Maze

For my birthday yesterday my husband took me to Gordon Ramsay’s Maze. We had a four course menu (if you have a la carte they recommend you order 2 or 3 dishes each) – which was 3 savoury and 1 sweet dishes.

The food is an interesting mix of British with asian flavours.

My first was salmon:

The salmon – which I think was described as jasmine scented – was cut quite thick so felt quite meaty and the horseradish with the, albeit tiny, bits of beetroot, crunchy apple and radish really complemented the sweet salmon.

Next I had chicken:

This was chicken and foie gras served with chutney and caramel.

Then, I think my favourite dish, pollock with clams, sprouting broccoli and a lemongrass sauce:

By now we were getting full, but there’s always space for desert – course number 4 was a pineapple tarte tatin with the most amazing coconut and cardamom ice cream which took me back to India with the first mouthful.

The waiting staff asked if we were there for any special occasion, and a little after I told them it was my birthday they came to the table with this:

A really nice touch to a lovely evening.

Breakfast of champions

This morning I’m trying to eat some energy food, so I’ve heated up some porridge, added honey, strawberries and flaked almonds and will shortly be off to run my first half marathon – 13 miles here I come!

Like cake? Love gateaux

I recently met Grace, the 13 year old super baker and entrepreneur behind www.lovegateaux.co.uk. Just having a look at her website makes my mouth water at the delicious looking cakes.

As they say the proof is in the pudding and I have had the chance to sample Grace’s cakes a couple of times, some mini lemon and poppy seed cupcakes with lemon icing and a glitter finish really stick in my mind as both looking gorgeous and tasting fantastic.

So if you love in SW London and need a cake, here’s my recommendation, you will not be disappointed.

picture taken from www.lovegateaux.co.uk

Toffee apple crumble

The picture of this apple crumble is rubbish, maybe because I was in such a hurry to eat it – I promise there’s apples underneath that crumble and a lot more sugar in the whole thing than I care to think about…I’ll share the recipe with you anyway. (serves 4)

I boiled around 200g of golden caster sugar (although you can use any sugar you want) with just under 100ml of water to make a caramel. Then I added a knob of butter (about 30g), and 4 peeled, cored apples chopped into large chunks to soften.

What I’m going to say now might be controversial..I don’t think it matters what type of apples you use. Recipes usually say to use cox or braeburn apples but I always use what I have, which on this case was 2 braeburns and 2 granny smiths. When you’re adding this much sugar and boiling even the granny smith apples, which can be bitter, taste as sweet as anything.

So that was my filling done, I put it in a greased (with butter) ovenproof tray and made my crumble topping.

Take equal amounts of flour, butter and brown sugar (I used 120g of each), put them in a largish bowl, clean your hands and rub your ingredients together until it is the texture of breadcrumbs. If your crumble is a bit sticky with big clumps you might need to add a bit more flour.

That’s it, put on top of your toffee apples and put in an oven (180 degrees) for 20-30 minutes or until golden and bubbling.

Served here with clotted cream ice cream.

Paella

I’ve just made paella for the first time using this recipe. It’s a lot of different ingredients, but once you’ve got them its pretty quick and easy to make. All the stuff in it means that each mouthful is different, squeeze lots of lemon juice on top for a fresh taste.

Kwarezimal

 

Kwarezimal are a traditional Maltese biscuit for lent, at a time when you’ve given up everything good you’re allowed these – I think because no animal products go into making them (traditionally you wouldn’t eat any meat throughout lent).

I’ve never actually made them before, at home it was always my mother or my brother who chose to. Seeing that I am now a blogger I asked my mum for her recipe and here’s my first attempt at making these almondy, chocolatey biscuits.

Here are the ingredients:
400g ground almonds
100g plain flour
100g brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon mixed spice
2 tbsp cocoa
Rind + juice of 1 lemon or orange
Honey

And to make them:
– Place all the dry ingredients together in a bowl and mix well.
– Add the orange juice and some water if necessary to make a stiff dough.
– Shape to about 1 cm thick.
– Place on baking sheet, leaving space for them to grow.
– Cut grooves on top and bake in a moderate oven (180 C) for around 20 minutes. (Careful not to overcook, they should still be soft when you take them out as they continue to harden as they cool.)
– Leave to cool completely,
– Spoon some honey on top and sprinkle with chopped almonds (or pistachios are nice too)

I substituted mixed spice for ground ginger (as I didn’t have any). I’d also recommend using orange for the classic and tasty chocolate and orange combination. Enjoy!

