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.

Lemon Meringue Pie: The King of Desserts

Lemon Meringue Pie is up there with the industrial revolution for British achievements, and the best thing is it's not that hard to make at all, I made it after orchestra at school.
This is mainly Mary Berry's recipe, but with a few personal tweaks I learned to make the perfect Pie.
1)I always do shortcrust pastry in the food processor because it always comes out best and your body heat doesn't warm it to the point it becomes difficult to handle (and no one likes rubbing butter into flour by hand). Blitz 50g of vegetable shortening and 75g of butter (or 125g of butter if vegetable fat isn't for you) into 250g plain flour and 50g icing sugar until it looks like fine breadcrumbs. Blend in one egg yolk and slowly add some water until it comes together. Be careful, before it clumps as one ball of dough it will look like it needs more unnecessary water so use it very sparingly.
 Gently bring the dough together in some clingfilm. Work it any more than that and it will go tough. Rest in the fridge for at least half an hour. Roll it out to the thickness of about half a centimeter, turn it around and flip it over as you roll it so it doesn't start to stick then gently get your hands underneath it and lift it onto a loose-bottomed flan tin. Cut away excess pastry along the edge of the tin and prick it slightly with a fork. Line it with foil and fill it with baking beans, dry rice or dry beans (but baking beans are best). Trim away any excess foil. Bake blind in a 180 degree oven for about 10 minutes then remove the foil and beans and return it to the oven until it dries out and goes golden-brown. About another 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave to cool.
2)Mix the zest and juice of 4 lemons with 90g or approx. 8 tbsp corn flour to a smooth paste, and then pour in 600ml boiling water and stir quickly. Pour it into a pan and leave to cool slightly before whisking in 4 egg yolks, 200g caster sugar and 2 tbsp of double cream. Heat over a low heat for around 5 minutes until it has thickened to a curd. Pour into the pastry shell. If any mixture is left pour it into a jar and have as lemon curd.
3)Now here's the annoying bit- the meringue. You'll have already separated 5 eggs by now so add a teaspoon of cream of tartar or a pinch of salt and whisk to medium peak, so the whites should stay in a shape when you lift the whisk out, but they still flop a bit. Gradually pour 250g of caster sugar to the sides of the bowl and then set it high and whisk the eggs until when you lift it out, it doesn't fall at all. I even risked turning it on my head and it didn't move an inch. Using a spatula or large spoon, spread the Meringue evenly over the lemon curd and use a fork to point up peaks of it to give a nice finish. Cover it all the way so no lemon is showing. You can use a piping bag to look really neat.
4)Bake it in a 180 degrees oven until the Meringue goes brown but still is nice and soft underneath. To serve, leave it to cool a bit before placing it on an upside down bowl, dropping the outer case and transferring it to a plate. Serve warm (not piping hot straight out of the oven mind or cold.) You can make this a day ahead, preferably though just make the lemon curd base and make and spread the merinue on before baking the next day. When you make the whole thing a day ahead the meringue may weep lightly, but it's not the end of the world- and perhaps it's best to deal with the meringue dripping a little for sanity's sake.

• And one last thing, if you have excess pastry and excess lemon curdy filling cut the pastry into little circles and fill with the curd to bake in a mini muffin tin- then you've got lemon curd tarts. And of course if you just have leftover pastry, make jam tarts!

