Chicken Teriyaki with Sushi Rice

I'm afraid, my friends (I know we're not friends but I kinda need some so just go with it) I've been lying to you. When I've been asking for soy sauce, it turns out I need to be more specific; light and dark soy sauce actually differ massively in flavour and purpose. How stupid I was thinking light soy sauce was just a healthier option, which was why I avoided it- after the consumption of low-fat mayonnaise and 1% milk I learned that they do sacrifice taste for healthiness. Dark soy sauce is for colour and sweetness, whereas light is actually more salty, and gives quick seasoning. Light soy sauce is also better for cooking quickly into noodles or a stir fry, as it's not too dark and thick, and adds gentle seasoning and a good hit of umami, not the viscous, cloying quality of dark soy sauce. However, it is best for marinades, and a thick treacly sauce like this, so the dark stuff is what you want here.
In terms of other ingredients, I was sorely disappointed that no Asian groceries provided sake- a strong Japanese rice wine, so I had to go for the cheap, synthetic stuff that Asda provides. It's fine for cooking, and I shall be happily in the future, but not (not for me as I can't drink alcohol anyway) for drinking,  it tastes like honeyed sawdust. This is the only ingredient you may have difficulty stocking, the others can all be found easily in supermarkets but I recommend an Asian shop, partly because the taste is more authentic and partly because I'd rather support an Asian grocery than add to Tesco's preparation to take over the world.
 Traditional teriyaki uses whole chicken thighs, grilled with the skin on but here for ease of making and eating I use whole chicken thigh fillets with no skin but a bone or two isn't a disaster. Whilst I would usually prefer breast meat in something like this, I do think the slightly gristly and fatty quality of the meat is part of the dish. I'm also not being entirely traditional here, as sesame oil is not in every recipe, but I like a quick slick of it at the end just before you serve it. You have to add it here as the flavour will be massacred in the hot wok otherwise.
1)Mix together 4 tablespoons of sake, 125ml mirin, 125ml dark soy sauce, 4 tablespoons sugar, 3 mixed garlic cloves, and about 3 cm of minced, fresh ginger. Put 700g chicken thigh meat, bone in or out and skinned in the mixture, coating it well. Leave it to marinade for a good 20 minutes out on the counter or even overnight in the fridge.
2)Prepare the sushi rice, place 1 cup of sushi rice into a saucepan, and swirl it in water 3 times, then rinse it in a sieve until the water runs clear. Add 1 1/3 cups water, bring it to the boil, then clamp on a lid and simmer it on a really low heat for 10 minutes adding more water if it's catching, then turn off the heat and let it rest with the lid on for 25-30 minutes until it's dry. Give it a good fork through before you serve it.
3)Remove the chicken from the marinade, and fry it in a little peanut or groundnut oil. Vegetable oil is fine, but a nut oil is best for Asian cooking. Sear it until golden, then add the marinade and cook until fully done; to check if they are, cut open the largest chunk with some kitchen scissors, there should be NO pink.
4)Lift the chicken out of the pan with a slotted spoon, and keep it in a foil package until it reunites with the sauce. This keeps it hot and tender. Over a gentle heat, reduce the sauce until it thickens and goes really syrupy, but keep tasting it to make sure it's not burning. It's so dark you wouldn't be able to tell. Mix the chicken back into the sauce, and serve it with your sushi rice, some raw spring onion or cucumber strips and a drizzle of sesame oil and sesame seed sprinkle.

Leftover Rampage, Turkey Jalfrezi

The turkey's not done yet. After a fancy meal of Turkey Tonnato, the next route of prlonging the turkey's death is to turn it into a simple and delicious curry- a Jalfrezi.
My Indian stock of ingredients is actually rather thin, so I had to go for a raid of the Asian grocers again, it's becoming a little bit of an expensive habit- I spent nearly £20 today on 'stock'. I bought the necessary spices but took a little indulgence with some Poppadoms. I was recommended by Jamie Oliver (yeh, because I know him personally) to buy Poppadoms that come vacuum-packed that you cook yourself. They're cheaper, better tasting and mine had a rather alluring, scary pink bunny on the packaging.
I do like staying traditional with curry, unless I'm making one of my stew/curry things which contain really whatever I've got on hand, so I kept the same spices of a proper Jalfrezi but altered the amounts and the consistency of the curry to suit me.
1)Finely chop two small onions, and fry them in a little vegetable oil with three cloves of crushed garlic until the onions go really soft and translucent. As much as I trust Nigella Lawson wholeheartedly, her shortcut of using garlic-infused oil instead of fresh garlic is a flawed one- not only is it too expensive to cook with as frequently as regular vegetable oil, it doesn't impart nearly enough flavour. Tumble a diced red and yellow pepper in and cook that down too.
2)Add your spices- 1 tsp each of garam masala, turmeric, chilli powder, and ground coriander and stir them in. You can alter this depending on how spicy and fragrant you want it. Also add 2 400g tins of chopped tomatoes, but I had the same weight of cherry tomatoes which I chopped in. You'll need to add more water if you use fresh ones. Always when you put chopped tomatoes in a dish you should add a pinch of sugar, to balance the tartness.
3)After letting that cook for about 6 minutes, add 150g of frozen broad beans, and cook them for another 5-ish minutes, until they're tender, which, admittedly, they're often not which is why they can have a bad rep. They go nice and sweet and mild when they cook for long enough. Give it a good simmer. I must admit, I don't think I've ever made a stew/curry/casserole without having it burn a little on the bottom, but, apparently, this is sometimes done deliberately in India to add flavour.
4)Prepare the rice whilst that bubbles away- the ratio you need here is 1 cup long-grain rice (although I mixed it up with basmati) to 2 cups liquid, and I like to use 1 1/2 cups boiling water and 1/2 cup coconut milk.  Boil the rice gently for 10 minutes, then let it stand for 2 more so it can soak it up and dry out. Fluff it up with a fork to finish. You can also add some green beans and peas whilst it's cooking if you like.
5)Add the remaining half a can of coconut milk to the curry, along with a finely chopped head of coriander, keeping some milk and leaves to sprinkle at the end. It's not traditional, but I love the creaminess and it helps to bring the dish together.
6)For the poppadoms, cook them to package instructions and instead of dipping them, which is quite a British thing, crumble them over your curry and eat with it to add texture.

Leftover Rampage, Egg and Bacon Salad

It seems very audacious to say that this is a retro dish- as many of the ones through Christmas this year have been, as I don't think my parents had even met in the 80s when this dish was particularly popular in bistros. If I had to make things from my generation's retro then the meal would be full of Britney or Beyonce cakes. Although I don't think it would be bad having a meal out of my favourite album from 2004- Scissor Sisters.
There were no real leftovers from here, so I'm being a bit misleading, I just made it to clear out ingredients that we over stocked on- namely bacon, eggs, chives and iceberg lettuce. As there weren't enough other breakfast ingredients to make a full-English, I decided to put eggs and bacon together in another format, a salad. Another thing it does do is liven up a meal of leftovers, as I did with the turkey tonnato and gnocchi.
Eggs and bacon work together so well, as the sharp, salty crisp bacon somehow cuts into the soft, oily, rich and mellow egg. A salad is as good way as any to join them together, as eggs and bacon can really be the star of the show and it's much healthier than having a big buttered breakfast with them.
1)Shred some lettuce just by tearing it up in your hands into a salad bowl. Any leaf you want will do here. Spinach works well here too, but I'd snip up the bigger leaves first, though. Snip over some chives then toss them together.
2)Put some eggs on to boil. I don't like hard boiled eggs with powdery yolks that are so hard you could knock someone out with them, so I boil them slowly but surely and not for very long, so the yolks stay quite golden and soft. Put the eggs in boiling water and boil them for about 6/7 minutes, and then immediately put them in a bowl of cold water as they risk going black around the yolk. This makes them almost soft boiled but that's desirable as the oozing yolk mixes with the dressing. To make this an even more indulgent affair, soft boil the eggs for 4 minutes or poach them for 3 and have it atop the salad rather like you were serving an egg over smoked haddock.
3)In the meantime, in a little oil, fry some smoked or unsmoked bacon rashers or lardons until really crispy. You can snip them in, but I got rather frustrated with that and just tore them in in scraps. If you're lucky, the pan might erupt into a few fireballs every now and then whilst you fry them- you look really cool then. Let them go really reduced and crispy after about 5 minutes, then remove them with a slotted spoon to keep the fat behind and dry them between paper towels.
4)In the bacon fat, stir in a teaspoon of mustard, a good glug rapeseed oil, 2 tbsp cider vinegar and about a teaspoon of Wocestershire sauce. Whisk it all together until it emulsifies and set aside.
5)Toss the bacon in the salad and layer the slices of hard boiled egg over the lettuce and snip on some more chives. Parsley would also be good here, but I didn't want to see the chive plants die slowly and painfully. Don't toss it too much as everything will break up. Drizzle on a little dressing, but leave the rest for people to serve themselves. Some nice fresh parmesan or tangy cheddar is very at home flaked into this too.

