Toad in a Hole, Neep & Tatty Mash, Onion Gravy

With the last delivery I had from East London Steak Company, I ordered some beef dripping to make perfect crispy roast potatoes and tasty Yorkshire pudding. I know this is very much a winter warmer but the weather turned warm before I got to try out their beef dripping. As the sun goes away, the chill has returned to London so I went ahead and made the English classic, Toad in a Hole.

I decided on portioned toad in a hole Yorkshire puddings instead of making it in one big baking tray so that there was a better ratio of sausage to crispy pudding, and so I had portioned ready-to-heat leftovers to snack on the following day. Not to mention the fact that I thought they looked a bit better, to the point where they’re almost food porn with the phallic sausages sticking out of the Yorkshires moist with rich gravy.

I made a mistake with my gravy actually, it turned out a lot thinner than it should have done because (and I learnt this from Celebrity Masterchef this morning) I added the butter whilst cooking the onions. I have now learnt from this mistake and will ensure that future gravies are cooked to the correct richness and thickness. I think the dish still looks pretty with this error nonetheless.

The mash comprises of neeps and tatties as I had received the smallest fully grown turnip ever from my vegbox delivery. I put lashings of butter and milk to make the mash as creamy as possible to serve this dish justice. The one thing I find about mixing other root vegetables with potatoes to make mash is the lumpiness than ensues, particularly if you do not have a potato ricer to get the root veg and fine as possible. So far the only way I’ve discovered of ensuring smooth creamy mash is just to keep on mashing and mixing to allow the butter and milk to break down those lumps.

In the end the Yorkshires had a perfect beefy sweetness to match the onion gravy. The sausages were pork and mustard so they had a good sharpness and saltiness to match the creamy mashed potatoes. I mean these flavour combinations are classic and comforting, a great way to nurse a hangover from the Royal Wedding Street Parties.

Ingredients
12 chipolata Sausages
1 cup Milk
1 cup Flour
2 Eggs
beef Dripping
Salt and Pepper
1 small Turnip, peeled and cubed
About 4 Potatoes, peeled & cubed
1 Onion
500ml red Wine
knob of Butter
1 Bay leaf

Recipe
Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees and place your sausages onto a baking tray. Cook in the oven for 10 minutes, or until half done and put to one side. Keep your oven on and increase the temperature to 200 degrees and keep warm.

Boil the turnips for 10 minutes, then add the potatoes and continue to cook until both vegetables are tender. Then strain through a colander, add salt, pepper and butter and mash away. Incorporate a little milk to get the mash going, and once most of the lumps are gone you can use a wooden spoon to beat away any remaining smaller lumps. Keep warm until ready to use.

In a Yorkshire pudding or muffin tray add a couple of drops of beef dripping. Or if you have frozen dripping, shave a thin square off and put that at the bottom of each hole. Put this in the oven for 15 minutes, or until the dripping starts to sizzle.

To make the Yorkshires, beat the two eggs, then add flour and milk. Mix well to form the batter and leave to one side for 10 minutes. When the dripping starts to sizzle in the oven, take the tray out and use a ladle to pour the batter mixture into the holes filling just under ¾ of the way. Drop a sausage into each hole and pop into the hot oven on the top shelf to cook for 30 minutes. Check every now and again to ensure that the tops don’t burn.

Make your gravy by heating a pan and dry frying the bay leaf and onion. Then add the red wine and leave it to reduce down to 20% of it’s original. Take off the heat and add the butter and season with salt and pepper. The sauce should have a deep red colour all the way through. Strain through a fine sieve.

Assemble your dish by placing mash on the bottom, toad in the hole on top and drizzle with gravy. Eat.

Poached Eggs, Asparagus, Hollandaise

I have to admit, while my blog is called dinner at Maya’s, my favourite meal of the day has to be breakfast! I think it’s the combination of the meaty sausages or bacon, the soft egg yolk, seedy wholesome bread and salty butter all washed down with a mug of strong slightly sweetened tea that makes my mouth salivate at the thought.

The other thing, particularly good about a weekend breakfast is the spontaneity. It is possible to plan a breakfast the previous day, but night-time inebriation often means planning gets pushed aside. So for me at least weekend breakfasts means stumbling into the kitchen, peering into the fridge and coming up with something to satisfy my grumbling stomach and heavy head and salivating mouth. I get my vegbox deliveries on a Friday and my boyfriend tends to unpack it so I don’t really know what veggies I have until the next morning.

The previous Saturday morning I was delighted to find a bunch of new season asparagus sitting on the bottom drawer of the fridge. I knew exactly what I was eating- soft poached eggs with home-made hollandaise drizzled over steamed buttery asparagus.

The sad part was the fact that I didn’t have any muffins and wasn’t really ready to make my own muffins or leave the house to get them. I had planned therefore to have the eggs and asparagus sans bread. But my boyfriend wanted to have HP sauce so he asked for eggs in baskets and as I was cutting the rounds out of the bread I figured I could stack them to make faux muffins.

Yummy yolk

Needless to say as we sat for breakfast, with the sunshine streaming through the windows, I could see envy on my boyfriend’s face from my towering colourful breakfast. This is a spring breakfast/brunch and totally worth the effort in the morning.