Danish Pastry omg

Everyone loves these; buttery, sweet, flaky, crisp little parcels of deliciousness. I made them for when my Mum got home from the gym, to make her exercise as redundant as possible.
They're not hard to make, but do require a lot of time and repetition. A good idea is to make the dough and freeze half of it to make them easily at a later date.
1)Combine 500g of strong white flour with a teaspoon of salt and rub in (pick up pieces of butter and rub them with the tips of your fimgers gently together with the flour, lifting them high as you do so) until the mixture looks like fine breadcrumbs. Stir in 60g caster sugar and a 7g packet of yeast. Make a well in the centre and pour in 150ml lukewarm milk and 2 beaten eggs.
2)Mix until a dough is formed and knead for about 10 minutes on a floured board until smooth and springy. You will find that it is quite firm.
3)Rise in an oiled bowl covered in cling film for a few hours or overnight in the fridge. Overnight is best for flavour and it firms up so it's easier to roll out.
4)After it's doubled, roll it out on a lightly floured surface (brush off any excess flour afterwards) to roughly a 35cm by 20cm rectangle. Dot bits of 155g of chilled butter over 2/3 of the dough with the clean side closest to you, and fold the clean side over the middle and the top side over the middle. Seal the edges. Roll to the same size again and repeat the butter step with 155g and repeat the folding and seal. Leave it to rest in the fridge for about 15-30 minutes.
5)Repeat step 4 about 4 times, turning the dough 90 degrees each repetition until you can't see the butter and the dough is smooth. At this point I divided the dough in two, froze one half and let the other rest on the fridge for another 15-30 minutes.
6)Divide the dough into 4 and shape as follows: for crescents, roll the dough to a circle and divide into 4. Take each cut and place some filing (see later) on the largest side (don't overfill) and roll it up to a croissant shape. For pinwheels, cut the dough into squares and place a small blob of filling in the middle. Cut into each corner, leaving it connected in the middle and fold alternating corners to get a pinwheel shape. For envelopes, fold opposite corners of a square of dough and place some filling on the fold. Finally, for kites, cut a square of dough and cut an inner square but leave it connected to the outer square. Fold the strips of dough over to the opposite side of the inner square, and fill.
7)I made 2 fillings for these: for cinnamon almond, melt 50g of butter with 50g of brown sugar and stir in about 125g flaked almonds and a teaspoon of ground cinnamon. For Black Forest, chop up 50g glace cherries and 50g good dark chocolate finely, and combine with a small amount of honey, until they just come together.
8)Leave to rise on greased baking sheets for about 20 minutes covered with a tea towel.
8)Bake them with a dabble of egg wash on top in a 200 degrees oven for about 9 minutes, keeping an eye on them to ensure they don't burn, until puffy and golden.
10)For a final finish, drizzle an icing made from 125g icing sugar with a few teaspoons of water and drizzle over in lines with a teaspoon over the pastries.

Spaetzle

German food, I find very underrated, which is probably because it is overshadowed by the nearby France, Austria or Italy, but you mustn't overlook it- give a few recipes like this a try and you will fall in love like I have. It's also very good because it gives my relentless learning of 30 random German words a week for GCSE some meaning ;)
Spaetzle (say shpetsluh) is basically pasta, that just like Italian pasta, doesn't have a lot of flavour of its own, so pair it up with some crispy onions and good Swiss cheese like Emmentaler. There are many ways to make it, but I just pushed it through a colander. If they stick together just declump them after cooking.
1)Combine 150g plain flour with a pinch of salt and freshly ground pepper and nutmeg. Make a well in the centre and pour in 60ml of milk beaten with 2 eggs. Combine to a thick batter until very smooth. Leave to rest for about 10 minutes.
2)After resting, it should have gone very sort of stretchy. Take a spoonful of it and press it through a colander into a large pot of salted water and cook for just about a minute until al dente, or Biss in German.
3)Remove from the water with a slotted spoon and finish in butter and grated cheese and even chopped onion.

I served it with Schnitzel, but before I post that recipe I want to give it some more perfecting, as it was quite bland.

Lamb liver and Spiced Apple Pâté

This Pâté is delicious for a light but still indulgent dinner and is especially good for a Christmas Present. All my friends better get used to gypo homemade presents...
The lamb liver is the only liver I could find, chicken liver would be more traditional. I also took the liberty of throwing in a thin layer of delicious Spiced Apple purée to counter the rich gamey flavour of the Pâté.
1)Fry about 450g of lamb liver in some goose fat (it's basically Christmas so you can cook anything in goose fat) until it's well cooked but still a bit pink in the middle. Transfer to a food processor with a slotted spoon and keep the fat behind.
2)In the fat, fry a chopped onion and 4 crushed cloves of garlic, some chopped rosemary and sage and cook until soft. Add 100g of smoked bacon lardons and cook until the bacon reduces and season well.
3)Put the onion mixture into the processor with 100ml double cream, a splash of Worcestershire sauce and 50g raisins and blend until as smooth as possible. Leave to cool.
4)Cook 4 peeled and chopped dessert apples like Cox with a splash of white wine vinegar, a pinch of muscovado sugar and some ground cloves and cinnamon. Cook until soft. Mash by hand or purée with a hand blender until smooth.
5)Layer the apples in the bottom of some well-washed jars and top with the Pâté. Melt some butter and leave the whites to settle; pour the clear fat on top. Leave to set overnight or a good few hours.

