Photo shoot with Little Cakes

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God I love Twitter!  I meet so many wonderful people through it (and can easily waste spend hours on it chatting away.  One of my fave ladies is  Nicola Denbigh aka Little Cakes who is based in Uppingham so I was really excited when she asked me to style and shoot some of her wedding cakes. They really are works of art so I used this as a theme for the shoot.

How striking is this black wedding cake? My fella even likes it and believe me for him to like a wedding cake that isn’t made entirely out of A: cheese or B: pies is pretty damn impressive!

Our location was the stunning Falcon Hotel in Uppingham which is being lovingly restored to its former glory by its owners and is a wonderful wedding venue.

‘Liana’ – Five tier round & hexagonal cakes with handpainted gold detailing and handmade wired flowers

‘Isla’ – Double height square cake with hand painted pearls and large wired bloom

You can see more of the shoot over on my Facebook photography page and Little Cakes Facebook page

My first radio cooking slot!

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Cooking on the radio you say? Well yes indeed! Last Friday morning I had the pleasure of the wonderful Ben Jackson from BBC Radio Leicester being in my tiny kitchen at Wyldelight Cottage.  I had been practicing the art of not swearing for 2 days and was still a bit nervous until it dawned on me in the middle of the night before that yes, I could practice not swearing, but the art of “not sounding like a total twat when nervous” has always eluded me. I’ve always done it at the most inopportune moments too, normally when in the vicinity of really handsome men (throw a uniform in there and I go from sounding a bit like a twat to talking full blown nonsensical rubbish!

Luckily we had a good half hour before we started recording just catching up and talking food, that ALWAYS relaxes me and puts me at ease. I wanted to keep the recipe really simple and decided to do something in real time so listeners could see just how easy it all was.  I made my Melton Mess with Vanilla Sea Salted Caramel Sauce, it’s outrageously good too and the recipe will feature in this months Great Food Magazine which is out tomorrow. There is lots of cream, custard, strawberries, meringue and yes plenty of salted caramel sauce involved! There weren’t any disasters; I didn’t swear, I did get very excited about what I was making, I probably sounded like a bit of a twat but all in all it went really well and I will have a regular slot each month!

You can click here to listen, I start from 1 hr 41mins in, and you can tell I’m smiling the whole time as you can hear my lisp (lisps are all kinds of sexy you know!).

Melton Mess with salted caramel sauce

Ingredients:

 

  • About a dozen or more large strawberries
  • 2 tblsp caster sugar
  • 520ml double cream
  • 1 large meringue base or 8 meringue “nests”
  • 250ml good quality vanilla custard
  • salted caramel sauce

Method:

  1. Slice about two thirds of your strawberries and put them in a bowl, sprinkle over the caster sugar, give them a stir and leave to macerate whilst you get on with the rest of the dish. Keep the remaining strawberries to one side for now.
  2. Using an electric mixer whip the cream until it’s firm, be careful though as it’s very easy to over whip double cream and it will start to separate (and you could accidentally end up with butter!).
  3. Crush your meringues into pieces, don’t make them too small, as you want different textures to run through the dessert, then stir them into the cream.
  4. Pour your custard and macerated strawberries and their juice on top of the whipped cream and very gently fold in. You don’t want it to be all mixed in completely, just folded carefully so you have pools of strawberries and custard amongst the cream.
  5. Carefully tip the mixture onto a big serving platter, scatter the strawberries you had set to one side over the top then drizzle liberally with the salted caramel sauce. Have the pot of caramel on the table so people can help themselves to more, I warn you though: this sauce is highly addictive!

Salted Caramel Sauce:

  •  120g soft light brown sugar
  • 100g unsalted butter
  • 1 tblsp water
  • 260ml double cream
  • 2 tsp Halen Môn Vanilla sea salt flakes

Method:

  1. Put the butter, sugar and water in a saucepan and heat gently until bubbling it’s important that you don’t stir it though just swirl the pan to combine.
  2.  Once it’s all melted, let it bubble away for 3 minutes then whisk in your cream and remove from the heat. Add a teaspoon of salt flakes, taste to see if it needs any more (careful though it will be hot).  It will seem very runny but it thickens as it cools so make several hours before if you want a firmer sauce and pop it in the fridge.

I sent Ben off with a goodie bag of amazing local foods that are really overlooked in Melton.  There is such a big focus on the pork pies and stilton cheese that the other little known producers just get left behind.  This weeks goodie bag is a selection of my favourite things that I buy in Melton and not a pork pie or slice of stilton anywhere!

  • Blackberry vinegar from Bridget at Melton Sunday market
  • Smoked sausages – Grasmere farm (Tuesday market)
  • Smoked wild boar bacon – Paul aka The Roosterman (Melton Market Tues, Fri, Sun)
  • Homemade butter – Maria (Tuesday market)
  • Smoked middle bacon Derek Jones Butchers Melton (the BEST ever!) Plus a slice of their brawn
  • various jams/chilli sauce/chutney from my good self as I was spoiling him!

The next goodie bag will be equally as good and I have no idea what I’m going to cook yet but I’m really excited already!

Quick Kelp Noodles and Fermented Coconut Nectar

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Having lived in both Hong Kong and Japan and spent many months in the Philippines, it surprises me that whilst Chinese and Japanese food is widely eaten in the UK, Filipino food has never really caught on. It’s a shame as Filipino culture really is centred around food and family and if you haven’t tried it then you really are missing out on a feast of culinary delights.

I’m going to write a separate blog post all about Philippine food but for now this is my favourite quick noodle dish that incorporates Chinese, Japanese and Filipino products beautifully and is amazing at using up leftover salad leaves and veg.

My cupboards are full of sauces, condiments and pickles from around the world. This noodle dish uses dried kelp and Japanese noodles called Demae Ramen made by Nissin and they have been my favourite noodles since I was about 10 years old.  We had them for breakfast most days before school in Hong Kong and their chicken noodles remain my favourite breakfast and, when called for, most reliable hangover remedy to date! Spiced fermented coconut water is not for the feint hearted.  The coconut water has been fermented with chillies, garlic, ginger, salt and sweet peppers to produce a potent sweet-spicy vinegar that is completely addictive (well for me anyway).

Just take a handful of dried kelp strands and add them to water that has had the noodle flavour sachet added and cook for a few minutes before adding your noodles.  Chuck in any leftover bits of veg – broccoli, peas, cabbage, whatever is floating in the bottom of your fridge really.  Cook for a minute then tip into a big bowl, cover with leftover salad, pour over your spiced fermented coconut water, some Chinese chillies preserved in oil and some dried garlic slivers and you have an amazing bowl of loveliness.

Coconut Panna Cotta with Ginger and Lemongrass Syrup

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This week marked the start of the Thai New Year so the Domestic Sluttery food writers were all asked to make Thai inspired recipes. I made a Thai style Kedgeree for my savoury post (reckon I will always make it this way from now on but with the addition of some Lapsang Souchong too) but I needed to come up with a dessert for Friday’s post.

I’ve never made a panna cotta before, I don’t really do desserts, I much prefer a cheeseboard at the end of the meal. I have had a few wonderful panna cottas in my time though so I knew I needed to achieve that perfect Boob Wobble if it was to be a success.

I’ve had a pack of gelatine leaves in my pantry for a few weeks now, the intention was to make some lovely Elderflower and spring flower jellies as my collection of glass jelly moulds never actually get used.  Coconut panna cotta it is then.  According to the gelatine instructions I just needed 4 leaves for every pint of liquid, simple enough so off I went to buy coconut milk, coconut cream (because I love it) and regular cream (because I wanted it to feel luxurious in the mouth).

I had received some very sad news the day before and thought I was coping really well (cooking is great for grief, eating not so easy) but I found myself crying in Tescos (they’d changed it all around AGAIN) and so did a rubbish job of shopping and returned home with gin, dried porcini mushrooms and chorizo.  I didn’t even realise I’d forgotten to buy any coconut ingredients until I got home and spoke to Glen (who detests coconut so was pretty happy about the shopping fail but obviously a bit worried about the girl crying in the doorway holding a bottle of gin and some chorizo). I had another cry at being rubbish at shopping.  I wasn’t really crying about that at all, I was crying because Nain, my grandmother, had died and I didn’t know what to do.

Another shopping trip later (this one without tears) and I was ready to go.  I love making up recipes but it’s always a bit nerve-racking when doing things like this (science-y).  The coconut mixture I had made was quite thick so would I need more gelatine? Having worked out how much gelatine I would officially need for a Boob Wobble set I threw it all together. It was only when I was putting the unused gelatine leaves back in the packet that I realised 2 must have been stuck together so I’d added a bit more than I should have.  I wasn’t bothered though as it just seemed right.

