Raspberry Creme Brullee

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Irish Foodies Cookalong

Love, love, love

So long I have tried and failed to participate in an Irish Foodies cookalong. Today I have succeeded in participating, though it may be conceived as cheating, I'll submit it anyway. Our best previous attempt was me and Lola trying to enter us the Christmas cookalaong. Some mince pies were made - then stew went in the oven whilst we got pretty drunk, then turned the oven off and went to the pub - total cookalong fail.

So today I made these creme brullees - in Cooks Academy I'll admit so that's possibly where the cheating element comes in. I did however match them with nice romantic napkins and seasonally inappropriate raspberries. At least I'm not down the pub already!!

Chicken Savoyarde

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This is another recipe I cooked over Christmas in the Peak District in Yorkshire. It's from Tasamin Day-Lewis cook book 'Supper for a Song'. I did find the title of the book slightly misleading as the ingredients for this recipe can testify. The emphasis of the book is more towards using up leftovers - or making more then one meal using the same ingredient. She has some great ideas for leftover mash - mmmm mash. Tamasin does make the very good point that often cheap ingredients are a false economy - both for you and for the farmers and animals involved. You can't make a silk purse from a velour bag you got in Penny's, so the saying goes! 

I followed the recipe faithfully - so here's the link to Tamasins version. It's a wonderful rich dish and if you like Spaghetti carbonara - you're sure to be pretty fond of this too.

In other VERY exciting news, I'm off to the Cooks Academy for four weeks starting in the morning. I hope I can sleep. I'm hoping to be able to write a few posts about my time in the school - and if you're on twitter I shall be tweeting regularly about my progress.

Hazelnut Meringue with Apricot Filling

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Ah lovely background with mini - accordian and pack of fags!

Ingredients
6 egg white
12oz caster sugar
4 oz ground hazelnuts
6oz dried apricots soaked overnight in water
1 inch of cinnamon
Juice of two oranges
2 inch piece of orange rind
2 tablespoons of brown sugar
500 ml single or double cream
Extra hazelnuts for decorating - I used 18 - that was 1 oz!
3 cake tins - lightly oiled and lined with parchment on the bottom.

I started out by toasting the hazelnuts until golden - toast a few extra as you’ll eat a few. Pop them out of their skins and roughly blend them in a  blender, not forgetting to keep a few extra whole over to decorate the top of the dessert when done.

Separate out your eggs - being super careful not to allow any yolk in - otherwise your meringue will fail miserably. Also worth washing your utensils just before starting the meringue - as any dirt or grease could affect the fluffiness of your egg whites- leaving you with one flat meringue.

Put the 6 egg whites in a bowl / food processor with whisk attachment - and whisk until  they form soft peaks. Then slowly add in the caster sugar spoon by spoon. The whites should stay smooth and get a little glossy. Then fold in the ground hazelnuts gently with a metal spoon. 

Spoon the mixture into the tins and bake at the middle of the oven for 30 mins at Gas Mark 5.

Now make the apricot filling. Drain the apricots over a bowl. Add 4 tablespoons of the soaking liquid into the pan with the fruit cinnamon, brown sugar, orange peel and juice. Bring to a gentle simmer and let it bubble away for about 20 minutes until the apricots are breaking apart. Add more of the soaking liquid if it appears to be getting too dry..

Remove the meringues from the oven - they should have a light brown tinge. Leave to cool in the tins for 15 mins before turning them out onto a wrack to cool fully. Just before serving assemble the meringue - put one meringue with half of the apricot mixture and a third of the whipped cream. then another meringue followed by the rest of the apricot filling, more cream, meringue and then the rest of the cream and a few toasted hazelnuts. This dessert is pretty sweet - so if you prefer a less sugary dessert - I recommend you try something else - but for sugar junkies - this will be a tasty hit!

Very Full Tart - by Yotam Ottolenghi

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Very Full Tart - by Yotam Ottolenghi

Yotam Ottolenghi write the 'new vegetarian' in the Observer on Sunday, I love his recipes, they always full of flavor and colour. This recipe was good if a little time consuming - not quite sure why it took me so long! Maybe roasting the veg for differing amounts of time did it. The blind baking the case, the baking the whole thing.

