processor when you have a pastry blender? I rolled it in to a large disc between two sheets of baking paper.

Tarte Tatin

While the pastry was resting in the fridge, I chopped two cooking apples, and melted sugar and butter together in a frying pan. Leiths said to add lemon zest, but I decided a bit of cinnamon and nutmeg would be a bit more seasonal and warming. I layered the apple slices around the pan, and tried my best to make them look neat and even, but the in the end my presentation efforts were thwarted by my short attention span, and unwillingness to dip my fingers in boiling caramel.

Once the caramel had cooled slightly, I put the pastry lid on, and left it in the fridge until we'd finished our roast dinner. Once it went in the oven, the smell of the apples and caramel, with a hint of the spices, was wafting around the flat. It smelt great, but would the pastry be cooked? Would the caramel be ok, and would the cooking apples still be sour?

Mmmmm, leftover tart...

When it came time to turn the tart out on to a plate, it was obvious the pastry was cooked. The apples looked soft and sweet, and the caramel looked dark and glossy - success! Except, the very caramel in the centre of the tart was a little burnt. So not quite perfect, but near enough.

It was delicious served warm with a scoop of natural ice cream (plain cream flavour, no vanilla. I bought it by accident once and am now converted.) The spices warmed it up even more, and the caramel was almost right (apart from the burnt bit). The apples were soft, but still retained their shape and a bit of crispiness. We got through most of it that night, but I've been enjoying the leftovers reheated with ice cream. Or on their own.

An Explanation

2009-12-28T16:32:00.005Z

Despite my best intentions, I haven't been blogging nearly as frequently as I'd like in the past couple of months. Part of this is due to poor light for photos and lack of interesting dinners, but the main reason has been this:

I was made redundant in the summer, annoyingly at an early enough point in my contract to not qualify for any payoff. As Edinburgh is a financial centre, the labour market here is flooded with unemployed bank staff with a several years experience under their belt. No one wanted a recent graduate with only a year or so of temping, when they could get someone more experienced for the same price. At the other end of the scale, minimum wage jobs weren't interested as I was obviously overqualified. So, seeing as no one else would employ me, I decided to employ myself.

I've spent the last few months endlessly steaming Christmas Puddings, taking food hygiene exams (credit pass - check out my cleanliness!), testing recipes and buying wholesale packaging. The first market I signed up to do lost its street closure licence, and the second market didn't manage to get a food licence granted. I looked in to the Edinburgh Farmers' Market, but the waiting list is long, its not really a feasible option for someone just starting out.

Eventually I found a Christmas market in the Grassmarket, and booked a stall. 10 hour baking sessions were followed by an early morning taxi the next day. I had too much stuff to carry myself, so the journey to the market also had to be incorporated in to T's journey to work. So I got to sit in a freezing marquee for 3 hours waiting for the market to open. On the third day I let someone watch my stuff while I repaired to Peter's Yard for some serious carbs.

Carrot Cake - The best seller.

Anyway, despite the cold and lack of sleep, I really enjoyed it all! The first day, I just brought my favourite cakes. It was interesting to see which ones sold and which ones didn't. A version of Korova cookies went down well, as did a carrot cake with mascarpone and pecan icing, and salted caramel shortbread. Red velvet cake attracted a lot of attention, but didn't really sell. Cupcakes and Christmas puddings were Marmitey - people seemed to love them or hate them, but people who did love them were happy to buy them.

Chocolate cupcakes with ganache and vanilla buttercream.

The Sunday was quite busy, and I sold out with just a few minutes left before the doors closed. I'd had a lot of requests for gluten free items, so I made 2 banana breads, which sold so quickly. Peanut blondies went ok, but weren't as popular as I'd hoped.

Cardamom shortbread with Pistachios

On the final day, I mixed it up and took cardamom shortbread and gluten free lemon drizzle, as well as the past favourites of the salted caramel, carrot cake and banana bread. I almost sold out, so gave away the last few remaining bits to the other stall holders, rather than take them home.

The feedback was really positive, something I really needed as I haven't had much confidence in my cooking lately. I handed out lots of cards with my name and number, so hopefully I might get some commissions in the new year.

So that's my excuse for being a bad blogger...

21212 - 3 Royal Terrace

2009-12-14T13:22:00.003Z

How did that happen? It's been 11 days since my last post!

I have had a busy couple of weeks. T was ill, I got up at 5am to fly to Birmingham for a job interview, my mum came up to visit, and I was offered the job! It's also my birthday soon, so we had decided to go to 21212 for dinner to celebrate.

We arrived a little early, and started off with Bellinis in the upstairs drawing room. The decor was reminiscent of a neo-gothic or regency interior, and the thick fog outside made it all feel very old fashioned. As well as our drinks, we had some fat olives and some crisps - bizarrely they were cheese & onion or barbecue flavour. It wasn't clear whether they were homemade or if they'd just got a good deal on Kettle Chips.

The Dining Room (from the 21212 website.)

Moving downstairs, we we seated in the middle of the dining room, and we had a great view of the kitchen. My only knowledge of professional kitchens is from the TV. Instead of the sweary chaos that usually seems to reign, here it was quiet and controlled, although as the evening wore on we noticed the chefs crowding round the central prep table, all desperate to add the finishing touch to each dish. We were intrigued by the equipment hanging from the ceiling, as alongside the serving spoons and whisks there was a large triangle. What was it for? Some elaborate mould for plating something? It turned out to be a trivet.

21212 is so named to reflect the menu. There are 2 starters, 1 soup, 2 main courses, 1 cheeseboard and 2 desserts. As there were three of us at dinner, it was perfectly possible that we could order everything on the menu. My mum and T decided they would go for the same starters and main courses, so I was sorely tempted to order the other options just to try everything, but instead I went for what sounded tastier. We were offered some bread to nibble on while waiting for the food. It was airy and spicy, and reminiscent of savoury pannatone. The combination of spices was quite old fashioned and medieval tasting.

The first course was Xmas Best - a version of an all day breakfast. It contained black pudding, mushroom, a giant cornflake, sausage, bacon, parma ham and a porridge and butter sauce. There was also some pureed tomato at the bottom, and a weird black piece of skin on top, which turned out to be mushroom parchment. While this was an interesting dish, it wasn't as exciting as I was expecting. None of the flavours really stood out, and I did slightly regret not ordering the smoked salmon with chestnuts, prunes, asparagus and confit banana...

Next up was billed as "Traditional Winter Scottish Vegetable Soup". This was actually a celeriac puree, with an onion foam on top. In the middle there was a chunk of fig and some mange tout pieces. While I don't think mange tout or figs can even grow in Scotland, this was an absolutely stunning dish. I would happily have eaten another portion, and I would go back to 21212 for this alone.

For our main course, we all ordered the slow-cooked beef fillet with "Classic Duos". The beef was still pink, and had the smooth, soft texture of rare meat. We couldn't decide if it had been slow baked or been done sous-vide and seared. We asked the waiter who said he thought it had been baked, but he wasn't sure. Anyway, it was a really good piece of meat, and my mum and T, neither of whom like rare meat, enjoyed it too. Accompanying the beef were some cheesy onions, a lemon pancake, brazil nuts and dates, and a horseradish and watercress sauce. I really liked the dates and the horseradish sauce, but I wasn't swept away by the nuts or the pancake. There was also the slightly random addition of a lump of feta and what tasted like uncooked dough. The feta was very creamy and firm, but the saltiness overwhelmed the other ingredients. The women on the table next to us also ordered the beef, and they sent it back for being undercooked - they should have been a bit more adventurous I think. The other main course option was halibut with neeps, rice, sultanas and walnuts, with yeast cream.

Next up was the cheese course. 3 of the cheeses were nice, but the 4th one was very pungent. I've only recently started eating cheese, so although I tried the pungent one, I wasn't really a fan. There were two soft brie like cheeses (one Scottish, one French) and a hard Scottish cheese from Mull that was similar to edam. The cheese was served with some thick oatcakes, and some spicy crispbreads. There was even a little bowl of grapes.

Before pudding, there was a surprise palette cleanser course of coconut porridge milk. This was served in a paper shot glass, and poured from a jug that looked like a cow. The liquid was smooth and thin, and had just a hint of an oat taste. This was very moreish, and I was pleased that the waitress left the jug for us to finish every drop.

At dessert, we did vary things a little. Mum and I had bread and butter pudding, with cinnamon creme Anglaise. This was again very medieval tasting, with heavy spicing and lots of dried fruit. The bread pudding was delicious, but the spices were not ground down, so the sauce was a little grainy. T went for a trifle with sponge, bananas and chocolate, but again it was a little too heavy on the spices, nuts and dried fruit.

We went back to the drawing room for chocolate truffles with tea and coffee. While the tea came in an enormous tea pot, the coffee came in paper cups, supposedly as they keep the coffee warmer than ceramics. I'm in two minds about this. Part of me thinks it is a bit petty, but on the other hand, the whole point of 21212 is that you submit to the chef's whims rather than vice versa.

Overall, I really enjoyed the evening. The food was generally very good, and the staff were very friendly, although they could have been a bit more knowledgeable about the food. However, the concept is king (Raymond Blanc would bloody love it), so it wasn't the most accommodating of experiences. Certainly I wouldn't attempt to go there with anyone fussy or with multiple food allergies. For that reason, I don't know if I'd go back in a hurry. It was an academic meal, one to be pondered, with every detail mattering. Even the cutlery had been specially chosen for each course. It was fun, but heavy going. You couldn't take people who aren't interested - it would be like making them sit through an OU documentary on particle physics.

Chestnut And Ricotta Pancakes

2009-12-03T16:45:00.005Z

This post marks the first birthday of this blog! It's been a bit of an up and down year for me, and I guess this is reflected in the blog a bit. There was the bit in early 2009 where I barely posted at all, as I struggled to recover from a respiratory infection and rushed to complete my final year project. I did quite well on the posting in summer, where there were plenty of friends and flatmates around to eat what I made. Now I only have one flatmate, who doesn't like cake, and it's too dark to take proper photos. Perhaps that is why I haven't posted as frequently as I would have liked recently.

Anyway.

Last night there were chestnuts and ricotta in the fridge. I was planning to make something savoury, but they weren't inspiring me. Jess on Twitter suggested blending it with honey to make a spread. This sounded vaguely more promising.

Chestnut and Ricotta Pancakes

The first lesson I learned was that my 4 year old, £15-from-Argos-Blender is a bit crap. It utterly failed at blending, and instead created some watery chestnut honey paste surrounded by whole chestnuts and lumps of ricotta. It does rule at banana and peanut butter smoothies though.

The second lesson was that chestnuts are massively enhanced by honey. I still don't get ricotta though, I don't like the blandness nor the texture.

I made some pancakes for lunch today, and decided that chestnut ricotta honey mish mash would be the perfect filling.

Chestnut + Honey + Ricotta = Tasty

To make the pancakes, I whisked 120g plain flour with an egg and 100ml milk. Once this was a smooth paste, I added another 200ml milk and a small spoonful of sugar. It would have been a good idea to add some vanilla essence as well, but I couldn't be bothered to get it out of the cupboard. Oh well.

After I'd fried off a couple of successful pancakes (why does the first one always fail?), I filled them with the ricotta and chestnut mix, and dusted with icing sugar.

Pork Hock and Haricot Stew

2009-11-27T21:13:00.004Z

The borscht I made a few weeks ago needed a bit of pork hock in it. I wasn't going to bother, but it was surprisingly cheap for such a massive hunk of meat. After putting a little of it in the soup, the rest went in the freezer for another time.

Every so often I have to have a freezer purge to get eat up some of the stuff in there, as well as saving some cash. So this week I defrosted the pork hock, and set about finding a recipe to use it in. I came across this Pork Hock and Butterbean Stew on Dinner Diary, and decided to give it a go.

I replaced the butterbeans for haricots, as I had some in the cupboard, and the whole point of freezer left over day is to not spend money! I also used white wine instead of sherry. The rest of the dish was very easy to make, and although it took a few hours, most of that was spent watching "Eggheads" while the stew bubbled away. The hardest part was getting the meat off the bone as it was too hot to get a proper grip on it.

The stew was delicious, and the paprika did give it a Spanish feel. A bit of chorizo in there would have been excellent, but it was still tasty. I served it with some brown rice and some crusty bread for mopping up the juices.

Pork Hock and Haricot Stew

There was enough of this for some of it to go back in the freezer as a left over portion, and if I hadn't used some in the borscht it would have made two portions to freeze. I was really impressed with the pork hock, which was incredibly tender by the end of the cooking. There were some sinews and fatty bits left, but I managed to get most of these out when shredding the meat. Definitely a store cupboard triumph!

PS - I did the guest round up at Nora The Kitchen 'Splorer this week, check it out!

Orange and Rosemary Shortbread

2009-11-21T20:24:00.006Z

It's taken me ages to write this post, just because there has been absolutely zero daylight in Edinburgh to take pictures with. It's so depressing that there is still a month left where it will just get darker. The curtains are shut and the lights are on by about 3pm most days. So, prepare yourself for some very dodgy photos in the coming months, and I apologise for my shaky-cam poor lighting. Brace yourselves for winter.

Anyway.

I've been thinking about the Lemon Thyme biscuits I made earlier in the year a lot lately. I wanted to make them again, but they didn't seem suitable given the cold and dark. Christmas doesn't seem like a lemon time of year. Oranges and clementines are more festive feeling to me.

Orange and Rosemary Shortbread

I swapped out the lemon zest for orange, and finely chopped a couple of sprigs of rosemary. I rolled the dough thicker than I would normally. It seems more appropriate to have a massive hunk of shortbread rather than a daintily thin slice. For some of the larger biscuits, I made a hole in the top so it could be used as a tree decoration.

Orange and Rosemary Shortbread Tree Decorations

The shortbread was crumbly and buttery, and the orange flavour shone through. The rosemary wasn't very strong, so added a pleasant herby aftertaste rather than a massive kick. I decorated the biscuits with an egg white wash and a sprinkle of granulated sugar, to create a frosty effect. Without the sugar topping, it was a quite grown up, but the extra sweetness made the appeal more universal, so perhaps more suitable for feeding to less refined palates! They are incredibly moreish though, so watch out...

Orange Shortbread with Rosemary
Makes lots

225g unsalted butter, softened
150g granulated sugar
zest of 1 orange
1 tsp salt
2 tsps finely chopped rosemary
1 egg, separated (save the white for the glaze)
275g plain flour
2 tbsps orange juice

GLAZE
Granulated sugar

1) Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
2) Add in the orange zest, salt and rosemary, combine thoroughly.
3) Separate the egg, saving the white for glazing. Add the yolk into the biscuit dough mix.
4) Add the flour and orange juice. Once a dough starts forming, knead gently on a floured surface.
5) If the dough is sticky at this point, add more flour, a sprinkle at a time.Wrap the dough in clingfilm, and chill for at least an hour.
6) Preheat the oven to 180C, and line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper.Roll the dough out to 5mm thick, and cut circles out (I used a 2 inch diameter cutter). Keep gathering the scraps and re-rolling until you have about 40 biscuits.
7) Brush the biscuits with egg white, and then sprinkle with granulated sugar.
8) Bake for 15-18 minutes, until the biscuits are just turning golden brown at the edges.Cool on the tray for 1 minute, then move to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Madeleines

2009-11-14T16:21:00.002Z

Last Christmas, I got a madeleine tin. I was excited to have such a one-purpose piece of kitchenalia, but there was a problem. The problem was, I had never really "got" madeleines.

Everyone else seems to be a madeleine fan, judging by how often I see them perched by tills in cafes, and they've cropped up at numerous markets I've been to lately. It's not that I didn't like them, but they always seemed a bit bland and lacking. I did take some comfort that Proust had to dip his in tea to get excited about them (and he wasn't really even getting excited about the madeleine itself, it was the memories it brought back. To me, madeleines remind me of going to my friend's house after school and having to feed her cats as she didn't like the smell of tuna.)

I felt bad about the pan though. It lived in a dresser with some wrapping paper and spare toiletries, before being upgraded to the middle shelf of the baking cupboard, albeit at the back. So, after making the Korova cookies the other day, I flipped forward a few pages in "Paris Sweets" and made some madeleines.

The recipe itself is fairly simple, and I upped the vanilla and lemon to squeeze a bit more flavour in to the madeleines. After resting the batter in the fridge, I carefully spooned 12 dollops of batter in to the shell holes on the tray, and put it in the oven for 12 minutes.

Fresh Madeleines

I was surprised at how high the madeleines rose (the left over batter, which I baked 2 days later, rose even higher. It was almost obscene). The rise was just enough to mirror the scalloping on the other side, so the madeleines were nicely symmetrical.

So now for the tasting. Had I just been eating bad madeleines all these years?

Well, yes and no. Madeleines straight out of the oven were a revelation. The inside was still soft, cakey, and a tad bland, but now it was paired with a crispy crust that was utterly moreish. The ones that managed to survive until the next day were not so great, with the crispy crust now replaced by a slightly chewier bit of bland cakeyness.

As the batter can last for several days in the fridge, I think from now on I'll be baking small batches to eat immediately. The recipe also has a couple of suggestions for different flavours, the Earl Gray variation certainly sounds intriguing!

Borscht

2009-11-11T18:00:00.001Z

After my recent trip to Russia, I have been craving borscht. I've made it once before a few years ago (and stained practically everything I owned red in the process) but it wasn't as good as the stuff I had in Russia.

After reading multiple recipes, and even tweeting about it, I picked the Valentine Warner recipe from "What to Eat Now". It was in two stages, firstly making a meat broth from vegetables, stewing beef and ham hock, and then adding in roast beetroots, parsnips and apples.