Eggs in baskets

Ingredients
2 whole organic Eggs, 1 Egg Yolk
2 tsbp Vinegar
juice from ½ a Lemon
50g Butter, melted
Salt & Pepper

1 English Muffin (or 2 slices of Bread, cut into rounds with a cookie cutter)
small handful of Asparagus
knob of Butter

Recipe
To make the hollandaise, put the yolk in a bowl and whisk in a bit of salt and pepper. Add vinegar and lemon to a small saucepan and heat until it starts to bubble. Pour this into the egg mixture and whisk in. Then slowly pour the melted butter in a thin stream into the bowl as you whisk away. The sauce should be thick and creamy.

Fill a medium sized pan with water and add 1 tbsp of vinegar. Heat until boiling, then turn the heat down. Crack eggs into a cup or small bowl and lower into water. Set timer for 4 minutes, then remove with a slotted spoon and drain on a kitchen towel. I like to set my asparagus steaming over the pan with the poaching eggs.

Assemble onto dish and eat.

Sticky Toffee Cupcakes

Batch 2 boxed up

I don’t think I have the sweetest tooth, but there are too things I love, dates and sticky toffee pudding. Perhaps the reason why I love the sticky toffee pudding is because it contains dates, but who really knows.

The best sticky toffee pudding I’ve tried is a ready made variety I tried at the Real Food Festival here in London’s Earl’s Court. Here’s a link to the supplier’s website if anyone is interested. The pudding was deliciously moist, sweet from the toffee with a lip smacking sticky texture in your mouth. It was to utterly divine! I have been trying to figure out the secret behind this amazing pudding ever since I tried this brand.

Batch one

Sticky Toffee Pudding is ridiculously easy to make at home, you just have to make sure you don’t overcook the cake otherwise it will be too dry even for toffee to save. That was my dilemma with this sticky toffee cupcake; I had to make sure the cake mix was moist enough with the toffee sauce to go over it. I wasn’t worried about the sweetness because the frosting was sweet enough to compensate. I think it worked out fine in the end, it was much drier than regular sticky toffee but I think it held its in the cupcake containers, and it meant that I could easily transport them to my colleagues at work and my boyfriend’s family.

I know dates are sticky and I know this pudding would result in a sticky mess, hence the name. But I was thinking of ways to get around the amount of mess made from chopping up the dates. That’s when I found these ready chopped dates coated in rice flour to stop them sticking from each other. Looking at the packet spells out sticky toffee pudding without the actual stickiness on my hands and chopping board! Perfect!

I used them in the same way I would use fresh dates, just put in them in a dish with warm water and bicarbonate of soda for half an hour. This removed much of rice flour and returned them to their sticky state by the time they went into the cake mixture. I must have knocked off at least 15 minutes from the preparation time using these.

The insides

My frosting was caramel buttercream and I guess a shortcut would be to purchase ready made buttercream frosting from the supermarket and pipe them straight onto the cakes. But with nothing but a bowl, some icing sugar, butter, caramel and a hand whisk, I guess that’s where my masochist tendencies display itself! There is a lot of satisfaction sweating out (not from the oven heat) in the kitchen to produce tasty sweetstuffs. Besides, making it yourself means you have to taste the frosting to ensure you’ve got the correct balance of sweetness and caramel flavour ;).

These were utterly delicious in the end and definitely worth all the effort. The cake mixture is fairly light so it does feel like you’re eating healthy food, I mean dates count as one of your five a day, I’m sure! You can also change around the mixture a little bit. Add a bit of banana instead of dates to the cake mix and change the topping slightly. I’ve been meaning to make mocha cupcakes, which are basically chocolate cupcakes with a creamy coffee frosting. The ways to change things up with cupcakes are endless and although they seem to be the biggest baking fad at the moment, it’s because they’re so simple to make, taste amazing and make you look like a domestic goddess. Everyone needs to try making them!

Ingredients

180g Dates, chopped

1 tsp Vanilla extract

180g self-raising Flour

1 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda

80g Butter

2 Eggs

for the caramel

125g caster Sugar

80ml double Cream

½ tsp Salt

for the buttercream

½ tsp Salt

1 tsp Vanilla extract

160g Butter

200g icing Sugar

Recipe

Pre-heat oven to 170 degrees. Prepare the dates by pouring 180ml of boiling water over them and sprinkle the bicarbonate of soda. Leave to soak for 30 minutes. Add vanilla extract too.

Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Make a well to add the eggs, and then fold in the flour. Add the date mixture and mix well to combine. Fill cupcakes about 2/3 full and leave to cool.

For the caramel, add sugar to a saucepan then add boiling water, just enough to cover the sugar. Turn to a simmer and watch carefully as the sugar mixture turns to a darker caramel colour and texture turns syrupy. Remove from the heat then add the cream. Mix well and stir in salt. Leave to cool completely.

When the cupcake mixture has cooled, place in the oven and cook for 12-15 minutes. Test for doneness by putting a skewer through the centre to check if there are any wet mixture in the centre. If done, leave to cool completely on a rack.