I don’t have any Dariole moulds so I just poured the mix into whatever I had: a few espresso cups, an old teacup, a couple of jelly moulds and a cocktail glass.

Once set the first cup was turned out and a nervous Boob Wobble test carried out – perfect. Phew, now to taste them.  I poured over my Ginger and Lemongrass syrup that had been infusing away, and tentatively spooned in.  Wow, it was so silky.  Rich in flavour but light in texture it just melted in my mouth. Yeah, I had a little cry, but this time I think I was also crying because something good had happened for the first time in 24 hours of sadness.

The first one turned out onto a plate ready for the Boob Wobble Test

I was so happy I recorded my Boob Wobble, you can see it HERE.

As I mentioned earlier, Glen hates coconut.  He used to love it but his Mum went through a phase of putting desiccated coconut into EVERYTHING when he was little so he just can’t stand it anymore.  I was so pleased with my new creations though that I made him try a bit.  He loved it! He ate 2 of them straight away.  

A bit of toasted fresh coconut and it's done

So if you want to give my recipe a go, and you really should because it’s really easy and tastes like it wasn’t, then you can see my recipe HERE. It really is stupidly easy to make and as always  you should check out all the other brilliant stuff on Domestic Sluttery!

Sweet and Smoky Ribs (but without a BBQ)

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For me the whole charm of ribs is the sheer filthiness of them.  Sticky, sweet, meaty morsels conveniently wrapped around a flavour packed bone to gnaw away at.  All hopes of daintiness and decorum are thrown out of the window, pretty eating this ain’t  - ribs are dirty and I love them.

But lets not stop there, ribs are cheap too, these 2 sets cost just £3 from my local Farmers Market.  Yep ribs are cheap and dirty food my friends which is all kinds of right in my book.

The intention had been to BBQ these bad boys, but once confronted with the BBQ still full of rainwater and coals leftover from 2011 this quickly became an indoor operation.  I still wanted a smokiness though so decided to throw some Lapsang Souchong tea leaves into the coffee grinder for a few seconds to blitz them up (big strands of tea aren’t necessarily nice on a rib).  I had some homemade tomato sauce leftover from making the whey pizzas to use as a base so in the smoky tea powder went.

Now for the Southern spices.  I’ve blogged about Laissez Chef before and if you haven’t sought him and his amazing New Orleans Spice Blend out yet then fear not, you can still do it now and buy through his website.  It tastes like nothing else you will find around on the market and is so good you can literally just dip your finger into the beautifully presented box of spices and eat it! For added sweetness and stickiness out came the treacle, oh how I love treacle!

Normally I would just marinade the raw ribs for a couple of hours then put them in a roasting tin, cover with tin foil and slow roast but I found that I had rather inconveniently ran out of tin foil (I will never learn) so used this method instead.

Ingredients:

  • Pork ribs
  • Poaching liquor (same as the fried chicken wings)
  • homemade tomato pizza sauce (you could use ketchup jazzed up with some tomato puree, garlic and onion powders and celery salt though for a shortcut)
  • 2 tsp blitzed Lapsang Souchong (must be a good quality really smoky one)
  • 1 tblsp Laissez Chef spice blend
  • 1 big heaped tblsp treacle

Throw your ribs into a pot of simmering liquor until just cooked through then remove, pat dry then coat in your marinade and leave for a couple of hours (you could cook them straight away but its nicer if they have had time to soak up all the lovely marinade).

Ribs marinading away

When you are ready just put them in a roasting tin, pour over any excess marinade and roast on high for about 20 minutes or until they are nice and caramelised on the outside.

sweet, smoky pork ribs

They turned out to be my favourite homemade ribs to date. They kicked serious meat filth ass and they will be without a doubt making many more appearances over the summer, and if I get my ass into gear and clean out the BBQ then I reckon they will be even better!

All kinds of filthy goodness

Spicy fried chicken wings

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I had intended to make this recipe with chicken feet, I used to love them when I lived in Hong Kong but have never tried them over here.  I asked Paul, my Meat Man if he could save me the feet from his lovely free range roosters when he killed on Wednesday.  Turns out though that free range chicken feet are far too mucky to use really, he said they were just way too nasty as his birds, despite having all that lovely space to run around in always choose to go and play in the muck heap. “Unfortunately you need feet from chickens kept inside all the time” he said, not my thing ( and my 3 ex-battery farm chickens would guilt me out too much) so he gave me a few kilos of chicken wings instead.

Now the humble wing happens to be my favourite bit of the chicken.  Glen always gets a very good deal when I roast the Sunday Rooster – I get the wings and a thigh and he gets the leg and breast. So many butchers just throw the wings in the bin, madness. When I worked at the butchery I saw so many beautiful plump free range wings being chucked in the bin before I could get to them, and they were beautiful Fosse Meadows chickens too, not cheap by any means!

Anyway I now had several kilos of wings for the freezer so I decided to experiment a bit.  I like my wings really crispy, almost burnt really, so decided to try deep frying them.  I played around with trying different coatings of egg, cornmeal and flours but the best way was just plain. This way the sweet flavours of the crispy skin were allowed to shine so I settled on poaching then frying and covering in a spicy sauce. It seems like a lot of work for fried chicken but I wanted to use the same method as I would have for the feet.

Ingredients:

  • chicken wings (I like to joint mine)

Poaching liquor

  • big pot water
  • salt (depending on how much water you use, but I used about 3tsp)
  • sugar (about 1 tablespoon)
  • a few star anise
  • a couple of bay leaves
  • a few peppercorns
  • fresh ginger (sliced)

Spicy Sauce

  • 2 heaped tablespoons Chinese chilli, ginger and garlic sauce (hot)
  • 2 tablespoons sweet thai chilli sauce
  • 1 tablespoon palm sugar
  • 1tablespoon Oyster sauce (Lee Kum Kee is my favourite)
  • 1 tablespoon Chinese preserved black beans (squashed with a fork)
  • 100ml stock (I used jellied ham hock stock that I had leftover in the fridge but chicken would be perfect too)

Oil for frying.

Method:

  1. My wings were frozen. Put all you poaching ingredients in a big pot, add your wings and slowly bring to a simmer until just cooked through. Reserve a bit of the liquor for later. Drain the wings and plunge into a bowl of iced water.  The skin will start to separate from the meat and bubble up.  Drain, pat dry then arrange in a single layer on a tray and put in the fridge for an hour to dry out.
  2. Put all your sauce ingredients into a pan and heat gently, taste and add more heat or sweetness depending on what you fancy, if it seems too thick you can add some poaching liquor.
  3. Fry the wings in hot oil until crispy then drain on kitchen towel, put on your serving platter and drizzle with the sauce.

They were all kinds of wonderful and best served with cold beer and plenty of kitchen towel!

Raw Milk – homemade mozzarella, ricotta and lots of other things!

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People are divided over raw milk but I am a big fan and I am lucky enough to live near to Lubcloud Organic Dairy who not only sell raw milk but also have chosesn not to homogenise any of their products.  When I was little I had to be quick in the mornings getting to the milk bottles on the doorstep. The birds were wise to the sight of Malcolm, our milkman back on Anglesey, and would peck through the foil lids to get to the cream that had risen to the top of the bottle.  I always used to sneakily pour a glass of that amazing creamy milk before putting it back in the fridge as a reward for being good and bringing the bottles in!

These days milk is homogenised as standard, so the fat is evenly distributed and not only don’t you get that wonderful creamy layer at the top of your pint but you also don’t get those glorious little dots of fat on the inside of your glass.  Personally I think that the taste really suffers as a result of both pasteurisation and homogenisation so it’s no contest for me when it comes to flavour.

tiny dots of loveliness around the inside of the glass

Raw milk from an organic herd really can’t be beaten for flavour so I decided to see how many things I could make from 2 litres of the stuff.  I started with mozzarella…

A quick look around the internet and I found Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall’s recipe for mozzarella and set to work.

The curds and whey quickly separated once the citric acid and rennet were added and the curds removed and left to drain. I should point out that this really does make your house smell like baby sick and it left me feeling quite dubious that something nice could be made from something that smelt so awful.  Nevertheless the curds were removed with a slotted spoon and left to drain for a bit in a sieve.

I wanted smallish balls of cheese, so the mozzarella curd was thickly sliced, put back into the hot whey then stretched and folded back on itself a few times before being rolled into balls and plunged into ice water.

Mozzarella on whey bread

still can't believe I made mozzarella so easily!

A quick shout out on Twitter for suggestions for the leftover whey brought a resounding call for ricotta.  Another quick look online for a really simple method resulted in me finding this method which seemed by far the easiest.

The remaining whey was strained through a coffee filter and left to drip in the fridge before being turned out onto a board.