Borscht with Sour Cream

The soup should take about 3 hours to make, as the broth and the roasted beetroots both took 2 hours of slow cooking. However, I ended up taking more like 5 hours, as about 2.5 hours in, there was a power cut. Not only did all the lights in the houses go out, the street lights and traffic lights also went out. It was really strange to look out in to the street and see complete black. A couple of stairwells had emergency lighting, but apart from that the only lights I could see were flickering candles or torches. As both the hob and the oven are electric, I just had to abandon the borscht until the power came back on an hour or so later.

I'm not sure if it was this enforced hiatus or the recipe that meant the soup was a little lacking. The initial stages of frying off onions and garlic with dill smelt fantastic, as did the roasted beetroot and adding the meat. I was less convinced about the apples and parsnip and I would skip this if I was making the soup again. Krysia Boo suggested on Twitter to add the juice from re-hydrating dried mushrooms, which I didn't get the chance to this time but will definitely bear in mind in future. I also think next time I would grate the beetroot instead of cubing it, as I didn't like the thin broth with massive chunks in. I prefer my borscht more texturally homogeneous.

Not Quite Up To Russian Standard

I won't bother posting the recipe, as it needs a lot of work before I'm happy with it. I think next time I'll make the meat stock as a stock rather than a broth, and add the dill and onions later on. However, the soup did tick a lot of boxes, and I enjoyed it for my lunch with a good piece of bread and loads of sour cream. It didn't have an overly earthy flavour, and the sweetness of the beetroot was highlighted. A definite starting point for further adventures in borscht.

Italian Bread

2009-11-09T18:27:00.004Z

After taking T's brother and his girlfriend to a couple of restaurants over the long weekend, we decided that Saturday night should be a bit quieter (and cheaper!). We decided on a games night, with pizzas, beers, and perhaps even a bit of X-Factor thrown in.

I wanted to make something for people to nibble on, that was a bit more interesting than a bowl of crisps or nuts. Riffling through Leith's, I found a recipe for "Italian Bread". I'd also seen this post on Wild Yeast, which made me really want focaccia.

Italian Bread served with olive oil

The recipe itself is pretty quick to pull together, although the kneading time of 8 minutes is a bit of a killer if you are lacking in upper body strength. I mixed in a handful of chopped sun-dried tomatoes and some fresh basil, but rosemary, cheese or olives would also be tasty.

My two food fears are baking with yeast and deep-frying. Luckily this recipe didn't involve deep frying, but it did involve yeast. The last few times I've used yeast, I've seemed unable to get any rise out of it. However, on this occasion, an hour in a previously warmed oven seemed to do the trick.

Italian Bread flavoured with Sundried Tomatoes and Basil

I was initially a bit disappointed, as the bread was quite hard and crusty. It was still tasty, but it wasn't as soft as I was expecting. Left overnight, it softened up a bit, but still was a bit too tough and crusty for my liking.

Slightly too crusty.

I think if I was to make this again, I'd give the Wild Yeast recipe a go instead. It's fairly similar to the Leith's one, but the photos look less crusty so the small tweaks obviously make a difference.

Italian Bread (Leiths Cookery Bible)
Makes 1 large loaf

30g fresh yeast (I used a 7g sachet of quick yeast)
225ml warm water
450g strong flour
2 tsp salt
4 tbsp olive oil
coarse salt to sprinkle over the top

1) Dissolve the yeast in the warm water.
2) Put the flour and salt in a large bowl and make a well in the centre. Mix in 2tbsp of the oil and the yeast mixture.
3) Once a dough in formed, knead well for 8 minutes. (After kneading, I added a handful of sundried tomatoes and some chopped basil.)
4) Roll the dough out until it is about 2cm thick. Place on to a greased baking sheet and cover with greased clingfilm.
5) Leave the dough to rise in a warm place until it is soft and fluffy looking. Preheat the oven to 200C
6) Make some indentations in the dough with your finger, and drizzle over the last 2tbsp of oil. Sprinkle over coarse salt, or you could use woody herbs like rosemary.
7) Bake for 20 minutes, then remove from the tray and bake directly on the oven rack for a further 10 minutes.

Korova Cookies

2009-11-05T17:04:00.005Z

This is a bit of a landmark here - my 100th post! Although really two of them don't count as the introduction and links should be on pages rather than posts... but anyway. I have filled this blogger text box out 100 times. Who knew I was that dedicated!?

T's brother and his girlfriend are visiting us this weekend. I have a bit of a reputation amongst T's family for being a baker, so I knew I had to make something to welcome them, but at the same time I didn't want to do anything too crazy that they would feel obliged to eat. I settled on Dorie Greenspan's Korova cookies (sometimes also known as "world peace" cookies - the idea being that if these were handed out there would be no more need for war). How could anyone resist buttery chocolate biscuits studded with chunks of dark chocolate?

Korova Cookies

I made the dough for these the night before, and left it to rest overnight. It was hard to resist baking some of them straight away for a midnight snack. In between cleaning the flat, I sliced off 12 rounds and baked them. Within minutes, the flat smelt like melting chocolate. Obviously I had to check they were ok, and had eaten 2 while they were still warm. By the time T had picked up his brother from the station, I'd eaten 7 of the of the 12 I'd baked. In the introduction, Dorie warns you not to make them when you are alone, and she is right. They are dangerously addictive.

Crumbly and crispy

So I baked another batch, and it came out of the oven just as T and his brother came through the door. They are crispy and just chewy when cool, but when they are warm, the crumbly biscuit and the gooey chocolate are sublime. The hint of salt and the dark chocolate also make them a little more grown up than your average cookie.

If you like the sound of these, Deb of Smitten Kitchen has already typed the recipe up rather well.

Cappuccino Cupcakes

2009-11-01T16:35:00.004Z

I decided that making the millionaire shortbread from "Red Velvet & Chocolate Heartache" was not a good test of the book, as it is about the only recipe in there that doesn't use some kind of vegetable in place of butter. The anthropomorphic descriptions in the book are not particularly useful, so it took me a while to decide on the cappuccino cupcakes with sweet potato.

Cappuccino Cupcakes (with Sweet Potato)

After creaming eggs and sugar, finely grated sweet potato is mixed in. The other main difference between this recipe and a standard cake is that the flour is replaced by rice flour and ground almonds, making this gluten free as well as fat free (I know there are fats in nuts, eggs and sugar, but there isn't the massive hunk of butter that starts off most cake recipes).

Before baking, the batter tasted more like carrot cake than coffee cake. Even though I'd added more coffee essence than the recipe suggested, the flavour was quite weak. After baking, I tried one of the cakes without any icing. Although the coffee flavour was still weak, the cake was moist and fluffy, and the sweet potato had melted away. I was quite impressed that such a healthy set of ingredients could produce such a good example of cake.

The suggested icing was a modified buttercream - 1 part butter, 1 part mascarpone and 4 parts icing sugar. Again I put in a bit more coffee essence than recommended to ensure that the icing made up for the lack of coffee flavour in the cake. While I like the creamier texture that mascarpone adds, I find that it produces quite a loose icing, which doesn't pipe as well as plain buttercream. I tried to practice icing roses on the top of these cakes, but as the mixture wasn't stiff enough they collapsed a little. I think my technique is improving though.

Cappuccino Cupcake with "Rose" Icing Pattern

I am generally not a fan of "fun-free" food, but these were quite impressive. I don't think I'd make them regularly for myself, but as I know a few people who are watching their weight or gluten intolerant, it's good to have a recipe to suit them too.

Cappuccino Cupcakes (Harry Eastwood - Red Velvet & Chocolate Heartache)
Makes 12

2 eggs
160g caster sugar
200g peeled and grated sweet potato
100g rice flour
100g ground almonds
2tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3tbsp coffee essence

Icing
50g unsalted butter
200g icing sugar
50g mascarpone
2tsp coffee essence

1) Preheat the oven to 180C, and line the muffin tray with paper cases.
2) Whisk the eggs and sugar until pale and fluffy. Whisk in the sweet potato, followed by the rice flour, grated almonds, baking powder and salt. Finally stir through the coffee essence.
3) Fill the cases and bake for 20 minutes. The cakes may look a bit like muffins at this point but don't worry.
4) While the cakes cool, whisk the butter for the icing until it is smooth. Then add 100g of the icing sugar and beat in to the butter to form a thick paste. Whisk for longer than you think you need as it is vital the butter and sugar are properly combined.
5) Add the mascarpone, coffee essence and remaining 100g of icing sugar. Mix with a spoon until you get a smooth icing (don't use the electric whisk here, it'll destroy the texture of the mascarpone.) Keep the icing in the fridge until you are ready to use it.
6) Once the cakes are cool, top them with the icing.

I'm keeping my cakes in the fridge, as the mascarpone won't survive at room temperature very long. However, if you plan to eat these within a day or so, they should be fine to store in a normal cake box.

Daring Baker's October - Macarons

2009-10-27T16:10:00.003Z

I first discovered the macaron in March 2008, when I went to to visit H, who was doing her year abroad in Paris. We went to all the usual places, and eventually ended up in Fauchon. H told me I should get the lemon macaron. I did. It was yummy. I've considered making them at home a few times, but every time I searched for a recipe I was put off by how many results I got saying that they were tricky.

The 2009 October Daring Bakers’ challenge was brought to us by Ami S. She chose macarons from Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern as the challenge recipe. So now I couldn't put off macarons any longer.

My first attempt failed miserably. I overwhipped the batter and it was too runny to form any kind of shape. It was still tasty though.

The second attempt was a little better. I had some freeze dried raspberries after my mum found somewhere online that sold "home-sized" portions instead of wholesale. I crushed these up to make a powder, and mixed this in to the batter. It was a lovely creamy white with flecks of raspberry powder in it, and piped easily in to rounds. I dried the rounds in a low oven as suggested, and was pleased to see the beginnings of some feet on my macarons!

However, I found the 7 minutes cooking time suggested in the recipe to be too long, and my macarons went too brown. I sandwiched them with raspberry buttercream (also made with powdered raspberry). While these macarons had the chewiness of a proper macaron, they didn't have the smooth, crisp shell.

Raspberry Macarons with a tiny foot!

So on to the third attempt! This time I used lime zest, and a drop of green gel colouring. I sieved the almonds and sugar twice to make sure it was superfine (although I think if I had a food processor and could have ground the nuts even more it would have been better) and folded the mixture carefully. I watched the macarons like a hawk to ensure they didn't brown (although a couple at the back of the oven still did a little).

Lime Macarons and Fauchon Mug

As it was late, and I didn't have enough time to cool and reheat the oven for drying the second batch, I experimented a little. I left the tray of piped macarons in the oven overnight, once the temperature had dropped below 90c, then baked them this morning for 5 minutes. These ones are the smoothest, but they don't have a foot or a crispy shell! Curses!

What they lack in aesthetics they somewhat make up for in taste.

I sandwiched these with lemon curd, which gives them a good citrus hit. They taste ok, but they need a lot more work. However, the process was easy enough that I'll give macarons another go sometime soon.

Lemon Sundae

2009-10-24T17:30:00.003+01:00

Generally I am fairly organised in the kitchen, and like to have all my ingredients and equipment out before I begin. I found some lemons in the cupboard that were on their last legs, so I decided to give a recipe for lemon biscuits a go. As I'd never tried this recipe before, and it looked a bit tricky, I went super-overboard on the mise-en-place. As well as getting my ingredients out, I pre-weighed them all, and left them out for a couple of hours to reach room temperature.

To cut a long story short, despite the extreme prep, it was an unmitigated disaster. What were meant to be crunchy little lemony biscuits turned into a big old cakey mess that was stuck to the baking tray. My first thought was to bin the whole thing, but it seemed such a waste. When I was a child, any leftovers were greeted with a remark about starving Africans, so throwing food away just makes me feel guilty. Instead, I chipped it off the baking tray and made the rest of the lemons in to some yummy lemon curd.

Lemon Sundae

It might not be very sophisticated, but the cake/biscuit fail crumbs, mixed with the fresh lemon curd and some plain yoghurt was delicious. The thing I really like about cooking is that you can be creative. As well as trying out different flavours and presentations, if something goes wrong it's usually salvageable if you are a bit creative. In this case, I liked the way the sweet biscuit, the sweetly tart curd and the plain yoghurt balanced each other out. The biscuits on their own were a bit tooth-hurtingly sweet anyway.

I love lemon curd

I might give the biscuits another go, or I might just content myself with eating this for breakfast for the next few days. Who needs a balanced diet when you can have cake sundaes?

PS - Check out the ridiculously loud coasters I bought in Russia!

St Petersburg

2009-10-20T20:34:00.004+01:00

It's been quiet around here as I had a fun weekend in St Petersburg. The city was founded in 1703, but already it's racked up quite a bit of history. We saw the palace where Rasputin was murdered, the graves of the last Romanovs, and the battleship that fired the first shots of the Russian revolution.

We ate quite a lot of Russian food, with the highlight of the trip actually being a Georgian meal. It's more Mediterranean than you'd expect, with a starter of cheese flatbread, trout tartare and ratatouille style vegetables. For the main course I ended up with more trout, this time with delicious fried potatoes and a herby salad. I had ordered chicken kebabs, but the linguistic barrier got in the way!

Borscht

However, the real revelation was the borscht. While I've had it often at home, the Russian version was milder and often contained bits of meat too (Russian cuisine is NOT vegetarian friendly at all). I need to find this recipe as I could eat this all day! Practically every meal was served with soured cream, which was fine by me.

Normal service will return soon!

Scotch Eggs

2009-10-13T17:14:00.004+01:00

A while back, my dad spent quite a while telling me that the perfect boiled egg was all about heating the white to a certain temperature, and that if you kept it at that temperature, it would never over-cook. As I've been reading more about the science of cookery, I've found that my dad was correct - an egg cooked at 65C will have a set white and a creamy yolk.

I've also been intrigued by the rise of the scotch egg from Greg's abomination to acceptable gastro-pub fare. They always seem to have a runny yolk, so maybe it was time to apply science to snacking.

Here comes the science bit!

Egg Number 1
Initially I thought the easiest way to keep an egg at 65C without using a fancy-pants waterbath (I don't even have enough worktop space to justify a stand mixer, let alone an water circulator) was in the oven. Although the oven was labeled 60C, it didn't seem particularly hot in there. I could comfortably put my hand in the oven and move the racks around without it burning. The oven thermometer starts at 100C, and the needle was hovering just under this, so I left an egg in there for about 45 minutes.

After the egg had cooled down a bit, I cracked it open. It wasn't firm enough to peel and so in that respect was an epic fail. However, I scooped the egg out of the shell and ate it, and it was amazingly delicious. The yolk was runny and rich, and the white was cooked but still creamy and soft. The only way it could have been better was if there had been some buttered soldiers to dip in it.

Egg Number 2
Next up I decided to try a water bath. Using a sugar thermometer, I heated a saucepan of water to 65C. I was surprised to find that by putting my hob on the lowest setting, that I could maintain this temperature very easily. I occasionally added a little cold water if the temperature started rising, but I only had to do this about twice in the hour or so that I cooked the egg for.

I cracked it open, and initially was quite pleased - the white was set enough to be able to peel the egg, but still wobbly enough to suggest that the yolk would be runny. However, as I continued peeling, it became obvious that the egg was far too fragile to put in to a scotch egg. As I took off the last pieces of shell, the egg collapsed completely.

By some fluke of science, I'd created an inverted egg. The yolk was completely set, and was like a little orange pebble in a pile of white gooey jelly. I ate this egg too. It wasn't as tasty as the first one, but the yolk, while set, was still moist. I'd be quite interested in using this method again to create set yolks that could be used as a garnish or as a component in a dish.

What had happened was that the yolk proteins had set at 65C, as had some of the white proteins. However, one of the proteins in the yolk doesn't set until 80C, so this egg obviously had a higher ratio of this high temperature protein and thus the white was still quite runny.

Egg Number 3
By this point, the leftover sausages that I was planning to use for the scotch eggs were dangerously close to their use-by date. So I wimped out and put two eggs in a cold pan of water, brought them to the boil, and simmered for 8 minutes. They were pretty standard hardboiled eggs.

In future, I think I'd go for a two stage process to find the perfect peelable boiled egg. First a lovely bath at 63-64C, to firm up the white, but keep the yolk runny. Then a quick dip (1-2 minutes) in a 90C bath to firm out the outer layer of the white, so it's possible to peel it without it falling apart. Then maybe a quick shock in iced water to ensure they don't over cook. Hmmm, several different baths and a peel, sounds like a day at a spa hotel.

Baked Scotch Egg

The actual scotch eggs were fairly simple to make - mash up a load of sausage meat (about 2 sausages per egg) and wrap this around the boiled egg. Then roll the egg in some seasoned flour, some beaten egg, and then breadcrumbs. I seasoned the breadcrumbs with a little cayenne pepper to give them a bit of a kick. As you can see from the photos, my wrapping wasn't entirely even, but that wasn't too much of a problem.

Uneven but tasty

As with most Scottish items, a proper Scotch Egg is deep fried. I didn't really want to do this, so I baked them at 200C for 30 minutes, and finished them off in the frying pan to get the breadcrumbs crispy. I think the sausage meat insulates the egg quite well, as when I finally got to scoff the eggs they yolk was still quite moist and not overcooked. They were also delicious later on when they'd been chilled for a while. Even though I'd baked them, you could feel the cholesterol destroying your arteries as you chewed. Perhaps this is not the recipe to repeat until I perfect it...