Make buttercream by creaming butter and icing sugar. Add a little icing sugar at a time to avoid creating a white cloud over the mixture. Add the caramel and then continue adding the icing sugar until it has become stiff.

When cupcakes have fully cooled, pipe frosting over the top and sprinkle with chocolate. Enjoy. :)

Rib-eye Steak with Bone Marrow and Potato Salad

When I made my first order at The East London Steak Co. , I knew I had to include bone marrow. I've had it before, scooping it out after a hearty dish of my mum's osso bucco. And I knew I wanted to try cooking with it myself.

At first I wasn't sure what to do with it. Then I remembered that amazing bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape lying in our kitchen and thought about making a very special meal for two consisting of perfectly cooked rib-eye steak and accompanied with roasted bone marrow. This one is not for the dieters, but then again everyone needs a little extravagance every now and again.

The dish, for all it's cholesterol glory was quick to make, simple even. But supremely delicious, I am salivating just thinking about it.

So I started off my marinating the meat, the same way I did it for the Perfect Rump Steak recipe I've made before.Just a bit of olive oil, generous helpings of salt and pepper and quick sprinle of drink parsley. I let that sit for a little bit until I was certain the steak was at room temperature.

Then I proceeded to pan fry it using my griddle pan. I did 3 minutes on each side for these as they are quite thickly cut and I wanted to make sure the fatty 'eye' was properly rendered.  The result is this juicy piece of meat that was perfectly pink in the middle after resting for 15 minutes. You can see the juices oozing out of it in the second picture.

I only seasoned my marrow with salt and pepper and then tossed it in a hot oven to roast for 15 minutes. I put this in at the same time as I started cooking my steak so they were ready when the steak was ready too. 

 

We needed some vegetables, so I made a quick potato salad while I was waiting for the marrow to roast and the steak to rest. Everything was going so well until I realised I had no mayonnaise and started to panic a little. Then I realised I had all the ingredients to make the mayonnaise from scratch. 

I've never actually made mayonnaise before, simply because I have a running order of mayonnaise with my Abel & Cole delivery. When these things happen, to get the recipe perfect, I always resort to a single book aptly named The Cook's Bible from Le Cordon Bleu. This book helped me to make a lot of firsts from pizza bases to de-boning chickens, the pictures are worth a thousand words and there are soo many tips on the margins. An essential cookbook.

Judging from the amount of fat that seeps out of the marrow, I could have made my mayonnaise using that instead of oil. But I didn't realise that at the time, and I think one coronary is enough in this meal. I sprinkled a bit of chopped parsley in my mayonnaise as I thought that would go well with the potato salad, and I had a bit too much for the marrow bones.

Once the marrow was cooked I sprinkled some fresh parsley and coarse salt and pepper over it. The result was a very rich melt-in-your mouth experience that would taste amazing on it’s own. But for my dish it was complimented by the sharpness of the onions in the potato salad and made the rib eye steak all the more luxurious. I would definitely only recommend one marrow piece per person when you’re eating it with something as heavy as a steak as it was very rich.

The one think I love about getting a delivery from the ELSC is the fact that you know the beef is going to be well hung, of a variety you probably haven't heard of before and utterly delicious. I really wasn't disappointed this time, it was by far one of the most satisfying dishes I have ever eaten!

Ingredients
2 pieces bone Marrow
handful of Parsley, chopped
300g (2 Steaks) rib-eye Steaks
Potatoes
1 Onion
Salt & Pepper
dried Parsley
1 Egg yolk
Oil
½ tbsp Mustard

Recipe
Pre-heat oven to 200C. Start by marinating the steak in a bit of olive oil, salt, pepper and dried parsley. Leave to stand for 10-30 minutes.

Sprinkle salt & pepper over your marrow and put in the oven for 20-30 minutes, or until the marrow starts to pull away from the bone.

Boil the potatoes until tender. Make the mayonnaise by mixing egg yolk with salt, pepper and the mustard. Then slowly pour oil while you’re mixing the egg in a thin stream until emulsified. It should turn to a light yellow colour when you’re done. Taste as you’re going along to see if you need more salt or mustard. Mix in some chopped parsley and finely chopped onion. Next add the potatoes with a bit of seasoning and mix together. Put in the fridge until required.

Heat a griddle pan until hot and then sear the steaks on each side for 3 minutes. Leave on a plate to rest for 10 minutes.

Add rested steak to plate, then bone marrow and spoon some potato salad on the side. Eat.

Rosemary & Garlic Roasted Leg of Lamb with Dauphinoise Potatoes

With spring finally here, I went straight for a delicious spring lamb roast, perfect for Easter celebrations! My mum actually brought the lamb over and asked me to cook it, so it’s another Rare Breed variety, and it’s only half a leg because there are only three of us to feed and this is more than enough. I love lamb so any leftovers are fine with me because it means lamb filled pitas which are yummy with a bit of hummus and some salad.