I really couldn’t wait to try the ricotta, I wasn’t disappointed. I guess I’m used to bland, mass produced stuff because the flavour really took me by surprise – there was so much of it!  I was now really excited about my bumbling foray into the world of home cheese making.

So now I had my beautiful cheeses I needed some pizza dough to showcase them on.  I made a batch of plain and polenta flour dough using 650ml of the leftover whey.  I hadn’t intended to use polenta flour but I hardly had any other flour so substituted it in and from now on I will always do this as it was amazing!  It was about 1/3 polenta and made for a beautiful golden dough with great texture.  Fingers were crossed whilst the pizzas cooked that the mozzarella behaved as it should…

It worked perfectly! The mozzarella melted and oozed and developed a lovely brown crust and most importantly it tasted wonderful, I was so happy!

I then made a polenta and bread flour whey loaf…

This loaf was eaten almost immediately topped with salsa verde from The Good Fork’s deli box and was seriously good!

So what to do with the rest of the whey? I still had about 2 pints of it left.  Another shout out on Twitter went out.  I was told by @pukkapaki that whey is wonderful for the skin and hair so I made a homemade face pack and added a ladle of whey.

Whey facepack/cleanser or as Glen calls it "that hippy shit in a bowl"

Soothing/moisturising facepack:

  •  porridge oats
  • 1 chamomile tea bag
  • 1 Detox tea bag (milk thistle, dandelion & green tea – tastes like crap but great in a facepack)
  • 2 tablespoons almond oil
  • 1 tablespoon rose water
  • 1 ladle whey

Just mix them all and add more oats until you get a consistency you like then apply to a clean face and leave on for 10 – 15 minutes then remove with a warm cloth.  I’ve been so impressed with the effect that its had on my skin that I’m also using this as a cleanser morning and night as the porridge oats gently exfoliate the skin.  All of these wonderful beauty tips fall on deaf ears for my fella though who just calls it “that hippy shit in a bowl”.

*Update: from this morning (3 days later)

Glen: I wish you’d stop washing your face with porridge the bits get everywhere.

Me: It’s not porridge its a homemade face pack and cleanser dear.

Glen: It’s porridge with tea bags in it, you are essentially washing your face with breakfast.

Well he does have a point there but my skin is so soft and my rosacea is clearing up so breakfast face-washing will continue!*

I still had some more whey left so I decided to try Carl Legge’s suggestion of using it to lacto ferment vegetables and I gave Kimchee making a go.  It’s still fermenting away though so I’ll do a separate post on this when it’s ready.  The final bit of whey has gone to my chickens as a bit of a treat as it helps keep their eggshells hard and is a good all round tonic for poultry.

So from 2 litres of raw milk (which cost £2.40 delivered to my door) I made the most meltingly wonderful mozzarella, the best ricotta I’ve ever tasted, 2 wonderful pizzas, a loaf of delicious bread, lots of face pack/skin cleanser, Kimchee and a special dinner for the chickens, not bad going really.

*Thanks for all the lovely messages on Twitter/Facebook/here about raw milk, I am updating this post with a list of dairies (cow,sheep,goat) that offer raw milk, if you know any please let me know so I can add them*

Raw Milk Dairies:

East Midlands

Lubcloud Orgainic Dairy (cow) www.lubclouddairy.co.uk

The South East

Ellie’s Dairy (goat) www.elliesdairy.blogspot.co.uk

Hot Cross Baked Cheesecake

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I have totally got my baking mojo on at the moment!  In addition to my being a writer and recipe creator for Great Food Magazine I’m also a food writer for Domestic Sluttery, and so when we were asked to get our thinking caps on for Easter recipes (that weren’t hot cross buns) this is what I came up with.

I normally only make cheesecakes that you just leave to set in the fridge but my baking confidence has really been boosted recently thanks to a series of awesome successes that I’ve made from my Bread Revolution baking book.  Now I know you’re not meant to mess around experimenting with baking as it’s more of a science and you really should follow a tried and tested recipe but I can’t help myself.  I wanted a cheesecake that despite being made from really rich ingredients actually felt silky, light and fluffy in the mouth but still had,well, a bit of balls behind it if you know what I mean?  I had a look online for recipes but nothing really lit my fire so I threw caution to the wind, bought a selection of creams and soft cheeses and made it up as I went, bit of a risk as I only had enough ingredients to do it once but no guts no glory right?

It was a really anxious wait as the cake needed to cool for a couple of hours before releasing it from its tin.  I could only do this once after all, and if it collapsed I would have cried, and Glen would have found me sobbing over a collapsed cake and would have said something along the lines of “it’s only a cake”, and I would have thrown the floppy cake of sadness at him.  Luckily he actually found me crying tears of joy as I stood in the kitchen, holding the freshly released cake tin aloft and pointing proudly at my masterpiece, “it’s only a cake” he said, harumph.  ”But its not only a cake its a Hot Cross Baked Bloody Cheesecake!” I shouted triumphantly still waving my empty cake tin as if it were an Oscar, nothing was going to piss on my cake bonfire.  Then I realised something…

I had lost the natural light and so the cake needed to go back in the fridge overnight so I could photograph it first thing in the morning.  This meant that I didn’t yet know what the inside was like, it could be an awful scrambled eggy mess for all I knew.  I had a large rum to steady my nerves that night before bed.

First thing the next morning I headed to the fridge, took out my cake and carefully sliced a triangle out.  Looked good so far, but how did it taste? AWESOME! Tears of joy! I quickly took a couple of shots of the inside of the cheesecake then celebrated with a very triumphant Hot Cross Baked Bloody Cheesecake Breakfast!

EAT ME!

So if you fancy trying something a bit different this Easter then my recipe is here.  Have a look around the site though there are loads of kickass recipes there and lovely things to fill your home with too!

Preserved Lemon Pickle

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One thing I have learnt is that when you have a glut of something, be that money, veg, meat or whatever, always plan for when it’s not going to be around.  I’m pretty good at doing that with everything except money!  Quite often on the market you will see big bowls of fruit or veg for £1.  It’s reduced because it needs to be eaten quickly so I buy them and preserve them for another day.

This really quick pickle uses a few of the jars stored away in the pantry and is amazing with curry (I quite often have it just simply stirred through cooked rice).

Ingredients:

  • 1 large preserved lemon (flesh removed & discarded and skin rinsed thoroughly then chopped)
  • pickled red cabbage
  • pickled cornichons
  • bunch of mint
  • finely chopped red onion
  • teaspoon black onion seeds
  • good pinch black pepper

 

Toffee Rum

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Back in my hedonistic days as the assistant manager of the Bath Hobgoblin pub my drink of choice was “double dark rum, diet coke and a straw”(shouted quickly and loudly over the sound of loud rock music).  For some reason the straw was important, I forget why now, it was probably to help not spill it all over myself as I was generally quite drunk back then.  White rum has never been my thing either, although the guys at the Eldorado Rum stand at last years BBC Good Food Show let me sample one that I really liked (perhaps the exception to my rule).  Anyway, golden rum is my thing these days, its caramel flavours just bring out the best in a lime (and me).  I’ve spent a lot of time in the Philippines where Tanduay rum is king.  It used to be 30 pesos for a bottle of rum and 60 pesos for a can of coke (a beer was 15 pesos) so a rum and coke was 70% rum, 20% ice (also too expensive) and 10% coke.  Even better the Tanduay rum bottles had a lid lottery so when you opened your big bottle of rum you would see on the inside of the lid what your prize would be, it was usually another bottle of rum!

Whenever I visit a food festival there are always lots of people selling toffee vodka, and it’s lovely (most of the time) but for me vodka has always been a spirit that you use to make other drinks/infusions with.  Despite it being the straight drink of choice for every character in Eastenders (seriously WHY?) I would never choose to sip away on a plain vodka, and yet I use it in so many of my concoctions.  Actually there was a brief phase when I was about 13-14 and living in Hong Kong where a karaoke bar used to do 2-4-1 double vodkas with lime cordial for $10 which we drank A LOT of which is probably why I’m not a fan of the spirit now.

So I figured I could easily combine my love for golden rum with toffee as the natural caramel flavours can only enhance the toffee right?

Ingredients:

  • Golden Rum (I used Appletion Estate)
  • hard toffees (such as Werthers Original)

Just put your rum and toffees in a sterilised jar and leave for about 24 hours (stir every now and then to help the hard toffee dissolve).  I used about 350ml rum and 1 x 200g bag of WO but it could have taken 2 bags easily for a sweeter version.

So there you go, it’s really easy and if you smash up the toffees before adding the rum then it will probably be ready in about 2 hours. Hell yeah!