Millionaire Shortbread with Salted Caramel

2009-10-11T15:43:00.003+01:00

When I was at primary school, my class was selected for an academic survey. We had to fill out a questionnaire detailing our parents' level of education and various other lifestyle questions. I guess this was then correlated with our academic achievement to see if certain households were more likely to produce academically successful children than others. The reason I still remember this is that we had to write down how many books were in our house. I lost count after about 250.

My mum loves books, and sometimes buys random books just because she likes the look of them. She also has a magic ability to find books on special offer or discounted, and she recently sent me Harry Eastwood's "Red Velvet & Chocolate Heartache" as she was concerned that I eat too much cake!

Chocolate And Salted Caramel Squillionaire

There were quite a few recipes that appealed, but as I had a tub of caramel sitting in the fridge already, I decided to make the "Chocolate and Salted Caramel Squillionaire", which I then realised was the only recipe in the book that didn't contain vegetables. Oh well.

The addition of golden syrup to the biscuit base gave it a nice toffee flavour, and baking the base before adding the caramel and chocolate made it super crispy. I did think there was a bit too much biscuit base though, next time I would probably only use 250g instead of 300g of digestives.

I also liked using the salted caramel and really dark chocolate topping, as it counteracted the sweetness of the caramel and the base. They're a little bit more grown up than the usual millionaire's shortbread. Although the recipe says it makes 12, I cut mine in to 16 and they are still a decent size.

So yummy they make me lose focus...

I'm really excited to try some of the other recipes, although I agree with this review that the descriptions of the recipes can be rather annoyingly cutesy...

They don't last long.

Chocolate and Salted Caramel Squillionaire (Harry Eastwood - Red Velvet & Chocolate Heartache)
Serves 12

397g tin of condensed milk
100g unsalted butter (melted)
3 tbsp golden syrup
300g digestive biscuits
pinch of sea salt
150g very dark chocolate

1) Preheat the oven to 180C, and line a 22cm square brownie tin with baking paper.
2) In a large and sturdy pan, put the (unopened) can of condensed milk. Fill the pan with boiling water so the tin is completely covered. Boil for one hour, topping up the water as needed.
3) Meanwhile, put the melted butter and golden syrup in a bowl, and put it in the oven or in the microwave to melt the syrup and butter together. (Make sure the bowl is oven/microwave proof!) It won't take long, 5 minutes in the oven or 1 minute in the microwave.
4) Crush the biscuits, either with a food processor or by putting them in a plastic bag and whacking it with a rolling pin. Get them really crushed, so the mixture looks like fine sand.
5) Mix in the hot butter and syrup with the biscuits. It should now look like wet sand!
6) Push the biscuit mixture in to the tin, squashing it down with your hand or the back of a spoon. Prick the surface with a fork to let out any air bubbles, and then bake for 20 minutes until golden. Leave it to cool while the caramel finishes it's bath.
7) Carefully remove the tin from the boiling water, and open it. Mix in a pinch of salt, and then pour it over the biscuit base, making sure it spreads out to cover the whole base. Put it in the freezer to cool down for at least 20 minutes as you need the caramel to be set when you pour the chocolate over.
8) Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. Once it is thoroughly melted, pour it over the frozen caramel and biscuit base. Put it in the fridge to chill.
9) After the chocolate has hardened, cut in to portions and serve!

Afternoon Tea at the Underground Restaurant

2009-10-09T16:28:00.000+01:00

I've been following Miss Marmite Lover's blog on hosting an illegal restaurant in her living room for some while, and had wanted to pay a visit for some time. Fate seemed to conspire against me, and although I made it to London a couple of times, other plans always got in the way.

Last weekend the Domestic Sluts were hosting a tea party at the Underground Restaurant. Last weekend I was free in the afternoon. I bought a ticket online, spent an hour on the TFL website trying to work out the best way to Kilburn without using the tube or overland (both of which were shut), put on my best tea dress and headed "underground"...

Like all good parties, as I approached the front door I could hear chatter and the clinking of bottles. I was a little nervous that I might be gatecrashing some random gathering, but it seemed I'd found the right flat after all.

Inside the flat, I settled on the balcony with a glass of kir royale. I got talking with some of the other guests, one of whom wondered why restaurants such as this were illegal. Thinking about it, running a home restaurant seems to be quite a bureaucratic crime - you'll get prosecuted for failure to pay business rates or submit to a hygiene inspection (but as guests are welcome in the kitchen once the food is done, the food hygiene standards are more transparent than most legal restaurants).

Some of the Domestic Sluts

After a suitable amount of mingling time, we settled at the tables for tea. We helped ourselves to a plate on sandwiches already on the table. There were Marmite sandwiches, and I'd never tried Marmite, so I went for one of them straight away. I'd been put off by the smell in the past, and was expecting to fall in the "hate it" camp. Surprisingly, I found Marmite completely inoffensive, and was totally ambivalent about it. I must be the exception that proves the rule.

Also on the table already was a big old plate of homemade scones and jam (no cream - this came later by which point I'd eaten all the scones. Oops.) which did not last long. We also had aga meringues which were shatteringly crisp on the outside, but ridiculously chewy on the inside. I used the cream to sandwich bits of meringue together, it was very good.

Full marks to all the waiting crew, who furnished us with almost endless pots of tea. They also brought round sundried tomato and anchovy tartlets, squash and feta parcels, hot buttered crumpets, carrot cupcakes, rum and ginger cupcakes (awesome) and orange biscuits. There were also chocolate macarons, which were absolutely delicious.

Kitchen Porn

All the food was homemade, and I went to the kitchen when things started winding down to have a nose around and meet Miss MarmiteLover herself. The kitchen wasn't overly big (which made the quantity of food that came out of it even more impressive), but it was a cook's kitchen. Here the Madeleine tin gets to sit brazenly on a shelf, while in my kitchen it's languishing at the back of a cupboard. I was seriously coveting this kitchen. I loved it even more as it featured my new favourite kitchen gadget - the Ikea steppy stool to allow short people to reach high cupboards! (Worryingly, it's advertised as a kid's item.)

The Steppy Stool

I wouldn't review the Underground Restaurant in exactly the same way I would a normal restaurant, as it's a completely different concept. I didn't mind not getting a choice of food, and I really liked talking to the random people on my table. Where else do you get to discuss American health care policy, Vivienne Westwood shoes and a dodgy Turkish boyfriend with strangers? It's much closer to a dinner party, and quite a civilised one at that.

Hawksmoor - Beyond the Hype?

2009-10-01T11:54:00.004+01:00

In a fortuitous and unlikely chain of events, I found myself at Hawksmoor with a group of Qypers. I've only been on Qype a while, and hadn't even heard this event was happening, but Jess managed to wangle me a ticket after someone else pulled out at the last minute.

I've read lots about Hawksmoor on various blogs, and was excited to finally have an excuse the visit there. Someone lovely at Qype had also arranged for us to have free wine and cocktails, which is always a plus.

I'm going to come out and say it - Hawksmoor really didn't impress me at all. The waiter who met us at the door seemed surprised to see us, and struggled to find our reservation on the system (I could see it, it was right in the middle of the screen!). The waitress didn't see particularly interested in taking our drinks orders, and it took 5 of us surrounding her before she finally wrote them down. Although she was able to give us some recommendations of cocktails, it was a good 20 minutes before they turned up - apparently the bar was busy. The cocktails weren't that great either, and lacked some of the subtlety I've seen in other cocktail bars. The Hawksmoor Fizz was quite nice though, although the one I ordered for myself never turned up.

We ordered our meals just before 8. The starters turned up about 8.30, which given that most of them were cold (with the exception of the belly ribs) was a bit too long to wait. The waitress left after she'd delivered our starters, leaving us to fetch our own wine from the cooler. My crab was uninspiring, and accompanied by a rather paltry slice of overly chewy bread and a tiny cup of mayonnaise. It was also described as "dressed" on the menu, but in reality this just meant that there was some mayonnaise already mixed in with the crab meat, but no noticeable egg or seasoning. While the belly ribs seemed to go down well, the oysters and smoked salmon ordered by Tim and Judith either side of me also failed to go beyond the norm.

Crab and not much bread

The main courses arrived just after 9pm, by which point Jess and I had been in the restaurant for over 2 hours. Admittedly we were a bit early, but I was ravenous by now. I'd ordered a share of an enormous porterhouse, which fortunately arrived ready sliced. However, I was initially given someone else's ribeye, although I hadn't started eating it by the time the waitress realised the mistake. We had a large selection of sides, of which the triple cooked chips were the only ones that were above average. The potato gratin and the macaroni cheese were a little underseasoned, and tomato salad was overwhelmed by a pungent mint dressing.

900g of Porterhouse perfection

The steak was very very good though. It had a lovely chargrilled crust, but was still pink and melting inside. It was the best steak I've had in a long time, possibly ever. This is the sort of meat that you still think about months later. We'd been warned about the bone, but not about the fat. Although fat and bone make meat taste better, we wanted a rare steak so the fat isn't really needed to baste the meat, as for longer cooked cuts. It seemed a bit cheap to include a massive fatty rind on our steak when they were charging by the gram. Trimming the fat down wouldn't have altered the taste or texture, but would have saved us a bit of money. We weren't offered sauces for the steaks either, only tiny cups of ketchup and herb mayonnaise that came with the chips. The steaks didn't particularly need sauce, but the choice would have been nice.

By the time we got on to pudding, it was 10.30. It took us a while to get through the 3.5kgs of meat on the table, but it also took the waitress a while to clear our plates and bring us the dessert menu. I had a gin and lemon sorbet, which was refreshing but not that memorable. I also ate quite a bit of Jess's chocolate fudge sundae, complete with brownie bits. Again, it was decent but not worth trekking across London for.

Then the bill came. We'd lucked out on having free drinks, but it was still £45 a head for food alone. The steaks were completely worth the £20 or so we paid, but I really questioned whether the rest of the food had been worth £25. I felt we were paying fine dining prices for food that had been mostly average, and some of the slowest service I've seen. The waitress did highlight that the service charge was optional, but as we felt guilty for abusing the free wine somewhat, we paid it anyway. (As a side note, this was one of the most painless bill paying experiences ever. Within minutes of dividing the bill, everyone had handed over their money, taken their change, and there was no quibbling about who ate what! I need to hang out with random people from the internet more often.)

Looking more closely through the other reviews of Hawksmoor, it seems that many other people have noted that the service is painfully slow. I don't see why, when most steaks can be cooked in around 10-15 minutes (especially somewhere that attracts hardcore meat lovers; who are probably more likely to order it rare or medium), and the menu is fairly restricted. You'd also think that they'd make a bit more of an effort for a booking made under the name of a well known review website!

If you love steak, or if you want to love steak, then visit Hawksmoor. You'll be converted to worship at the altar of beef. Just don't bother with much else on the menu.

Palmiers

2009-09-29T21:12:00.004+01:00

Although it was fun making the vol-au-vents for the Daring Bakers, using circular cutters meant I had loads of puff pastry scraps. Unlike shortcrust pastry, these can't just be scrunched up and re-rolled. The scraps have to be stacked to preserve the layers, but even then they probably won't be able to achieve the same rise as the original pastry could.

So, having a massive pile of scraps that weren't going to rise properly, it seemed sensible to follow Joy's advice and make palmiers!

I couldn't decide whether to go sweet or savoury. I went with both.

The sweet were dusted with vanilla sugar and mixed spice. The sugar caramelised and made them crunchy and chewy and delicious. The speckles of vanilla and spices mingled to give an appropriately autumnal flavour.

Sweetly Spicy Palmiers

The savoury ones were layered with an extra mature cheddar and cayenne pepper. The cheese is far too strong to eat on it's own, and even T, who loves a good cheddar found it too harsh. However, when baked up, the cheese flavour mellowed out and became more pleasant. The cayenne gave it a bit of a kick and stopped it feeling too fatty.

Cheesy Palmiers

Although I preferred the taste of the sweet palmiers, the cheesy ones would be perfect for a pre-dinner snack, and are a great way to use up any puff-pastry scraps you might have lying about!

Vol-Au-Vents with The Daring Bakers

2009-09-27T12:41:00.005+01:00

After many months of umming and ahhing, I finally plucked up the commitment to join the Daring Kitchen, specifically the Daring Bakers. When I saw the challenge, I was nervous but relieved. The first time I attempted puff pastry it was a total disaster, but earlier this year I went to a pastry class and made a more successful attempt.

The September 2009 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Steph of A Whisk and a Spoon. She chose the French treat, Vols-au-Vent based on the Puff Pastry recipe by Michel Richard from the cookbook Baking With Julia by Dorie Greenspan. You could choose to make large or small vol-au-vents, and any filling. I followed the recipe exactly, with the only substitution being plain flour instead of cake flour.

Vol-Au-Vents

Initially things went well. The dough "wrapper" came together easily, and the butter was shaped into a square and then chilled. The first two turns of the dough went really well, and the butter didn't leak. Yay! Off I went to watch The Wire for an hour before the next two turns. Gritty urban drama and baking. A perfect match.

Turn 3 went wrong. I'm not sure if the dough was over-chilled, or if I rolled it too thin or roughly. The butter burst through underneath, so when I tried to do the turn, the dough was stuck to the worktop! I completed the turn as best as I could, reasoning that given there would be hundreds of layers by the end of the process, and one or two with a tear wouldn't matter.

The rest of the turns went ok, with lots of flouring to make sure there wasn't any more sticking. I think I might have been a bit over-enthusiastic with rolling out the dough too thinly, which was causing it to be prone to tearing. I made it to 6 turns, and added a 7th as the dough was looking a bit streaky in places.

Lots of Vol-Au-Vents!

Now I just had to think of a filling! Initially I wanted to do something Asian inspired, and was considering something Vietnamese as this would suit the French aspect of the pastry. However, I thought it would be strange to pair rich, buttery pastry with a light Asian filling, and I decided to go for something more traditional and "heavy".

The first attempt was large size vol-au-vents for dinner, filled with chicken, lemon and tarragon stew. Although they were delicious, they weren't lookers. They were also a little undercooked. I decided it was best to try again, and to make smaller ones that would be more manageable.

Next day I was flicking through the Saturday papers, and saw a recipe for coronation chicken. This was traditional and heavy, but also had an Asian influence! I also liked the very retro aspect of the dish. I used this recipe here, which was a big success. It's fruity and creamy, with a good spice blend. The mayonnaise isn't too overwhelming either. In fact, I liked this recipe so much I'm copying out by hand to go in my recipe binder. (That's the rule, if I don't like it enough to be bothered to write out the recipe with a fountain pen, it doesn't make the folder.)

Vol-Au-Vent with Coronation Chicken

As you can see from the photos, I didn't get that much rise from my pastry. I think I rolled it too thin again. It was crispy and flaky though, so not a total disaster. I was also proud of the good glaze I got from the egg wash, it was quite shiny in places!

Even though puff pastry takes a while to make, very little of that time is actually active. There's a lot of waiting around for the pastry to chill and rest. However, once you have got the hang of the "book fold" technique, it's a pretty simple and satisfying process. There's plenty of the pastry left in the freezer, so I shan't be buying any ready made puff pastry anytime soon. Given that the pastry can be easily made over a lazy weekend, I might not buy it ever again, and just have a massive pastry making session every few weeks.

Strawberry Baked Cheesecake

2009-09-20T15:04:00.003+01:00

I knew this day would come. "Bake" has finally let me down.

While moving in to the new flat, we somehow acquired a pack of coconut biscuits. As neither T nor I are particular fans, I decided to use the biscuits to make a cheesecake base. I found a recipe in "Bake" for a blueberry cheesecake, and set to work.

The base was easy enough, and was the usual mix of crushed biscuits and melted butter. On to that, I arranged plenty of chopped strawberries, as the blueberries in the shops were ridiculously expensive.

Next up was the cheesecake mix. Cream cheese, vanilla, sugar and eggs were whisked until smooth and creamy. Although I know you are not meant to eat raw eggs I couldn't resist a spoonful of mix, just to test it was alright... As it was delicious I poured the mixture over the strawberries and put it in to the oven.

It might be a tad unfair of me to totally blame Rachel Allen for my cheesecake fail. It was my first time cooking with the new oven, which is a combined oven and grill. I had an oven thermometer in there to see how accurate the oven was. Despite turning the oven up to full blast, it seemed unable to get hotter that 170C. Since the cheesecake wanted to be at 180C, I thought this was close enough and ploughed on regardless. It was only after the top of the cheesecake started burning after 5 minutes that I realised I had set the dial to grill instead of oven. In my defence, both symbols had a fan on them, and the only difference was a slightly thicker black line at the bottom!

I switched it over to oven mode, and kept an eye on the oven thermometer (which E, my old flatmate, once described as "a gadget for calling your oven's bullshit") so the temperature stayed around 180C the whole time. After 40 minutes, the cheesecake was mostly golden (except the burnt patch) and wobbled pleasingly.

Baked Strawberry Cheesecake

After chilling in the fridge, and topping it off with a strawberry and white wine syrup, it was time to eat. Although the strawberry flavour was good, the texture was a little too eggy in places. Instead of being smooth and custard like, it was granular and coarse. I can't decide if this was my complete inability to work an oven or just the wrong ratio of cream cheese and eggs.

The texture wasn't bad enough to scrap the cheesecake totally, and I've been working my way through it over the past few days. The flavours have matured nicely, and it does seem a little less granular after a few days in the fridge.

Strawberry Cheesecake - slightly granular

Hopefully now I have mastered how the new oven works, I can start making up with "Bake".