I went for a very French way of cooking my lamb leg. I made little holes around the joint with my knife and stuffed them with ¼ clove of garlic, some rosemary and a squeeze of anchovy paste. I’m using a paste instead of anchovy fillets as I find these melt ‘dissolve’ away to nothing much easier than the fillets, which in turn makes it much better to sneak into dishes.

To accompany the lamb in the oven and sticking to the French theme, I made potato dauphinoise. It’s such an easy dish to make, and it produces a wonderful side dish that makes it look like you’ve put a lot more effort in! I think potatoes are delicious as they are anyway so adding the cream and the garlic just makes it more scrumptious. The garlic in this works perfectly with the lamb so it’s a great accompaniment.

When you slice into the potatoes you see the layers of potato and the layers of sauce in between, so your potatoes are never dry and seasoned inside and out, with a crispy buttery topping. To perfect this, you need to have evenly sliced fairly thin potatoes. It would best to slice them using a mandolin, but I slice them by hand and make them double thickness of a regular crisp. Keep the best looking slices to put on the top. 

I also cooked some broccoli to add a bit of green to the dish on the side. Steamed lightly then tossed in a bit a melted butter and seasoned with salt and pepper, so simple it hurts. :P 

The gravy was made with the roasting jus from the pan mixed with a roux and a splash of red wine. I let that simmer for about 10 minutes until it had thickened to sprinkle over the lamb. Mint sauce would be perfect on the side as well but I skipped that out. 

You end up with moist, tender cuts of lamb, buttery broccoli and creamy potatoes dressed in a rich gravy. It's perfect for Easter, simple to make and provides much loved leftovers for midnight snacks. :)

Ingredients
half leg of Lamb
handful of Rosemary stalks
bulb Garlic
1/2 tbsp Anchovy paste
Salt & Pepper
head of Broccoli, cut into florets
6 Potatoes, finely sliced
50g double Cream
Butter
dried Mint

Recipe
Pre-heat oven to 200 degrees. Prepare your lamb by cutting holes all over the meat with the tip of your knife. Then stuff each hole with a sliver of garlic, a smear of anchovy paste and a sprig of rosemary. Season the rest of the meat with salt, pepper, some dried mint a bit of rosemary. Pop in the oven for 10 minutes then reduce the temperature to 180 and cook for a further 50 minutes.

Slice your potatoes and grease an oven proof dish with a bit of butter. Place the first layer of potatoes at the bottom of the dish ensuring it covers the whole base, sprinkle with a small amount of finely chopped garlic, salt, pepper and drop of cream. Layer the next lot of potatoes, press them down, then sprinkle again with the garlic, salt, pepper and cream. Continue until you've reached the top.

At the top, press down again to compress the potatoes. You can keep them pressed until you're ready to cook them. When ready, add any remaining cream and a knob of butter. Cook in the oven on the bottom shelf with the meat for 1 hour.

When the lamb is cooked, take it out to rest for 15 minutes to make your gravy and steam your broccoli florets. Once tender, toss in butter, mint and salt & pepper. To make the gravy, add a bit of water if the bottom of the roasting tray is dry and bring to the boil on the stove. Add red wine and leave for 5 minutes to reduce, then add a roux and whisk until combined. Add herbs and spices as required and check seasoning. Simmer for 10 minutes, or until thickened.

When the potatoes are ready, carve your lamb, spoon out some potatoes, and lay on a side of broccoli. Drizzle with gravy and eat.

Vegetarian Samosa's, Prawn Masala, Minty Yogurt Dip

So this post is basically my journey with Samosas. Because, let’s face it, the minty yogurt dip is a breeze and the prawn masala was delicious but I cheated with a spice mix from Seasoned Pioneers.

I found this recipe, “Vegetarian Samosas – A Perfect Snack For Any Time Of The Day” blog post of homemade samosas and thought it seemed easy and was a good, healthy, vegetarian snack. I’ve started snacking a lot since I’ve been going to the gym after work; normally this means a triangle of blue cheese and a banana. I’ve been thinking of changing my eating habits to stop me snacking. I have already tried splitting my lunches so I eat at 11.30am and 3pm, which worked pretty well as it gave me a lot of energy at the gym. But the amount I was eating was the same as the single meal I had at 1pm, so I still snacked in the evening! In the meantime, I think having healthy snacks around the house is a good way to address this.

Prawn Masala

I had all the ingredients to hand, and wanted to make baked Samosas because they’re healthier and I don’t have to spend a fortune on vegetable oil. Honestly if I wanted a deep fried samosa, it’s cheaper to get one from the stores than to home make them. I was surprised at how seasonal the ingredients were, apart from the peas, but I used frozen as the recipe suggested. I even put cauliflower in my second batch which worked well.

The one thing I can say about this is that the recipe for the filling is spot on in spicing. My struggles came in the shaping of the samosas themselves. You can see my first batch in the pictures below, this is because I followed the instructions and thought it would be a good idea to flatten the dough by hand. This led to thick dough and small circles. I dropped the filling in and couldn’t get them to close in the way the recipe described so I turned them in to Cornish pasty shapes by crinkling the edges. I brushed them with a bit of oil and baked them in the oven until brown.