Soda Bread

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Straight out of the oven

I had a really crap night last night so this morning I decided I needed cheering up and what better to cheer the soul than freshly baked bread.  I turned to my new favourite baking book Bread Revolution by The Thoughtful Bread Company for Patrick’s recipe.  Marvelous, I thought, I have all of that except the red wine vinegar so out came the big bowl, in went the dry ingredients (including the wonderfully coarse Whissendine organic wholemeal flour) and then I realised we were almost out of milk. Arse.  I did however have Buttermilk in the fridge that I was saving for scones so I used that instead and swapped red wine vinegar for some Womersley Golden Raspberry and Apache Chilli vinegar.

Whilst mixing the sloppy dough (it’s meant to be that way) I realised that my loaf tin was out on loan so ended up adding extra flour so that the dough could be shaped and baked without a tin.  I then kicked myself for ONCE AGAIN starting a recipe without checking to see if I had all the ingredients and equipment (another reason I don’t really use recipes or bake much!).

Luckily it turned out really well, if a little more crumbly than it perhaps should have due to my substitutions but oh my it tastes so good! It has absolutely cheered my morning and I can now see soda bread being a much welcome and more frequent addition to the table. I used to eat quite a bit of soda bread as a kid, my Dad is Irish and so it was almost a staple loaf of the bread bin but for some reason I have just kinda stopped eating it, until now that is.  Next time I am going to try Thoughtful Bread‘s recipe to the letter though and you never know, I might even check to see if I have everything I need before ploughing in!

Note: I don’t get paid for posts or links, I support great producers because they are wonderful and I want people to know about them and try their fantastic products and thats why I link, share the love!

Cinnamon Swirls

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Recently I visited the ultra lovely folk of The Thoughtful Bread Company at their pop-up cafè in Bath.  I love these guys, their attitude, their bread (and cakes!) and now their book too.  ”Bread Revolution – Rise Up & Bake” has been in my possession for less than 48 hours now and I am already smitten.  It was my fella’s birthday yesterday and I felt bad that the only package that the postie delivered was my copy of Bread Revolution so I told him to pick out absolutely any recipe he liked and I would make it for his birthday (I’m nice like that see).

Now, I don’t really do baking.  I’m not one for weighing and measuring anything and much prefer to rely on my instinct.  I’m a bit odd, I see tastes in terms of shapes and colours (recently I found out it has a name and is called Synesthesia), it’s totally normal for me and I grew up thinking everyone was the same – it actually came as a real shock to find out that other people weren’t manipulating triangles when cooking!  Anyway, Glen picked out their recipe for Cinnamon Swirls which was really handy as I already had all the ingredients in the pantry.  I’ve never made a sweet dough before and wasn’t entirely sure about whether I should keep flouring the worktop as I was kneading the dough (it was really sticky), but I did, and probably shouldn’t have as the dough was a bit tight as I went, but I carried on anyway.

I decided to try their Sugared Raisin version. I’m not a huge fan of raisins in any food (heaven forbid I find a raisin in a pot of curry sauce) but I had some jumbo sultanas and raisins set aside for making more smoked tea booze concoctions so I used them and threw in a load of flaked almonds too for good measure.

 So I rolled up my dough creation, and after some Twitter reassurance from Thoughtful Bread that a water sprayer wasn’t essential (massive relief as mine were all still full of last year’s Black Fly beating mix of washing up liquid and water), I sliced it and left them to prove for about 90 minutes.  My intention was to pop most of them in the fridge overnight but I could only fit one tray of 4 in there (damn) so I had to cook the rest, all 12 of them (double damn!).

Just 15 short minutes later and the first batch of 6 were ready.  I decided to add a good dose of cinnamon to the sugar glaze that was bubbling away on the hob (I love cinnamon), glazed them then waited for them to cool before scattering a few more flaked almonds on them and drizzling with icing.

I can honestly say I was pretty shocked by the result, they tasted even better than I imagined, in fact they tasted amazing!  The dough was so soft and light, the buns sticky and sweet, and the filling was just wonderfully sweet/soft/cinnamony/crunchy.  I have a new addiction.  The buns that went into the fridge overnight were brought to room temp today and baked off – they turned out to be even better.  I think the overnight cold prove helped the dough become even lighter and if I can manage to resist eating them all on the same day I will from now on always do it that way.

I have completely fallen in love with this recipe and for the first time ever I am actually really excited about working my way around a baking cook book.  Bread Revolution’s sweet dough has been quite the bread revelation (sorry) for me and I can’t wait to experiment more. I don’t own a food mixer, which they recommend in order to make their brioche, so it looks as if it may be their Bacon Fougasse next, or their Nettle and Chive Flowerpot Breads, or doughnuts, or rye crackers – there are just SO many I want to crack on with,  but seeing as though I have eaten nothing but cinnamon swirls today perhaps a bit of a foraging walk first for ingredients…..

Roast Chicken with Jerusalem Artichokes and Sherry

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Roasting a chicken on a Sunday is one of my favourite things in the world. I know many people like to spend as little time as possible cooking but it’s the opposite for me when it comes to Sunday roast dinner.  Once I’ve returned from the boot sale, where I will have bought my veggies and free range rooster (and lots of other less essential treasures, or as Glen puts it: “more bloody plates, glasses and shit”), I will orchestrate it so I can spend hours pottering away in the kitchen – wine open, Radio 4 on and me doing the occasional little happy dance to myself.

This year I grew Jerusalem Artichokes and whilst I adore their taste I am somewhat less fond of their unfortunate and rather explosive side effects, hence their nickname “fartichokes”.  Glen refuses point blank to eat them anymore and I didn’t want them to go to waste so this recipe was born.  It’s a great way of cooking a chicken as you can leave it happily in the oven for a couple of hours (even 3) and it doesn’t dry out. The chicken takes on all of the wonderful flavours and you get THE most amazing gravy ever. I roast my potatoes in a separate tray in the bottom of the oven then move them up later on.  You don’t have to eat the artichokes, the flavours have infused the chicken, but I can never resist and I always regret it later!

Ingredients:

  • 1 chicken/rooster/capon whatever you fancy
  • half a lemon
  • bunch of fresh thyme
  • Jerusalem Artichokes peeled and quartered
  • 1 bulb of garlic
  • 1 heaped tablespoon garlic powder
  • 400ml cream sherry
  • salt and pepper

Method:

  1. Preheat your oven to its hottest setting, mine is 230C.
  2. Put your lemon and thyme inside the bird’s cavity and put it into a big roasting tray.
  3. surround the chicken with the artichokes and unpeeled garlic cloves.
  4. season the chicken with salt and pepper then sprinkle the garlic powder over the bird  and artichokes.
  5. Pour the sherry into the roasting tray.
  6. Cover with tinfoil making sure there are no gaps for steam to escape then roast for about 2 hours in the top of the oven.  Put your roasties in the bottom for now.
  7. After 2 hours (or longer is fine) remove the tinfoil, drizzle the bird with olive oil and roast uncovered for about 20 minutes or until the skin is nice and brown.  I like my wing tips crispy so always give them a good rub of oil.
  8. Remove the bird and place it on a plate covered in tin foil and a tea towel to rest.
  9. Take your artichokes out of the tray and add them to your roast potato tray which now moves up to where the chicken was to get them all crispy and lovely (or throw them away if you don’t want to be farting furiously later).
  10. The pan juices will taste amazing, just thicken them slightly by making a Buerre Maniè and whisking it into the juices whilst on the hob.

Thoughtful Bread

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 I was born in Bath and whenever I head back for a visit I become so terribly homesick for many reasons, but one of them is the abundance of fantastic bread there.  I don’t know why but great bread is really thin on the ground round my way.  The upside of this though is that I bake quite a bit of my own, which I love doing, but my oven has a mind of its own (and its a bit of a nightmare) so it would be so lovely to have fantastic sourdough bread readily available.

I first heard about The Thoughtful Bread Company last year through BBC 2′s The Big Bread Experiment in which founder Duncan Glendinning and head baker Patrick Ryan help a Yorkshire community set up their own bakery.  I knew that they had a stall in Bath’s Green Park Station so vowed to visit them.  I did just that last year and was not only really impressed by their amazing breads and cakes (oh my god their cakes!) but by the guys that make up the company itself. Ross was running the stall that day and we got chatting about the company and their eco-friendly business. Not only are they absolutely lovely guys but their passion for bread is really inspiring.

Ross at the Thoughtful Bread stand last year

 So when I headed off to Bath last week for my big sister’s birthday I made sure I popped over to see them once more. It was only 12:30pm by the time I got to the Farmer’s Market at Green Park Station and met up with Ross but he was already sold out. Gutted. All was not lost though because Thoughtful Bread had a pop up cafè in The Guildhall for 2 weeks during the Bath Literary Festival – HOORAY!

Ross and Duncan were busy behind their counter and their cafè was a quirky mix of mismatched crockery, hay bale seating and trestle tables all surrounded by their gorgeous breads.