Chocolate Chip Cookies

2009-09-06T20:24:00.006+01:00

I'm still in limbo between flats, and I'd sworn off baking until we reached the new flat. However, with T passed out on the sofa watching Jonathan Ross, and this month's issue of Delicious already read, I was bored and the kitchen was calling.

Raiding the cupboards showed there was some flour, baking powder (no idea how T managed to obtain that, I must have bullied him in to buying it at some point) and a bar of chocolate left over from the chocolate terrine. I didn't have any cake tins or a baking sheet, only a roasting tin, so today was not the occasion to attempt the Daring Baker's back catalogue.

Instead I opted for a classic chocolate chip cookie, with hefty chunks of chopped chocolate. I reappeared from the kitchen 30 minutes later with cups of tea and a couple of freshly baked cookies. Not the most exciting Friday night, but certainly a tasty one.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

You can also save this dough in the fridge for a few days, so I baked up the rest of these this morning for elevenses.

RECIPE
115g softened butter
100g brown sugar
25g caster sugar
1 egg
1tsp vanilla extract
215g plain flour
1tsp baking powder
pinch salt
110g chocolate (cut in to chunks or chips)

Makes 24 cookies

1) Preheat the oven to 190c (Gas Mark 5)
2) Cream the butter and sugar until smooth, then add the egg and vanilla extract.
3) Add in the flour, salt and baking powder and briefly mix to form a dough.
4) Add in the chocolate and mix again to distribute the chips throughout the dough.
5) Divide the dough into 24 balls, and place on a greased baking sheet, lightly pressing each ball to flatten it in to a cookie shape. (At this stage you can store any extra dough in the fridge for a week or the freezer for a month.)
6) Bake for 10-12 minutes until golden. Transfer to a wire rack until cool. (If your cooling rack is in a self-storage facility, you can use the rack from a roasting tin that you found at the back of a cupboard)

Mexican Style Spinach and Chicken Wraps

2009-09-02T18:16:00.005+01:00

Although I've moved out of my student flat, I don't get the keys to my new flat for another week. My worldly possessions (including my beloved Le Creuset casserole dish and all my baking equipment) are currently languishing in a self storage unit on the outskirts of Edinburgh. In an attempt to actually get our deposit back, I spent 3 days cleaning the flat. A lack of equipment, energy, time and a kitchen meant I hadn't eaten properly for several days.

I'm currently camping at T's until we can move in to the new flat together, so I decided I should attempt to get something vaguely healthy inside me and recover from the last few days so that the next move won't be so stressful. I'd been planning on some kind of avocado and chicken salad, but the avocado was a bit brown and over-ripe. Instead I mashed it up with some chilli, lemon juice and garlic to make a sort-of guacamole.

Spinach and Chicken Wraps

I poached half a chicken breast, and then wilted a couple of handfuls of spinach in a dry pan. The shredded chicken was put in a wrap, alongside the spinach, guacamole and a drizzle of yoghurt. I would have liked some fresh tomatoes in there too, but there were none in the fridge.

The guacamole and chicken were delicious, and the varying greens when I cut the wraps open made me think I should call this something like "tortilla fresca", but my knowledge of Mexican cuisine is only marginally better than Jamie Oliver's, so I thought better of it.

Letting the side down was the spinach. It was a bit healthy tasting for my liking. The taste of iron was overwhelming, and masked the flavours of the guacamole and chicken too much. Perhaps using baby spinach with a milder taste would have been a better plan.

Anyway, this was a tasty little lunch time treat, and has 2 of my five-a-day. Hopefully all those vitamins and minerals will have me raring to go for another round of hardcore box moving next week...

Reflections on Communal Eating and Living

2009-08-28T15:20:00.000+01:00

This weekend we hand the keys to our flat back to the landlord. This marks the end of my time as a student, and the end of my time living in flats where you get to argue about who left the bathroom in such a mess and who didn't pay their share of the gas bill.

One of the most stressful things I've found with communal living is the upkeep of the kitchen. I never thought I would find this as difficult as I have. Neither of my parents are massively in to cooking, and neither of them are particularly houseproud. I grew up in a house where tidying and cleaning were usually done in a massive hygiene binge the day before visitors were due. We were never candidates for "How Clean is Your House", but at the same time the mantelpiece could have used dusting.

However, the kitchen was always pretty clean. Surfaces were wiped down after dinner, and the washing up done and put away. The fridge was regularly checked for anything that had gone bad, and the bins taken out. My only memory of dirt in the kitchen was the floor, as the kitchen door led out to the back garden, so it would often have muddy footprints or bits of stray grass cuttings here and there. Given that I was quite happy with this approach to cleanliness (surfaces and equipment clean, floor less important), I thought I'd be ok in shared flats.

I was wrong. Over the past 4 years, I lived with people who thought the best place to make their toast was directly on the counter, and then left a pile of crumbs with a smear of butter and jam as a reminder. Or the person who insisted on lining every baking tray with tin foil to minimise washing up, but then tearing the foil and deciding they couldn't be bothered to clear up the layer of grease that stuck the foil to the pan. Even more extreme, there was one person who refused to even use baking trays, reheating their ready meals solely in a tin foil cradle. Which burst all over the floor on several occasions, once infuriating the aforementioned flatmate so much they headbutted the fridge. There are people who use 12 saucepans to make spaghetti bolognese, and those that use wire wool on the non-stick pans. People who leave all their washing up in the sink, and then act surprised that you didn't do it for them. Or wash up under running water, so that when you pull the frying pan out of the cupboard the next day, you notice that while the inside is clean, the outside has half a fried egg stuck to it.

Sometimes the spice rack looks likes this.

Note the broken glass and intended recycling

It's also common for the worktop to look like this.

So close to the sink, yet so far from clean.

I'm looking forward to living somewhere you only have to clean after dinner, not before as well.

I'm also pretty sad to move out. Although some of my past flatmates have been hilariously incompetent in the kitchen, having 3 or 4 other people under the same roof makes for great communal meals. This year alone we've had Thanksgiving, Christmas dinner, Anti-Valentines, a mexican night, a tapas night and a chilli cook off. We had a chocolate fondue party, and baked a 2 foot long custard cream. We celebrated Burn's Night with the biggest haggis you've ever seen. There's always willing mouths to tuck in to the latest thing I've baked, usually just because I felt like it.

I've lost count the number of times I've bought too much dinner and managed to offload the leftovers on to one of my flatmates. This year particularly, I've had several texts and calls offering me a communal dinner. There's something great about coming home to a roast dinner and a table populated by some of your best friends, when an hour ago your dinner plans involved a can of baked beans and a serious iPlayer session.

While I won't miss communal cleaning (I've spent the last two days trying to scrape a year's worth of grease out the oven) I will definitely miss the communal eating.

Snickerdoodles

2009-08-26T17:25:00.002+01:00

The other day, I realised I hadn't baked anything for at least a week. Plus my flatmate L was coming back to Edinburgh to move out of the flat, so baked goods were absolutely required.

Snickerdoodles are something that I'd seen a few recipes for, but never actually tried them in real life. I noticed a recipe for the them in Rachel Allen's "Bake", so it was time to give them a go.

The recipe itself is pretty easy, and you can find the Rachel Allen version already typed out here. "Bake" is fast shaping up to be one of the most reliable cook books I own, and my snickerdoodles came out very similar to Maria's.

Snickerdoodles, from "Bake" by Rachel Allen

I was possibly a bit generous with the nutmeg, but this mixed with the creaminess of the butter to create something very reminiscent of an egg custard tart in biscuit form. I wasn't entirely sold on the crispy outside with a cakey centre, but I can see its appeal. I liked the spiciness, and these are very "autumnal". I'd probably remake these as little Christmas presents to give out randomly, but make the spicing a bit more subtle and try to make them a bit thinner and crispier. Although that might move them too far to the realm of gingerbread, but anyway.

I've just discovered now that they are also pretty tasty dunked in tea and coffee, and they're strong enough not to crumble too much either.

Thai Steamed Mussels

2009-08-23T14:52:00.005+01:00

One thing I am genuinely good at in the kitchen is dealing with left-overs. Although I ignore the golden rule of planning a weekly menu, I always check out the fridge before deciding what is for dinner that night. This has an extra bonus when you have flatmates, as often there are things left in the fridge and cupboards that they no longer want that can be snaffled.

Minimising waste is one of the rules of "Economy Gastronomy", a new show on BBC2. The show is definitely not aimed at me, as I've spent the last four years perfecting the art of eating well on a small budget, but I do enjoy some of the recipes. I also get a bit of schadenfreude off some of the more idiotic meal plans of the participants, but that just probably makes me an evil person.

One recipe that did catch my eye was the Thai Steamed Mussels. I love mussels, and I love Thai food too. When I found myself looking at a fridge containing half a can of coconut milk, it seemed like a good idea.

I made my own red curry paste, using a selection of jars from the fridge. The recipe is probably not all that authentic, but it tasted pretty good, with the right balance of heat, sourness and aromatics.

2 cloves of garlic,
2cm of ginger
1tsp lemongrass (either chopped or pureed)
1tsp tamarind paste
1 heaped tsp Thai shrimp chilli paste
3 small kaffir lime leaves (chopped, and soaked if using dried)
1tsp lime zest
1 red chilli (chopped)
1 spring onion (chopped)
Splash of groundnut oil

Thai Red Curry Paste

Basically, mash everything together with a pestle and mortar. I find it easiest to add the solid ingredients first and then start adding the pastes and liquids, but as long as it all ends up in the bowl it shouldn't matter too much. It takes quite a bit of pounding and grinding to get it all looking smooth, so put something good on tv or the radio and keep going. The recipe above makes enough for 3 or 4 large spoonfuls, and will keep in the fridge a couple of days if you don't use it all in one go.

Thai-Spiced Steamed Mussels

The mussels themselves were easy to make, although I was worried that I might give myself food poisoning by putting a bad one in the pot by mistake. I sorted through the bag, and only 2 failed to close when tapped. They'd also been debearded and scrubbed, although a couple still had the remains of a beard which I pulled out.

As I knew it would be a matter of minutes once the mussels went in the pan, I did a full mise en place for once. Chillies and garlic were chopped, and the spring onion and coriander garnish readied. I mixed up a jug of coconut milk, red curry paste and chicken stock, to pour over the mussels. (It was actually half an Oxo cube and some boiling water, but I didn't see the point of defrosting the real chicken stock for 75mls worth.)

5 minutes later, I was tucking in to a massive heap of mussels, with the fragrant broth awaiting me at the bottom of the bowl. I also had got a mini baguette earlier in the day, and used this to mop up the juices. Lovely!

All gone!

My main criticism would be that there was not much kick to this dish. I guess as Economy Gastronomy is aimed at families they didn't want to make it too spicy for the kids (but which kids do you know that would eat a plate full of mussels? I didn't go anywhere near seafood until I was in my late teens.) However, this would be easily solved by using more red curry paste, or making your own *very* spicy version.

I really enjoyed this meal, and it was very quick to make if you don't have to debeard and clean the mussels yourself. The mussels were not that expensive (£5.60 per kilo) but probably a little more than I would spend on one meal normally. I was also a bit put off by the lack of fruit and veg, but I guess if you had a healthy pudding or starter and a glass of juice that would compensate for the lack of roughage. However, it felt very indulgent and luxurious, and in total probably only cost me about £3.50. Bargain! A perfect way to use up leftovers!

Eating at The Fringe Festival

2009-08-21T20:36:00.004+01:00

For the last 20 days, Edinburgh has been busy with the various festivals that are held here during August. There's books, opera, dance, theatre, and a nightly RAF flyover at 9pm on the dot. The biggest of all the festivals is the Fringe, which tends to be mostly comedy with the odd hint of amateur theatricals.

Much of the Fringe takes place in the University Unions. It's very strange to see the bar where you'd go for a cheap drink after lectures packed full of "real" people. Weirder still is that Pleasance Sports Hall is a major venue. Normally, queuing outside Pleasance equals an exam. Queuing with a beer in hand to see stand up messes with my mind.

Most Fringe tickets are unreserved, so you have to stake your place in the queue 30 minutes or so before the show starts if you want a choice of seats - otherwise you can find yourself split up if you are in a big group, or sitting in centre front row for a comedian who likes to pick on the audience. This isn't really a major problem, but for those seeing several shows on the same day, it can mean that once you have traveled between venues, you have little or no time to eat. (Ok, I realise that this is probably only a problem for me, but it is a serious one! You try sitting through an hour of hip-hop theatre when you desperately need some food!)

Assembly Rooms on George Street has a pretty standard cafe on the premises, and the Pleasance complex has a small barbecue van that does ok burgers and sausages, and a small cafe. Pleasance Dome also has the guys from the Mosque Kitchen serving decent curries for bargain prices.

However, the most interesting eating at the Fringe is to be had in Bristo Square, in the courtyard of the Guilded Balloon (otherwise known as Teviot to the locals). With all the American blogs and food sites going mental over gourmet food trucks, it's good to see a few food vans that aren't just burger and chips here in the UK. They're great to grab a snack at in-between shows, and everything is portable should you need to queue and nosh simultaneously.

La Creperie - Not that exciting, but sometimes you *need* a pancake with Nutella.

Wee Hut - Serves several types of wurst, I am going to try the smoked wurst next.

La Favorita Pizza Oven - Features a real wood fired pizza oven (you can see the black chimney at the the top of the photo). Generally very tasty and stays open late. (Although they had a sign today proclaiming themselves "Athur (sic) Smith's Favourite Pizza")

Well Hung and Tender - Comedy name, but seriously good burgers. T was put off by the open air relish station, but I enjoyed using coffee stirrers to sample all the condiments before deciding that the mustard mayo should grace my burger.

Fish Mussels - Not quite in Bristo Square, but around the corner at Hullaballoo. Doesn't serve fish, but does serve mussels in a classic white wine and garlic type sauce.

It also serves these bad boys...

I wasn't sure whether I liked oysters or not. I can't remember ever eating a raw one, and when I can remember eating one, they've always been deep-fried. The oysters are freshly shucked as you order them, and garnished with a squeeze of lemon and a drop or two of Tabasco. However, since plucking up the courage to try one the other day, I've been back for more. Very delicious and a really unusual streetfood option!

Orangey Honey Buns

2009-08-18T22:49:00.004+01:00

My obsession with the latest Valentine Warner book continues. The Orangey Honey Buns had caught my eye straight away, and the quest to use up as much stuff in the cupboards before moving meant I had a packet of instant yeast wanting a home.

The buns were pretty easy to make, although the dough seemed to want to travel up my whisk in to my mixer instead of staying on the beaters. After a few attempts to scrape it out of the top of the beaters, I gave up and mixed it by hand.

The dough rose easily, and tiny blobs in each of the muffin holes soon grew to almost overflowing. Given my last attempt at baking with Valentine Warner ended in a burnt meringue, I went for the lower timing estimate.

Valentine Warner must be testing his recipes using the coldest oven in the world! I never normally have trouble with baking (my oven is pretty new and accurate) so I rarely check things too closely. After 12 minutes the buns were very very very black. Oh dear. However, after letting them cool, they hadn't hardened up too much. Even though they weren't golden, they didn't seem to be charcoal either.

Orangey Honey Buns

I forged on with making the syrup, which was very easy (and so tasty that I had a few spoonfuls while making it... just to test obviously). I served a couple of the buns straight away with the hot syrup, and put the rest in a jar in the fridge.

The buns were a little chewy on the outside, but the inside was still soft and spongy. It reminded me a lot of a rum baba. While it would have been slightly tastier (and much prettier) without the black tops, it didn't really completely ruin the dish either. The sticky syrup soaked in to the buns quickly, and they crumbled easily when attacked with a spoon. The ones that have been left to soak are almost liquid inside, with each bubble in the sponge containing syrup instead of air.

I'm having to resist eating these all the time. The jar in the fridge is calling me. I even ate some for breakfast, which is definitely not good for my health. The recipe suggests serving with whipped cream, but I think a nice blob of vanilla ice cream would also be lovely, especially if the buns are still warm. I've been having mine with creme fraiche and a chunk of the candied orange peel used in the syrup. The sourness of the creme fraiche cuts through the syrup well.

Still golden inside

I would recommend this recipe, but if you have a halfway decent oven, I would check the buns after 8 minutes and then proceed carefully. Don't worry too much if they do get a bit dark, but if food aesthetics are important to you, watch closely...

The Dogs (revisited) and Philosophy

2009-08-13T16:47:00.007+01:00

When I first started studying photography ten years ago, digital cameras were insanely expensive and only used by top professionals and early-adopting amateurs. Although film was fairly cheap, it still cost £4 or so to buy and develop a roll of pictures. This had the advantage of making people think twice about clicking the shutter.

Now, everyone has a digital. Even a basic mobile phone will have a camera with a decent number of megapixels on it. Although this has allowed people to capture moments they wouldn't have been able to afford to catch on film (such as action shots where 30 pictures are blurred but 1 is amazing), it also makes people quite unthinking with their cameras. I once went on holiday with a friend who obsessively documented the whole trip. While she got some nice snaps of the Sagrada Familia, I was less happy about being constantly photographed in the airport, on buses, eating my dinner and while trying to apply suntan lotion. Sometimes it's better to just put the lens down and experience what is happening first hand.

I've been following the recent chat on the WoM blog about modern etiquette, and I still think that taking pictures of your dinner in restaurants is generally bad form. The only blog I have ever deleted from my RSS reader was 90% pictures of restaurant meals, and as well as making me feel that the blogger would be the most irritating person to go for dinner with, it was just boring. Why do I care what a salad in a restaurant 2000 miles away looks like? I want to know what made the meal special, and in the case of far-flung restaurants, if there are unusual flavours or methods I can recreate at home. I can forgive photography on very striking looking dishes, but most of the time I am not a fan. Looking back over my past reviews, most of the ones with photos were taken either when I was on my own, or hastily snatched while dining companions visited the bathrooms.