The result? Delicious filling, thick, unevenly cooked pastry that crumbled in some areas and was soggy in others. My boyfriend and I still ate the whole batch even though they weren’t exactly perfect looking.

First batch of Cornish Pasty looking Samosas

Cornish Pasty insides

The next day, I tried again using whole wheat flour as I had run out of the plain flour. I made the dough in exactly the same way as described in the recipe and then took out my rolling pin. I took 3 inch rounds of dough and rolled them into a circular shape, as thin as possible. I cut the circles in half and joined the straight edge of the half circle together with some water. Like this except, I didn't overlap my pastry so much in step three, only a couple of millimetres, enough to seal them securely. I then filled the pastry leaving 1cm free at the top and ‘glued’ the edges together with more water. Success! The triangular shape was formed. :)

The whole batch took quite some time, it was about 9pm and I was only halfway there. So I got my boyfriend to help out with the rest, I made the cones; he filled them and closed them. That really speed things up, so if you have a helper, enlist them! Again, I brushed them with oil and shoved them in the over until the outsides were cooked. As you can see from the picture, the samosas were bigger, the pastry thin, evenly cooked and crisp. The whole wheat flour made them taste even healthier!

Whole wheat second batch

I dolloped a good deal of sriracha onto each samosa for an added spicy kick (my lips were tingling afterwards). But they were delicious and the perfect snacks the following evening. I think they would definitely have a more traditional flavour if deep fried, and a colleague recommended using filo pastry for the baked versions instead. I have yet to try this, but the principle is a good, thin pastry that turns crisp in the oven. I’ll give it a try next time I have to make samosa’s in a large batch.

Insides of second batch

But there you go, simple snacks for vegetarians. You can make a meat version instead with lamb mince, or other types of mince. Having made this though, I think I might try a Jamaican patty next. I’ve put the recipe for the Prawn Masala and Minty Yogurt dip below, but if you want to try making Samosa’s too, please use the original recipe in the link at the top of the page.

Prawn Masala

Ingredients

2 tsp Kashmiri Masala

250g fresh Prawns

3 medium Tomatoes, chopped

1 Onion, finely chopped

1 inch Ginger, grated

1 clove Garlic, finely chopped

fresh Coriander, to garnish

Recipe

Fry onions, garlic and ginger in a bit of oil until fragrant. Add spices and cook for 1 minute. Add tomatoes, give a good stir, cook for 10 minutes on low/medium heat until tomatoes break down and everything starts to caramelise. Add prawns, season and cook until pink. Place into a bowl, scatter with fresh coriander.

You can serve this with rice, or naan, or like I did with the samosas.

Minty Yogurt Dip

Ingredients

100ml plain Yogurt

handful of fresh Mint, finely chopped

handful of fresh Coriander, finely chopped

squeeze of Lemon juice

Cucumber (optional)

Salt & Pepper

Recipe

Mix all ingredients together. I told you this was a breeze!

Massaman Curry

The first time I saw this recipe was on Rick Stein’s Far Eastern Odyssey and I was amazing at how simple it was and how delicious it must taste. So when the repeat came on Saturday Kitchen, I quickly scribbled down the recipe and made it with one of the last batches of diced chuck from The East London Steak Company.

The dish turned out to be as easy as it looked and tasted much much better than I could have possibly imagined! The meat is tender and juicy; the sauce rich with spices yet still sweet from the coconut and with a kick from the chilli towards the end. The whole dish has a strong meaty richness but at the same time is unbelievably light given the ingredients. I took the leftovers to work the next day and it tasted even better. I’ve seen the paste in the Thai shop many times previously but I’m glad I made it because there is much satisfaction gained when you perfect a curry made from scratch.

I didn’t a chance to get the Thai holy basil to garnish this dish when I first made it so I used regular basil instead. It really doesn’t do the dish justice, so if you can get your hands on holy basil, use that! The other thing was the tamarind water, Rick uses tamarind pulp, but I used a tamarind stock cube to get the same taste. I find the dried stock cubes easier to store and use than the pulp/paste that you find in the regular stores.

The other ingredient I found difficult to source was the black cardamom pods, as I could only find green cardamom pods in my local Waitrose, though I’m sure I have seen the black pods in the supermarket before. The difference between the two is that the green pods have a fresh lemony/citrus’ flavour and scent whereas the black pods are smoky in flavour. I didn’t have a substitute ingredient to replace the smokiness so I made do with just the green pods.

Overall I love this recipe and would probably make it again next time I have diced chuck. It needs a lot more experimenting in future though as Rick asks for 3lbs of meat, which is a huge amount for two people, and I only used 1lb. This required a lot of guess work and tasting to make sure I got the spices right, and I think I managed well. But if I get my hands on black cardamom, I’ll have to rethink the spicing.