Chocolate-Pear Crumble

This is so rich and so decadent and so delicious, whoever you cook it for will fall in love with you immediately. The secret is to use tinned pears and really good 70% dark chocolate.
1)In a food processor, blend 250g of plain flour, the grated zest of 1 orange to balance the sweetness of the pears and 125g of butter until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs. By hand, rub the butter into the flour with your fingertips, lifting the flour as you go until it looks like breadcrumbs. Stir in 90g caster sugar and 50g flaked almonds and leave aside while you prepare the fruit.
2)At the bottom of a pudding dish, lay 2 drained tins of pears and top with 75g of good 70% dark chocolate chopped fairly finely and 2 tablespoons of caster sugar, the juice of an orange and some lemon to give some zip. Tip on the crumble mixture and sprinkle on some demerara sugar. Bake at 170 degrees for about half an hour until the top is crisp and golden.

Posh Pizza to Look Cool

This meal was remarkably fancy for weekday, but I really like the friend I asked for tea so decided to bump up a little ;)
The dough is the most important element here, so don't change that, but the toppings are totally up to you. You could use regular strong white flour, but the fine stuff makes for a really crispy, light base.
1)Combine 500g of '00' flour or strong white flour with two teaspoons of salt, a teaspoon of sugar and a 7g sachet of fast action yeast.
2)Stir to a dough with 300ml of water and 40ml of good virgin olive oil.
3)For some reason, it is always easier to knead pizza dough than bread, so kneading may only take about 6 minutes until it goes very smooth. Use more olive oil to stop the dough sticking and in case the dough is too wet.
4)Coat in more oil and cover in a cling film-covered bowl for about 1 hour until doubled in size.
5)Punch it down and transfer to a floured surface and divide in two. Flatten each piece of dough to a circle, and roll it out until nice and thin. Keep turning it to ensure it rolls evenly. Transfer it to a LIGHTLY oiled baking sheet and prick it with a fork to keep it thin.
6)For the topping, I spread it lightly with tomato sauce, such that you add to pasta, or you could whizz some plain chopped tomatoes with some seasonings in a blender, and then putting chunks of good dolcelatte ,dried figs that have been soaked until soft and snipped into pieces and strips of prosciutto. On top of that I added a small handful of spinach. In a dry frying pan, toast some pine nuts over a gentle heat and put over the pizza.
7)To bake, it would be great to preheat a baking stone to 180 degrees with the oven, but if not just bake it on the sheet for about 20 minutes until crisp and browned and lifts off the tin easily. I like to add a few more fresh figs on top to provide a contrast and point out the richer flvour of the dried figs underneath.

Baguettes

These aren't traditional, there's no special baking sleeves or sponges, but they are attractive, crusty and tasty. If a slightly rustic messy look is ugly to you, throw your back out keeping the loaves a perfect shape :)
1)Combine 340g sw bread flour, 2 teaspoons of salt, a tablespoon of sugar and 1 and a half teaspoons of fast action yeast. Make sure the yeast and salt don't directly contact.
2)Stir in 240ml of water and a tablespoon of good virgin olive oil until you have a firm but not stiff dough. Knead it for about 10 mins by hand, or 5 in a mixer or machine.
3)Leave it to prove at room temperature for 1-2 hours in an oiled bowl covered with cling film. An alternative that I did was to make it the night before and leave it to prove in the fridge overnight as I don't have enough time after rehearsals to make it. If you leave it overnight you have to keep it in the fridge or it will over prove and lose it's structure. Leaving it overnight gave a noticeably deeper yeasty flavour, so I recommend trying the overnight prove.
4)Turn the dough out and punch it down first with your hands and then with a rolling pin until you have a rough, thin rectangle. Divide the dough into two and ,slowly and gently, with both hands, roll it out into a thin baguette shape. To keep it's shape, give it a slight twist from both ends.
5)Place them on two separate greased baking sheets and cover them with greased cling film. Cooking oil spray has become my new best friend for this process.
6)Leave to prove again for about an hour. This can't be done overnight.
7)Bake in a 190 degrees Celsius oven for about 20 minutes until golden brown and they sound hollow when the base is tapped.