So it is for these reasons that this article contains only one photograph, and one that was not taken by me.

Dining Room at The Dogs (from their website)

After raving about The Dogs all year, I finally dragged my flatmates along there for dinner. Things got off to a bad start, with us arriving late for our reservation and two people short. Just as we were about to give up and order for him, E arrived from his waiting job just around the corner. The waitress was very nice about the delay we caused, and gave E plenty of time to peruse the menu, while the rest of us worked our way through a bottle of house red and some very tasty warm bread.

For starters, E had the mushroom and vegetable pate, which was had a large dose of woody, mushroom flavour in it. The pate was deliciously rich and thick, although the portion of pate outweighed the slice of toast that accompanied it, forcing E to leave half his portion as he had nothing to spread it on! A had a whitebait salad, which was a small mound of leaves covered in a giant portion of tiny spicy fish. Again, the main complaint that it was a little too large as a starter, nonetheless A was very pleased to receive such a good amount of fish instead of the stingy toppings you sometimes get with salads. I ventured in to offal territory, and had lamb sweetbreads on toast. I've never tried them before, so have little to compare them to. They had the texture of the melting fat you get with pork crackling, but without the greasiness. My portion was well sized, but the drizzle of sherry sauce meant that some parts of the dish were a little bit dry and bland.

At this point, we also got a portion of chips cooked in dripping to share. While the chips on my last visit had been good, this portion was transcendental. The thick cut chips were perfectly crunchy on the outside, almost shattering when cut. Inside was creamy and smooth. They were possibly some of the most delicious chips I have ever eaten.

Given E's current experience working in the restaurant industry, we also spent a lot of the meal discussing the ethos of The Dogs. On some levels, the informality is almost off-putting. The cutlery arrives in your water glass, and a jug of tap water is given to every table as soon as they sit down. Instead of the restaurant staple of cracked pepper, each table sports a salt and pepper shaker, in the same glass cone style beloved of the greasy spoon. Yet the food is far more adventurous than restaurants of a similar price range, and often far better cooked. My humanities degree lead me to suggest that The Dogs is in some way a deconstruction of what makes a good restaurant, with some accepted conventions deliberately ignored and challenged. This is perhaps taking it all far too seriously.

Moving on to the main course, L (who had skipped the starter) opted for the tomato barley risotto. The plate was filled with fat grains of barley, and large chunks of tomato. The barley added a layer of nuttiness to the tomato sauce, and was very tasty indeed. It was also very filling, and anyone without an enormous appetite is probably best sticking to the small portion.

A ordered the vegetable and pulse bake, which came with a goat's cheese mash topping. This was also declared delicious, although rather stodgy and heavy. Again, not an option for the light appetite.

E ordered the tomato seafood stew, which came with a large hunk of soda bread. I found this rather sour tasting, and E complained that the mussels had overwhelmed the other ingredients. This potentially could be a great dish, but it just didn't seem to come together the way it should on this occasion.

I had a the grilled trout with green salad broth. I did not have any food envy at all! The trout skin was crispy, while the flesh underneath was tender and flaky. The green salad broth was heavy with the scent of mussels, and tasted like a salad that had seafood dressing. It was quite a strange sensation to eat! There were also a couple of fat mussels hiding in the broth, which also featured chunky celery, cucumber and potatoes. Unfortunately one of my mussels was a bit gritty, but apart from that it was a stand out dish.

We finished up with a bowl of ice cream, raspberry rice pudding and lemon thyme posset. I am officially in love with posset, and I couldn't fault the creamy texture with the zing of lemon. The dish was topped with crystallised strands of lemon zest, which gave a crunchy contrast to the posset, which was studded with chopped thyme. E's rice pudding was also a hit, with A proclaiming that the taste took him back to childhood in the same way that Anton Ego's ratatouille did in the eponymous film.

Overall, I would describe a visit to The Dogs as similar to visiting an eccentric aunt and uncle, who happen to be channelling Nigella Lawson and Nigel Slater to various degrees. The food will be delicious, with the occasional major triumph and minor slip, and the atmosphere quirky but friendly. It is a very strong contender for my all time favourite restaurant, and I dare you to find a better chip!

Vanilla Fairy Cakes with Caramel

2009-08-09T17:46:00.004+01:00

I am not a major fan of the cupcake trend. They are definitely cute, and sometimes very tasty, but too often they are just over iced, dry and a feeble excuse for cake.

Having said that, I do bake cupcakes regularly. My urge to bake is far greater than my urge to eat, so I'll often hand out bits of cakes to friends, family, and my (gradually expanding) flatmates. In the past, if I've baked a traditional cake, instead of just eating a slice, one flatmate (who was permanently on a diet) would just shave smaller and smaller pieces off it, until all that was left was a misshapen, dried out crust. By making individual cakes, most people take one, and greedy people take two. Everyone is happy, and there's no grief over who cut the cake in to such a weird shape that it is no longer slice-able.

Vanilla Cupcakes with a weird vintage effect...

So, in my efforts to vanquish the cupcake, stand up for British food, and yet remain with the sharing friendly pre-portioned sizes, I went for fairy cakes. (This was not at all to do with the sudden realisation that I'd forgotten to buy muffin cases.)

Even though it's not updated much, Cupcake Bakeshop is still one of the best sites I've found for cake recipes. The flavours are also much more adventurous than you'd normally find. On this occasion though, I went for the 3 Vanilla recipe. The main changes are as follows:

1 whole vanilla pod in the batter, as I bulk bought some and have a jar of 50 pods in my cupboard. I'm pretty free and easy with them.
As my cakes were much smaller, I got 24 cakes out of this easily, and there is still some batter in the fridge, probably enough for another 5 or 6.
I didn't have any cream cheese, so I just made a simple buttercream with icing sugar, vanilla essence (home-made with vodka and brandy... yum), butter and a splash of milk.
Before icing the cakes, I cut out the centre, and filled it with the caramel left over from the biscuits I made at graduation. As it was packed with sugar, it was still fine to eat, but needed a little warming up to get it to a spoonable consistency.
As they were fairy cakes, there wasn't much room for filling, so the caramel soaked in to the cake a bit, making it extra moist and yummy.
I used home-made vanilla salt to garnish, which isn't as brown as the Malden version.

Vanilla Cupcakes with Caramel

These are pretty damn good, although I found them a little starchy. I think I probably overmixed the flour. I am not really a fan of the Dry-Wet method of cake mixing, but a lot of American cakes seem to use it. I also should have put a bit of vanilla salt on the caramel filling, and mixed some in with the icing, as the salt-kick wasn't as strong as I wanted. T declared them his favourite cake ever, and wants them for his birthday next month. I already have a cunning plan for then, but I should be able to incorporate these in to it...

P.S - I can't tell if I'm rubbish at iPhoto or if Blogger is doing strange things to my photos. Maybe both.

Festive Cocktail - Elderflower Martini

2009-08-05T18:07:00.008+01:00

Although the Edinburgh fringe doesn't start officially until the 7th August, the city is already in full festival mode. Many shows are doing previews, and I'm off to a couple tonight. I've also got tickets for shows for the next few days, my mission this year is to go to at least one show a day!

A big problem with the Fringe is that there is just so much to see. I've had a programme guide for a couple of weeks, and picked up Fest magazine too, but I am still none the wiser about what I want to see.

While contemplating the hefty tome that is the full Fringe listings, I've often been sipping on an elderflower martini. I first tried this drink at the bar where my flatmate works. I think it was a special, as I haven't seen it there since. Although I know a proper martini shouldn't have a non-alcoholic mixer as it's main component, I can't quite remember what this was called in the bar, and googling doesn't bring up a similar recipe. I'd watched the barman quite closely as he'd made the drink, so although I can't remember the name, I can still guess at the recipe!

You will need these ingredients

Elderflower Martini - per person:
25ml sweet vermouth
25ml elderflower cordial
125ml cloudy apple juice

Put everything in a cocktail shaker, with plenty of ice cubes. Shake it up until the outside of the shaker gets cold and misty.

Cold and Misty

Strain the drink in to a glass and enjoy! It's not particularly alcoholic, so it's refreshing while still having a bit of a kick. I am a massive fan of gin and other "aromatic" type drinks, so I loved the floral flavour of the elderflower mixed with the herby tones of the vermouth.

Time to study the options!

There's a couple of other summer drinks I've been drinking a lot lately, so watch out for those recipes soon...

Click here for more Martini information -

Peter's Yard. The Quartermile

2009-08-02T13:09:00.002+01:00

Reading through some of the previous review posts on here, I seem to always be very positive. Though this may indicate that I only eat in the most fabulous places (or that I have a thoroughly undiscerning palate), it's actually because I don't want to bother reviewing places that have rubbish food! Especially as they are usually places that you know will be rubbish, but you have to go ahead with it anyway because it's your friend's birthday and they wanted to go there (I'm talking to you, Wetherspoons). Although if I do eat somewhere that is hilariously bad, I probably will blog about it for comedy value.

Somewhere I have mentioned on here a couple of times, and I have been meaning to review for ages, is Peter's Yard. It's in the new Quartermile development, although to me, it'll always be on Middle Meadow Walk. A few weeks after it opened, a Starbucks sprung up 2 doors down. I did not hold out much hope. Well over a year later, and Peter's Yard is still thriving.

I love this sign - it tells the truth.

Peter's Yard isn't a typical Edinburgh cafe. For starters, it's not in a pokey converted tenement front room. It's industrial, with exposed pipes, concrete, lots of glass and half the space taking up by a very imposing looking bakery area. The menu is written on brown paper rolls that hang from walls, with no option of a frappucino with soy whipped cream and extra sprinkles.. In fact, you can't even choose to supersize your coffee, it comes in standard only. The furniture is stylish but utilitarian. This is not the third place.

Instead there are the usual coffees, including an honesty station, where you can pour your own filter coffee to take away, leaving your money in the jar next to the flask. The coffee is very good indeed, and often comes with some very impressive examples of latte art.

Latte Art at Peter's Yard

However, the thing that hooked me in, and drew me to Peter's Yard when I knew I should be in the library studying, or saving money by eating at home, was the food. All the baking is done on the premises, and they produce some of the best bread in the city. The cakes are also particularly good, with the parsnip cake and the Valrhona muffins being among my favourites. Often after a miserable day at uni, I would attempt to cheer myself up with a bowl of their soup, and a big hunk of fresh bread. They also sell quite a lot of grocery food too, such as packets of Swedish cookies, the teas and coffee blends they serve, and some seriously good chocolate, including Valrhona, Amedei and Michel Cluizel.

After a fun afternoon spent queuing at the council office to pay for a parking permit, I stopped once more at Peter's Yard. Deciding it was too hot for soup, and I wasn't hungry enough to justify a massive open sandwich, I went for a cappuccino and a slice of pecan pie.

Pecan Pie and Coffee at Peter's Yard

The coffee was delicious as usual, although I think that today's barista was still in training given the slightly poor attempt at latte art! (Some kind of musical notation? Or just a random swirl?) I love the way the top is really bitter, but the main coffee drunk through the milk is almost naturally sweet.

The pecan pie was rammed with nuts, and had an intriguing construction. Bordering the pastry was an almost cake-like layer, which I guess was probably made from ground nuts. On top of that was a hefty layer of whole pecans, and then the top was glazed with apricot jelly. This tasted quite strong when eaten alone, but when eaten with the pecans gave the pie a satisfyingly fruity aftertaste.

Peter's Yard is more expensive than a lot of other places nearby, especially given that it is a stones throw from the George Square campus. However, the quality of the food and drink is such that I think it justifies a slightly higher charge. If lunch at Starbucks is going to cost £5, then I'm totally ready to pay £6 and have something much much better. Given that Peter's Yard is often packed while the neighbouring Starbucks is almost empty, it seems many Edinburghers agree with me.

Strawberry Jam - Why You Should Stick To Just One Recipe

2009-07-31T11:23:00.000+01:00

Almost as soon as we got home from the PYO farm, it became obvious that we had way too much fruit, and unless we wanted to eat strawberries and cream at every meal for the next week, there was no way we would get through all of it. The cashier in the farm shop had asked if we planned to make jam, so on the way home we'd picked up some jam sugar just in case the mood took us.

The recipe on the back of the jam sugar packet said boil the jam for 4 minutes. The recipe in Leith's Bible said it could take up to 30 minutes for the jam to set, as did a recipe on BBC food. I also had a sugar thermometer with a handy "jam" marking on it. I've seen plenty of jars of homemade jam that are too runny, and have to be poured, but I couldn't imagine what jam that was too hard would be like. I decided to boil the jam until the sugar thermometer was satisfied. I also chucked in some vanilla seeds and a squeeze of lemon juice for fun.

As I am greedy and curious, it was only a couple of hours later when I broke in to the first jar. Instead of spreadable jam, I had some kind of fruit toffee. It was like a giant wine gum in a jar. I managed to chip a lump out of it, and it tasted fine. The only problem was the texture.

Strawberry Jam

After googling various phrases about hard jam, I discovered what had gone wrong. The "up to 30 minutes" recipes were using ordinary sugar, but the jam sugar I'd used had added pectin. This had caused the jam to set quicker and at a lower temperature than relying on the pectin in the fruit alone. The lemon juice had also bumped up the pectin levels. Luckily, I also found that melting the jam down and adding in over-ripe fruit would probably give the jam a slightly better consistency.

A few nights later, when trying to get rid of the last few strawberries, I put the two jars of jam I'd made in a saucepan of cold water, which I slowly warmed up. In another pan, I mashed up the remaining fresh strawberries with a splash of water. Once the jam was warm enough to be stirrable (this took some time) I added in the mashed strawberries and their juice, and mixed it in to the existing jam as best I could.

I left the jars overnight, and consoled myself that a jar of strawberry toffee was not the worst thing that could have happened. The next morning I made toast while staring at the jars of jam with apprehension. Opening the jar gave no clues, and the jam still looked firm. As I dipped the knife in, I knew the fix had worked. The jam was spreadable! Success!

Jam on a petit pain

I've been eating the jam all week, just on bread or crackers, sometimes with butter and sometimes without. I've even substituted jam and bread for dinner, in a move reminiscent of my grandmother. When my mother would tell her to eat a proper dinner, she'd reply that jam and smoking were the only pleasures left in life at her age. I haven't started smoking though.

I wouldn't say this jam is life changing, but it is very fruity, with the right balance of sweetness and tartness. The vanilla adds a little something, but the flavour is not obvious. For a first foray in to the jam-making world, I'm pretty happy. I've also learnt my lesson about not trying to combine 3 different recipes when I have no idea what I'm doing!

Raspberry Crumble, with a Hint of Strawberry

2009-07-27T21:52:00.000+01:00

Last week, I went down to Durham for a night to visit my flatmate H, who has graduated, moved out of the flat, and is about to start a very exciting new project updating a guidebook (I want her job!). On the train down, I got a text from T. The strawberries we'd picked a few days ago were becoming over-ripe and squishy, with a couple already mouldy and in the bin. We decided to mush up any that looked on their last legs and freeze them.

When I returned from H's, I made the gooseberry snow, and froze the last couple of handfuls of remaining gooseberries. Now I just had a punnet of raspberries to deal with. I'd already used some for a very boozy cranachan (recipe to come later once I remember how much raspberry vodka I put in it...) but there were still quite a fair amount in the punnet.

So... it had to be some kind of recipe that was mostly fruit, as I didn't fancy a pile of cream and carbohydrates with just a couple of berries on top. It also had to be quick and simple, as 1 Vs 100 was on Xbox Live. I know this is the lamest thing ever, but I really, really, REALLY love trivia quizzes.

Raspberry crumble won. It is simple, quick, easy to clear up, great hot, good cold and gives fruit the starring role. Plus it always reminds of being a kid as crumble was about the only pudding my mum could be bothered to cook!

Raspberry Crumble

I completely guessed the recipe, as I forgot to bring my scales over to T's flat.

1/4 packet of butter (about 75g?)
A good sprinkle of flour
A good sprinkle of oats
A small sprinkle of sugar
Pinch of salt
Pinch of ginger

The mixture seemed crumbly enough, and looked like there was enough to cover the dish I'd dumped all the raspberries in to. Just as I was about to add the topping, I remembered the frozen strawberries. There wasn't that much so I defrosted the mush in a saucepan with a dash of water and threw that in with the raspberries too.

Leftovers!

After 30 minutes in a gas mark 5 oven, the juice from the berries was staining the edges of the crumble, which had turned golden and crispy. We ate it with a small dollop of ice cream that was lurking in the back of the freezer. The fruit underneath was sweet, with a slight sourness, and had turned jammy and thick. The flavour of the strawberries wasn't obvious, but it tempered the intensity of the raspberries and made the whole affair even more yummy.

I finished off the last portion today while watching Eggheads. Sometimes I love being unemployed.

Valentine Warner's Gooseberry Snow

2009-07-24T16:01:00.007+01:00

I don't think I've ever had gooseberries in any other form than gooseberry fool, so I was intrigued to try the recipe for gooseberry snow in Valentine Warner's "What to Eat Now: More Please!". It was a sort of cross between a crumble and a Queen of Puddings, with stewed fruit on the bottom, topped off with a lightly baked meringue.