Ingredients
Tamarind stock cube + 50 ml water

for the curry paste
4 dried red Kashmiri Chillies, roughly chopped, with one or two sliced down the centre for garnish
2 tsp Coriander seeds
1 tsp Cumin seeds
7 green Cardamom pods (seeds only)
6 cloves Garlic, roughly chopped
½ inch Cinnamon stick
1 piece blade mace
2 Shallots, roughly chopped
1 tsp Shrimp paste
1 inch piece Ginger, roughly chopped
1 Lemongrass stalk, chopped
1/5 tin Coconut milk

for the curry
1lb diced Chuck steak
4/5 tin Coconut milk
3 green Cardamom pods
2 inch stick Cinnamon
3 Potatoes, diced
3 Shallots, halved
1 tbsp Fish Sauce
Tamarind water
1 tsp Sugar
handful roasted Peanuts
handful Thai basil to garnish

Recipe
Prepare the tamarind water by dissolving the stock cube in the water.
For the paste, dry fry chillies, then transfer to a pestle and mortar. Dry fry coriander, cumin, cardamom seeds, cloves, cinnamon and mace for a few seconds until aromatic. Add to mortar and grind to a powder.

In the same frying pan, slowly fry onion and garlic in a bit of oil until caramelised, add shrimp paste and ground spices. Fry for a couple of minutes. Then transfer everything to a food processer, add coconut milk, lemon grass and ginger and blend to a smooth paste. Set aside until required.

For the curry, fry beef in a bit of oil until browned. Add coconut milk, then top the tin with water and add that to the pan. Add the whole cardamom pods, cinnamon and salt. Bring to simmer and cook for 2 hours or until beef is tender. Once beef is tender, remove the cardamom pods and cinnamon stick. Add potatoes, shallots, curry paste, fish sauce and tamarind water. Simmer for 30 minutes uncovered.

When potatoes are tender, add peanuts. Serve over cooked jasmine rice and garnish with holy basil. Eat.

Veal Meatball Carbonara

sem•o•li•na

noun /ˌseməˈlēnə/

1. The hard grains left after the milling of flour, used in puddings and in pasta

When I saw semolina pasta at Healthy Supplies my first thought was ‘Oh my god, I have to make pasta!’ Semolina flour, which means ‘semi milled’ is the durum wheat flour used in Southern Italy to make dried pasta.

It’s been a while since I first tried to make pasta and I haven’t really gone back since. The first time was a disaster, I had only just got into baking and wasn’t really familiar with dough textures so my dough was far too dry and there was far too much of it! I was given a pasta machine by my boyfriend’s mother which got me excited, but my kitchen doesn’t have a table or a proper surface to mount the machine to. This meant that my boyfriend had to hold down the machine while I manoeuvred around him to feed the pasta in and turn the handle. I was making ravioli so I wanted the pasta to be fairly thin, but because it was so dry, it kept crumbling in the machine and I couldn’t go to the desired thickness.

After half an hour of fighting with the dough and the machine, I gave up and made my pasta. I cut rough squares, put a tablespoon of filling (ricotta and spinach if memory serves me correctly), brushed the edges with egg white and put another square on top. I cooked them for three minutes, and ate them without a dressing as we were both too tired to do anything else. The pasta was too thick and tasted too floury, some of the ravioli weren’t properly sealed so the filling had disappeared and it was all very disappointing.

We got rid of the pasta machine and resorted to dried pasta from the supermarket after that. I thought I would give it another go with the semolina flour. Most recipes call for semolina flour and water as the dough mixture. Since semolina is coarse and crumbly, I had major flashbacks from my first try with pasta, so I used half semolina, half buckwheat, and one egg yolk.

I went for buckwheat because it has a lovely nutty flavour that I think will work really well with pasta, particularly Carbonara which is what I’m using this pasta for. Instead of using the pasta machine, I hand rolled my pasta. And you know what? It’s a thousand times easier (for me at least) than the machine! I thought I wouldn’t be able to get the dough thick enough, but it’s not true, I made ravioli the other day with the same dough recipe and could read newspaper print through the dough. Hand-rolling is the way to go for me. :)

Anyways for this recipe I made linguine by rolling the dough to a rectangle shape. I then folded the dough on top of each other and floured each layer so they don’t stick together, to make a smaller rectangle which I used to cut the strips.

I made mine less wide than the image above, but this shows you how I made the strips. If you’re using semolina and water, you can make the linguine then hang them to dry. I just let mine sit for 10 minutes or so while I carried on with the rest of the dish.

I had some veal mince which I used to make meatballs with to fry with bacon to go with my carbonara. I used veal because beef, lamb and venison are too strong and heavy for the rich sauce. Alternatives I would use pork or chicken mince instead, but veal has the lovely sweet flavour and retains its juices much better than pork and chicken. So it works perfectly! The veal is a rare breed variety that I got from my local farmers market and had a soft pink colour when raw. If you live in the UK, you can buy rare breed veal mince here.

The pasta was coarse enough to carry the rich sauce, with a slight nutty flavour from the buckwheat which complimented the veal and salty bacon. I made this on a Wednesday night after work and can’t express how satisfying it was, both in flavour and from making my own pasta. Try it!