How beautiful do these loaves look? They make so many variations of loaves depending on what’s in season – cider, beetroot, walnut, wild garlic – all beautifully made and most importantly tasting amazing.

Flatbreads for homemade dips

Oh and their cakes really are something special. “Try our gluten free spiced orange cake” said Ross.  For some reason I avoid gluten free cakes but I won’t anymore.  The wheat flour had been replaced by ground almonds and the sweet, sticky orange cake was absolute heaven. Their Guinness cake, although I didn’t try it, completely inspired my Guinness free Guinness cake that I made for my Domestic Sluttery posting on Friday and those chocolate and raspberry tarts are just beyond delicious.

Gluten free spiced Orange and Almond, Guinness cake and Dark chocolate and raspberry tarts....swoon

They even have a book so you can make their breads at home!

I bought one of their sourdough loaves to take back to my sister’s later that day.

I stopped off on my way back that afternoon to pick some wild garlic so I could have my favourite Spring treat…sourdough, wild garlic and cheese sandwiches – hell yeah! Plus my gorgeous niece Nyla tried wild garlic for the first time and loved it!

 Nyla gave their sourdough an almighty thumbs up too!

So if you find yourself in Bath make sure you head to see the fab fellows of The Thoughtful Bread Company, say hello from me, try their goodies and stock up.  Oh, and if you happen to be heading up to Melton Mowbray, bring me a loaf too!

And no, they haven’t paid me to say all these lovely things about them!

Potato Dauphinois

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This is not a traditional dauphinois, it’s just been adjusted to for our tastes.   I know it’s really naughty so my concession is to use  Elmlea 50% reduced fat double cream, yeah I know that’s like people ordering a huge takeaway meal and having a Diet Coke on the side but I don’t care! Garlic powder is something I also love.  I use it in so many dishes, sprinkled on homemade oven chips/roast potatoes it gives a sweet garlicky taste without any bitterness or harshness and you control exactly how much you use as its in such a fine powder form. We have our own chickens that are ex-battery farm girls so we use a great deal of eggs, the yolk in this recipe just adds that extra bit of luxury. I never peel my potatoes for this as apart from their being so much goodness in the skin I just like it that way, I prefer waxy but it’s entirely up to your preference. My oven is really quite rubbish (actually its a bloody nightmare) and temperature fluctuates massively so the timings are what works for me.

Ingredients:

  • Enough waxy potatoes finely sliced on a mandolin to fill your bowl/tray
  • 500ml double cream (I always feel you can never have too much but it sucks to have too little, the creamy sauce is so good!)
  • 1 tablespoon chicken stock powder (I use Essential Cuisine as it’s brilliant)
  • 1 tablespoon garlic powder
  • 1 egg yolk (or 2 if we have a surplus to use)
  • thyme leaves
  • sea salt flakes
  • few grinds black pepper
  • 1 tsp dried chilli flakes
  • a bit of finely grated parmesean/cheddar depending on whats in the fridge

Method:

Preheat oven to 180C. Combine everything except the potatoes in a bowl, mix thoroughly, leave to sit for 30 minutes (not entirely necessary but really does help bring out the flavour).  Keeping some creamy mixture to one side combine with the potatoes and give a good mix to make sure its all well coated in the tray then pour the remaining cream  over the top, grate over some cheese, cover with foil and roast in the oven for about an hour or until thoroughly cooked.  Remove the foil then cook for a further 10-15 minutes to brown. Dead easy and really tasty!

Hot Smoked Chicken Gizzards

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Compared to the rest of the world the UK tends to be a lot more squeamish about nose to tail eating.  I was brought up in Hong Kong where everything from the animal is eaten and chickens are sold with heads and feet still attached.  I happen to love chicken feet but outside of a Chinese supermarket they are pretty hard to find here, so where do they all go? Likewise poultry gizzards are popular throughout the rest of the world and yet when was the last time you saw some for sale?

Here in Melton we have two fantastic Eastern European food shops.  One has the most fantastic deli selling cooked meats and cheeses (their smoked garlic brawn is amazing) and the other focusses more on preserved goods and has a brilliant selection of vodkas of all descriptions (also amazing!).  Today I popped in for some Pierogi and found they had some hot smoked chicken gizzards for sale, well, not to turn down a chance for some kitchen experimenting I immediately bought some and headed back to the cottage.

I bought about 40 gizzards which were pretty heavily smoked and faintly garlicky.  My first thought was to flash fry them – they were like amazing chicken smoked bacon! Because they had been hot smoked they were already cooked so a really quick fry made them lovely and crispy on the outside and meaty on the inside, however if left slightly too long they toughen (like bacon) so if you miss the perfect moment you then have to carry on until they are thoroughly crispy like scratchings!

A quick forage in the garden and fridge provided some baby carrot tops, beetroot and chard leaves, some baby broad beans (frozen last year), a quick feta sauce and some nutty rapeseed oil to accompany. The feta sauce I whizzed up ended up being drizzled all over the dish as it was so good!

Feta sauce was simply feta cheese, lemon juice, a bit of freshly ground pepper and a splash of double cream (normally I would use yoghurt but I didn’t have any plain so used the cream instead) simply mixed until smooth.  If you grow your own carrots then you will know how amazing the young tops are, they are one of those things like courgette flowers or nasturtiums that have to be eaten straight away to get the best out of them.

So that was today’s quick starter of hot smoked chicken gizzards, definitely something I will be buying again and more experiments to come!

Kick Ass Salad

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Last November I headed off to The BBC Good Food Show in Birmingham where I was able to sample Womersley Food‘s infused vinegars.  I was photographing the show for Great Food Magazine so promised the lovely guys on the stand that I would be back to buy a bottle of their Golden Raspberry and Apache Chilli Vinegar once I was done.  Alas I got waylaid  *ahem*  at the Compass Box Whisky stand and ran out of time (lost all sense of direction).  Head honcho at Womersley is Rupert, he’s one of those lovely people on Twitter who always takes the time to chat to you and reply to your messages and well worth a follow if you use it.  Anyway, lovely Rupert very kindly sent me a bottle of the Golden Raspberry and Apache Chilli along with his Lime, Black Pepper and Lavender vinegars to play with.

Last night turned out to be a bit of a late one involving rather large amounts of wine and beer. Such indulgence combined with an early morning walk to the train station to pop an equally hungover mother-in-law on the train home had left me feeling somewhat fragile.  Normally at this point I reach for an emergency bacon sandwich but the sun was shining and I had my Womersley Vinegars to play with…perfect!

Creamy, salty feta and smoky bacon are fantastic together but throw some fresh zingy herbs into the mix, a nice hum from the red onion and the amazing sweetness and kick of the vinegar and it turns this from something nice to something really, really good.  My fella is not a fan of salads at all and has proclaimed it “seriously tasty”, from him thats pretty high praise indeed!  If you needed any more reasons to give it a go then I should mention that cheese, bacon and chilli are a sure fire hangover cure too…

Kick Ass Salad:

  • 250g feta cheese
  • 1/4 red onion
  • handful smoked bacon lardons/panchetta
  • mint leaves
  • coriander leaves
  • 2 tablespoons Golden Raspberry and Apache Chilli vinegar
  • sea salt flakes
  • freshly ground black pepper
  • few pomegranate seeds

Method:

  1. Fry off the lardons until crispy and drain on kitchen towel.
  2. Roughly chop the herbs, microplane the onion and combine with the vinegar and seasoning in a bowl.
  3. Break the feta into chunks, add to the bowl and mix gently.  Leave to infuse for 20 minutes if you can bear it then add the crispy bacon, sprinkle with pomegranate seeds and dive in!

This salad kicks serious ass!

Salted Caramel and Blueberry Pancakes

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I really hadn’t intended to make any pancakes at all today but I needed to buy some milk so popped to the shop only to discover a pack of blueberries reduced to 99p.  Well I took that as a sign that actually yes, I should make pancakes, lots of pancakes to celebrate this little find and, as my love affair with salted caramel reigns strong, it seemed a natural pancake buddy. You can buy jars of salted caramel in the shops but they’re, quite frankly, way too tiny and you don’t get those lovely flakes of sea salt in them so its nice to make a big jug of your own, that way you can guzzle it whilst your pancakes are cooking and still have plenty left for drizzling.

Salted Caramel Sauce:

  • 120g soft light brown sugar
  • 100g unsalted butter
  • 1 tblsp water
  • 250ml double cream
  • 1 tsp Halen Môn sea salt flakes

Method:

  1. Put the butter, sugar and water in a saucepan and heat gently until bubbling it’s important that you don’t stir it though just swirl the pan to combine.
  2.  Once it’s all melted, let it bubble away for 3 minutes then whisk in your cream and remove from the heat. Add a teaspoon of salt flakes, taste to see if it needs any more (careful though it will be hot).  It will seem very runny but it thickens as it cools so make several hours before if you want a firmer sauce and pop it in the fridge.