The first step was to stew up some gooseberries. They were heated with butter and a bit of sugar until they were starting to go mushy, but most of the fruit was still intact. As this bit is to taste, I reckon you could pretty much freestyle it, but I used about 10g of butter, 75g of gooseberries and a good sprinkle of sugar. The recipe made 4 servings, but there was only me, so I made one serving of fruit and two servings of meringue, as I couldn't go smaller than one egg white!

Draining the Gooseberries

Leave the gooseberries to cool while you make the meringue. This was one egg white with 50g sugar and a dash of vanilla essence. Whisk it until it is stiff and shiny, if you tip the bowl upside down it shouldn't fall out! Mix the leftover egg yolk in to the stewed gooseberries (make sure they are cool enough so the yolk won't scramble).

Pour the gooseberry mixture into a greased ramekin or oven-proof dish, and spoon a good amount of meringue on top. Bake at 190C for 10-15 minutes.

I was very generous with the meringue.

I went for 15 minutes in the oven, although 12 would probably have been better. The meringue was a little too brown, with the occasional burnt patch.

Gooseberry Snow

Luckily, this didn't affect the taste too much, with only the top peak tasting "burnt" rather than caramelised. The sweet meringue was foamy and fluffy, and was offset nicely by the tart fruit. The fruit stew at the bottom was possibly one of the most delicious things I have eaten lately, and I rescued the saucepan from the washing up pile so I could have a couple more mouthfuls of the stuff! The addition of the egg yolk made the sauce surrounding the fruit transform in to a thin custard, with just the right amount of richness.

I'm still not convinced by meringue topping, so I don't think this dish will become a regular round here. However, I'll definitely be making the stewed gooseberries again, and probably just eating it straight out the pan too.

EDIT: The original recipe is now online for those of you fed up with my vague description!

Craigies PYO Farm, Near South Queensferry

2009-07-21T16:01:00.001+01:00

Last year we spent a lot of time trying to go to Pick Your Own farms, but the only time we actually made it to one, it had been raining too heavily that week and the PYO fields were closed. When the sun struggled through the clouds on Sunday morning, we headed out to Craigie's Farm to grab some strawberries while we could!

The farm is just outside Edinburgh, with a great view of the airport! I kept hearing "thunder" only to realise it was a plane landing! You can also see out over Edinburgh to the surrounding hills, and over the Forth to Fife. After wandering around in the shop for a bit, we eventually found the pile of PYO punnets at the entrance to the fields.

View to Fife

We started off in the Strawberry rows, and soon filled a large punnet with 2kg of strawberries. The plants were not all completely ripe, so it was fun digging around under leaves and trying to spot the ripest ones. It was also great to sample a few berries along the way, although it probably wasn't the most hygienic thing you could do.

Spot the Ripe Strawberries...

Carrying our massive basket of strawberries, we headed over to the gooseberry bushes. They were quite spiky and we got a few nips off some of the more thorny branches. We didn't pick quite so many of these, but I wanted to try the Valentine Warner recipe for gooseberry snow, so we settled at half a small punnet (about 500g).

Finally, we trekked down to the bottom of the farm for the outdoor raspberries. These were the easiest to pick, as unlike the strawberries you didn't have to crouch down so low, and the bushes weren't spiky like the gooseberries. I don't think I've ever seen a raspberry bush before, and it was interesting how the raspberries left their white conical hulls on the bush. I always assumed that raspberries must have been hollowed out in a factory somewhere! As the raspberries were off the ground, they weren't as muddy as the strawberries, and for a while I was following a "one for the basket, one for me" style of picking! Fortunately for Craigie's profit margin, the Scottish weather started closing in, and we hurried to fill our punnet before the rain soaked us.

T hard at work in the raspberry field

As we walked back to the farm, the threatened rain didn't quite appear, so instead I took some arty shots of the punnets. We also passed redcurrents and blackcurrents, but we didn't get any of these on this occasion, although we did enjoy playing at being farmers! There are also lots of other PYO items that haven't come in to season yet, so I'm already planning the next trip!

Craigies PYO Fruit

Although we spent a fair bit of money, we got a lot of fruit. We didn't realise quite how good a deal we got until we stopped at Sainsbury's on the way home. We'd paid £3.99 per kg for our raspberries, but the ones in the supermarket were £8.84per kg! The cheapest supermarket strawberries we could find were £4 per kg, compared to our ones at £3.49. The supermarket fruit looked pretty sad in comparision to the stuff in the car boot, which had been attached to a plant less than an hour ago.

We ate the first batch of strawberries that night with cream, to maximise the freshness. I think some of it will end up as jam, while the excess raspberries and gooseberries are probably headed for the freezer, or summer puddings. I can't wait!

Grandmother's Chicken Fried Rice

2009-07-19T17:07:00.006+01:00

T is a big fan of Chinese food, and if I'm not around at the weekend, he'll often treat himself to a take away. He'd watched a few TV shows about Chinese food, but didn't really have the know-how to cook it at home beyond basic stir-fries. When I saw Chinese Food Made Easy on special offer, I picked up a copy for T. (I am angling for a Girlfriend-of-the-Year Award...)

Even though we don't move to our new flat together (eeek!) until September, already we've begun the process of sorting through our possessions and getting rid of things. Yesterday was the turn of my old PC (I'm a Mac-girl now) so T had spent the day dismantling it and adding the best bits on to his PC to create an uber-PC. I'd spent the day clearing up the casing and getting rid of all the dust that had collected in it over the years! We decided to start off the book with Grandmother's Chicken Fried Rice, as we just wanted something fairly straightforward and quick to have for dinner after a busy day. T also gets this dish a fair bit from the take-away, so he was interested to see how it compared.

We had most of the ingredients already, as I had some rice wine (I decided that Japanese is close enough to Chinese in this case) from making sushi ages ago, so all that was required was a quick trip to the Chinese supermarket I recently discovered to get some dried shiitakes* and some glutinous rice.

As I chopped up the shallots, and grated the ginger, I soaked the mushrooms and cooked the rice. T's flat doesn't have scales, so I had to guess how much rice and how much water to use. After about 10 minutes, there was a horrible burning smell and a rice pancake burnt on the bottom of the pan! Luckily as it was non-stick it just flopped out in one lump straight in to the bin. The second attempt I used a lot more water and a lower heat. This one didn't burn on to the pan, but was very glutinous indeed! It stuck together in a big ball and it was only once I started stir-frying it that it began to separate into the grains.

Second attempt at glutinous rice

After I'd managed to cook the rice, the rest of the recipe was very easy and simple. After briefly frying the garlic, shallots and dried shiitakes, diced chicken was added. Then five spice and rice wine, followed by dark soy sauce. Finally, the rice and peanuts are added, warmed through, and then served seasoned with light soy sauce, toasted sesame oil and spring onion.

Grandmother's Chicken Fried Rice

The dish was really tasty, and I liked how the crunchy peanuts contrasted with the soft chicken and rubbery mushrooms. My main criticism of this dish was the lack of vegetables. Normally I would put in lots of veg and only 1 chicken breast, but I used 2 breasts for this. It felt very meat heavy, I guess I have got used to a less meaty diet lately. The book does have a large vegetarian section, and it seems that a lot of the dishes are meant to be served in conjunction with each other, so if I was to make this again I'd make a bit less and serve a veggie side dish too.

*I don't know why the recipe specifies dried shiitakes over fresh ones, perhaps it is because fresh ones aren't that widely available in parts of the UK? Anyone got a better suggestions?

Summer Courgette Spaghetti

2009-07-16T22:31:00.005+01:00

Given that only a few weeks ago I was ranting about how I don't like pasta, today's post might seem a little strange. However, I'm moving flat soon (yay!) so need to eat as much as I can from the cupboards. That includes 2 portions of spaghetti bought in some moment of pasta-based madness. I'd also spent the afternoon at the gym, so something vaguely healthy seemed fitting. I had half a courgette left over in the fridge too, so this courgette and tomato sauce from last month's Good Food magazine seemed ideal.

Reducing the tomatoes

The recipe was super quick to pull together, and the only adaptation I made was quartering all the ingredients, as I was making this for one *sob*. Apart from using spaghetti instead of linguine, but I think that difference is negligible.

Courgette and Tomato Spaghetti.

The result was a pretty tasty dinner, although as is always the case, I put in a few too many chilli flakes and the dish was perhaps a little spicier than would have been ideal. I really liked the contrast between the soft courgette and the crispy, salty bacon bits, and I even coped with eating a whole 75g of pasta!

Although I probably wouldn't go out and buy ingredients specifically to make this, it was great as a way of using up that spare bit of courgette lingering in the salad drawer. Now to find something to make that final 75g of spaghetti bearable!

PS - Both the photos in this post look so much tastier when clicked for the bigger versions!

Graze - Plus a Free Box!

2009-07-14T22:33:00.004+01:00

I heard about Graze from Jess, and signed up to look round the site. As usual, I got distracted and totally forgot about it. The other week, I got a reminder email from Graze, pointing out that although I'd signed up, I'd never actually ordered anything. To tempt me back, they also included a code for a free box.

Graze is basically a healthy snack box, with a large portion of fresh fruit, and two smaller portions of dried fruit, nuts or olives. You can select a nutritional "theme" for your box, such as immunity boosting (I picked this one as I still feel a bit run down and sickly after having pneumonia a few months ago), pre or post-workout*, and energy boosting.

Graze Box

My first box was meant to turn up last week, but I think it got lost in the post (or the postman stole it. A suspiciously large amount of our mail never turns up...) so this was my debut box. When I noted on the Graze website that my box hadn't arrived, I was immediately given the next box for free to make up for it. I was so excited when the postman rang the bell this morning! The box contained: a large punnet of crunchy apples (I can confirm they were indeed crunchy), a punnet of "fire nuts" (chilli almonds, cashews and wasabi peas) and a small punnet of raisins. I wasn't keen on the chilli almonds, but the cashews were amazing! Wasabi peas were a little too hot, but I still happily munched my way through the box. The raisins were also good, being some of the fattest and juiciest I have had in a while.

Fire Nut Selection - chilli cashews, almonds and wasabi peas

Although a Graze box isn't cheap (£2.99 a go) it is very convenient. I don't tend to buy things like dried fruit as I don't eat it often enough, and it just sits in the cupboard. Having a nutritionally controlled portion (1 of the 5-a-day) was good, as normally I would eat about 2 raisins and then wonder if it counted!

Graze are promoting themselves quite heavily at the moment, and seem to be very generous with the free boxes. If you'd like to try them yourself, this code gets you a free box, and £1 will be donated to the Rainforest Alliance.

Enter 5CCT231G at GRAZE.COM

*I have also recently returned to the gym after knackering my old running shoes, messing up my feet and having to get a new pair that was gait analysed! I like that I could get an immunity box one week and then a workout box the next. I am so healthy it hurts.

Lemon Thyme Shortbread - A Bake Swap

2009-07-12T11:53:00.001+01:00

A while ago, I sent a complete stranger a mix CD of my favourite music. The stranger sent me a CD back. I liked some of the music, and thought some of it was weird. I loved getting a random CD in the post though. Welcome to the world of internet swaps!

I hadn't done a swap in ages, when I stumbled across a bake swap. I like baking and I like random stuff. I signed up straight away.

Once I'd sent the email, I began to dread the swap. What if I got someone who is vegan? Or gluten free? Or some other weird allergy/dietary requirement that I can't bothered to work around. (Part of me thinks that if you are seriously limited about what you can eat, you should stick to the mix CDs instead.)

When I received my swap partner's details I was shocked. I googled the details in the email. Woah.

Luckily, she was not on some crazy diet, but living in a flat 5 minutes away from the house I spent the first 18 years of my life in. The randomness just got even better!

She said that she liked citrus flavours, and I've been thinking a lot lately about using herbs in sweet foods. I made an awesome orange and rosemary cake once, so I wanted to do something along those lines. I eventually settled on lemon shortbread with thyme.

This recipe was a bit experimental, and was inspired by several other recipes, with this one by Sophistimom being really helpful. I've changed a few of the quantities, and presented them differently. The biscuits are very crisp and crumbly, with an immediate lemon zing, followed by an aftertaste of refreshing herbs. I would prefer a bit more of an "upfront" herb flavour, but I didn't want to go too overboard on the thyme on this occasion.

Box of Lemon Shortbread with Thyme Glaze

Lemon Shortbread with Thyme

225g unsalted butter, softened
150g granulated sugar
zest of 1.5 lemons (save the other half a lemon for the glaze)
1 tsp salt
2 tsps finely chopped thyme
1 egg
275g plain flour
2 tbsps lemon juice

GLAZE
Turbinado sugar (can use demerara)
4 tbsps icing sugar
juice of 1 lemon
zest 0.5 lemons
1 tsp finely chopped thyme

Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
Add in the lemon zest, salt and thyme, combine thoroughly.
Separate the egg, saving the white for glazing. Add the yolk into the biscuit dough mix.
Add the flour and lemon juice. Once a dough starts forming, knead gently on a floured surface. If the dough is sticky at this point, add more flour, a sprinkle at a time.
Wrap the dough in clingfilm, and chill for at least an hour.
Preheat the oven to 180C, and line a baking sheet with greaseproof paper.
Roll the dough out to 5mm thick, and cut circles out (I used a 2 inch diameter cutter). Keep gathering the scraps and re-rolling until you have about 40 biscuits.
Brush half the biscuits with egg white, and then sprinkle with turbinado sugar. Other half of the batch stay plain for the moment!
Bake for 15-18 minutes, until the biscuits are just turning golden brown at the edges.
Cool on the tray for 1 minute, then move to a wire rack to finish cooling.
Once cool, mix the icing sugar, lemon juice, lemon zest and thyme to make a glaze.
Put half a teaspoon of glaze on each of the plain biscuits, spreading it out with the back of the spoon.
Once the glaze is dry, serve with tea.

Lemon Thyme Shortbreads

I am excited to see what I get back in return!

English Muffins

2009-07-09T18:37:00.004+01:00

Sometimes while perusing the internet, or reading a magazine or cook book, a certain recipe will jump out at me. Not in a "I should make this later" kind of way, but "I MUST MAKE THIS NOW" kind of way.

They tend to be simple, and use store-cupboard ingredients. Just as some people emotionally eat, I emotionally bake. When it's late at night, and you give me recipe using things I have in the cupboard, I'm totally going to go for it.

The last time I had an impulse bake I made raspberry muffins, but this time it was cinnamon raisin English muffins. I started just after midnight, so that was a good idea. Washing up at 3am was not fun. Watching Psychoville on iplayer while waiting for the batter to rise was more fun, although that is not the best show to watch on your own late at night!

However, the muffins were really easy to make, although I didn't have enough milk so I used watered down fromage frais instead. I have no idea what effect this had on the muffins, but the batter looked the right consistency so I ploughed on regardless.

The ongoing dilemma of the misshapen frying pan meant that it was hard to get the muffins to stay round and cook at the right speed, but they came out of the pan looking presentable enough. I left them overnight to cool, and toasted them for breakfast.

Bad muffins!

They were not good at all! They were still yeasty and uncooked inside, and unpleasantly chewy. I think I must have had them over too high a heat, as the outside was burning but the inside wasn't cooked through yet. This should teach me to attempt yeasted goods at 2am.

The Graduation Bake-a-thon.

2009-07-07T17:52:00.002+01:00

As it was graduation week, we have had various friends, relatives and randomers drifting in and out of the flat all week. In an attempt to be hospitable, we all chipped in to an ingredients pot and I went on a baking binge.

The lemon roulade was amazing, and the left over lemon curd is in the fridge. I haven't told my flatmates this yet as once I do it will not be around for long. The only trouble I had with this recipe was that the sponge broke up when I tried to roll it. Luckily I had enough lemon curd and mascarpone to stick it back together, but it looked a bit messy from the side.

Broken lemon roulade - tastes better than it looks

The carrot cake is one of my favourite ones, as it is so dense and moist. However, I made it in mini loaf tins as I wanted to freeze a cake for later in the week in case the first batch went stale/got eaten. As the mixture is so dense, it is prone to burning on top but still being undercooked in the middle. Luckily I managed to get away with it this time, but the cake was a little moister than I would have liked, and a little crispy on top. I also swapped out the walnuts for hazelnuts as I had them in the cupboard already.

Carrot cake with vanilla mascarpone topping

I have altered the Cupcake Bakeshop recipe, and never use the strawberries in the filling, partly because they don't add that much and partly because even in season they are so expensive! The buttercream icing on top is perfect. It's creamy and sweet but without being overpowering. The texture of the cake itself is nothing special, but when it has the ganache filling it is AMAZING. I have yet to give anyone this cupcake and for them not to fall in love with it.

I'd made the Korova cookies before, but this time I used white chocolate chips instead of dark, just because I'd messed up the shopping list and not bought enough plain chocolate to make these and the chocolate cupcakes. I also think I sliced them a bit thin as they were too crispy and a little tough. Still delicious though!

Roulade and Carrot Cake, boxes of cookies

Once again, me and caramel failed to get on. I burned the mixture and had to strain it through a sieve in to a fresh pan. I also didn't cook it enough for it to stay in the biscuits, so some of them leaked as the caramel was too runny. I also got the quantities completely wrong, so now we have a massive tub of caramel in the fridge alongside the lemon curd!

Overall, I think I need to plan baking binges better. I ran out of muffin cases and baking powder, but had way too many eggs. I tried to make things in an order to best maximise things like oven capacity and cooling racks, but if I'd thought it through better I would have made things like cookie dough in advance. I also need some more attractive display containers. The cake caddy is pretty awesome, but kind of utilitarian looking. Any ideas?