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Leftover Rampage, Gnocchi

Sadly, the vegetables from Christmas have gone past the point of revival (had there been enough and it was okay to eat I would have made a frittata, but that can be for next year), but the huge pile of mashed potatoes are still fine to use, and at first I considered potato bread or scones, but gnocchi is one of my favourite flavour absorbing carbohydrates and I've been waiting for some leftover mashed potatoes to make them with.
Again, using the leftover mash in gnocchi, especially with the essential '00' flour (you CANNOT use regular plain flour) is probably much less superscrimper than throwing it away, but there's so much charm in making a meal out of one that was so spectacular previously, and making your own pasta induces plenty of obnoxiously satisfying smugness that I can relish in.
Gnocchi are rather too stodgy straight from the water, so make sure you have a good sauce for them or like I do, finish in butter and parmesan. So just a small, light side.
1)You should think in ratios rather than weight here, as it depends on how much mash you have. All you need to know is it's 1 part '00' flour to 2 parts mashed potato to 2 tsp salt. If the potatoes are very crumbly and dry you can add an egg, but it shouldn't be necessary. Dump the flour on the table and pile the mash and salt on top, and gradually start incorporating the flour into the mash. It takes a while and is quite messy, but they'll eventually come together to a soft ball of dough. Add a little more flour if it's too sticky, but you shouldn't have to. You want them more potatoey than floury.
2)You don't have to leave it to rest like regular pasta, just divide it into four and roll each one into a thin log, and divide into balls smaller than what you might think, as they do expand a lot in the water. Keep everything floured as they can stick together.
3)When you have a pile of dough balls, you need to add surface area to them. You can do this by pressing a thumb in the centre, or the more common method of rolling them down a fork. Do this by holding the fork upside down, pressing the dough ball into it with your middle finger, and then rolling it down over itself with your thumb. It takes a while and some practice, but they don't need to be perfect as the pattern blurs a lot in the water.
4)In a large pan of well salted water, drop the gnocchi in and do yourself a favour by doing them in batches. When they rise to the surface they're ready, and finish them off by crisping them in butter and shaving over parmesan.1

Leftover Rampage, Turkey Tonnato

There were mountains of leftover turkey this Christmas. There were lots to feed, and the bird was pretty big and fruitful, so I can't really explain how there was more than half of the breast meat left and almost all of the brown meat (you need the white meat here in clean slices, but I'll get to the slightly uglier brown stuff later) leftover. However, I relished in this as it gives me an opportunity to feel thriftily smug and housewifey (a quality of mine that has worried both of my parents) and I got very creative with what to do with the leftovers. I'm dreadful at art and just rip-off other people's music with the sax, so the kitchen is really the opportunity I get to feel creative. And I say feel, because slicing up cold turkey and chucking on a sauce is hardly real creativity.
I lied too, the fantastic Nigella Lawson was the creative brains behind this particular operation- I must admit I hadn't even hear of Tonnato until I read it in her 'Express' book I got for Christmas. Traditional Tonnato is slices of veal, but this is a festive and scrimpy alternative that really helps to moisten and re-flavour the cooked breast meat, which goes as dry as sawdust, and has about as much flavour as it after a day or so in the fridge. The moistener in this case, is a fishy, smooth cream sauce that can be made from stuff kept in store.
Admittedly, adding all this stuff and possibly even having to buy more ingredients is much less economical than throwing it away or giving it to the dog, and that's what they'd do in a restaurant, but this is an everyday kitchen, and we're cooks not chefs (if you're a chef then I don't know what the hell you're doing here) and it seems incredibly wasteful to throw something away; if you can pick it up and give it a rewiz with some new ingredients then it will bask in all its former glory. It doesn't work in the music industry, but it works with food.
1)This recipe is insanely simple, and all you need to do with the meat is slice it moderately thinly, about 2cm thick and arrange it on a serving platter.
2)In a blender (the smoothie one not a food processor) blitz one tin of drained tuna, 150g mayonnaise, about 50ml double cream, 1/2 tsp paprika and the juice of a small lemon until you have a smooth sauce. Tinned tuna can blend smoothie. It's already long-since dead so it gives up in it's penultimate end in the blender.
3)Pour your sauce all over your turkey, leaving some meat poking out the edges and dredge it with a tablespoon of capers. Nonpareille ones look nicest, but any will do. Add 8 halved anchovy fillets, I didn't bother to have any pattern but one thing you should make sure not to do is have them curled as then they end up looking like worms. Serve cold.

Christmas Dinner: Part 5, Grasshopper Pie

I've been waiting to make this for a long time. Seriously. A gloriously 70s, violently green and mysteriously spiked dessert based on the popular American cocktail-the grasshopper.
The grasshopper is a creamy drink made from bright green creme de Menthe, and equal parts creme de cacao Blanc and cream, shaken with ice but not served with ice. It was then adapted by someone who took an evangelical leap of faith, into a tasty, moussey pie with a crunchy chocolate biscuit crumb, straight from the 70s like the prawn cocktail.
Perhaps this isn't what springs to mind when someone says Christmas dessert, but that's certainly not the case in the States and has particular Christmas legitimacy for me because for years our favourite seasonal dessert has been a Viennetta, plucked from the freezer, and this tastes just like it in a tart medium with the most mystifying texture. The best way I've read it described is by Nigella Lawson who says its mouthfeel is like that of ice cream that has not been frozen but is still set. There wouldn't be a single Christmas menu I'd want to rule it out from.
A note on ingredients, Creme de Menthe is quite easy to find, it should be in most supermarkets, but Creme De Cacao Blanc (white chocolate liqueur) is not so plentiful. I found regular brown Creme de cacao (make sure it's translucent not creamy)  and it just darkened the green slightly, making a nice jade colour. If you want you can add green colour to intensify it, but then it risks looking garish so proceed with a steady wrist and as usual, go for a thick emerald paste food colouring, not a bottled green poison. If you don't want to use alcohol, you can use about a tsp each of good quality peppermint extract and vanilla, and up the quantity of milk to make up the liquid. But this is not the same.

1. This, technically is part 1 if the dinner, as it needs to be prepared on Christmas Eve, or even further ahead if that made your life easier.

1)Prepare the buttery biscuit base- I never fail to be amazed by how such a crumbly biscuit base can hold its shape as well as pastry, but nevertheless this one works. Blitz 300g double chocolate chip cookies, such as the marylands that come in a purple packet. If you really like it, throw 50g desicatted coconut in as I did the first time I made this. Gradually blitz in about 4 tbsp melted or very soft butter until it looks like fine compost, then press it into a deep 25cm loose based flan tin, using the back of a spoon and your fingers to get up the corners and sides. Alternatively, bash it all in a freezer bag and mix it in a bowl. Leave in the fridge whilst you prepare the filling.
2) In a small saucepan, heat 125ml milk until just before boiling then lower the heat and add 200g preferably white marshmallows and stir until fully blended and melted. Be patient here, they must melt completely but not boil. Allow this to cool- you can speed this up by plunging it into a bowl of iced water; I sympathise with your impatience highly.
3)Stir in two small shots of creme de Menthe and 1 of creme de cacao (you can vary the ratios to suit how alcoholic you want it) and whisk it in. In the meantime whip 300ml double cream until it's softly whipped; don't have it stiff as it won't mix smoothly into the marshmallow mixture. Whisk the cooled marshmallow mixture and cream together until you have a cohesive, vibrant mixture. At this point you can dye it. Pour this gently into the biscuit lined tin and allow it to set in the fridge overnight or at least half a day.
4)For a final decoration on Christmas day, pipe rounds of whipped cream (stiffly whipped here) on the pie and give everything a dirty snow dusting of grated dark chocolate or a crumbled biscuit. If you wanted to be ever so cruel but genius, buy some chocolate covered grasshoppers online and place them sinisterly on the pale surface. I have to say I haven't taken the insect part that far.

