So, following on from Thursday’s haggis hunting post, the three lambs’ plucks continued to boil and change in colour and consistency. The lungs kept bobbing to the top of the pan like jostling whales. Read the rest of this entry »
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Tags: Burns' Night, haggis, heart, lamb's pluck, liver, lungs, offal, Rambling Restaurant, Robert Burns, secret supperclubs
I’ve spent a good few hours this week hunting for the elusive wee rampant Scottish beastie that is the haggis. It’s Burns’ night on Monday and we need a few of them to stab and recite poetry over.
Lamb’s pluck is not that easy to get hold of. After trying a range of butchers, all of whom seemed to think that making my own haggis was a bit insane and needed a good few days to get hold of any, I tried the excellent Marky Market. He rang me, as requested, from Smithfield meat market at 4am on Wednesday to tell me what was on offer. I’ve been having Delicatessen-style dreams about sheep organs ever since.
A few hours later he arrived with a bag of three lambs’ plucks, delivered straight to my door and up four flights of stairs. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Burns' Night, haggis, heart, lamb's pluck, liver, lungs, Marky Market, offal, Rambling Restaurant, Robert Burns, secret supperclubs
Last night I went to the opening night of the Lex Eat! supper club in part of a converted school ’somewhere in the back streets of Islington’. The place was so stylish it could have been a boutique hotel. The top floor bathroom was immaculate, in a way that made me want to jump into the bath and stay there. There were colourful, neatly rolled towels, jars of liquorice allsorts and buttons by the sink and designer shoes on display on the shelves outside. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Ashburton, home restaurant, LexEat, Marcus Wareing, pomegranate floss, supper club, Turkish delight cheesecake
A couple of weeks ago some friends and I headed to Skipness, on western Scotland’s Mull of Kintyre, for a 30th birthday party, or as a Glaswegian taxi driver put it: “a real test of friendship”. A train ride from London to Glasgow, followed by a mad rush to the bus station and a bumpy three hour ride up the Scottish coast did seem like a bit of a challenge, but when we got there we understood why he’d chosen this spectacularly isolated location. Where else can you find an abundance of firewood to cook a whole deer in the ground, dance a ceilidh in pitch darkness, eat the freshest of oysters, get windburn and see 10 rainbows?
Nick had procured, skinned and butchered a deer. The aim was to cook it in a pit oven. This method of cooking is called Hāngi by the New Zealand Māori and is also used at Hawaiian luaus and for the clam bakes of New England. I did gather some firewood but unfortunately missed the digging of the pit, as was meandering up the lane picking blackberries. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: barbeque, blackberries, cooking a whole deer, hangi, holiday cottages, Mull of Kintyre, pit oven, Scotland, seafood, Skipness, venison
I tried making chapatis (rotis/Indian flatbreads) the other day, to go with my matar mushroom. I’ve made them twice before and it seemed pretty simple at the time. Hmmm. I got overly enthusiastic and lugged a huge sack of wheat flour (or atta) home from the shops. Meanwhile my friend searched out a YouTube video with clear instructions of what to do (a video that now seems to have disappeared).
It was a lot like making pastry: work flour and fat (oil) into crumbs, add water to make into a dough, rest and roll out. But I haven’t quite got the hang of it yet…
My chapatis didn’t puff up in the pan like they did in the video. They just sort of stayed hard and flat. You’re meant to press down on the bubbles that form, so forcing the air into other parts of the chapati. When I did this, either the air refused to budge or I popped a hole in the dough so it escaped altogether. Each one got a little easier though, until they were just about decent and half puffed up.
Tags: chapati, Indian bread, roti, wheat flour
This dish is on many menus in Delhi and I first tried it at Tadka . I’d never thought of using mushrooms in Indian cooking, and it’s true that they’re not often used, but this is still a popular dish. The cashew nuts make it surprisingly creamy. Serve with chapatis, rice and dal. No photo as the presentation left a lot to be desired (I was hungry!) but I can assure you it was really tasty.
Ingredients (serves 6-8 as a side dish, 3-4 as a main):
200g closed cup mushrooms
250g frozen peas (matar)
2 onions
4 tomatoes
4 green cardamoms
An inch of cinnamon stick (not too crumbly or you will end up picking bits of cinnamon out of your teeth)
Fresh ginger (about 2 inches squared)
3 cloves garlic
1 packet unsalted, uncooked cashew nuts
1 tbsp chilli powder
1 tbsp corriander powder
1 tsp tumeric
1 tsp garam masala
1 tbsp vegetable oil
salt to taste
1) Finely chop onions and fry on a low heat vegetable oil with the cardamoms and cinnamon stick until the onions are translucent.