Home Made Tapas

2009-07-05T15:10:00.005+01:00

It's been a busy week for me. My parents came up to visit, as did most of my flatmates' families. It's graduation week! I got to wear a cape! I was also a bit disappointed that I only got a white hood, some of the other degrees got red with fur trims. I am now officially a graduate. Scary.

Before the madness started, we had tapas for dinner. I spent 5 or 6 hours in the kitchen making 11 dishes, it was probably the most extreme savoury cooking I've ever done. As there was only 4 of us, most of the dishes were quite small. It was still tough, and I struggled to get everything out at once. I have a new appreciation of the amount of work an underground restaurant must involve!

Tortilla, chorizo, gambas al pil pil, patatas bravas

The photos are pretty rough because I was so hungry and tired by this stage that spending time taking well lit pictures just wasn't going to happen.

Green Salad
Potato and Onion Tortilla
Grilled Chorizo
Gambas al pil pil
Patatas Bravas
Sardine Escabeche
Olives
Pan con tomate
Meatballs in tomato sauce
Chicken and Chorizo Stew
Garlic Mushrooms

Very rustic looking pan con tomate

I tried to make things ahead and reheat them nearer to dinner, as well as including a couple of cold items such as the tortilla, salad and olives that just needed to be plated up.

The meatballs and the tortilla were my favourite dishes. The tortilla was made by cooking potatoes and onions in a sea of olive oil, then draining off the oil and replacing it with beaten eggs. It took ages to cook as I don't think our frying pan conducts heat very well. (This might be because it was cheap, but probably more due to the bashed in bottom not sitting flat on the hob). I ended up grilling the top to try and get the egg to set enough to turn it over in the pan. We didn't manage to eat it all on the night, so had another slice for breakfast the next morning. Yum!

Meatballs

The meatballs were made with a mixture of pork and beef, with a red wine and tomato sauce. I browned them in the pan before baking them in the oven with the sauce. They were deliciously meaty, although the sauce wasn't quite right.

Tapas was quite stressful, and I'm not sure whether I'd be bothered to make it all again! As always, there was way too much food so I'm still eating left over chorizo and salad. It was a fun evening and I drank more sherry than I should have done! We've still got loads of onions, eggs and potatoes, so another tortilla might be on the cards, especially if I can eat it for breakfast!

Eteaket, Frederick Street, Edinburgh

2009-06-30T13:33:00.002+01:00

While roaming New Town late at night, my friend L pointed out a basement cafe on Frederick Street.

"Have you been there? It serves all types of crazy teas!"

I hadn't been there, although their logo seemed familiar and I think I might have had a nose round their stall at Taste of Edinburgh. I was intrigued to see how they would compete with Edinburgh's other tea-based cafe, Loopy Lorna's. I resolved to check Eteaket out the next day. It's pronounced etty-qwet (as in good manners) but I can't help but see it as ee-teek-it.

View of Eteaket from Frederick Street

Despite going fairly late in the afternoon, the place was busy and the waitresses seemed distracted. I found a table in the corner, and was a bit annoyed as my table was a wrought iron patio type affair, whereas the other tables looked much more comfortable. The decor was stylish, but not particularly groundbreaking. As I was on my own, I was pleased to see a selection of current newspapers to keep me entertained too.

I ordered a White Peach tea, which arrived soon after. It was served in a very clever teapot design, that allowed the tea-leaves to circulate in a filter tube. Once the brewing time was over, the leaves could be sealed off from the tea. I was particularly impressed by this, as one of my pet hates is overbrewed tea. This is especially an issue when using a teapot, as you get a great first cup, but the second cup is bitter and nasty. The waitress also brought over an egg-timer, to brew the tea for the correct amount of time, and a pretty china cup and saucer.

White Peach Tea at Eteaket

The tea tasted a lot lighter and fresher than a standard tea, as it is a white tea, which is made from young tea leaves which are not oxidised and fermented the same way black teas are. It also had a very strong flavour of peaches, which was most apparent in the aftertaste. The website and menu don't really make clear if this is just a quirk of that particular tea, or if peaches have actually been added to the leaves. Given the strength, I would say there is probably some additional peach flavouring in the blend. The teapot held a litre of tea, and I got 4 or 5 cups worth, which was excellent value given that I'd only paid marginally more than I would have for a standard mug of breakfast tea in other cafes.

The next day, T and I were in town again as I had discovered some Lakeland vouchers left over from Christmas and wanted a bit of retail therapy. We also trekked round several bookshops looking for a certain book which none of them had, so I suggested another trip to Eteaket to recover!

This time I went for the Royal Earl Grey, and we shared a cream tea. The cafe was even busier today, so we were very lucky to get a table (a comfy one too!) almost straight away. However it took the waitresses some time to clear away the last guests' debris, something I had also noticed the day before. We followed the egg-timers, and as I am still unsure about whether I like Earl Grey, I went for a lighter brew than I would normally. However, mine was overbrewed and I had to add quite a lot of sugar to overcome the bitterness. I'd noticed a teapot sitting on the counter waiting to be served for a few minutes, so I suspect that mine was already brewed before it even reached the table.

Our cream tea was good, with two generous scones, one plain and one raisin. It also came with a good size portion of clotted cream and jam. I love clotted cream on scones, so I was happy to see this. The jam was a bit disappointing, as it was more of a "smooth style" jelly than a proper homely jam. It seemed strange to be serving rare teas, a wide range of patisserie and a specialist cream not really found at this end of the country, alongside a Tesco Value style jam. However, the range of sandwiches and pastries looked really good, and they had the banoffee tarts I had at the Breadwinner day!

T liked Eteaket, and pronounced it "less chaotic" than Loopy Lorna's. Although Loopy Lorna's looks very homely and amateurish, I thought the service there was much more efficient than at Eteaket. Tables weren't being cleared quickly, and orders took a while to arrive. It was also unclear whether people sitting in were meant to pay at the counter, or if that till was for take away orders. Loopy Lorna's has the upper hand in staff efficiency, and a more unique atmosphere, but Eteaket had a much more comprehensive tea selection, as well as an approach geared towards tea appreciation rather than straight-up drinking..

Overall, I enjoyed both my visits to Eteaket, and will probably go here rather than a chain coffee shop when in town. The service was a bit haphazard, but the tea was some of the best I've had in a while. They also had tea in caddies to take home, and a great selection of tea accessories (including this really cute teapot/cup).

Tonkatsu with Japanese-ish Salad

2009-06-28T14:42:00.004+01:00

In my handbag I have a red notebook. In the notebook are various scrawls and doodles that categorise my life at any given time. The current notebook has a few shopping lists, a pictorial representation of our holiday in Florence, and a record of how far I ran in January. It also has a list of hard-to-find ingredients I am always on the lookout for.

The two items that refused to be knocked off the list were freeze-dried raspberries (Ideally powdered, but I'll take whole. I would also be tempted by freeze-dried strawberries.) and panko breadcrumbs. I'd tried the Thai store in Bruntsfield, but to no avail (they did have kaffir lime leaves though, so that got crossed off the list). Lupe Pintos was also lacking on this occasion.

The area of Edinburgh I live in is apparently the "Chinatown" area, although you wouldn't know it. The only clue is Hot Hot Chinese, an advice centre for elderly Chinese, and the Chinese service at the local church. The evidence is there, but there are no dragon arches and bilingual signs like some of the more established Chinatowns around the world. I came to the conclusion that if I was to find panko, it would probably be available within a 10 minute walk. Googling around, I found there was a Chinese supermarket hidden on Lauriston Place at the junction with Tollcross.

I headed down there the next day. Within a minute I'd found not one, but two varieties of panko. Yay! I went for the one that was cheaper, I think because it didn't have English instructions on the packet. There were loads of other weird ingredients in there, plus a good selection of utensils and woks. There was also a large section dedicated to nearly every brand of pre-made stir-fry sauce you can get. I have never seen so many varieties of Blue Dragon and Sharwoods in one place.

So... On to the actual post!

I had some pork chops in the freezer that I wanted to use, and the only recipe in the Wagamama cookbook that used them was tonkatsu. I've never had this, so I thought I'd give it a go. I promised T "crispy Japanese pork" for dinner, but conveniently forgot to tell him that it would be served on a salad.

Tonkatsu: Slightly out of focus as I was impatient to eat

Overall, I don't think this dish really worked. The tonkatsu was pretty tasty (and it's the first time I've breadcrumbed something where the breadcrumbs stayed mostly on the meat and not in a pile in the pan) and I quite liked the crispiness of the salad too. It's also the first dish on here to feature a mangetout! However, I wasn't convinced by the recommended sauce, a mixture of ketchup and Worcester sauce, although it did taste weirdly Asian given the total Britishness of the two component ingredients.

The main failing was pairing the salad with the pork. Although Wikipedia has just told me tonkatsu can be eaten cold, it felt strange having a lukewarm piece of meat on a freezing salad (all the ingredients except the spinach were kept in iced water to ensure their crispiness).

T was not interested in the salad at all, and I struggled to finish mine. I would probably make it all again, but have it on different plates. The tonkatsu would be really tasty with some stir-fried vegetables or on a ramen soup, while the salad would be better accessorized with some smoked fish and lots of dressing.

I now have a fridge full of daikon, spinach and bamboo shoots and a cupboard full of panko... more Japanese food to come soon I guess!

Japanese Style Salad (adapted from Wagamama Cookbook)
Serves 4 as a side dish, or 2 veg lovers.

2 small carrots, julienned
4 inch chunk of daikon (mooli), julienned
25g mangetout, thinly sliced diagonally
1 green chilli, finely diced
8-9 spring onions, thinly sliced diagonally
a handful of alfafa sprouts
3 handfuls of spinach

1) Once all the vegetables have been washed and chopped, place everything but the spinach in a bowl of ice water for an hour to ensure their crispiness.
2) Using the spinach as a base, artfully arrange the drained vegetables on top.
3) Add the toppings and dressings of your choice.

Tailend Fish Bar, Leith

2009-06-24T19:05:00.006+01:00

This post was meant to be about croissants. I'd laminated some yeasted dough, rested it, and left it overnight ready to bake myself some fresh croissants for breakfast. I carefully rolled out the pastry, cut it in to triangles, and rolled them over to form the distinct croissant shape. After 20 minutes rising in a warm place, and 25 minutes in a hot oven, it was time to eat.

They were slightly crispier on the outside than was ideal, but no matter. Inside, the dough was hot and steamy, but not right. Instead of being buttery, light and fluffy, it was stodgy, yeasty and dense. Yuech!

So instead of telling you how to fail at croissant baking, I'll tell you about some really awesome fish and chips I had.

E has a friend, K, staying with us for the summer. He arrived on Sunday, jetlagged and exhausted from the transatlantic flight. Instead of letting him rest, we decided to drive him to Leith for some traditional fish and chips.

It's a bit of a tradition to deep fry things in Scotland, and there is a rumour that a chip shop exists where they will deep fry ANYTHING for you. It starts with a Mars bar, and ends up with you paying to batter your shoes.

Most chips shops are ok, but not great. You'll get some soggy chips, and greasy bit of overcooked fish. It's ok if you are drunk at 4am, but less ok if that's your dinner. I'd heard that the Tailend was different, and were more about good quality fish well cooked than trying to outdo the chippy down the road for how many different pizza flavours they can deep fry. (Yep. In Scotland even pizza can be deep fried.)

We opted for take away, as we didn't really have enough money to afford to eat the same food in the next door restaurant. If you take away, it's about half the price of sitting in, but essentially the same food. E and K went for the Cod supper, and I went for the Hake and chips.

The food took quite a while to come, and the staff, while friendly, weren't the most efficient. We eventually got our bag of greased up goodies and went home to eat it.

The first thing I noticed when removing the boxes from the bag, was how little grease there was soaked in. The reason many chip shops wrap everything in several layers of paper is to prevent your hands getting too greasy when all the fat starts coming out of the food. The Tailend boxes were still pretty pristine from grease, which suggested the fish and chips had been fried at the correct temperature and well drained before being packed up.

Reasonably small amount of grease

Although the chips had gone a bit soggy from the 15 minute journey back to the flat, they were still crispy on the outside, while soft and meltingly tender inside. They were my dream chip. I love getting fat chips (no skinny fries for me) which are actually crunchy.

Dream chips and Great Hake

The fish was also delicious, with a crispy batter surrounding the flaky flesh. Deep frying will never showcase fish in the same way sushi or grilling does, but it makes a bloody good attempt when done right.

The only downside is that Leith is so far away!

Dorie Greenspan's Croq-Tele (TV Snacks)

2009-06-22T22:11:00.007+01:00

The quest to work my way through the whole of "Paris Sweets" continues with Patisserie Arnaud Larher's Croq-Teles. The name translates as "TV crunches", as they are an ideal substitute for popcorn or crisps. I made the hazelnut version, with ready ground nuts as I don't have a food processor.

Croq-Teles

These little biscuits were deliciously moreish, and the recipe introduction promised "up-front saltiness". However, I found them only a tad salty, and should have added much more salt to get that sweet-savoury taste. I don't know if this is because I have a mild salt addiction, or just the European habit of putting salt in everything! I find "Paris Sweets" an interesting book because Dorie Greenspan often comments on recipes from an American viewpoint. Sometimes I agree with her, and sometimes her comments seem so strange to me! I guess that is as close as I will get to proof that I am more at home in Europe than in the special relationship.

The dough is incredibly dry and crumbly, and reminded me a lot of making shortbread. The mixture barely holds together, so you have to squish it quite hard to get the balls to form.

A Stack of TV Snacks

Croq-Tele (adapted from Dorie Greenspan's Paris Sweets)

75g ground almonds
25g ground hazelnuts
100g sugar
1tsp vanilla sea salt
140g plain flour
100g unsalted butter, cubed

1) Preheat the oven to 180c, and line a large baking sheet.
2) Mix the ground nuts, sugar and salt together in a bowl, making sure there are no lumps.
3) In another bowl, crumble the flour and butter together, either using your fingertips or a pastry blender. The mixture should look like breadcrumbs.
4) Add the nut-sugar mixture, and combine. The dough should come together but be quite fragile. Tip it on to the worktop and squidge it together to form one lump.
5) Pinch of small pieces of dough and form in to rough balls. You should be able to get about 50 cookies from the mixture, so each ball should be about the size of a cherry.
6) If you have a large baking tray, you might be able to fit all of the cookies on, otherwise you'll need to do two batches. They don't spread much in the oven, so they'll only need 1.5-2cm gaps between them.

7) Bake the cookies for between 10-15 minutes. They should be set but not browned.
8) Cool them on the baking tray for 3 minutes, if you pick them up too early they'll crumble.
9) Once hardened, transfer them to a cooling rack. Try not to eat them all immediately!

EDIT: Just found the original recipe and commentary online.

Food Adventures in Mallorca

2009-06-20T17:08:00.003+01:00

Florence had been a gift from T for finishing uni, so I got to boss him around and make him eat weird food. Mallorca was a chill out holiday with friends from uni, and each of us had our own odd food habits. These included, but were not limited to:

preferring processed cheese over real
no red meat
no fish
no food with "bits" in (such as chocolate chip ice cream)
no rice
no white bread
no brown bread
no ham
no chorizo
only drinks white wine
only drinks red wine
no mushrooms
no spicy food
no well done meat
no rare meat
no dairy
no butter
no olives
no lemon/"acidic" flavours

So between seven of us, cooking dinner was a bit of a challenge. We were also feeling quite budget conscious, so we didn't want to eat out too often either. We had a couple of nice barbecues, and one night I made roast chickens with an improvised patatas bravas and spinach salad. I've never roasted two chickens at once, so that was fun. I've also never made patatas bravas, so I cobbled together a vaguely piccante sauce, although the potatoes weren't as crispy as I would have hoped as they were a little crowded in the small roasting tray. As is always the case with picky eaters, five of the group divided up four chicken breasts, while me and another feasted on four legs and four wings between us. I also ate both the parson's noses before the chickens even made it out of the kitchen, which is totally the best bit of cooking for seven.

Monkfish tail with prawns, potatoes and a dollop of caviar

We did go out a couple of times, and I nearly always went for seafood. I scored a decent monkfish tail (with a tiny dollop of caviar on top!) in Portals Nous, and a good attempt at paella in Santa Ponca. In Portals Vells, I had some sickly sardines, but they passed the time while the others sunbathed on the beach. I suspect I might be mildly allergic to sunlight, so I prefer to remain pale and interesting.

Paella with whole langoustines, prawns and mussels

While I don't get Italian food, I love Spanish food, and was disappointed we didn't manage to get to a tapas bar or two. I did get a few cafe cortados though, which is always good. A cortado is similar to a macchiato, in that it is an espresso with a dab of milk, but a cortado uses warm milk, while a macchiato uses foamed. I also tried an ensaimada, a typical Mallorcan pastry, which reminded me of the faworki my Polish grandmother used to make me 20 years ago. A crisp, sweet pastry, where filling and toppings are an optional extra. I think an ensaimada is baked, so the texture was fluffier, but the taste was almost identical.

Ensaimada and Cafe Cortado

The other Spanish delicacy I tried for the first time was deep fried whitebait. They were quite big, so I'm not sure if they were true whitebait, or just mature specimens. It felt a bit weird eating a whole fish (eyes! brains! bones!) but they slipped down rather nicely. The smaller ones were particularly nice, as the larger bones in the bigger fish were quite bitter.

My flatmate A is English, although his parents now live and work in Spain, so he spends a lot of time out there. We would like to attempt a Spanish meal at home, especially as there seems to be a decent Spanish population in Edinburgh, so many of the ingredients are available nearby. Bring on the pan con tomate!