I've just included the link to the recipe as I followed it pretty much to the T - except I used a large yellow squash that came in our Fruitfellas box - in place of the aubergine - either would be great I'm sure.

This tart was bursting with flavor - the thyme is essential to the overall flavor - and the nice mixture of the ricotta and feta is wonderful with a crumbly pastry casing. Perfect  to bring along to an outdoor Sunday spring/summer lunch. This pie once baked - it was carried bicycle style across the city to Delo who had been working hard on a college project all weekend - mobile dinner - could turn that into a business maybe - what do you reckon?

Beetroot & Celeriac Gratin

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This is a very simple recipe that I got from the Irish Times this weekend - by Domini Kemp. it sounded tasty and involved a turnip that had been hiding in my veg drawer for some time, so that was enough to convince me!

It's a nice simple dish that would be great served along side some roast beef and horseradish.

Ingredients

1 head of celeriac - finely sliced

2 small beetroot finely sliced

1/2 turnip - finely sliced

3 cloves of garlic crushed

300 mls of cream 

Some fresh nutmeg

Seasoning - quite a bit is neede

Layer all of your veg up in an oven proof dish. Mix together the cream, seasoning and the nutmeg. Pour this over the veg and bake at 150 or gas mark four for an hour and a half. Check that it's not drying out after about an hour - if it's getting too crispy - just pop the lid on.

The beetroot gives this dish a nice pink hue and celeriac a nice texture. It's covered in a thin crispy top which gives way to layers and layers of delicious creamy sauce and bright dashes of colour.

Valentines Dinner for Two

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Guest Chef No 4. Lamb Stew and Gratin Dauphinoise

Guest Chef Number 4 is David Delahunty (it’s his first official guest chef title but he’s been involved in lots of the previous posts!)

So Valentines Day was started in a most romantic of ways - waking up in the back of the van, after Chinese New Year. Then it was off to the Stilorgan shopping centre for a fry. Nothing says I love you more than eating sausage and beans in the finest example of mid-80’s retail architecture!

After a nice walk on Bull Island - it was home to the couch and the fire, and successfully releasing Stephen (the canary) for his first flight around the sitting room, after 30 mins he was hungry and just hoped back into his cage.

Then we whipped up this, and it cooked and bubbled away in the oven, while we got our fill of rom-coms on the TV!

Lamb Stew - made by my valentie

Ingredients 
2 lamb chops - cubed - or stewing lamb
1 red pepper
a large sprig of fresh rosemary
2 sticks of celery - finely sliced
3 large tomatoes - chopped
A glass of red wine
I red onion - cubed
Seasoning

Heat a little olive oil in a large frying pan, and brown cook the onion and celery until the onion is translucent.. Then add in the lamb to brown a little. Then stir in the red pepper and tomatoes and rosemary and cook for another 3/4 minutes. Add a dash of wine - bring up to a simmer and then remove.

Place the meat mixture into separate dishes - or one large on and place on the centre shelf of the oven at gas mark 6 for one and a half hours.


For Gratin

2 large potatoes
1 cup of cream
1/2 cup of milk
2 cloves of garlic crushed
Seasoning

Slice the potatoes as thinly as you can. I have a small handheld mandolin, which makes this easy. Rinse them under the tap and then pat dry. Mix the remaining ingredients together. Layer the potatoes into your dish and pour the cream mixture - 3/4 of the way up the edge of your dish. 

Cover and bake also in the oven for one and a half hours at gas mark 6. Remove the lid for the last 10-15 minutes if you want to get the top a little browner (I didn’t and it still looks good)

Serve with a nice glass of red wine, and some Barry White. A special thank you goes out to Pamela Quinn for buying me these awesome dishes for my birthday - thanks Pam - my first Le Crueset - very brilliant present

Borscht

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You cant Beat that Root!

Soups I have loved....

I have quite a vivid memory of my maternal Grandmother making Borscht, which is odd because I was very young when she died. I think I must have remembered it so clearly because the soup was such an amazing colour... so bright pink it's like something you would get in a sweet shop! I have a similar memory of my mother's Italian friend Fiorella feeding me bright green pea soup and being a little distressed, so she told me to close my eyes and pretend it wasn't green. It was so delicious my little 5 year old self resolved to try every food from then on, even if it looked a bit scary. SO I guess technically I have Fio to thank for my culinary obsessions now...I really must ask her for that pea soup recipe!