2) Meanwhile grate the ginger (you can leave the skin on) and peel and crush the garlic. Add these to the pan and stir.
3) Chop the tomatoes into eighths, add to the pan and cook gently, stirring often for about ten minutes.
4) Meanwhile simmer the cashew nuts in in a small pan, with just enough water to cover them, for five minutes. Take off the heat and blend to a paste, adding water as you go if the mixture is too sticky.
5) Add the chilli, corriander, tumeric, garam masala and salt to the onion pan mixture and cook for two minutes.
6) Add the cashew nut mixture to the pan along with a cup of water. Stir thoroughly and bring to the boil.
6) Meanwhile wash the mushrooms (I don’t really believe in the brushing v washing debate) and chop into quarters.
7) Add the mushrooms and peas to the pan and cook until the mushrooms are tender but not mushy – about five minutes.
Tags: Indian cooking, matar mushroom, mushrooms, peas
Spot the difference – one is a sandy beach on Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands…
The other is the contents of a vanilla pod floating atop of a pan full of double cream and milk…
Vanilla Icecream (from Gordon Ramsay’s Just Desserts – makes just over half a litre of incredibly rich icecream)
250ml whole milk
250ml double cream
50g caster sugar
1-2 vanilla pods
6 large free-range egg yolks
1) Put a bowl in the fridge to chill at least a few hours before making this recipe. Also, if you are using an icecream maker, make sure it has been in the freezer for at least 8 hours, preferably overnight.
2) Put the milk and cream in a heavy-based saucepan with 1 tablespoon of the sugar. Split open the vanilla pod(s) and scrape the seeds into the mixture. Add the empty pod(s) too. Slowly bring to the boil.
3) Meanwhile, beat the egg yolks and sugar together with a balloon whisk until pale and creamy.
4) When the vanilla cream mixture is about to boil, take off the heat and pour about a third into the eggs, whisking well. Then pour the rest in slowly, whisking continuously.
5) Return the mixture to the pan and cook on low, stirring continuously until you are able to coat the back of your wooden spoon with the mixture. Careful not to overcook it.
6) Remove from the heat and strain through a sieve into the chilled bowl. Place in the fridge to chill and stir occasionally to make sure no skin forms on the top.
7) Then pour into a shallow container and freeze. Take it out and beat thorougly at least three times during the freezing process. If you have an icecream maker, just pour the mixture into the clever machine and be smug.
Beach photo by Mora McLagan.
Tags: beach, Fuerteventura, gordon ramsay, icecream, vanilla
Left-over-goose curry sounds weird, but this turned out quite nicely, so thanks to Dirty Kitchen Secrets for her white curry suggestion. The korma would probably taste better with chicken though, as described in Darina Allen’s brilliant Ballymaloe Cookery Course book. I recommend drum n bass for grinding spices. Read the rest of this entry »
Here is another recipe that I finally got around to trying – one from the macaron making class at L’atelier des Chefs cookery school last month. The macarons are incredibly sweet and the filling is rich and creamy, so just one or two per person is fine as a starter. Mine came out looking rather less than perfect, but they tasted delicious! Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Christmas dinner, foie gras, French pastry, L'atelier des Chefs, macaron, macaroon, port, starter
It’s been over a month since I wrote a post about Jelly Ronson – a glow-in-the-dark gin & tonic jelly recipe by Bompas & Parr. But it has taken me this long to find the time, the courage and an occasion special enough to actually make some myself. Here are the results…
I really recommend listening to Paprika Balkanicus whilst making jelly – their songs are at just the right tempo for sprinkling gelatin and dancing around the kitchen in a jelly-like manner. Dr. Oetker’s sachets (available in most supermarkets) seem to work as well as fine leaf gelatine, but can come out a bit lumpy, so I recommend sieving the mixture when you pour it into the jelly mould. Finding moulds was not as easy as I’d thought. I found a few antique copper ones at Spitalfields market – see the post below – and also managed to find a ‘brioche mould’ at a hardware shop, which seemed to do the trick. Maplins sells blacklights. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: alcoholic dessert, bompas & parr, food art, gin & tonic, glow-in-the-dark, jelly, party-food