Food Adventures in Florence: Part III

2009-06-19T12:33:00.002+01:00

Fruit and Vegetable Stall in the Central Market

One day we checked out the Central Market in Florence, and bought some goodies for a picnic later in the day. We got bread, ham, cheese, olives and strawberries, and stole some butter from the hotel breakfast buffet to make sandwiches. We tried to eat our picnic in the Boboli Gardens, but they wouldn't let us in with food. This meant we went on a 8 mile hike around southern Florence looking for a good picnic spot. We eventually found a rose garden on the way up to San Miniato al Monte, only to find later that the back gate to the Boboli wasn't guarded with x-ray scanners and security staff, but a rather bored man in a hut who barely checked our tickets. So, if you want to picnic with the Medicis, the Belvedere entrance is the answer.

Tripe and other unidentified body parts

The market was excellent, a real paradise for foodies! I wish there was somewhere like that near here. Practically every meat stall had tripe for sale, which is apparently a Florentine speciality. There was also a pork stall selling ears, tongues, heads, tails and trotters, and another stall selling horse meat. I think if you are going to eat meat you shouldn't be precious about what you eat. There is no difference between killing a cow or pig and eating it than eating a cat, or horse, or dog. Plus if you are going to go to all that trouble, you might as well get your money's worth and eat the offal. Yum. (Although it was far too early in the morning for me to be brave enough to try a tripe burger.)

Miniature tartlette in Dolcissima

While wandering around the Oltrarno artisan district, we found a old fashioned bakery called Dolcissima. We'd just eaten, so weren't in the mood for anything too big. Instead I got a miniature tart of custard and baby raspberries. It was small but perfectly formed, and made me wish I lived nearby so I could buy boxes of these for parties.

Pizza with Capers and Anchovies

We couldn't go to Italy without trying some pizza, so we headed to Gusta pizza. The poor €:£ rate meant we were keen for a cheap meal, and we'd seen the wood buning oven in Gusta pizza while wandering around earlier in the day, as well as a good write up in the guide book. The place was basic, with orders being taken at the till and dispensed by order number. Eat in pizzas were served on a cardboard platter with plastic cutlery. Seating was on bar stools around empty wine casks, and drinks were self-served from a fridge. However, the pizza had a crispy base, with rich doughy crusts, and the toppings were simple but generous. Probably one of the cheapest meals we had, but also one of the tastiest too.

Random Graffitti

This graffiti was everywhere. I have no idea what the significance is.

Food Adventures in Florence: Part II

2009-06-18T13:58:00.001+01:00

One of the few Italian dishes to which I will admit total love is gelato. Virtually every corner in Florence had a gelato stand. Some were branded, and sold mass produced Carte D'Or, but most advertised themselves as home-made.

The majority displayed their wares in freezer counters, with the ice cream towering high. Some decorated this mini-mountains with items representative of the flavour. Maybe a few nuts, pieces of fruit, or a few shards of coconut. However, I was much more drawn to the old fashioned style places, that kept their gelato in silver buckets.

Grom's Gelato Counter

Grom became a regular stop in Florence, after a particularly over-priced experience near the Ponte Vecchio. Tucked away in back street, prices at Grom were more reasonable, and the flavours more interesting than some of the more touristy places. A large cup of ice cream cost €5 in Grom, and most of the ingredients were sourced using Slow Food pinciples. We tried the lemon and strawberry sorbets, the chocolate fondant, yoghurt, baci, and "crema di Grom", a kind of cookies and cream flavour. If we were lucky we'd snag a seat on the bench in the shop, and I'd strain to overhear a tour group being shown round the back of the shop, but most of the time we'd just stand outside looking slightly shifty.

Strawberry sorbet, baci and yoghurt

We also found a nice gelato shop in Pisa, which didn't seem as well populated with the stuff as Florence was. This had most of the standard flavours, but we couldn't work out what one of them was. So we ordered it to find out - it was a kind of toffee and almond flavour and delicous.

I've been trying to think of a food-based job, and part of me really wants to open a grown up ice cream parlour. There's a couple of Italian places in Edinburgh already, but they don't seem to have the crazy range of flavours we found in Italy. Maybe Scotland just isn't ready for fresh milk flavour...

Food Adventures in Florence: Part I

2009-06-17T19:35:00.000+01:00

I am going to admit something now that might totally destroy any shred of foodie credential I have. I don't really like Italian food.

Virtually everyday a post pops up in Google Reader about how someone was craving pasta, and ate it with just some butter and garlic, and it was the best thing ever. Blog after blog raves about roasted vegetables, rocket and parmasan. The shelves of the cookery department in every bookshop groan under the weight of Italian cook books. Every other cookery magazine has an Italian special, and as we approach summer, the Sunday supplements are filled with Mediterranean-style food.

Sure, I'll eat Italian food. I'll even enjoy some pizza. I don't mind risotto. But if I have the choice, I'll almost never choose Italian food. My theory was that it is a cuisine that requires fresh, high quality produce, something we don't get too much of in UK supermarkets. Even good grocers and markets don't always have the right ingredients, as the climate of Britain is just not hot enough to produce a lot of Italian fruits and vegetables. I did also wonder if maybe I just wasn't getting it. Perhaps there was some secret that I wasn't privy to.

T surprised me with an end of uni holiday to Florence. Yay! As well as being excited about seeing some old paintings in the Uffizi, some Italian Gothic architecture, I was excited to try the food. Maybe Italian food in Italy would be different to what we get here? Maybe I would like it?

Sunset over the Arno

The first night we stopped for dinner at a restaurant near our hotel in the Santa Maria Novella district. La Spada is a traditional "spit roast" style restuarant, with all the main courses either grilled or roasted. I went for Gnocchi Bolognese followed by grilled veal chops. T had Penne al Sorrentina and then roast chicken. We also ordered some Tuscan beans, but they mysteriously disappeared (but did not reappear on the bill luckily).

The gnocchi bolognese was good, but I still didn't love it. The bolognese was meaty and unctious, and the gnocchi was tender and pillowy. The portion was small, but still very filling. However, it just didn't do it for me. I couldn't imagine ever craving this dish in the same way I do other foods.

Then came the veal chop. I was in two minds about ordering this, as part of me knew it was probably white veal, which is evil. On the other hand, it was already done and dead*, and I've been wanting to try veal for ages (especially since I found out rose veal is not evil). The potatoes that accompanied it were again technically good, but not very exciting. The veal chop was massive, and I wondered how Italians can manage a starter, pasta course, main course and pudding without feeling physically ill most of the time.

The chop was one of the most delicious things I have ever tasted. The outside was crispy and blackened from the chargrill, but inside was soft, tender, and slightly pink still. The beef flavour was subtler than steak, but still well defined and meaty. I ignored the potatoes and concentrated on eating the veal.

While I am still not converted to the delights of pasta, I am now hankering after another bite of that veal.

We skipped pudding, although I noticed a table opposite having some cantucci. If I can find some vin santo in Edinburgh I might give that a go at home.

*Of course, it was done and dead because they knew someone like me would come in and order it, but if we are getting down that path then it all gets a bit philosophical. Plus from a utilitarian viewpoint, veal is better than just putting male dairy calves down the moment they emerge from the womb. Got to love Ethics A-Level.

Vacaciones & Vacanza

2009-06-16T21:29:00.003+01:00

I've been a bit quiet here lately. Despite my looming student loan, I have been on not one but two holidays! T and I went to Florence to celebrate the end of uni, then I went to Mallorca with uni friends to a villa owned by one of their parents. While this sounds very glamourous, Ryanair and sunburnt feet mean that this is not the case. I did eat a lot though, ranging from the terrible (processed cheese toastie), the ordinary (beach-front sardines) and the sublime (veal chops).

There are stories about gelato, markets, whitebait, paella and pizza all to come as soon as I work out how to get photos off T's camera...

Candied Kumquats and Financiers

2009-06-05T12:21:00.003+01:00

I am so happy the weather has been good lately. Edinburgh is a much happier place to be when the sun is shining and the temperature is in double figures for once! It also means I got to take some photos in natural light instead of under an energy saving bulb with a wimpy built-in flash.

A few months ago, I bought a slice of cake in a cafe which appeared to be garnished with a tiny orange. A bit of research lead me to kumquats. This is not a particularly common fruit in Britain, and I don't remember ever seeing them in a supermarket. When I saw them the other week in the grocers, I figured I give them a go. (I also bought a pomegranate, but the less said about that the better. Yet another reason to always research what are the signs of ripeness in fruit rather than impulse buying.)

The kumquats sat in the salad drawer of the fridge for a few days. I didn't really know what to do with them. Then I saw this post by Cannelle et Vanille. I decided straight away that I would candy my kumquats. Once the kumquats and the syrup had cooled down, I tasted one. They were still a little too bitter, although I loved their sharp citrus flavour. I think I should have blanched them in boiling water rather than just simmering them. I'm way too impatient sometimes.

Candied Kumquats and Edinburgh sunshine

Aran had used her kumquats to garnish some financiers. I had a packet of 8 eggs. I also had some mini loaf tins from my visit to Kooks Unlimited in London. Can you see where this is going?

I made up my usual hazelnut financier batter, although this time I used 50g hazelnut and 50g almond. The next morning, I baked up a batch, garnishing some with the kumquats.

Financiers with Candied Kumquat

These had the crunchy crust of a good financier, and the buttery soft inside. While the plain ones were delicious, the ones with the kumquats were another thing entirely. The acidity cut through the cake, working as a foil to the butteryness. It seems like the only thing better than a financier is one with a big old citrus hit in the middle. To make it even sweeter, have it in the morning. Then you can feel better about the state of the economy - after all, you had a financier for breakfast!

(I think that possibly wins the lamest joke EVER prize.)

Eat Food. Not Too Much. Mostly Plants.

2009-06-03T10:30:00.001+01:00

While frantically trying to find a book on Middle Eastern trade regulations in the uni library for an essay a couple of months back, I spied Michael Pollan's "In Defense of Food" on a nearby shelf. I was way too busy to read it then, but I made a mental note to come back to it once exams and essays were over.

As I checked the book out last week, a note flashed up on screen saying that my library card expired soon. So soon, that instead of having the book for a month, I could only have it for 6 days. Is it a little ironic that the first time I ever find a book in the library that I actually want to read, my library card decides to die?

Anyway, I became determined that I would read all 200-odd pages in those 6 days. I know it took me the best part of a year to read "The God Delusion", but I was feeling optimistic. In the end, it only took me about 3 days to read the book. It's the stuff of undergraduate dreams: interesting, informative and well written. (The version I was reading also had a really sexy typeface. Oh yeh!)

Pollan sums up his argument as "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants". He questions the idea that we can be more healthy just by eating more nutrients, saying that fortified cereals and omega 3 diet bars are actually worse for us than just eating simple ingredients containing naturally occurring vitamins and minerals. We also eat too much because we stop when our plate is clean, not when we feel full, and lack a traditional food culture. Lastly, although animal products contain unique nutrients, like B12, we can obtain most of our dietary requirements more efficiently, cheaply and greenly in the form of vegetation.

For a long time, I have being trying to eat more healthily. I have chosen cereal bars over a piece of chocolate, and tried to resist the overwhelming desire to bake stuff. However, in the last year of so, my views have changed. Instead, I have shunned processed goods. I can't remember the last time I ate in McDonalds or Burger King, and don't think I have eaten a ready meal since first year. T recently made me a spaghetti bolognese using a ready made sauce, and it was so bland I wondered what the point was. Why spend £1.50 on Ragu/Dolmio/etc when you could buy a tin of tomatoes and some dried herbs for under a quid? Although I won't touch a ready meal, I'll happily have a big slice of homemade cake and some pork crackling. If the French can eat fatty, delicious food, why can't I?

Reading Pollan's work further convinced me. I had never questioned the idea of nutrition, and had taken vitamin supplements in the past. The idea that processed products are less nutritional makes sense, and going round a supermarket since, I was shocked at how little on the shelves was "food" in the purest form. While I cook most of my meals from scratch anyway, I have since started checking packets to see how processed things like mayonnaise and bread are. After all, the human race has survived for years without vitamin supplements, omega 3 milk and iron enriched water.

Sometimes I wish I could just stand in the supermarket and be evangelical. Tell people picking up ready meals that they are damaging their health, their wallet and the planet by buying it. Bin all the sugary chemical sweets in favour of some really good chocolates and toffees. I would love to turn back the clock and have an independent grocer, fishmonger, butcher and general store nearby. I think the food culture in Britain is burgeoning, but maybe I have a biased view as I actively seek information about food quality and origin?

Pollan's book is not without flaws. Many of his sources are quoted repeatedly, suggesting that some of his ideas don't yet have the diverse range of proof they need. He recommends a traditional diet, but doesn't specify what this means. Do you have to pick the traditional diet of one region and stick to it? Or can I have a roast dinner one night, then a curry, then a stir fry? Although there were a few passages that didn't entirely convince, on the whole I found that Pollan's theories fitted well with common sense. We should enjoy food as a pleasure, not as a fuel to be consumed quickly, alone with the television.

If I had the space, I would plant my own vegetable patch after reading this book. As I don't, I think I'll probably sign up for a vegetable box instead. I'm sick of going to the supermarket and seeing Thai asparagus for sale, when the grocers two doors down has British stuff in fresh.

Most of all, I'd recommend this book to everyone who is suffering at the hands of the Western diet. Anyone who is obese, diabetic, with high cholesterol and blood pressure, or on the brink of heart disease or stroke. I'd also recommend it to those of you who buy the diet range of ready meals, or who eat a special K bar for lunch in the hope that it will help you stay thin. It won't. Enjoy a nice ham and cheese salad and be happy instead.

Taste of Edinburgh

2009-05-31T19:28:00.006+01:00

T and I went along to Taste of Edinburgh yesterday. I was a bit annoyed to find out it was in Inverleith Park, as the last couple of years it's been in the Meadows, which is about 5 minutes walk from my flat. Now we have to get a bus! To add to the fun, there was a cycling event which had shut off half the city centre, so the bus took twice as long as it should have.

Anyway, my main purpose of going (apart from eating more food than I should) was to scope out some of the restaurants with an eye to persuading my parents that they should take me out somewhere fancy for dinner when I graduate in July. Of the restaurants there, I quite fancied Forth Floor at Harvey Nichols, and Number One, Princes Street.

We began by wasting loads of our money on some Kopparbergs. I love a bit of pear cider, and was absolutely gasping for drink after 40 minutes on an airless bus in the heat, but £4 is way too much. I made sure I got my money's worth of the free ice. We ambled round a bit, and saw a guy demonstrating a mould that could make heart shaped sushi rolls. I tried a apple and cinnamon chocolate, which was a bit fudgey and chewy for my liking. There were 50 or so produce stalls as well as the miniaturised restaurants, so it was fun checking out some of them. We got some madeleines from the Bonne Maman stall, a free Tanqueray G&T, and then spent ages playing with a frying pan with a quick release handle.

Glazed Pork Belly with Braised Apple & Scallop with Stuffed Trotter

After we'd wandered round the whole site, it was time to crack on with the food. We ate quite a lot, as on a couple of occasions the staff forgot to ask for payment, so we had extra vouchers to spend! Yay! Here's a list of what we ate:

Slowly cooked lamb shoulder with aubergine caviar, seasonal ratatouille, olive and lamb jus
Smoked chicken roulade - with avocado puree, tomato salsa and onion seed crisp
Honey and five-spiced, glazed belly pork with braised apple
Seared scallop - with stuffed trotter and salsify puree
Roast suckling pig with caramelised onion mash, apple and sage compote and meat juices
Chocolate torte with cream
Scottish berry Pavlova with whisky cream
Dark chocolate moelleux with avocado cream (only tried a small sample of the moelleux, no avocado cream)
Cannolo with sheep ricotta cream and candied peel
White peach Bellinis

I would love to tell you how it all tasted. I really would. Unfortunately, I chose this weekend to come down with a stinking cold. So I have no sense of taste at all. In a way, it was interesting, as I judged the food purely on texture and mouthfeel. I found the crispy trotters went well with the soft scallop, but the dish was marred by the chilled salsa on top. The suckling pig also suffered from hot food being chilled by a cold sauce. T, who still had a sense of taste, enjoyed the glazed pork belly, and was pleasantly surprised by the aubergine caviar (usually he will do almost anything to avoid aubergine, but described the puree as "bearable"). He was also very enamoured by the chocolate torte. I scored a tiny personal victory when I persuaded him to try the tiniest bit of scallop. I think his previous exposure to seafood is mainly based around prawn crackers and sesame toast.

Cannolo

We didn't really take much interest in the cookery demos, mainly because unless you are right at the front you can't see anything. However, we managed to snag seats in the front row of Mat Follas, cooking sausage and beans. Oh yeh. The secret ingredient was anchovy paste. The crowd were allowed to sample the sauce before and after the paste was added, and even me, with my minimal sense of taste could tell the difference. Umami indeed (is it just me that thinks umami sounds like something from Shooting Stars? Eranu.)

Berry Pavlova with Whisky Cream

T and I had a great evening out, and although it was a tad expensive (we got through about £60 including tickets) we got to sample food from restaurants we couldn't normally afford to visit. We'd also pay the best part of £60 just to go to Pizza Express once you add in wine and service, so if you look at it as dinner out rather than a "festival" then it's not too bad value. It's also close to my ideal eating experience: lots of tasting plates rather than one large plate. I'd be up for going again next year, although perhaps in a larger group, so we can try more things!