Christmas Dinner: Part 4, Prawn Cocktail

In order of eating, this is obviously not 4, it is 1, but I felt the turkey centrepiece deserved the part 1 accolade. Nevertheless, this favourite, retro starter is simple and delicious, and never fails to impress. It's not groundbreaking, but there's no reason to fiddle with this; my parents have been making and enjoying it since the 70s; in fact, my dad never left.
1)In a bowl, combine about 5 heaped tbsp mayo, 2 tsp tomato puree, a dash of tabsco sauce, the juices of half a lemon and stir to combine. Give it a few tries, adding more lemon or salt if necessary.
2)Rinse 400g cooked, peeled prawns (try and get best quality) and fold them into the sauce.
3)Shred a few leaves of iceberg lettuce into some posh bowls, then pile on your prawn mixture, dust with a little paprika and garnish (horrible word but my vocabulary is nothe good enough to think of a synonym) with a cucumber or citrus twist. Do this by slicing it thinly, cutting halfway to the centre of thexcellence slice, then twist each side. Keep In the fridge until you're ready to serve.

Christmas Dinner: Part 4, Christmas Veg

A vegetarian's annual palm-off. And a meat eater's annual over-eating relief.

1)As these take longest to cook, start with them. Peel and chop 2 small butternut squash and place them in a roasting tin with some unpeeled garlic cloves (they roast and go sweet and soft, so you can crush them as you eat) and oil to coat.

2)Peel and chop some parsnips into long strips, and de-stalk them if they're really woody. Put them in a tin with some goose fat, just to make it harder to be vege in my family, and peel and chop up about 2 bramley apples per kg of parsnips for extra tanginess, as parsnips can often be too sweet and cloying. Drizzle with 2 tbsp runny honey and sprinkle with salt. I would even maybe add some lemon juice to serve in hindsight.

3)Roast them both for about 45 minutes at 180 ish  (it can just roast with everything else so don't fret about the temperature) turning them a few times.

4)For the much underrated sprout,  ensure you don't overcook them as that's what makes them have a vile texture and a farty taste. Steam them for about 4 minutes, testing them as you go. In the meantime,  toast about 100g walnuts and the same of cooked, peeled chestnuts until toasty and fragrant, then toss the sprouts in. Cook the sprouts until they go crispy too, then loosen everything with a generous drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

P.S: I have no prejudice against vegetarians, I love the creativity of their meals and quite often cook vege food.

Christmas Dinner: Part 3, Roast Potatoes and Mash

Double carbohydrates are good. I don't care what y'all healthy-eaterists have to yak about it.
If you don't want to do potatoes both ways, you don't have to, but obviously the roasts are a bit of a must for a roast dinner.
I read up on all sorts of revolutionary ways to roast potatoes, but for me, this one, the way my whole family make it, is simple and very effective.
1)Boil some chunked, peeled spuds (boil them by having them in cold water, and bringing them up to boiling) until you can get a knife through it, but they shouldn't be soft. About 10 minutes.
2)In the meantime, put a few tablespoons of goose fat (or vegetable oil if you can't find goose fat, but it really does add goldenness and extra flavour) in a roasting tin and let it melt in the hot oven.
3)Drain the potatoes, return half to the pan and give the other half a brief shake, so the edges just start crumbling. This gives extra surface area for the salt and fat to cling to. Salt and fat. Salt and fat! SALT AND FAT! YOU WILL DIE MWUHAHAHAHAHA
4)Tumble the spuds into the goose fat, season generously with salt and pepper and dried thyme. I felt thyme was a loved herb that's been a little underused this Christmas so I included it here. Any Provencal herb like rosemary would do just fine. Spoon the goose fat over and roast until golden and crisp, about 45 minutes.
5)With the remaining potatoes, boil them for about another 10 minutes until very soft, then give them a good mash with some milk, pepper, salt and a fat such as olive oil, but you know you want butter. Salt and fat. Salt and- no just joking. Mash well, whilst also giving it a good fold and lift the potatoes up and down a lot to whip some air into them. Put them in a serving dish and a lovely touch then is to perk it up in peaks with a fork, purely for aesthetic value. It's obviously not essential and not very wise either as it makes it go cold faster, but doing this makes it look so Christmassy somehow.

Christmas Dinner: Part 2, Gravy, Bread Sauce and Cranberry Sauce

This is obviously the 'sauce' section of the meal, and something extremely important, I think in bringing every element of the dinner together.
I won't put a recipe for the cranberry sauce, as all I did was mix a bought jar of it with the zest of an orange, but, to be honest,  it doesn't really need it.
1)For the stock which will later become the gravy, place the giblets from the turkey to a large saucepan, add a celery stick, a quartered, peeled onion, a halved carrot , a cinnamon stick, about 4 cloves, a star anuse,  a good handful of peppercorns and cover everything in about 2 litres of water. Cover, and simmer very gently while you do everything else. Do this just after you put the turkey in the oven. If your turkey had no giblets, just use the same amount of chicken stock.
2)Leave the juices from the turkey in the pan, and put some heat under it from the stove. Whisk in 3 tbsp plain flour until as smooth as you can get it, then gradually incorporate the stock and porcini mushrooms soaking liquid until it's as thick as you want it. I strained mine, but you don'the have to.
3)To make the bread sauce,  stud a peeled onion with a handful of cloves, then place it in 1 pint of milk and a bay leaf. Bring it to a very gentle boil,  then switch it off and allow everything to infuse for a while.
4)Bring it back up to the heat, then gradually stir in about 175g breadcrumbs. Whenever I have stale bread, I blitz it and freeze the crumbs in bags, they don't have to thaw before use. When it's a bit thicker than it should be, season with salt and pepper and some freshly ground nutmeg and loosen it with a few tablespoons of cream.

Christmas Dinner: Part 1, Turkey, Stuffing and Pigs in Blankets

This is the first of what will be a long series on what I cooked (with help obviously ) for Christmas Dinner. It was my first and biggest meal I've headed on my own, so it didn't go smoothly, but in the end, I was very pleased with the final result as was everyone else.
In terms of the food itself, the meal took a decidedly  Italian edge, with plenty of English traditions mixed in. This section is what I think of as the 'meat' section, although it is not the only non-vegetarian stage. In my opinion, the turkey was hardest to do, but it came out really nice; I was afraid I'd cooked it to death but it was very juicy and quite orange scented and fragrant from it's fillings. Pretty darn good.
1)Take your turkey out of the fridge about an hour before you cook it so it can come to room temperature and preheat the oven to 170 degrees. As the rest of the country is preheating their ovens too, you have to give plenty of time for the oven to come to temperature.
2)Remove the giblets from your turkey and keep them for the stick.
3)Very gently ease the skin from the breast of the turkey and, using your hand, spread butter all underneath the skin. Add a few leaves of sage and rosemary under the skin too. In the cavity, fill it with a quartered lemon and half a large orange, plus a quartered peeled onion, two bay leaves and a broken cinnamon stick.
4)Prepare the stuffing. Soak 25g of dried porcini mushrooms in some warm water. Keep In the meantime, gently heat 100g dried cranberries in 3tbsp of Marsala until it's all soaked up. Saute an onion and 5 cloves of minced garlic until nice and soft, then tumble in 200g chopped chestnut mushrooms and cook that until soft and reduced. Put it in the food processor with 200g pre cooked and peeled chestnuts and blitz until finely chopped, but not a really fine paste. Mix it with your cranberries, and 450g sausage meat and plenty of salt and pepper. Mix it until fully combined but don't over mix as it can go tough. Add an egg if it's very crumbly, but you shouldn't have to.
5)With about 1/3 of the stuffing, turn the bird on it's legs and stuff the bird in the skin of the neck end very loosely. It may explode in the oven and escape, but that's not a problem.  Secure the skin with two skewers.
6)Cover the turkey with bacon, and place in the oven for 2 hours 45 minutes, then remove excess liquid from the cavity, take off the bacon, and bake it for another 45 minutes, basting regularly.
7)To check if it's done, pierce the thickest part of the meat and the juices should run clear. Shake off any excess liquid, and rest it upside down so the juices can drip through and moisten the breast meat.
8)To make the pigs in blankets, chop some good chipolata sausages in half, and wrap them in strips of pancetta or just smoked bacon and bake at 170-80 degrees until crisp. About 20 minutes should do.