Ingredients

½ cup Semolina flour

½ cup Buckwheat flour

2 Egg yolks

a bit of cream

200g Veal mince

dried Parsley

1 small Onion, diced

2 cloves Garlic, finely sliced

3 rashers Bacon, diced

zest of Lemon

Salt & Pepper

Olive Oil

Recipe

Combine both flours into a bowl, make a well in the centre for the egg yolk, a pinch of salt and a bit of olive oil. Use the tips of your fingers to slowly combine the flour and egg, add a bit of water if needed. Mix well until it comes together. Knead well on a floured surface until smooth. Place the dough in the fridge for 10 minutes or so.

Dived dough into two and start rolling out. The dough may at first seem very crumbly, but the combination of flour with the egg should give it some elasticity. I found I could roll each half into an area that is 30cm high by 15-20cm wide. The pasta was about 3 or 4mm thick. Flour the surface and fold, then slice into 8mm strips. Toss lightly with your fingers to straighten again, and leave to dry until required.

Start making the meatballs by combining the onion, parsley, salt and pepper into a bowl. Once combine roll to make 3cm wide meatballs. Heat a large frying pan with some oil, and add the meatballs with the bacon. Fry each side of the meatballs until brown and starting to crisp on each side. Half way through cooking, add sliced garlic (you don’t want the garlic to burn).

When the meatballs are cooked and the bacon is crisp, add the cream to form the basis of the sauce.

Boil water in a saucepan large enough to fit the linguine. And cook for 3-5 minutes, the cooking time varies as it’s freshly made, so you need to keep checking every 30 seconds after 3 mins is up. When it’s cooked drain and add sauce to the pasta with the other egg yolk. Toss quickly to coat before the egg scrambles, then assemble onto a plate with grated parmesan and freshly ground black pepper. Eat.

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Lamb Skewers Two Ways

Whenever my mother comes to visit me, she brings some Rare Breed lamb that she gets from her local farmers market. Having previously never heard of Rare Breeds before, I looked them up online and this is what BBC Food has to say:

Rare breed lamb is farmed non-intensively. The meat is dark, closely textured and lean, and tastes like a cross between lamb and venison.

She brought some lamb shoulder steaks, some rare breed beef rib eye steaks, rare breed oxtail and rare breed half leg of lamb. I was keen on trying these as soon as possible and decided on making kebabs with the lamb shoulder steaks. The meat is much darker as BBC mentions and the fat is creamy and thick around the edges. I removed a lot of the harder pieces of fat but left a thin strip of the softer fat to ensure the meat doesn’t dry out when I cook them on the griddle pan. With some of the leaner pieces, I put tiny squares of fat on top of them so when they were cooking, the fat would melt and juices will be absorbed by the meat below.

North African spiced lamb and vegetable kebabs with Tabbouleh

These kebabs were quick and easy to make and tasted amazing at the end. The flavour was a stronger lamb flavour but the texture was melt in the mouth divine! When you remove the meat from the skewers they weren’t hard but soft and juice and a very light pink on the inside. Not being one to cook the same dish twice in a row, I decided to use the second pack of lamb with a Chinese recipe from Chinese Food Made Easy (Ching-He Huang).

I’ll start with the first batch though, this one I made using a marinade my mum taught me to make while I was living in Egypt. It’s so easy, just olive oil, a bit of mint, salt, pepper and some lemon. I let that marinate for about half an hour while I made the vegetables. Red pepper, green pepper and mushrooms, I would have put cherry tomatoes too but I didn’t have any to hand. For these I tossed them in a bit of olive oil and some Za’tar spice mix from Seasoned Pioneers. 

To accompany I made a simple tabbouleh, except I didn’t have any bulgar wheat so I used cous cous instead. I also felt there wasn’t enough carbs for the dish, so I upped the cous cous in the tabbouleh to make up for it. It still retained its classic flavour but the cous cous soaked up the lamb juices when the skewers sat on top so they were even better! The only advise I need to give about tabbouleh, is to chop everything as small/finely as possible. I use one of these herb choppers to chop everything at once – all the herbs, the onions, the tomatoes, everything!

Chinese spiced lamb skewers with noodles, spring onion, bok choy and chili

For the Chinese spiced dish, I felt it was again light on the carbs some I made some egg noodles and bok choy to accompany. I bought some chilli paste from the local Thai restaurant to mix in with the egg noodles tossed in sesame oil, then dolloped a bit on the side to dip the meat in.

I really like the spices used in the Chinese version, I think they definitely complimented the taste of the meat. But Ching-He actually accompanies the dish with fennel and orange salad which in hindsight would have probably worked a lot better than my sides. The strong flavours of the lamb needed something (other than chilli) to cut through the fatty juices. I didn’t have anything to hand at the time, but a light sour salad would work better next time I make this for summer barbeques.

So there we have it, two ideas for skewered lamb. Enjoy. :)

North African Spiced Lamb and Vegetables with Tabbouleh

Ingredients

350g Lamb shoulder steaks, cut into large chunks

1 tsp dried Mint

1 Lemon

1 tbsp Za’tar spice mix

1 red Pepper, 1 green Pepper, chopped into squares

handful of brown Mushrooms

¼ cup Cous Cous/Bulgar Wheat

large bunch of Parsley, finely chopped

small bunch of fresh Mint, finely shopped

2 Tomatoes, finely chopped

½ Onion, finely chopped

Olive Oil

Salt & Pepper

Recipe

Start by removing any hard pieces of fat from the lamb. Then marinate the lamb pieces, coat them in salt, pepper and add a sprinkle of mint. Squeeze ¼ lemon and about ½ tbsp of olive oil and use your hands to mix it all together. Leave that to one side for as long as possible (overnight in the fridge is ideal).