Boris Cat gatecrashes the shot

 

Squirrel and Sherry pie

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Game is incredibly popular around here, we have the fantastic Game Auction that takes place every Tuesday morning at the Cattle Market.  You never really know whats going to make an appearance hanging on the rails – wild boar, deer, hare, woodcock, partridge, squirrel, it’s a real mixed bag.  The squirrels normally go for between 50p and £1 depending on the crowd.  Yesterday I popped into town to pick up a newspaper and grab a brandy hot chocolate from the guy on the market, next to him was Picks Organic Farm who raise all their own meat and the quality of their beef is absolutely fantastic.  I asked if they had any veal sweetbreads at all and was met with the reply: “no, people are still a bit funny about veal… but we’ve got squirrel”.  Done, I said, I’ll take the squirrels instead.

Having only had squirrel as part of a mixed game pie before I wasn’t entirely sure about the flavours.  I’d heard they took on a nutty flavour due to their diet so thought a nice nutty Amontillado sherry would help bring that out.  I had a look online to see if there were any recipes to use as a guide but failed to find any so decided to wing it.  I didn’t want the squirrel to be overpowered by any other really strong flavours so kept it all pretty simple and made it up as I went along.

Ingredients (made 2 generously filled pies)

2 local wild grey squirrels, skinned, gutted and cleaned

1 red onion, finely diced

3/4 carrot, finely diced

1 stick celery, finely diced

2 garlic cloves

About 10 mushrooms finely sliced

Butter

1 tblsp rapeseed oil ( a good nutty one, I use Chiltern Cold Pressed)

2 thyme sprigs

Large wine glass Amontillado Sherry

Handful hazelnuts

Chicken stock (enough to cover the squirrels)

Shortcrust pastry

Puff pastry

1 beaten egg to glaze

Method:

Put your oil in a saucepan then add the onion, carrot and celery and fry gently to soften then add the garlic and a large knob of butter and the mushrooms  and continue to cook gently for about a minute before adding the 2 whole squirrels.  Allow the squirrels to just brown then add the thyme, sherry, hazelnuts and enough chicken stock to just cover, pop a lid on the saucepan and simmer really gently for about 30mins.  I had intended to cook it long and slow as its hard to tell the age of a squirrel and the older ones are tough but after 30 minutes the meat was really tender so decided to remove the squirrels and put to one side to cool.

I then reduced the saucepan contents to intensify and thicken.  Whilst this was happening I rolled out my shortcrust pasty, lined 2 small casserole dishes and baked them blind in the oven for 20 mins (filled with tinfoil and rice).  The stock was reducing well but it needed a little extra thickening so in went some more butter that I had squished some flour into to make a quick beurre maniè.

Now that the squirrels had cooled I stripped the meat off and added it back into the saucepan and seasoned with some salt and pepper.  Once the pastry was ready I gave the insides a quick brush with beaten egg, filled them with the squirrel mixture then brushed around the edges before popping a puff pastry lid on each one, creating a little hole in the centre to let the steam escape and then brushing with more beaten egg.  These then went back in the oven for about 15mins until the lids were all puffed up beautifully. Once taken out of the oven I just turned them upside down and they fell out of their little casserole pots.

I had been tasting as I went so I knew that it would be nice but I was still surprised by just how nice it was.  The nutty sherry brought out the flavour of the squirrel and allowed it to really shine.  The hazelnuts had softened but still had a bit of bite to them which was lovely against the tender meat and crisp pastry.  I served the pies with a buttery mash and a dollop of good horseradish sauce on the side.  The horseradish worked so well with the pie that next time I might just add the tinniest  amount to the pie mix.

There was a mixed reaction from people on Twitter and Facebook in regards to eating squirrel, with the overwhelming majority being hugely enthusiastic and positive about this wild, sustainable meat.  Many people shared my view that eating more grey squirrels can only be a good thing to encourage the return of our native red squirrel which has sadly been almost wiped out by the American grey impostor.

I grew up in Hong Kong where we ate things like chicken feet, intestines and trotters with gusto and you picked your seafood from a tank to be whisked away to the kitchen only to return minutes later cooked to perfection and served on a platter.  I was asked on Twitter if, seeing as I was happy to eat squirrel, would I also eat cat?  Well, no I wouldn’t but apart from the fact that I prefer not to eat my pets, it’s is also because I like my meat to have dined on a vegetarian diet (although I do eat chickens that have been running around fields snaffling slugs and worms).  My partner refuses to eat octopus as he says they are far too intelligent to eat, I on the other hand love octopus and eat it with relish.  Everyone has their own views over what animals they do or don’t eat and why, and for those who love game I cannot recommend squirrel enough.  I for one will be making this dish many times over, and if you do decide to give it a go then please do let me know how you get on. Happy cooking!

Super Dukkah

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Dukkah is an Egyptian side dish, and contains spices, nuts, and herbs. Use it as a dry dip for bread/roast potatoes/chips, sprinkle on salads/stews, mix with breadcrumbs and spread onto mustard covered lamb and roast, its really versatile and is absolutely wonderful added to your dough when making bread.  I tend to make a large batch and then store in clean recycled jam jars. These quantities are just a guide so you can adjust to your taste if you like chilli maybe add some dried chilli flakes. There are no real rules to Dukkah, every Egyptian family will have their own take on it so you can’t really go wrong, play around with it and you will soon find what works for you.

Half a cup each of:

Walnuts

Hazelnuts

Pistachio Nuts

Hemp Seeds

Sunflower seeds

2 Tblsp Coriander seeds

1 Tblsp of Cumin seeds

2 tsp teaspoon Linseeds

2 tsp each White and black sesame seeds

1 Tblsp Poppy seeds

1/2 tsp Flaked sea salt

few grinds of Pepper

1 tsp Ground cinnamon

1 tsp Sweet paprika

In a dry pan gently toast the first 9 ingredients, moving the pan all the time ensuring they don’t burn.  Once you start to smell the spices cooking remove from heat and leave to cool.  Once cooled pulse them in a coffee grinder (or bash them with a mortar and pestle).  You want them to still be quite coarse.  When you are happy with the mix then add the second group of ingredients and stir to mix.  Taste and adjust your seasoning.  Store in airtight jars. I tend to make a batch every 4 weeks or so although at the moment I am addicted to Dukkah on hot buttered toast so getting through it at quite a rate. Incidentally  this tasty breakfast toast topping also seems to be amazing for hangovers, must be something to do with all those wonderful nuts, seeds and spices!

Finished Dukkah

The EDL march through Leicester

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On Saturday the English Defence League came to Leicester, they hired coaches and came by train.  They were not wanted, but its all good as we had The Force on our side…

Using the Force for a peaceful day in Leicester

2200 police officers were in Leicester yesterday.

This guy was making balloon creations and handing them out around the Clock Tower

They screamed "who are ya?" repeatedly as they marched past us, someone should point out that the correct English is "you"

Police moving to block another road and one of the many ridiculous signs the EDL littered the city with

A bus heading for Southsea takes a wrong turn and is met with an unexpected sight.

24 hour slow roast wild boar and flatbreads

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Every Sunday I head to the market across the road to pick up my meat and veg for the week.  I never know exactly what meat my man is going to have that day, it all depends what has been shot, slaughtered or finished hanging that week. All his meat is free range and fantastic.  Guinea fowl, roosters, rabbits, muntjac and wild boar are often available, his wild boar bacon is really good and his mutton is always hung for 3 weeks so it’s tender enough to cook pink.  Last November we were chatting away about his Southdown mutton that he had coming up when his mother mentioned that he should show me what he had in the chiller.  ”Its a bit hairy”, he said as we went out back, “people are funny about the hair so I can’t sell it like this and I haven’t had time to prep it.”  I still wasn’t sure what I was about to be shown as he opened up the chiller box and for a split second as he opened the lid I thought he was trying to sell me half a dead dog!  Luckily it was a 2 year old wild boar.  Having told me a bit about her, yes her (not so important for the front end but apparently the males tend to wee all over their stomachs which over their 2 year life time affects the belly meat) I was instantly sold on the hunk of meat, handed over my tenner and went off in search of a heat gun to de-hair her.

The wild boar as I bought her and after I had removed the tough hair

Once I got home I immediately set about prepping the wild boar removing the tough bristly hair with a heat gun and a stiff brush.  It took a good half hour to do in the garden and it smelt really good! I was really happy with my huge hunk of meat and popped the above photos on my Facebook page.