Christmas Day Breakfast- Smoked Salmon and Scrambled Eggs

You gotta have a good breakfast any Christmas. Most families go for a full English, but for us, this fancy salmon and scrambled eggs is perfect.
1)Whisk in a bowl, 3 eggs per person with a splash of milk and a little butter. Season well with salt and pepper.
2)Transfer to a frying pan with butter in it and cook, stirring constantly until clumps of egg start to form. When it's just a tiny bit less gooey than you want, take it off the heat and transfer to your serving bowl. It will keep cooking in it's own heat. Add 100g smoked salmon, roughly torn per person and gently toss in the eggs.
3)Serve piping hot, with some toasted home-made bread, salt and pepper and chopped chives or dill.

Basic Iced Vanilla Biscuits

There's always a time for simplicity, and it's all the time.

I thought about initially, having a complex piped coloured icing, but I don't really like garish colours and frustratingly delicate piping, so I simply spoon on the icing and sprinkle on silver edible ball bearings in a reassuringly juvenile fashion.

1)In a large bowl beat 125g soft unsalted butter with 100g caster sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in one egg (it's useful to crack the egg in a bowl first so you can remove any shell easily) with 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla. Bean paste is great as you can see the little black dots. Fold in 200g of plain flour with half a teaspoon of baking powder and a pinch of salt. Mix it to form a soft crumble, then use your hands to very gently press it to a ball of dough. Do not overwork, as that makes it tough. Wrap in cling film and place in the fridge for a good half an hour to firm up.

2)Roll the dough out to a 1/2 cm thickness, (do not have any kind of ruler within reach- we're talking very roughly speaking) dust the cutters of your choice in flour and boldly gouge out a shape then place it on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Part of the ritual of this is getting as many shapes as possible out of this lump of sun tan dough- avoid handling it too much between go's and don't knead in any extra flour. Eventually you will hit, what bakers like to call the trawl, where you have such a tiny sheet of dough left you won't be able to protract another shape; to solve this I pick little nuggets of biscuit and scatter them on the sheet which of course become the crunchiest, darkest and best biscuits of the batch. This dough makes an average-sized batch of biscuits of about 16, but obviously this depends on the cutter used.

3)Bake at 180 degrees, for about 10-15 minutes, but start checking at about 8 minutes, as they can overcook very suddenly. When golden all over, take them off the sheet with a palette knife and let them cool on a wire rack.

4)Prepare the glace icing- In a bowl, combine 300g icing sugar with water- go a tablespoon at a time until you have a thick but malleable icing. If you want to go in for food colouring, which I certainly don't sneer at, I would highly recommend going for the thick gooey paste which comes in tubs or squeezy tubes which will last you a lifetime because you need only use a tiny dab to dye the icing resplendently.
5)Using a teaspoon to dollop on the icing and the back of it to smooth the top. Return it to the wire rack with a board underneath it to catch any drips and sprinkle with whatever you like, but I just went with silver ball bearings. I have to admit, having not bothered with sieving icing sugar recently, I have noticed that the difference it makes is minimal if completely inconspicuous- perhaps it's time to give that sieve an early retirement?

Christmas Eve Sausage and Broccoli Pasta

This is adapted from my Great Uncle's recipe, and he's an amazing Italian based cook. The dish is extremely simple, like all Italian pasta sauces, it contains few ingredients that still really add fresh, fast flavour. The sauce also doesn't drench the pasta, Italians always keep the flavour of the pasta standing out. As a pre-Christmas dinner, it works by being very decadent but still quite light, so something like this- a light pasta dinner really works.
1)Stir-fry some broccoli chopped into thin florets, in really good extra virgin olive oil for about 8 minutes, until they're green and softened, but a little brown on the edges. You could boil them with the pasta, but stir-frying them imparts more texture and a subtle nuttiness.
2)Cook the pasta. I only had fusilli, but a long flat pasta like tagliatelle would have been a much better shape. Salt the water very well, an old Italian saying is to have the water as salty as the sea, then boil for about 10 minutes, until soft but not mushy- al dente. Reserve a few tablespoons of the water you cooked it in.
2)Remove the broccoli from the pan and cook some sausages. Don't just chunk them up, get your hands dirty (no innuendo intended) and really squash out the sausage meat, so you get better flavour and texture. You don't need to oil the pan as the meat has enough fat.  Cook until completely done then briefly fry 4 cloves of minced garlic until they lose their raw fire but don't burn as they can do so easily. Once the garlic's done, turn off the heat and pour in 125ml of double cream. Warm it through with the heat of the meat, until the cream starts to be absorbed and goes a rich yellow colour. Grate in some fresh nutmeg to taste. You could use pre-ground but the taste isn't as good. Season well with salt and pepper.
3)Toss the sauce into your drained pasta and broccoli, with some of the pasta cooking water. The starch in the water helps the sauce cling to each bit of pasta and thicken. You must do this for any pasta sauce, even if you're just dressing the pasta with virgin olive oil. Let it stand for a few minutes so the pasta can soak up any more flavour and serve.

Christmas Bloody Mary

Let's just get one thing straight. I do NOT drink this- even if I could tolerate the alcohol I still wouldn't be able to tolerate the searing savouriness of the other components, but it is my Dad's favourite so I make it every year so I thought I'd tell you how.
1)Combine in a glass of your choice, 1 shot of vodka, then fill the tomato juice to the top of the glass minus a few centimetres. Add the juice of 1/2 a lemon, a dash of worcestershire sauce, a few drops of tabasco, depending on how firey you want it then a good scrunch of salt and pepper. If I was being particularly devious, I'd replace the salt with some soy sauce. Add ice cubes, then stir everything together with a celery stick. You can use a cucumber baton but the celery really adds flavour. Serve with a lemon wedge fresh and cold.

Coq Au Rielsing

Not many people have heard of this dish, and those who have look down on it as a cheap knock-off of the much more popular Coq Au Vin. The main difference between the two recipes is that Vin is made with red wine, but Riesling is made with the very acidic, German white wine- Riesling as the latter comes from the North of France where this type of wine is much more common. It is also, for me, the reason why Coq au Riesling makes much more sense- a strong dark red wine would need so much cooking down and the flavour doesn't work with white meat, the deep casserole would work in my mind with beef or lamb. A white wine seems much more appropriate for the more delicate white meat of chicken. If you haven't heard of this, or want to go for the cliche dinner party option of Coq Au Vin, try this instead- you will be converted. I plan to make a revolution in the future, and overthrow Coq au Riesling's overpowered, established cousin. Yeh, that's how far my life ambitions go...
However, I must admit that I became sceptical of the recipe whilst making it. When I added the bottle of wine (yes, the whole bottle) the sauce had a nasty bitter, raw alcohol flavour, but it didn't take long at all for the wine to mellow into a rich, tangy sauce that is rather fabulous. The other tasty Provencial Herbs and flavours in the recipe work with the tart sauce in such a delicious fashion.
1)Melt some butter with some oil in a large casserole, then tumble in 100g of smoked bacon lardons until they reduce, then add two small sliced leeks. Onions would be more typical, but leeks give the same flavour but also become a foreground element, rather than just disappearing into the dish like onions. Cook until softened, then add about 4 cloves of minced garlic. When the leeks are really soft, add some mushrooms- I bought a woodland selection of mushrooms which included oyster and Chanterelle, but omitted the Shitake variety (I will use them soon!) and then a handful of chestnut mushrooms to bulk it out. Add 2 teaspoons of dried thyme and cook them until they reduce lots, and set them all aside.
2)In a separate pan, brown the meat. I think skinned thigh meats, with or without bone are best here.
3)To your mushrooms and leeks, add another knob of butter and melt it in. To thicken the casserole, many ask for eggs and cream, but this combination makes me a little anxious so what I do is make a sort of lazy roux- add 3 tablespoons of plain flour, and cook for 2 more minutes. Next, you can add a whole 750ml bottle of good dry Riesling (if you can't find it another dry white wine will do) and stir it well until you have a milky sauce. Add your chicken, two bay leaves, and a chicken stock cube or pot. Simmer everything gently, until the sauce thickens. Clamp the lid on, and simmer everything together really slowly for about an hour, being sure to give the pan a good stir every 15 minutes or so to pick up all the sticky bits at the bottom of the pan (they provide a lot of flavour).
4)To serve with the casserole, you could have rice or mashed potatoes, but a nice option is some cooked buttered pasta, a shape like conchiglie or tagliatelle would be nice, don't use the fusilli I had (I'm sorry to be a hypocrite again, but it's all I had) and plenty of fresh dill.