Anyway, my grandmother Frankie was a second generation polish immigrant, so id like to think that her version of this soup was totally authentic. I know my Mum has it written down somewhere, but I've cobbled this version together through reading various recipes and adapting them. Real authentic borscht involves braising and finely chopping a knuckle of beef, and making your own stock. It takes a LONG time... longer than 20 mins, which is how long my version takes. Also, real borscht should involve chopped chunks, and not be liquidised, but I prefer it smooth. This version is super easy, but still has the amazing concentrated beef and beetroot flavours and that essential sourness that is provided by the vinegar. It is important to use a good beef stock, Knorr stock pots are the most useful invention since the bread knife!

Continuing on the soup theme, my mum also makes the best chicken soup (recipe courtesy of Nana Frankie) which I will blog as soon as the weather turns nasty. Its a fail safe if you are feeling cold-y, flu-ey, or just a bit of the winter blues. Actually , I'm kind of looking forward to winter now that I think if it!

Ok, enough rambling, now for the recipe!

1 red onion, chopped

3 cloves garlic, sliced

5-6 beetroots (raw! Don't buy the vacuum packed cooked kind!)

1 Litre good beef stock

2 dessert spoons good red wine vinegar

dollop sour cream to serve

In a large saucepan, saute the onion and garlic in a little olive oil until they are soft and translucent. Peel and chop the beetroots into cubes that are about an inch in diameter (if you want you can use rubber gloves as they do satin your hands quite a bit). Add these to the pot and cover them with the stock. Simmer for about 20 mins or until the vegetables are tender.

Using a stick blender, whizz everything up until it is smooth. (Alternatively, if you don't have a blender, you could chop the beetroots into very small cubes, simmer until tender and serve that way. Or you could pass them through a sieve. All this is just hard work. Buy a stick blender. They cost less that €20 and you can use them for SO many things!)

Add the vinegar and stir. taste, and adjust the seasoning if you think it needs salt and pepper, or more vinegar. The vinegar is important as it totally changes the flavour. you could use lemon juice either, but vinegar is nicer, a bit more 'pickley' I think.

This soup is really really healthy by itself. If you want to make it less healthy, serve it with a big dollop of sour cream. I didn't have any so I just used normal cream for the photos.

Chicken, Roquefort & Brocolli Bake

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The Pie of Dreams 'Leftovers, you're leftovers include Roquefort? You've lost your way Lola-lu's kitchen' I hear you say. These leftovers are remains from last weeks dinner party. We asked everyone to bring some cheese for after. We had 12 guests for dinner, and most of them brought two cheese, so by my calculation that's close to 24 cheeses. So after the pate, the pie, the meringues, the other cake, we sadly didn't manage to make our way through 24 different pieces of cheese. So joy of joy all the following week I had to eat cheese, I mean I HAD to, would be wasteful otherwise. We'll dedicate this recipe to Brian as he was the man who brought the Roquefort - fancy pants! Thanks

Ingredients (LO) stands for leftovers
1 block of Roquefort (LO)
4 chicken legs and 4 chicken thighs
I large yellow onion
A bunch of chives Cream (LO)
Baby potatoes (LO)
Some milk
1 head of broccoli
1 dessert spoon of flour
1 dessert spoon of butter
I slice of bread crumbed (LO)
salt pepper the usual suspects
A glug of sherry (optional)

Bake your chicken in the oven gas mark 4 for 40 mins. Remove skin and bones and set aside. Fry your onions until translucent in some butter. Then stir in the flour, slowly add some of milk till smooth repeat with more milk and then some cream, then some sherry, until you have a nice sauce. Season with salt & pepper. Steam your broccoli Cut your Roquefort into cubes. Put it and the cooked chicken into an oven proof dish. Scatter about some chopped chives and also pop in your little bits of broccoli too. Pour over your sherry cream sauce. In a bowl gently crush your new potatoes. Arrange these on top of your dish and sprinkle over the bread crumbs. Bake in the oven at gas mark 5 until golden and bubbly, about 40 mins.