*skip to next paragraph to avoid a bit of a brief rant

There were a great deal of people who instantly wanted an invite for dinner but I was really surprised that a couple of people found it really offensive, so much to the point that they complained to Facebook and had the pictures removed.  I still don’t know who this was and I really hope they have not only “unfriended” themselves but that they also spend every spare minute of their time covering butcher’s windows with paint and covering up all the supermarket meat shelves with white sheets if the sight off meat offends them so greatly. But they probably eat meat and just don’t like to associate the meat they stuff in their faces with animals. Yes I know, I’m ranting. Rant over.

Anyway, once fully prepped it went into the freezer ready to make a grand future appearance.

24 hour roast wild boar

Once the boar was thoroughly defrosted I made a marinade:

Good couple of pinches of smoked tea to get that deep smoky flavour

2 heaped dessert spoons Spice Ways Heavenly Herbs (wonderful blend of of herbs and spices including coriander and rose petals that I discovered whilst in Bath)

glug of oil to mix.

The marinade ingredients were all mixed and rubbed into the flesh and skin of the boar.  Wild boar skin is very tough and is not eaten but I wanted all the flavours of the smoky tea, herbs and spices to infuse the meat and then the juices reduced at the end for an intense sauce.  The meat was put into a large roasting tin, covered in tin foil and placed in an oven set to 130C for 20hours.  During this time the meat was gently turned and basted a few times.  For the last 4 hours the foil was removed and a huge amount of juices and marinade poured off into a jug.  The skin was now able to crisp up a bit like a protective coat.  Once the juices had separated the very top layer of fat was removed and the remaining liquid reduced gently in a pan until it reached a thick sauce consistency and it packed a real punch in the flavour department. This was the most amazing sauce!

The skin is simply peeled back to reveal the most incredibly moist meat that just melts in your mouth.  Easiest way to serve is simply to stick 2 forks on the table and let everyone dig in.  I made flatbreads and smoky turtle beans to go with it and served it with homemade cucumber, onion and mustard pickle, coleslaw and some very hot pickled red chillies.

Flatbreads

This recipe was just made up on the spot and worked really well.  The sourdough starter is used a a seasoning as I love the flavour.

500g white flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp Halen Môn salt flakes

2 dessert spoons sourdough starter

2 dessert spoons oil

About a mug of warm water

2 good pinches each of black onion seeds, white sesame seeds and fennel seeds

Just combine all into a dough and knead for about 5-10mins until nice and smooth and elastic. Leave for 5 mins whilst you heat a flat bottomed large griddle or frying pan until really hot.  Divide your dough into about 8 pieces then using a rolling pin (or I just use my hands to stretch and shape)  roll each one out flat until nice and thin whilst making sure it will fit happily into your pan.  One by one cook the breads, they will bubble up and colour very quickly, so keep an eye on them and turn only once.

Smoky Turtle Beans

This is a great recipe and always proves to be a winner.

1 pack dried turtle beans that have been soaked overnight and rinsed.

2 large onions thinly sliced

1 tin tomatoes

1 dessert spoon New Orleans Spice Blend from Laissez-Fare (hunt this out its really fantastic!)

2 tsp brown sugar

few grinds black pepper

1cup vegetable stock (or more to cover the beans if required)

2 tsp smoked tea.

glug of oil

Very gently fry the onion in a glug of oil until it starts to caramelise then add the New Orleans Spice Blend and brown sugar and stir gently for a few minutes.  Then tip the onion mix into a slow cooker and deglaze the pan with the chicken stock and pour this into the slow cooker too.  Add your turtle beans, tinned tomatoes, black pepper and smoked tea, make sure the beans are all covered by liquid, top up with more stock if needed and then cook on high for about 6 hours or until the beans are soft.  I usually thicken the mix slightly by removing the slow cooker lid and letting it cook uncovered for the last 30mins. Taste and add salt and pepper if required.

This is the basic veggie recipe, I also do a meaty one by adding sliced chorizo and using chicken stock and sometimes add carrot, celery, cocoa, cumin and paprika depending on my mood.  It’s really versatile and like everything I make it’s pretty hard to screw it up.

To serve I just placed the boar on a large serving platter, pulled back the skin and let people dig in and add whatever dips and condiments they wanted in order to make the most amazing wild boar kebabs ever!

Pulled boar kebabs, amazing!

Pauls Bakery

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 Paul’s Soyfoods are entirely organic and in addition to delivering fresh fruit and veg around the country also bake 6 days a week.  I spent an hour one morning watching the two bakers at work, it was fast, unrelenting and beautifully coordinated work and I was really struck by how tactile the whole process was. There are quite a few more photos to come over the next couple of days as I get around to it and I will be heading back to photograph them making their own tofu and tempeh soon.

Bath Farmer’s Market visit

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Thoughtful Bread at Bath farmer’s Market sell the most delicious breads and cakes!  Unfortunately I arrived quite late to the market but I was still able to grab a Beetroot loaf (I will definitely be making these in future), a Cider Loaf (amazing!) and a Walnut and Raisin loaf (fantastic, my absolute favourite) and not forgetting the most beautifully indulgent Chocolate Raspberry tart (it didn’t even make it as far as the car!).

I adore cheese and last year was the year I discovered Homewood Cheese who make stunning cheeses using sheep’s milk.  What was even more lovely was that despite having never met them before I was greeted with a very friendly: “Hello Hazel”!  It was really lovely to finally meet Tim and Angela at the market as I’m quite often to be heard singing the praises of their cheese on Twitter! Tim is the cheese man and he met his partner Angela at a Farmer’s Market where she sells her fantastic preserves.  Their fresh cheese tart only made it as far as the car also!

This lovely chap travels up from Dorset each month to the market.  I bought some Venison faggots from him and they were absolutely delicious!

Easiest Cheesy Leeks ever

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This is on our table during the winter months whenever a roast dinner is served, it is always a guaranteed hit with anyone that hasn’t tried it before (and with those that have!). Its my all time favourite leek recipe and by far the easiest one for delicious cheesy leeks.

* 6 leeks

* 250ml cream (single or double is up to you)

* 100g pot of FRESH grated parmesan cheese (all supermarkets sell these in the cheese section)

* knob of butter

* pepper

Gently sweat the chopped leeks in the butter to soften then add your pot of cream and stir to bring back to temperature. Once hot but not boiling add your tub of parmesan and stir in gently.  It will melt almost instantly then simply season and serve. So easy.

Melton Mowbray’s New Years Hunt meet

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This year it was the turn of the Quorn Hunt to participate in the traditional New Years meet in Melton Mowbray.  Crisp blue skies encouraged hundreds of people to head to Play Close in the town centre to admire the beautiful horses, their immaculately turned out riders and one of the most well respected packs of hounds in the country.

Click on any pictures to enlarge.

This lady was amazing, she was riding side saddle!

Whats in store for 2012?

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So its that time again when we are bombarded with food trend predictions for the coming year – so here are mine. Some predictions, some wishful thinking but ones that are relevant to my life.

1 Cupcake Fatigue

I don’t know about you but I am sick to death of seeing cupcakes everywhere. What Bridget Jones did for Chardonnay a decade ago the onslaught of TV baking programmes have done for the cupcake.  Even the lovely Edd Kimber the 2010 Great British Bake Off winner who dislikes cupcakes “reluctantly” included 2 recipes for them in his book The Boy who Bakes.  At this years Leicester Winter Food and Drink Festival there were stall after stall of women making cupcakes that looked pretty much exactly like the next, and the next, and the next.  While I love the fact that people are taking the bowl by the horns and setting up food businesses from home, it did make me feel sad that they were all basically cookie cutter copies of each other: Bunting: check. Cutesy name: check. Vintage looking tableware bought from Argos: check. Disappointment that everyone else has also made that Lemon & Poppyseed cupcake: check. And like the ABC backlash (Anything But Chardonnay) that soon followed the Bridget Jones booze boom, I am keeping my fingers crossed for Anything But Cupcakes.

2: Own a Pig Schemes

Where last year was definitely the year of the home chicken keeper I think this coming year will see a rise in more people opting for this method of meat purchase.  If you haven’t heard of these schemes the basic gist is you pay a pig farmer for a piglet that the farmer then takes complete care of.  The pig will be a traditional, slow growing breed that you can go and visit and feed and then when it is ready (about 6-7 months) the pig is slaughtered and butchered to however you fancy and you know that you are eating meat that has lived a happy life and will taste all the better for it. Neighbours can club together for one, pubs, community groups or you can just keep all the meat for yourselves! Personally I think if you are planning on getting married this summer and want a hog roast then this is definitely the way to go!

A few Own a Pig schemes: HerePigPig, Samphire Shop, Chater Valley, Emmas Pigs, Chalk Newton. There are several dotted about the country so just google it and find one near you.