Korean Beef Noodles

I had a planned trip to Setonaikai yesterday, in between seeing the new Star Wars film (it was so epic) and then Spectre, which was a little underwhelming. I came out with a bottle of Fish Sauce (squid brand, the best) which I had planned, but my self control didn't stretch as far as not buying something that I've been looking for since I saw Nigella cook with it in her Korean Calamari recipe- gochuchang paste.
Gochuchang is a Korean fermented chilli paste, an essential condiment in Korea. It's nice and sweet, but also has a soy-sauce vibe from the fermentation. It is very spicy, but not so much that it kills the flavour. If you can't find it, use a Chinese sweet chilli sauce and add more chilli, but if you get the chance to buy it, DO!
1)Marinate some stir-fry steak (sliced sirloin for example) in a mixture of one tbsp of gochuchang, a small glug of soy sauce (don't add too much as it overpowers), a tbsp of Mirin for sweet aroma, about 2 tbsp fish sauce 2 tbsp rice vinegar and a pinch of sugar. Let it marinade for a good few hours, or overnight in the fridge.
2)Slice some veg, good choices are spring onion, carrot and baby corn. Also slice up some garlic thinly, and a seeded red long chilli. It may seem odd to add a chilli as the sauce is so firey, but long ones, especially with the seeds removed, really only add as much heat as the spring onion; you get sweet bell pepper flavour and a delicate piquancy. It's important that you slice everything into thin vertical strips rather than chunks, as then they cook faster and mix into the noodles. Stir fry in a wok in a little flavourles vegetable oil for about 3 minutes.
3)Remove the beef from the marinade and pour in the marinade to the wok and cook until it reduces.
4)Add the beef and cook for a brief couple of minutes, you don't want to overcook it.
5)Toss some cooked, drained glass noodles (beanthreads or rice Vermicelli) into the meat and veg. I prefer to add the toasted sesame oil here- if I was just briefly toasting asparagus spears for sushi or a light starter, I'd cook with it, but against the wok's intense heat and the other intense flavours, it's precious nutty flavour would get destroyed, so use it here as you get a slick pile of noodles, not dry and rusty and all the toasty, delicate flavour. A Korean staple is a bowl of Bibimbap, a rice bowl with raw vegetables and gochuchang and it's always topped with a fried or raw egg. I decided to adopt this here, and topped the noodles with a runny fried egg for richness.

Ceviche

I don't often cook Mexican, but when I do, like today, it proves rewarding- the ingredients that are used in it's cuisine often add instant flavour and are so quick and refreshing to cook. This recipe is one of many light meals I plan to cook to make as much room as possible for the chocolate and turkey on Christmas day (I do not plan to hold back eating anything on the big day) so it is simply cool cold fish mixed with lots of herbs and vegetables and some light tortilla chips to serve.

Ceviche itself is firm-fleshed white fish (in this case Basa and Whiting) chopped into pieces and somehow cooked in acid. It looks cooked, but retains a fresh taste and texture that you wouldn't notice had the fish been baked in an oven. It is great to serve at a party as finger food, a starter, or as the meal like it is here.

1)Chop 500g fish fillets into very small chunks. The whiting wasn't skinned in my case, so I used my offensively lazy shortcut of cutting it, slicing the flesh, not going through the skin and then tearing off chunks of meat. It's pretty satisfying. Then, sprinkle it well with about two teaspoons of rock or sea salt and leave it while you prepare the other ingredients. It's good to leave it in salt as it draws out moisture and already starts to tenderise it, and opens it up to more flavours. Chop the stalks of a big bunch of coriander (cilantro as you may know it by), you want the stalks here and leaves later to get a big boost of flavour and it seems a massive waste to just use the leaves. Mix it with the fish with about a teaspoon of garlic powder (or just a minced clove of garlic) and cover entirely with lime juice in a shallow dish. You could use a bottle of bought lime juice, but squeezing fresh limes (you'll need about 4 depending on the dimensions of your dish) gives a much better flavour and those little cells of pulp add great intensity to the finished dish. Cover the dish in cling film and leave out for around 10-15 minutes, whether you want the fish almost sashimi-like, medium rare or well cooked will depend on how long you leave it. 

2)After 45 minutes, remove it from the fridge and drain the fish of the lime juice. Return to the dish and combine with deseeded and finely chopped confetti of red chilli, the finely chopped leaves of coriander, a bunch of chopped fresh basil and two finely sliced spring onions. Although I don't wholly agree with cooking spring onions in place of large white ones, I do always use them in place of large ones raw, as they are so much more palatable. As well as this, roughly chop a handful of black olives which add nice colour contrast and sweetness. My favourite way to chop an avocado, is to run the knife around the whole thing vertically, twisting both halves, removing the pip, and then slicing them vertically by horizontally not through the skin, then using a spoon to disembowel the flesh. It adds great volume, plus extra richness and meatiness. 

3)Combine your chopped veg with your fish, plus a pinch more salt and caster sugar for balance, and to bring everything together with gloss, about two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. Serve piled onto a tortilla chip or with a pile of paprika spiked cous cous for a fabulous no-cook dinner.

Sausage Rolls

Shop-bought cold sausage rolls depress me. The meat and greasy, dry pastry look such a poor quality I can't even contemplate them. Meat is red not grey. Therefore, if you make these, the difference is so great you won't be able to tolerate bought ones.

I don't know why but shop-bought pastry used to be avoided by me. I was too much of a snob. But now, I try to have some in the freezer or fridge as often as possible because it is just so useful, and, let's be honest, I could never make puff pastry anywhere near as good, so why bother? 

1)Roll out your pastry to about a cm thickness, then take a wad of sausage meat, and spread it in a log neatly on the left side of the pastry. You could leave it there, but a nice festive addition I like to use is finely chopped sage and dried apricots, but you could use any other herb, sun-dried tomatoes- anything you like. Place them to the right of the log, almost under it then proceed rolling. This is easy if the pastry is still quite cold, but not left out so it goes difficult to handle. The time it takes to prepare the sausage meat should be enough to let the pastry soften. Unless you have ninja speed. Why are you reading this if you have ninja speed. Roll it up tightly, keeping it as round as possible as you go, then press the seam down. Some recipes will ask you to put the sausage meat in the middle of the pastry, then fold the side over, but then it's not a roll...It's a fold? Slice the log into whatever size you want, then place the rolls on a baking sheet and refrigerate for about 15 minutes, so they hold their shape.
2)Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius, and take your sausage rolls out of the fridge. Prick with a fork or slash the tops, then brush with egg wash (just a beaten egg), trying to not let it seep down the sides too much. Bake for about 20 minutes, until puffy and golden and serve whenever you like, cold or hot.