Put your peppers and mushrooms into a bowl, sprinkle the Za’tar mixture over them and a bit of olive oil. Toss until well covered. Then you can skewer your lamb and vegetables. I like to put veg in between the lamb so that they get some of the juices from the meat during cooking. The mushrooms especially need fat to get going. This recipe will make 6 skewers.

Heat a griddle pan until hot then lay the skewers on top. Get you man into barbeque mode and get him to turn the meat as you prepare the tabbouleh. The meat need roughly 4-5 minutes per side.

Chop tomatoes, onions, fresh parsley and mint until fine. Prepare cous cous or bulgar wheat to packet instructions and mix together. The dressing is made with olive oil, half a lemon and salt and pepper. Mix well with a spoon .

When the meat is cooked, put a large spoonful of tabbouleh on the plate, followed by two skewers of meat. Drizzle with a little bit of the meat juices and eat.

Chinese Spiced Lamb Skewers with Noodles, Bok Choy and Chilli

Ingredients

350g Lamb shoulder steaks cut into chunks

1 tsp ground Cumin

1 tsp Fennel seeds

1 tsp dried Chilli flakes

¼ tsp Paprika

1 tsp Soy Sauce

1 tsp rice wine Vinegar

1 head Bok Choy

3 cloves Garlic

1 nest egg Noodles

2 tbsp Chilli paste

2 spring Onions, sliced at an angle

Sesame Oil

Olive Oil

Salt & Pepper

Recipe

Combine spices, salt and a bit of olive oil in a bowl and marinate the meat for 30 minutes. Heat a griddle pan until hot and cook meat for 3-4 minutes per side.

Stir fry bok choy in oil and crushed garlic cloves until wilted, remove and put to one side. Cook noodles to packet instructions, then drain and toss in the wok used for the bok choy. Add one tbsp of chilli paste and a sesame oil to taste. Toss until coated.

Assemble dish, adding a bit more chilli paste on the side as necessary. Drizzle meat juices over the meat and noodles and scatter with a bit of spring onion. Eat.

Cheese Souffle

Ever since I got my satin black Le Creuset Pie Dish, I have been slowly building my collection. During a dull afternoon at work, I decided to go browsing Amazon for Le Creuset Ramekins and what do I find? A cute pair in satin black to match my pie dish. I have other, smaller ramekins that I use for mini puddings and things, but these are the first proper big ramekins I’ve owned. What wondrous new recipes I can make now!

So here is my first attempt at making a savoury cheese soufflé, because I just love cheese. I think they were fairly successful if I do say so myself. They rose and started splurging all over the place (too much mixture in the ramekin perhaps?). My only issue is that they rose lopsided and I wonder if this is because I didn’t butter the top side of the ramekin as well as I should have.

I’m still very pleased with myself at the first attempt not only because I’ve never made soufflés before, but also because of the hard work I put into this dish. Seriously, I have no space for a mixer, so I hand whisked my egg whites until stiff. I’ve seen TV chefs do this before; in fact there was an episode of the Hairy Bikers where they were competing with different way to make stiff egg whites. One had a mixture, another had an electric whisk, another had a manual whisk and the other had a hand whisk. If you’ve ever tried a Powerball before, you’ll understand the type of pain I went through to whisk my eggs. The end result is satisfyingly tasty and utterly worth it!

The spillage, and my old ramekins (from the Gu puds)

In terms of the filling, I used lots of grated cheddar and half a block of leftover feta cheese from another dish. I wanted the filling to be fairly strong as the soufflés are so light and the combination of the cheeses meant that you got a sharp and salty creamy melt in the mouth flavour from this dish. It was so delicious and I only accompanied it with rocket to give the much needed peppery flavour. This is the perfect starter for two (yes, I’ve been reading a lot of David Nicholls recently). :)

Ingredients

2 tbsp Butter

1 heaped tbsp Flour

Just under ¾ cup of Milk (5 fl oz)

½ cup grated Cheddar

½ cup crumbled Feta

pinch of Paprika

pinch of grated Nutmeg

½ tsp Mustard

3 Eggs (2 yolks, 3 whites)

Recipe

Butter your ramekins! Then chill in the fridge. Pre-heat oven to 220 C

Make a roux with the flour and butter. Then add milk. Stir until smooth and thickened. Take off the heat, then add the cheeses. Stir until melted in and season with spices, mustard and a bit of salt and pepper.

Separate eggs, and stir egg yolks quickly into the cheese sauce mixture. If you do this quickly they won’t scramble. Beat egg whites until stiff but still wet and fold (don’t use a whisk) into the wet mixture until combined.

Pour mixture into ramekins, I would say 2/3 full. Run your thumb around the top rim. Put in the oven and turn down the temperature to 170 C. Cook for 20 minutes.