Bouillabaisse

When we had this beautiful French seafood stew/soup it was in the traditional Marseille way. And it was one of the most delicious things I've ever tasted; it was so good I was almost turned from Italian favouritism to French. But the tiramisu making on the same day brought me back to reality. Oh there goes gravity. Oh he's so mad but he...
I didn't dream of deviating from such a classic fancy dish, but one thing I didn't know was who to trust. There was only one book I went with the end. It is perhaps the best that ended up in my many piles of cookbooks I get for Christmas or Birthdays, and it is from my Great Uncle John, who is a fantastic cook with an Italian background. The New Concise Larousse Gastronomique. To begin with, I was put off from it because I was only 11 and it had an intimidating 1300 pages and brick-weight, but having looked at it now with it's encyclopedic detail on French cuisine I knew I needed to make something from it. Bouillabaisse seemed like a great start.
This is fairly easy to do, but it's not fast, it's not cheap and it's not everyday, so choose a good time to make it.
1)In a large, wide casserole dish, place 2 small chopped onions, 1 small peeled chopped carrot, 1 skinned finely chopped beef tomato (to skin tomatoes easily just make a cross on the bottom and put them in a bowl of boiling water), 3 to 4 minced garlic cloves, 1 sprig of fennel or dill, 1 small bunch of parsley, 1 sprig of thyme, a bay leaf and a piece of orange rind. Mix together and add about 800g of mixed fish and shellfish. I used mussels and clams, haddock, plaice and lemon sole and some raw king prawns. If they're not skinned you can do this by using a small serrated knife, holding a piece at the bottom of the fish and sawing very slowly along the bottom of it until the fish lifts off the skin. Do NOT throw any skin or head or tail away, you will need it later. Mix them with the veg with some good virgin olive oil to moisten, some fresh salt and pepper and a good pinch of saffron (see what I mean about not cheap?). Leave it covered in a cool place to marinate for a few hours.
2)In the meantime, use the skin to boil in some fish stock. This stock really makes the final result, so buy as good stock you can.
3)Remove the shellfish and prawns from the pot, and then cover the rest with the stock. Boil rapidly for 7 minutes, before tumbling in the remaining fish for about 3 minutes, until the shellfish open. If they don't open at all bin them, as they are no good.
4)Serve it with all the bay and herbs and orange, as it's too much work and waste to take them out and serve with some delicious fresh French bread.

Rosemary and Parmesan Fougasse

Fougasse is a type of flat bread in the shape of a large tropical leaf from the south of France. You would have thought that my 2 flavours for mine are not very French, but even though Parmesan is obviously Italian, rosemary is a very French herb; it is a key member of Bouguet Garni and Herbes De Provence which flavour every rustic French casserole like Coq Au Vin and Boeuf Bourgignon under the sun.
I would recommend investing a dough scraper to cut the leaf shapes in the bread and to help kneading.
This is quite hard, as the bread doesn't want to be flattened or shaped, so it may end up looking morbid like mine, but the flavour is excellent.
1)Combine 500g sw bread flour in a bowl with 1 tbsp coarse salt, 1 7g sachet of fast action dried yeast (don't let the salt and yeast touch) until well mixed.
2)Stir in 300 ml of lukewarm water and 1 tbsp of good extra virgin olive oil until you have a soft dough. You may need to add more flour or less water or more water to get the right consistency.
3)Tip the dough onto a floured work surface and knead it well until very smooth and elastic. Use the scraper to clean up sticky bits of dough.
4)Leave to prove for a few hours in a covered, oiled bowl. In my freezing house it took about 3 hours to double in size.
5)Tip the risen dough out onto a floured board and punch down the dough. Divide into two and patiently roll them out. Try not to work them too much at this point, because the dough can start to lose it's structure if overworked. When flattened, cut a long slice through the middle, but don't cut through the edges, and pull it out. Cut more patterns either side of the central one until you have a clear leaf shape with big holes. Allow to prove again until doubled in size. The second prove is always shorter.
6)Bake in a hot oven (200 degrees C) until they have a good crust and sound hollow when tapped. Turn them out and cool before serving.