Chocolate Pistachio Fudge

I'm barely half-through my Christmas Present list, and the presents look more and more desperate. Today's hugely simple recipe, courtesy of Mein Lieblings TV Chef Nigella Lawson, is Chocolate Pistachio ( pis-ta-key-o) Fudge, made without the insane faff of sugar thermometers, but condensed milk.
When I read the ingredients I was shocked at the chocolate content, but after trying a few squares I could tell it wouldn't survive with sweet milk chocolate- it has to be good and dark. The pistachios don't add much flavour, but add a lot of texture and a gorgeous fleck of green.
1)Melt 350g of 70% dark chocolate with 1 397g tin of condensed milk and a knob of butter over a gentle heat. I've become embarrassed to say that I now use good-quality baking chocolate rather than real chocolate because I'm so dire at melting it I would burn anything that's not reinforced against my incompetence. In the meantime, bash some pistachios in a freezer bag until in smaller chunks. Mix with your melted chocolate, then pour the mixture into a foil or grease-proof paper lined baking tray and leave to cool before setting in the fridge. Cut into squares and give stingy handfuls to your recipients. It is very rich. You can tell them that.

Adapted Thai Cinnamon Prawns, thank you Nigella

I don't care what ya'll bullies on twitter think, I loved 'Simply Nigella' and it's diverse recipes. It was great that Nigella was exploring new fields of cookery and healthier recipes. Yeh, she missed the mark a few times and altogether it probably wasn't as good as 'Nigella Express' or 'Nigella Kitchen' but as always there were some stand out winners, henceforth these cinnamon prawns.
This recipe is adapted from her Thai prawns from episode 1, where Nigella received the greatest backlash for her avocado toast recipe. It was utterly fabulous, and I decided to add a bit more veg, a bit more richness and texture from cashew nuts and didn't use as many weird ingredients like whatever the hell soy ketchup is to add my own touch. It was delicious- warming but fresh, sweet but super savoury and just so good. Definitely making again and you should too!
1)In a large wok, heat a little oil and add some green beans, thinly slivered baby corn (cut it with the knife parallel to the corn, so you get long strips not small chunks). Cook for a minute or so, flipping regularly. Add some strips of celery chopped the same, but use the paler, sweeter shoots in the centre of the plant because they are most similar to the original Chinese celery. Cook for another minute. You could use a large frying pan for this, but I dug out my big wok which I don't use often and quickly learned it should be used a lot more- it somehow cooks everything evenly at such a high temperature, and it remains very steady. After the vegetables have gone limp, add a handful of cashew nuts.
2)Add a star anise and two cinnamon sticks to the pan, and toss them around well to start releasing their flavour. Add about 2 tablespoons of dark soy sauce, about 1 of rich oyster sauce, some ground black pepper, a teaspoon of ground cinnamon, about a cm of freshly grated ginger and about 100 ml of water and a chicken stock pot. Let it bubble a little and then add some raw King prawns. Cook for only about 2 minutes, when they curl well.
3)Now add one of my favourite ingredients, some rice Vermicelli or beanthreads soaked in boiling water until soft and drained. Toss them well into the liquid and try to thread the vegetables through the noodles. To serve, chop some more celery leaves over it and eat the Thai way, with a fork to pick up noodles and other paraphernalia and a spoon to shovel it down the hatch.

Christmas Bread that's Christmassy because it's in a heart shape I dunno

My horrid home-made Christmas gifts are coming thick and fast; next on the menu are my wholemeal salt and pepper loaves.
1)Prepare a basic wholemeal dough. Combine 350g strong white flour, 150g strong wholemeal flour with 1 and 1/2 tsp table salt, and stir 7g fast yeast. Don't let the salt and yeast touch. Stir in 325ml lukewarm water and a tablespoon of good olive oil or 25g lard or vegetable shortening to a soft dough. Add more flour or more water to get the right consistency. It should be soft, but still pliable. Knead for 10 minutes by hand, or 5 in a machine until smooth and stretchy. Place in an oiled bowl, cover with cling film and rise in a warm place for about 1 and a half hours, until doubled.
2)Turn out onto a floured surface and punch it down until all the air is knocked out. Divide the dough in two, and roll one into a long sausage. To do this, start with your hands close together in the middle of the log, and pull it towards you, letting your hands separate to the edges. This can't be rushed, if you just pull it, it will shrink back, so go slow. Shape it into a heart shape, having the join at the top, between the two rounds at the top of the heart. Divide the remaining piece of dough into 3, roll each one to the same length. Connect the dough logs at one end, and plait them. Cut the ugly bits at either end of the plait off. Place the two loaves on a greased baking sheet, cover in cling and rise again for about 45 minutes.
3)To top the loaves, I have some fancy Himalayan Pink Salt and black pepper. Sprinkle over the loaves moistened with milk.
4)Bake in a steamy, 180 degrees oven for about 20 minutes, until brown and hollow when tapped.

Special Mince Pies for a Shoddy Christmas Present

At last. Far too late as usual, the tsunami of dreadful homemade presents is beginning to flow over my friends and family. And I can't wait. I can't wait to see their awkward, pretend-that-you-like-it smile once I've given them their gift and I can walk away feeling face-punchably smug.
First on the list are tasty mince pies, with a rustic pastry case that looks... home-made.
1)Prepare the sweet shortcrust pastry. I am usually very happy to use shop-bought puff or filo pastry, but if I bought shortcrust then I think guilt would be induced. It is very easy, tastes much better than from a shop, and I find, quite fun to make. Rub in 125g of butter and 50g of lard (or all butter) into 275g of plain flour and 25g of ground almonds (or all flour). A shortcut is to do this in the food processor which I would normally do, but another shortcut is to grate the very cold fat into the flour, then rubbing it in is much faster. Stir in 75g icing sugar and the grated zest of a lemon. Bring the dough together with the juice of the lemon and about 3 tablespoons of milk, but check if the dough has come together after the second spoon because you don't want it to be too wet. Bring the dough together then knead for a few seconds. Do NOT overwork. Wrap in cling film and put in the fridge for about half an hour. Roll it out to as thin as you can handle,turning the dough evenly and cut with a fluted cutter and place each circle into a greased muffin tin.
2)To prepare the filling, combine 225g Mincemeat with the zest of an orange and a tablespoon of amaretto, or another Christmassy drink like brandy.
3)Fill each case with a small teaspoon of the filling. For a lid, re-roll the leftover pastry and cut into hearts or stars or whatever you like and carefully top the tarts. Brush with beaten egg or milk and bake at 180 degrees for about 20 minutes. Foil is your friend (my only one); if they brown too fast just cover with foil and continue baking.
4)To turn them out, leave them to cool in the tin for about 5 minutes to let the pastry set and then run a palette knife around them and carefully lift them onto a wire rack. Dust with icing sugar.

Raspberry and Orange Mille Feuille with Passion Fruit Curd

You've seen before how my attempts at fine and elegant French sweets turn out, which is why I was very pleased with how these turned out. I like how they look overstuffed, I like how they look like they're about to topple over and I like how they don't look rigid and perfect, they look home-made and welcoming. I also kept my expectations low, because expectation versus reality is painful, so its das Leben.

Mille Feuille itself is a type of French Patisserie, literally 'thousand leaves' made of (shop-bought #thug life) puff pastry and layers of whatever you like, I used an orangey cream, raspberries and an amazing passion fruit curd which makes plenty of leftovers.

1)Prepare the passion fruit curd. At this time of year, passion fruits are tart and dry, so this is a great way of using them up. I found lots are on offer because they are poorer quality now. Scoop out the seeds of 6-8 passion fruit, and drop them into a blender with the juice of about half an orange. Blend them to loosen them, but don't break up the seeds too much. Combine this pulp with 60g of cornflour to a paste. Boil 600ml water, then pour into the paste. It will go really thick right away. Return to the pan and add 4 egg yolks and 175g caster sugar. Stir while heating gently and add more sugar to taste. Leave to cool.

2)Roll out some puff pastry, I use jus-rol because they have a good buttery tast,  that's come to room temperature, to about 3mm rectangle, and then cut the long side into 4, and the short side three so you have 12 small rectangles. Pile them into 4 piles of 3, and trim the edges to make them more even, then place on a baking sheet dusted with icing sugar and then prick gently with a fork and dust with more sugar. Bake at 200 degrees until golden brown and very puffed up. Leave to cool.