All the cheese melts into the sauce, making it a little runnier then I expected, so next time. I'll make the sauce a little thicker to compensate. This pie was winner.PS This should really be called 'Pie of Nightmares' due to the crazy dreams I had that night, but if I called it that you wouldn't have read the recipe, now would you!

Squidgy chocolate birthday cake

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Chocolate mousse in a cake

It was my fellas birthday and I had a whole day off work! I decided to spend the morning making him a cake, and not just any cake...

I adapted this recipe from Delias squidgy chocolate log. It is light (there is no flour in it at all) and very decadent, perfect for a birthday cake and it looks really impressive.

The chocolate mousse nearly turned into a complete disaster as when I added the egg yolks to the hot chocolate the whole thing went rock hard and I had to throw it all away. The second batch I let the chocolate cool a bit longer and only put in half the amount of egg yolks. It still went a bit strange but I persevered with the mixing and it was delicious in the end.

Ingredients:

6 large eggs, seperated

5oz caster sugar

2 oz cocoa powder

filling:

8 oz plain chocolate

2 large egg seperated (Delia uses both yolks but I couldnt make this work, I only used 2 yolk and 2 whites)

8 fl oz double cream, whipped until very thick (but not butter!)

other filling:

8 fl oz double cream, whipped until very thick, see above

topping:

icing sugar

red berries

method:

Start with the filling. Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of hot water. Meanwhile, beat the two egg yolks in a very clean bowl with a clean beater until they are stiff. You should be able to hold the bowl upside down without anything falling away. When the chocolate is melted, take off the heat and let the bowl cool down until you can hold it comfortably. The chocolate should also be a bit cooler. Whip the egg yolk and add it to the warm chocolate. The yolk will cook in the chocolate and turn the whole thing quite stiff, don't panic! Keep mixing it. Fold the beaten egg whites in to the chocolate mixture. Don't beat it, fold it! Then fold in the whipped cream and continue folding until everything is nicely mixed. refrigerate this mixture for an hour or so until ready to use.

For the cake grease a large baking tray, line it with baking parchment and then grease that too. Whisk the egg yolks and sugar together in a large bowl until they start to thicken. Add the cocoa powder an whisk this in too. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until they are stiff (see above). Add the egg whites to the chocolate mixture and carefully fold everything together. Don't whisk or beat as this will destroy the air bubbles and the cake will be totally flat and gross. Pur the mixture into the tin, and bake for 20-25 mins in a pre heated oven at 180c. When you take out the cake it should be springy and puffy and not too dark.

At this point, Delia turns the cake into a roulade, but I think a chocolate mousse cake is a bit more impressive.

I let the cake cool and then I cut it into three rectangles the same size (I used a ruler to measure exact thirds!). Then I spread half the mouse onto the first piece, followed by half the whipped cream. I topped this with the second piece of cake, and then spread that with the rest of the mousse, followed by the rest of the cream. I sprinkled some icing sugar over this and topped with some sharp red currents. This really added some dimension to teh flavours. If Iwas making it again I would probably add some red currents or strawberrys in a layer within the actual cake.

It was amazing! Light, rich, not too rich, contrasting with the sharp berries. Yum! Colm was very happy

Tomato and Courgette Gratin

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Vegetable gratin: do you see a theme developing here?

I know, more French food! Actually I didn't realise until just now that most of what I have been cooking has had a distinctly Gallic theme, ever since Lucy went to France. I must be subconsciously living vicariously through her through the medium of cookery. We definitely have some kind of psychic thing going on... how strange...

anyway, I went through a phase of making this recipe loads, and had kind of forgotten about it. Why, I don't know as its amazing and very easy. This particular combination is inspired by one of Delia Smith's recipes, but modified somewhat by me. Vege

table gratins take much less time to cook than potato gratins, and you can leave out the cream if you want to be good and replace it with a little olive oil. You can also use any combinations of vegetables you have lying around, I have used mushrooms, parsnips, peppers, broccoli, carrots, all with great success. Courgette and aubergines only work if you fry them first, as I have done below. Otherwise they go a bit slimy.