Back-Of-The-Packet Tiramisu

I'm sorry I've been absent for so long! The kitchen's undergoing some work and school's piling up, but alas, this weekend I have done some extravagant cooking and here is the first on the menu.
Tiramisu is one of Italy's finest desserts, and it's not even very old, it is believed that the first tiramisu were created around the mid 1900s.
I got a bit bewildered by the many twists and recipes I looked up for this (Nigella's Frangelico scented version looked very tempting) but in the end, I just went with the instructions on the back of the packet of savoiardi (Italian sponge fingers) courtesy of the great brand Balocco. The instructions did at first, have to be translated from French, before I turned over the packet and saw the English. I used the ratio to reduce the ingredients for the amount of mascarpone I could afford.
1)Whisk 3 egg yolks and 90g caster sugar in a bowl until thickened and pale. Whisk in, gently, 250g of mascarpone and 2 tbsp cream and a teaspoon of really good vanilla extract just to bring out the coffee, until thoroughly incorporated. Then fold in a whipped egg white.
2)To layer up the Tiramisu, spread a third of the cream at the bottom of a pudding dish. Have a bowl of warm good coffee (if you can only do instant use espresso) to hand and dip the sponge fingers in, both sides until they've softened but not lost their shape. Place them on the cream until it's covered, and dollop another third
of cream on and then more sponge fingers. Spread the final third of cream ontop of the fingers and spread it evenly with a spatula and finally, seive some really good cocoa powder on top. Leave in the fridge for at least 2 hours, overnight is best.

My condolences to the people of Paris

I am utterly shocked and heartbroken for the people of Paris who were affected by the horrific terrorist attacks. May everyone who has passed Rest In Peace and my thoughts are with the families suffering the loss.
Whenever I make a French dish, I will think of those who will never be able to taste it again, and those who can in safety and grievance.
RIP ❤

I made a weird French dessert to feel clever

I think the name of this dessert doesn't do the actual look very much justice, however I'm a big believer in- 'emphasising the accent of the food's origin makes you sound like you know what you're talking about'; so when you say the 'Charlotte Royale' in 'Raspberry and Almond Charlotte Royale' really stress the French accent in the 'r's and 'l's.
Given that this was some pretty technical and fiddly French patisserie I was very pleased with how it turned out, which is probably karma from my macarons disaster, so I recommend messing a recipe up horribly before you make this.
The bulk of this recipe comes from Baking Goddess Mary Berry, I just added the almond twist.
1)Slice up 3 small swiss rolls, I audaciously bought mine to save time, but if you made them you could incorporate more almond flavour by adding ground almonds to the batter.
2)Place the 1.5cm slices in a bowl lined well with cling film. Keep some for the top and you need to be prepared to plug any holes between the slices with more cake to stop custard seeping through.
3)To prepare the bavarois, blend 160g of raspberries and pass them through a seive to remove the seeds. Mix 2 tbsp of amaretto into this juice (I don't know if I should be using this given my underage, but I promise I didn't drink any) and set aside. In the meantime soak 9 leaves of gelatin until soft in cold water.
4)Heat 600ml of full milk until just under boiling and stir it very quickly but pour gradually into 8 egg yolks and 100g caster sugar whisked until pale and dissolved. I find the easiest way to separate eggs is to crack them into your hand over your sink and let the egg whites gently fall through your fingers.
5)Drain the gelatin  and dry well and add to the custard and then return it to the pan and heat gently until it coats the back of a spoon. If a few lumps form that's fine, but if it splits entirely, you've heated it too much and will have to start again.
6)Seive the custard and leave it to cool a little before adding the raspberry puree. Leave to cool for at least 30 minutes.
5)Mix in 450ml of  double cream whipped to soft peaks

and another 160g of slightly mushed raspberries.
6)Pour this mixture into the swiss roll bowl and leave the whole thing covered with more cake slices and cling film to set overnight.
7)Turn it out onto a plate very carefully, just ease the cling film slightly to release the suction and then put it on the plate. Peel off the cling film.
8)For a nice finish, melt 75g of sugar in 100ml water, 1 tsp of good almond extract and 25ml amaretto to the boil and add 1 leaf of soaked gelatin and dissolve that in. Leave to cool  and thicken slightly before spooning over the Charlotte and finishing it with flaked almonds. Leave to set for another 20 minutes and serve!
For a simpler take on this, do the whole Swiss roll thing and fill the pudding with softened raspberry ripple ice cream and freeze the thing. To make a similar glaze, just warm amaretto and golden syrup and brush over.