4)Whisk 150ml double cream with a tablespoon of icing sugar, 1 teaspoon of vanilla and the zest of one orange, where all the flavour is. Whip until quite thick, but not dry. Place in a piping bag fitted with whatever nozzle you fancy.

5)To assemble, take a pastry layer and gently press it down with the palm of your hand to flatten, which seems a dreadful shame but necessary nonetheless. Blob it with tall blobs of cream, about 6 per sheet and put three raspberries in-between each blob. Place with another sheet and spread thickly with the curd, then pop some more raspberries on and fix the top layer on. Dust with more icing sugar to finish.

Jerk Chicken with Rice and Peas that could be weaponised

We seem to have adopted Jamaican culture recently, with Cool Runnings, Usain Bolt, delicious ginger cake and many playfully offensive Jamaican characters in British comedies such as 'Jamaican Teacher' bringing Caribbean fun to the UK. However, perhaps the biggest hit of Jamaica, was when Levi Roots barrelled through weakly-flavoured plates of British meat and two veg to bring us reggae reggae sauce- a tastefully hot condiment right from the heart of Caribbean street food.
In my dish, it's not like the crispy inferno of street Jerk Chicken, but it's still searingly hot and crisp. The flavour all comes from a strong marinade full of traditional seasonings, which seemed odd to me, including what I think of as more cakey spices such as allspice and cinnamon, but together they form a powerful reggae bassline beneath chords of fresh lime and hot chilli.
To serve with, you really need the cool, sweet rice and peas to extinguish the fire in your mouth. Some other good ideas to serve with it are a crisp green salad and plenty of fresh lime.
1)To prepare the marinade, blend 3 spring onions, 3 roasted red bell peppers, either roast your own or use the shortcut like me of keeping roasted ones in jars, 4 garlic cloves, 4 birds eye chillis (any chillis with the seeds in will do, the traditional is the scotch bonnet, but if like me you can't find them use any small red variety; generally, the smaller the chilli the hotter it is) a 4cm piece of fresh ginger (it's best to blend these vegetables on their own first and they'll chop finer into the rest of the marinade that way), the grated zest and juice of one lime, a splash of dark rum, about the same amount of soy sauce (dark here for colour); to honour Roots' sauce, about a tablespoon of tomato puree. Next, you will have to invade the spice cupboard for 2 teaspoons each of ground ginger, ground cinnamon, ground allspice, ground nutmeg (or I recommend 1 freshly grated) smoked paprika, dried thyme, and about a tbsp of English mustard powder, really depending on how hot you want this, and 2 tablespoons of dark muscovado sugar. Blitz it all together to a fairly fine paste, but still with some texture. If you desired even more pep, add some drops of really viciously hot tabasco.
2)Now, for the chicken. I always feel rather guilty saying I prefer chicken breast, as cooks will often go for the more flavourful brown meat. Although it is true that it has a better flavour, it's not a very good one, and the texture is only more tender if you cook breast meat quickly without a sauce or marinade. For this recipe especially, breast is a perfect smooth and pure canvas for all the flamey flavours of the marinade, and the acidity of it makes the chicken go so succulent. Take 4 breast fillets that are skinless and slash them about three times on the diagonal. Place in a large dish with the marinade and smoosh the chicken in it, which with the searing acidity of the marinade, was not fun for my fingertips. The strength of the marinade makes me go a bit sadistic- I imagine throwing it in the eyes of people annoying me. Leave the chicken to marinate for a good few hours at room temperature or overnight in the fridge. All waffle aside, you could substitute some chicken portions like thigh or drumstick just slashed on the skin if you wanted.
3)To cook it, place each chicken piece in a foil lined tray and coat in the marinade. Cook in a mild 170 degree oven for 30 minutes, then tip out any excess liquid, but keeping some of the grainy marinade on top, sprinkle with salt and bake even hotter at 220 to crisp the top.
4)To prepare the rice and peas, cook an onion in some oil until soft then cook 2 cloves of minced garlic. The ratio of rice to liquid is 1 cup of rice to 2 cups of liquid. In this case, use 1 1/2 cups of vegetable stock and 1/2 cup of coconut milk, including the crumbly mass that collects at the top of the tin. For the peas, beans are actually used because the traditional gungun variety are called pigeon peas. I use a can of drained and rinsed kidney beans, and a very non-traditional addition of frozen soya beans, called Edamame which I get from my favourite shop, Setonaikai. I like them because they have a nice, mild broad-bean flavour, they're very healthy and I've always loved purple and green since The Roly Mole Show. Also, I feel like the soy sauce from the marinade might have wanted a friend traveling all the way from Japan to the Caribbean. They would never be used in an authentic recipe, but you know how much I have a rebellious streak. Rinse a cup of rice by rubbing it between your fingers in a saucepan full of water, then drain in a seive under running water until the water runs clear, then bring everything to the boil, then lower the heat and cook for about 10-15 minutes until dry and cooked, then leave to stand to lose it's stodginess.
5)Serve the chicken on a bed of the rice, and serve with fresh lime and a crisp salad.
*A wee disclaimer, I have exaggerated how hot this dish is. It is very hot, but not hot that it hurts and makes it unpleasant to eat.

Chelsea Buns and Black Forest Palmiers for the lovely cast!

Show week was wonderful! In case any of my performing comrades are reading this, you all made the school production of Beauty and the Beast an absolute joy to show and, according to my family, to watch. I love you all, and can't wait to perform with the rest of you next year, and to those who won't be here next year, you will be thoroughly missed!
The French have a delectable saying, everything in moderation including moderation, and as the rehearsals for the play were often stressful and horribly moderated, I decided to go mega-immoderate for the cast party, and baked over a kilo of flour's worth of Chelsea Buns and (not quite as much) Chocolate Cherry Palmiers which were inspired by a cookbook which I borrowed from Backstage. Well... When I say borrowed, I talked myself into being a rebel and taking it without asking but what really happened was I asked to borrow it and Miss said I could take it because it really wouldn't be missed.
1)Combine 1 kilogram of strong white bread flour with 2 teaspoons of salt then 2 sachets of dried yeast. Make a well in the centre, and pour in 400ml of milk stirred with 120g melted butter and 2 eggs. Normally, it would be better to rub the butter into the flour but there was far too much to do this in time so I just took a shortcut. Stir to form a soft dough and knead in some flour. I kneaded vigorously in two lots to save time and it would be too much work for over a kilo of dough. Coat in grease and rise in a covered bowl for an hour and a half until doubled. Normally, especially for enriched dough, I would do a long cool rise to better the flavour and make the dough easier to handle but I simply didn't have the time.
2)Punch the dough down and roll them both into a rough 30x30cm square (don't go measuring it) and spread with a filling of 60g of melted butter creamed with 30g dark muscovado sugar for each dough square. Fold it over and roll over the folded side back to the square and sprinkle with a mixture of 150g dried mixed fruit that have soaked up the juice of a lemon or orange in the microwave, 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon and ground ginger and the zest of the lemon or orange. Carefully roll it up and start to pull it from either end very gently to make it a bit longer and more even. Using a very sharp knife, cut the log into about 12 buns and lay them cut side up in a well-greased baking tin and leave to rise again for about another 30-60 minutes until the buns are touching.
3)Bake them in a 200 degrees oven for about 25-30 minutes, covering in foil and then removed for the last 10 minutes. Be careful, they won't feel very cooked, they will squidge a lot even though they're done. You'd have to take one out and eat to tell if it's cooked.
4)While still warm and removed frome the oven, drizzle the buns with warmed honey and then leave to cool entirely on a wire rack.
1)The palmiers are an altogether easier affair, but still just as special. Roll some puff pastry, but I used some leftover thawed danish pastry dough, to about a 30x20cm rectangle. You may want to trim the edges to make them more square. Sprinkle with 100g of washed, dried and finely chopped glace cherries and 50g finely chopped dark chocolate and then roll the long end of the dough in half way, and repeat with the other side. Use some beaten egg to secure the centre join. Chill the log in the fridge for about 20 minutes to make it easier to cut.
2)Slice the log into cm thin rounds and then flatten them slightly with your hand before transferring to a lightly greased baking sheet. Sprinkle generously with caster sugar and bake at 200 degrees until golden-brown, about 15 minutes.
3)To serve, I would have dipped them in chocolate halfway, but I only had time to drizzle them with melted chocolate. Leave to harden and serve! This recipe is easily adaptable- use some lovely crunchy demerara or nuts or even go savoury with some herbs and black olives  (but obviously omit the sugar).