Serves 4

2 courgettes

6 tomatoes

1 clove garlic

dried basil or oregano

100 ml cream or 2 tbsps olive oil

Parmesan or white cheddar cheese to grate over

salt & pepper

Cut the garlic clove in half and rub all over the inside of a shallow oven proof dish. Grease the dish with olive oil. Slice the courgette and fry the slices in hot olive oil until browned both sides. Slice the tomatoes. Layer the cooked courgettes and raw tomatoes in overlapping rows, like roof tiles. You can also add some butter in amongst the veg slices for extra decadence but I try not to. Crush the garlic and flick it evenly over the vegetables. Pour the cream or olive oil over everything and top with a couple of hand fulls of grated cheese and salt and pepper. Bake in a medium over (about 250c) for half an hour or until golden brown and bubbly.

This is great served with a green salad and french bread, or as we did, as a side dish to a meat main course such as a casserole, stew, steak or chicken dish.

Paneer Butter Masala

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I love Paneer - Govindas used to come to our college on a Thursday and serve up huge plates of delicious rice and paneer in a spicy tomato sauce with peas and little crunchy poppadoms. And as Thursday was a drinking night - it was good soakage for later on. I've tried many recipes to re-create the Govindas Paneer, which I will blog in the future - I promise - my mum loves it.

Here I decided to try a different paneer recipe. For once I didn't fry it first in an attempt to see if it would come out softer. It didn't, but this may have been due to the fact that this didn't have a huge amount of sauce, though it worked beautiful with the sweet onions and the rich creamy nut sauce. I must try it with chicken sometime.

Paneer Butter Masala

Paneer - packet, cubed
Onions - 3 big, chopped as finely as you can
Tomatoes - 2 big
Ginger 1 inch grated
Coriander powder - 1 tsp
Medium curry masala powder - 1 tsp
Red chili powder - 1 tsp
Turmeric powder - a tsp
Cashew nuts - 2 tbsp, grind to paste - and then a few for garnish
Mustard seeds – a table spoon
Ghee - two desert spoons
Cream - 1 tbsp (optional)
Fresh coriander leaves - chopped, to serve

Heat the ghee in a pan and add the mustard seeds. Once they pop, add the onions and fry for 2 mins. Then add the ginger, and the cashewnut paste. Saute for another 2 mins. Now add the pureed tomatoes, coriander powder, turmeric, curry masala and salt. Stir well and leave on simmer for about 5 mins.

Next, add the paneer and let cook. If the gravy seems too thick, add little water and keep cooking for about 5-6 mins. Remove from heat, mix in the fresh cream if using and garnish with chopped coriander leaves and a few cashews.

I served this with some spiced rice, a tomato dahl, naan and also some mango chutney. I may have to wean myself off the mango chutney - I'm a bit addicted.

Big up the Mackerel Massive

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Big up the Mackerel Massive

Lu and I went for a cycle this morning all the way to Dollymount
strand. We saw people digging for what we thought were clams but
turned out to be lugworms... anyway, somewhat bizarrely this gave us a
terrible craving for some nice fresh seafood. Wrights of Marino
provided us with 4 lovely big Mackerel fillets, and here is what we
did with them:


Fried mackerel in a coriander cream sauce with crushed dill new potatoes
serves 3
3 fresh mackerel fillets
10-15 new potatoes
1 tbsp coriander seeds, crushed in pestle and mortar
100 ml cream
2 oz butter
juice of 1 lemon
a few sprigs of dill
boil the new potatoes until tender. When they are done , crush (not
Mash!) them with a fork, and stir in the roughly chopped dill, a big
nob of butter and a little glug of cream, salt and pepper. Se aside
with the lid on, they will keep warm while you cook the mackerel.

melt a nob of butter and some olive oil in a frying pan. Turn up the
heat so that when you put the mackerel in, skin side down, it really
sizzles. Cook on both sides for about 4 mins each (if the mackerel is
fat- you will need to check if its cooked all the way through)

Put the potatoes in the middle of a plate, balance the cooked mackerel
on top, and set aside while you cook the sauce (don't worry, its very
quick)


In the same pan that you cooked the mackerel, melt the rest of the
butter. Get it really hot but be careful not to burn. throw in the
crushed coriander seeds, the lemon juice and cream. swirl the pan
around to mix, then leave on head for 20 seconds or so, until it
bubbles. Quickly pour over the mackerel and serve.