Posh scrambled eggs

I can’t believe I was so apprehensice about the tartufo and chardonnay oil & vinegar, I think it might have been that its smell is quite strong. This morning I put a little on a plate and tasted it with a piece of bread – it is one the of the most delightful things I have ever eaten! Quite sweet tasting with an earthy taste from the truffles, I had to do a second pour onto the plate.

So now I know how I’m going to use it – for dipping bread.

I had 2 eggs in my box so for lunch I made myself some scrambled eggs – both eggs whisked with a dash of milk (not a 50% egg and 50% milk mixture – I used to do that and end up with very watery eggs) and some seasoning, cooked in butter on a low heat – and poured the delicious oil & vinegar on top. It felt very decadent, especially on a Tuesday when I’m working from home.

Herman the German Friendship Cake

Today my friend Andrea passed me on the mix for a Herman the German Friendship Cake – how exciting! It a sourdough cake and it looks like it just needs stirring for a few days, hopefully it will grow so I can share it on day 9 and make my sourdough cake on day 10.

As there’s live yeast in the mix I’m keeping it in the airing cupboard to increase my chances of keeping it alive. So I’ll keep this post updated everyday with how Herman is doing, here’s a picture from day 1:

Day 2
Herman is bubbling! Glad to see I haven’t killed him. Only job today was to stir.

If you’re interested in German Hermans you might want to check out this place on Villiers street (by Charing Cross) – http://www.herman-ze-german.co.uk/

Day 3
The instructions are to stir and cover, not much to blog about except the yeast is still alive and lots of bubbles:

Day 4
Herman is hungry! I’ve added a mug of flour, a mug of sugar and a mug of milk, mixed, taken a bad picture (below – I need to think of better ways of taking pictures of a bowl of batter) and Herman is back in the airing cupboard with a damp dishcloth on top.

Days 5-9
Not much happened on these days except some stirring, although every time I took Herman out he was bubbling nicely, like this:

I’ve spared you another 4 pictures pretty much exactly the same, except for the last couple of days when there have been less bubbles and more slow foam- I hope this doesn’t mean Herman is dying (I forgot to stir on day 7!) and that it’s what’s supposed the happen.

Yesterday I added another mug each of flour, sugar and milk and now have split Herman into 4 and will pass 3 portions to friends today – I hope their reaction is good!

Day 10 – cooking Herman

Following the instructions, I added the below ingredients to the batter:
– 1 mug of caster sugar
– 1/2 teaspoon salt
– 2 mugs self-raising flour
– 1/2 mug vegetable oil
– 2 eggs
– 2 teaspoons vanilla essence
– 2 apples cut into chunks
– 2 heaped teaspoons cinnamon
– 1 teaspoon baking powder

Mixed all together well, and poured into greased baking tray. Then sprinkled with some melted butter, more ground cinnamon and sugar.

Baked in a pre-heated oven (180 degrees) for 45 minutes, and here’s the result:

The cinnamon in the mix gave it a lovely sweet taste, which the apple added to, and also kept the cake nice and moist.

Tuna steak with veg

It’s almost a lie putting this in the ‘recipes’ category because there isn’t really it much to it.

The asparagus and cherry tomatoes were roasted on the oven with 4 whole garlic cloves (peeled), a little olive oil to keep them from sticking and some seasoning.

I put olive oil, salt, pepper and some dried chilli flakes on either side of the tuna before frying on a high heat for a minute on each side, so it’s pink and tasty in the middle.

Served with a handful of salad dressed with a mixture of olive oil (3 tbs), white wine vinegar (2 tbs), Dijon mustard (1 tsp), whole grain mustard (1 tsp) and about a tsp of dried tarragon.

I heart chorizo

On the weekend half way through the afternoon when you’re feeling hungry, or as soon you come home from work and can’t wait until dinner to be ready, our favourite quick fix at the moment is chorizo, cooked in a pan on a medium heat with some peppers and onion and a splash of white wine for the last couple of minutes – this takes less than 10 minutes, or the time it takes the onions/peppers to cook. Served above with some bread to dip into the tasty juice.

My husband loves scallops, I usually make the tried and tested recipe of scallops with prosciutto and line dressing . Last weekend, Rich suggested making the scallops with chorizo.

So that’s what we did, I cooked the chorizo on a low heat to start so that the oil would be released, then turned it up and cooked the scallops with the chorizo for 2 minutes on each side.

I’ll be doing it again! These days I’m also thinking of putting chorizo with any white fish, chicken and chorizo salad, chorizo in a tomato pasta sauce…