Pomegranate, Prune, Lamb and Black Olive Tagine

I'm very OCD about the theory of what goes around comes around, so whenever something bad happens (this tragic day, for example) I look forward to the good thing about to come. Sadly, this often means I feel afraid when something goes right for a change, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it. This theory worked for my tagine, as my mediocre Brownies and various other depressing components of today, made this taste even better.
This tagine is spicy and warming, with an unexpected freshness from the pomegranate. Moroccan food typically blurs the expectation that fruit should be kept for pudding, but this still needs to be kept super savoury; the salty-sour capers and intensely dark saltiness in the form of nice Greek black olives (I don't mind pitted as long as they're proper not plasticky) help that. There are lots of ingredients, which makes me question whether they are all necessary, but I suppose if you took one singer out of a choir they would be missed in the harmony? I dunno. I haven't been able to go to choir since I started astronomy.
1)I didn't have an onion which would be the regular way to start any stew/casserole/tagine so I improvised with some white cabbage. If you're not in such an onion-less predicament, use 1 large white onion, although if you can't face chopping I'm a convert towards frozen ready chopped onions. I finely chopped a quarter of a head of white cabbage and cooked it in some oil when I first made this, after tweaking I found great heat and flavour with a whole jar of harissa paste. After it began to soften, I added the many spices: a teaspoon each of ground coriander, cinnamon, cumin, turmeric and ginger. Cook the spices vigilantly, as they can catch.
2)After the onion goes soft, pour in 1 litre of pomegranate juice, use some of it to clean out the harissa jar and bring to the boil. Pomegranate juice is just to enhance the fruitiness, but you could also use red wine or marsala or diluted port. Never underestimate the cheap, shortcut flavour cooking with alcohol can provide. Also, to further make this Moroccan magic, 2 tbsp sour pomegranate molasses.
3)To the pot, add 150g prunes, the same of black olives, 4 tbsp capers and 2 star anise. After that, add 4 seared lamb leg chops or 700g seared lamb shoulder, neck, breast, shank or any lamb cut that stews well and pour in water until everything is just covered. Simmer until a little reduced and then cover and cook in the oven at 160 degrees for about an hour to make the lamb go really tender.
4)This step is great for getting ahead which I had to do as I won't be at home to cook because of the school production (I'm holding back tears right now) so make this a few days ahead and just leave to sit in the fridge for a few days. It deepens the flavour and lets everything  amalgamate. It also takes the edge off the spice; it's still hot but not quite as raw.
5)To serve, cover some cous cous seasoned with salt and paprika with boiled water and leave to sit for about 5 minutes, before stirring in a generous handful of pomegranate seeds. Save the skins and some seeds to squeeze some fresh juice into the reheated tagine, to bring it back to life before serving.
Note: if you have a real tagine, and I mean the cooking one, after you've seasoned it for its cooking  (this must be done once the tagine is first bought you can cook the tagine over an incredibly low flame or a heat diffuser and then cover with the conical, teepee shaped hat and cook over the flame- it doesn't need to go in the oven with its hat on.

Bad Brownies for a Bad Day

So... My first performance of my school production went badly... Then I had to go back to normal school and have a lesson of hockey in the freezing cold- I hate core PE, I didn't take PE for a reason so I don't want to play PE with all the prodigy poo-heads who seem to think it's the Olympic Trials. After that, I had Geography, which I enjoy on the whole but I sit next to someone who I've had a falling-out with. They came round for when I cooked them that meal and now we both seem to have crossed the stairs at the wrong step. As a result of this ugly day I came home craving baking, and as it's the 1st of December I wanted Christmassy Mincemeat Browies, but right on form, they weren't very good.

Although tasty and more moist than your average sponge, they didn't have the essential gooiness that every brownie should have- if you look at the photo you should be able to see the cakey airation. The Mincemeat flavour was good, but not make-again good.

So to conclude, my brownie-making skills need further refining, and me and my friend may or likely not be at tge poiny where I would want to bake them pizza or crumble.

Roasted Red Vegetable, Spinach'd Cottage Cheese and Mozzarella Lasagne

Beetroot is one of the vegetable section's most underrated members- it has a sweet, musky, root vegetable flavour and it turns everything it touches a lovely deep pink colour. As a result, the tomato and pepper sauce in this has a gorgeous maroon colour. The cheese section also utilises a highly underrated cheese- cottage. It's flavour is similar to Wensleydale, but with a creamy texture. The Mozzarella is just because everyone loves Mozzarella and it goes super stringy and stretchy in the oven.
I have performances for my school production this week so most of my meals had to be made ahead, which is another advantage of Lasagne. Just make it then keep in the fridge until you can pop it in a 180 degrees oven for about an hour.
1)Lightly oil a roasting tin and tumble in 2 chopped red bell peppers, 8 peeled and chopped cooked beetroot (not pickled!) and 2 chopped red onions. Tumble in a few sprigs of thyme and rosemary, about 6 peeled cloves of garlic and 2 bay leaves. Roast at 200 degrees for about 20 minutes, until the edges of the veg start to blacken.
2)Meanwhile, combine 600g of cottage cheese, a handful of torn spinach which jas been wilted in a hot pan, then drained really really hard either between your hands (better method) or over a colander, or you can use a couple of bricks of frozen spinach thawed and drained really hard, and then about 100g of grated parmesan and a head of chopped basil. Stir in a few cloves of minced garlic and the grated zest and juice of a lemon. Season well.
3)Tumble your veg into a saucepan and mash them slightly with the back of your wooden spoon, and stir in a 400g tin of chopped tomatoes, a tablespoon or so of dried oregano, a pinch of brown sugar, a splash of balsamic vinegar, a veg stock pot or cube and plenty of salt and pepper. Simmer for about 5 minutes.
4)To construct your Lasagne, spread half of the tomatoes on the bottom of a large baking dish, and top with half of the cheese and tear some balls of Mozzarella on top. Top with some sheets of Lasagne. Repeat and with the last layer of Lasagne, finish it off with cheese.
5)Bake for about an hour at 180 degrees, and cover with foil if the top is cooking before the rest is done.

Spam Musubi: Don't Knock It Until You've Tried It

Everyone's always too quick to judge Spam- maybe it's the weird aspic coating it congeals in, or just that people like to steer away from canned meats. The main thing you need to know however, is that it's not bad. In fact, it's even pretty delicious: salty, soft, ham-flavoured; so do not just leave it on the shelf!

The thing I'm making today is one of Hawaii's greatest staples- spam Musubi. You can get in any store there and it is great for breakfast, snacks or even a light supper.

I've been in sushi territory before, so I won't go into masses of detail about how to prepare it, just see my sushi post for instructions on rice.

1)Remove your spam from the tin by squeezing the tin and giving it a good shake. Do not throw away the tin! Slice your spam into 1/2 inch slices.

2)Heat some vegetable oil in a frying pan and cook your slices until nice and crispy. Add about a tablespoon each of soy sauce and Mirin until they reduce and caramelise. When cool, sprinkle very lightly with toasted sesame oil.

3)Meanwhile, crack an egg into a saucepan and add a splash of milk, a knob of butter and some freshly ground black pepper and beat and cook until fluffy. Have it more dry than you would for breakfast.

4)Line the spam tin with cling film and fill it about halfway with seasoned sushi rice and press it down well with a wetted finger or the back of a teaspoon. Add a generous layer of egg spread evenly and then a slice of spam. Cover with the same amount of rice and press that down. Carefully remove it from the tin and place your block on a strip of nori cut to the width of the block. Roll it up and leave for a few minutes for the nori to shrink around the sushi before cutting in half and serving with soy sauce, some leftover egg and wasabi.