3: Chocolate

Where 2011 was the year of the salted caramel chocolate, I’m hoping 2012 will see many more experimental chocolatiers such as the wonderful Paul A Young and Boutique Aromatique appear and hopefully the high street start to catch on so more people start trying new flavour combinations.  People at home will start experimenting with making chocolates using flowers and herbs from their gardens and raiding their spice jars. Well, I will be anyway. If you are up for experimenting I have it on good authority that Global Harvest’s wild Fennel pollen is incredible in a chocolate truffle!

4: Kombucha

2011 was a big year for sourdough and now homes all over the country have a jar of sourdough starter (most likely named) in their fridges.  Well, for me at least, my new starter is going to be a Kombucha tea.  While it may look like an alien creature has been captured and preserved in formaldehyde it is actually really easy to make and keep alive once you have got your hands on a starter culture.  I first came across Kombucha tea 17 years ago on the window sill of the most wonderful hippy lady and I was completely engrossed in this brown living entity inside the tea filled jar.  She said I could have one of its “babies” if I wanted but seeing as at the time I was living in the woods in the Forest of Dean with lots of other hippies it seemed somewhat impractical! These days I have a cottage complete with a kitchen so theres no excuse but to give it a go.

5. Sheep’s Curd Cheese

This year I discovered Homewood fresh Sheeps curd and it was a revelation. It is just the most wonderful lemony, soft, creamy cheese that has that beautiful sweet sheep’s milk taste. Perfect for deserts and the cheese board alike this is a definite winner.  Soft fresh sheep’s cheese is really hard to come by in the UK as it has such a short shelf life.  I picked mine up from Neston Park Farm Shop just outside of Bath but Abel and Cole also deliver it and Tim can be found at Bath’s Farmers Market. I really hope this style of cheese becomes much more popular in 2012 so that it becomes much more widely available!

6. Better Farmer’s Markets

Earlier this year I contacted the organiser of a Farmers Market about having a stall.  I was met with the response: “sorry, we already have a stall selling those”. I was stunned. I receive emails from this Market that travels around our area that always ask for street performers to turn up in order to make the market more vibrant.  Its the stalls themselves that should be the vibrant element! Only allowing one artisan bread stall, one organic veg, one chutneys and jams, one cake etc is why the market looks so small and depressing.  Farmers markets in this country can be incredibly limited whereas if you wander around a Farmers Market in somewhere like France or Spain you find a buzzing cornucopia of stalls to excite your senses and tickle your fancy.  Times are hard for our small producers and they need all the support that we can give. You may be lucky enough to have a fantastic, vibrant Farmer’s Market that offers the shopper plenty of choice but if you don’t, perhaps ask the Market Manager why.

7. Slow Cookers

Our purse strings are tighter therefore our cuts of meat are tending to be cheaper. My kitchen has always been a lovely safe haven for underrated cuts of meat to take pride of place on the plate, but thanks to TV chefs popularising these cuts they are now (rather annoyingly for those who have always loved them) becoming more expensive! The muscles that work the hardest taste the best in my book but as a result of all that hard work they tend to need a long, gentle cook. Our time, however, is becoming more heavily demanded upon and with energy prices rocketing the Slow Cooker is the perfect solution. Oxtail stews, Beef cheek casseroles, Mutton curries, Partridge tagines, poached Ox tongue, my slow cooker revels in them all!

8. A fresh look at Ale

Ale is traditionally seen as the domain of men but according to Sara Barton, founder of Brewsters Brewery, brewers up until around 1600 were predominantly female and were called Brewsters. This year I discovered the deliciously floral Brewsters Pale Ale made down the road in Grantham by Brewsters founder Sara. This was another joyful taste discovery of 2011 and has become a firm favourite of mine.  I like my ales golden, floral and light and this was just perfect.  Also this year we made several trips to Burrough on the Hill to the Parish Brewery to stock up on Trudy’s Tipple, a beautiful Elderflower Ale brewed right next door to their pub Grants Free House.  Morrisons has been experimenting this Christmas with small batch releases of more unusual ales. Their Chestnut Ale one sold out almost immediately and they are currently selling a Chocolate and Vanilla Stout which I didn’t expect to like but actually really enjoyed.  There is a slight shift happening in the world of ales and more and more women are getting back into the craft including Claire Monk, head brewer at another local Brewery The Welbeck Abbey Brewery.  There will always be the traditional brews out there but its fantastic to see some fresh flavours coming through for palates like mine. 

9. Sweet Chestnut Honey, Dukkah, Lapsang Souchong

Ok so these are just ingredients that I really hope become more popular in 2012!  I am a huge fan of Sweet Chestnut Honey and use it in stews, deserts, drizzles, dressings you name it.  Its a powerful flavour so use sparingly.  I’m particularly fond of it on toast with a thin layer of Marmite but hey, thats just me.  Dukkah is another underrated kitchen staple.  Its ridiculously easy to make and roasted new potatoes or bread dipped into your favourite oil then into a crunchy Dukkah dip can’t be beaten.  I love making my own and throw plenty of nuts and seeds into the grinder with the spices. If you can’t be bothered to make your own then check out Gourmet Spice Co for some ready made pots of their Pukka Dukkah. I have also been having a bit of a love affair with smoked tea.  Lapsang Souchong is a Chinese black tea that has been smoke-dried over pinewood therefore giving it an intense deep smokiness that is just wonderful in cooking.  A few strands make a world of difference to stews, spirits, deserts etc.  It really is worth spending the money on a good quality tea with thick strands.  A little goes a long way and stored in an airtight jar it lasts ages.

10 A few things I’d like to see the back of in 2012

Anything thats referred to as “deconstructed” on a menu. Keep the dish  but lose the name.

Restaurants pretending to love local, seasonal food but actually sneakily buying the vast majority in from abroad (a whole separate blog post coming soon, grrr).

Cupcake craziness (also Cakepops…why?).

People making restaurant reservations and then not bothering to turn up – wishful thinking to see the back of this one but Australian restaurants are making a Twitter stand against it by naming and shaming the offenders.

Sliders. I want my burger to be roughly half the size of my face thanks.  Keep mini-food to the canapé tray please.

Restaurants putting things on the plate that you can’t eat just for decoration.

So thats my 2 pennies worth of musings for 2012. I also think Dorset and Norfolk are going to be the really important food destinations outside of London in 2012 and people are going to be getting really heavily into home charcuterie. If you fancy trying your hand at it well I can’t recommend anyone better than Marc Frederic and his book  Le Charcutier Anglais. Overall I think its going to be an exciting year for food and drink.  Happy New Year! x

Wild Pollen and Jerusalem Artichoke Veloute

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Someone said that the difference between Twitter and Facebook is that whilst Twitter makes you realise that there are loads of like minded people out there, Facebook makes you realise how different to you most of your friends are.  One of my favourite things about using Twitter is connecting/following/stalking/getting inspired by other people who share the passion for food as I do and I recently was introduced (on Twitter obviously) to @GlobalHarvest01.  I had planned on finding him at the BBC Good Food show but got somewhat waylaid by Compass Box Whisky and things were a little fuzzy after that. So, David Mason from Global Harvest being incredibly passionate about his wild pollens and being a really nice chap sent me a sample of each of his Wild Fennel and Wild Dill pollens to play with.

I have always been a fan of using the flower heads of fennel and dill in my cooking but had never thought about just using the dry pollen which has the really pure, intense flavour of its plant. Having virtually mugged the postman for them this morning (and scaring an elderly neighbour who was just posting a Christmas card through our letterbox)  I fancied a Jerusalem Artichoke veloutè as the experimental vehicle as I wanted to play around with some other ingredients too.  I decided upon the following core: Jerusalem Artichoke veloutè, Sweet Chestnut Honey, Truffle oil, the Fennel and Dill pollens.

For the veloutè I used:

6 very large Jerusalem Artichokes

1 pint chicken stock

3/4 pint milk

knob of butter

salt and pepper

Peel and chop the artichokes (pop them in lemony water to stop them turning brown whilst doing this) then add them to a pan with a knob of butter and sauté gently until soft and starting to caramelise. Add the chicken stock, and milk, bring back to just boiling then remove from heat and using a stick blender puree until all the artichoke lumps have completely gone, pass through a sieve then season to taste and blend again this time making sure you get plenty of air into the mix and the liquid is light and frothy. Thats my really simple version anyway.

Then the fun of playing with the different flavour combinations.

Truffle and wild Fennel pollen, Sweet Chestnut Honey and Dill pollen, Fennel, cream and Mustard cress.

I tried quite a few different variations of the 4 toppings to the earthy, frothy loveliness of the veloutè, for me the winners were the Truffle oil and Fennel pollen and the Sweet Chestnut honey drizzle and Dill pollen.

So that was today’s experiment. David assures me that the Fennel pollen is incredible when combined with a chocolate ganache so will be having a play with that too and the Dill pollen is screaming out for a cured salmon partnership so thats on the list too as is a gin based cocktail!