Braised Pork for when you miss Italy

We used to go to Italy every year, and there were a million reasons that it was so good, but obviously the main one was the food.
But now, stuck back in rainy dark England, I crave the warmest, tastiest cuisine and it is this greed that has led to me to capture the delicious deep resonance of a hearty tomato-based casserole from my Uncle's kitchen in Gualdo, right here at home.
1)As always, start with onions. Chop up three roughly, you don't want them very fine and mince about 8 garlic cloves, don't do any less! The easiest way to do this is to press the clove with the side of a knife and peel off the skin when it breaks. Sweat them for about 10 minutes until the onions go soft and translucent.
2)Dice up some carrots and add them to the pan until they soften.
3)Push them to one side of the pan and use the other side to brown 4 pork chops. This cut isn't traditional for braising, better ones would be the uglier varieties like shoulder, knuckle or belly, but as the chops are getting cheaper and grislier, braising them to make the meat tender and tasty seems appropriate.
4)Remove the chops and and this is the part where I get embarrassingly excited because this is where it starts to become a casserole instead of some cooked veg. Add a rich beef stock pot, a splash of balsamic vinegar, some dried or fresh oregano and some brown sugar. Using vinegar and sugar is very traditional in Italian tomato sauce, because it strikes a balance between the tart tomatoes and sweet onions.
5)Pour in 3 cans of chopped tomatoes and another Italian tip is to swill half a can of water between the cans to clean them and use all the tomatoes.
6)Finish it off with a few bay leaves, a drained can of artichoke hearts and your meat, and then put it in a warm pre-heated oven quite low at 150 degrees for a good few hours by which time the chops will be tender and pull away from the grisly rind much easier than if you grilled them. Serve with buttery mashed potato or on its own!

My macarons disaster

This idea came to form because my brother's girlfriend bought back a bottle of violet syrup back from France, and I had an idea to put it in a delicious French dessert recipe, macarons. I love starting posts all biographical- it makes me feel like I have a life.
But it failed.
I followed the recipe, gathered tips but it failed the moment it touched the baking parchment. I have always wanted to try it, but me and fine patisserie don't get on, and we probably never will. I hope if

you ever try to make macarons it goes better for you.

More attempts at French desserts to come tomorrow ;)

Pasta Risottata with Peas and Pancetta

Now once again I have promised easy cooking and end up with another fiddly and difficult dish, but for now I'm going back to the simple with this easy quick meal that I did at 6:30 after my saxophone lesson and was done in half an hour.
Pasta Risottata is sort of a mock Risotto where the creamy sauce is got from the starch in the pasta which would usually just be drained away. The pasta here is a trendy new shape called orzo, which is a small ,believe it or not, rice shaped pasta that unfortunately is usually in the background of soups like minestrone, but here it plays the perfect role as Risotto rice, without any of the waiting around and constant stirring.
This recipe is courtesy of possibly my favourite TV chef, Nigella Lawson, who provided the bulk of this recipe.
1)Cook 200g of pancetta or smoked bacon lardons until they've reduced and given off some fat.
2)In the fat cook a handful of chopped spring onions and 2 cloves of minced garlic. I think the easiest way to mince garlic is to bash it with the side of the knife so the skin can come off without any garlic wasted then crush it through a crusher or fine grater.
3)Stir in 225g of orzo until each grain is coated in fat.
4)Pour in 800ml of hot chicken stock, I like using stock pots.
5)Simmer for 4 minutes, and then add some frozen peas. Everyone gets a bit snobby about frozen vegetables, but arguably they are better than fresh, as all the freshness and nutrients are locked in immediately when they're flash frozen whereas fresh veg has been sitting around on boats for days and lost some flavour and nutrients. Cook for a further 6 minutes until most of the stock has been absorbed. The peas should still be plump and bright, not mushy and discoloured.
6)Stir in a generous knob of butter and some freshly grated parmesan so the Risottata goes nice and glossy.

Fresh Pasta

Yeh... This wasn't easy, but I think it would have been even harder if I didn't have a reliable source and good equipment. I decided to wholeheartedly trust the queen of Italian food writing, Anna Del Conte. She uses the traditional Emilian way of making pasta which uses just flour and eggs, no oil or semolina like more southern recipes ask for. This is her recipe through and through and I followed her method to the letter, apart from the fact that I do leave mine to rest straight after kneading for about 30 minutes to an hour because most recipes do call for this, somehow she manages to achieve perfect texture without it, I blame it on her Italian Kitchen Magic; (apart from that, I obviously haven't posted it word for word because of copyright), and I've also shared some of her best tips on pasta.
You'll be surprised how different it is from shop bought, you can taste the egg a lot more, it has a smoother texture and generally it just tastes more homemade; in the good way. You'll have to try it yourself to see.

• You should invest in a decent pasta machine for this. An expensive electronic one is not necessary, but a good hand roller that is usually around 20 pounds is perfect.
• Use the special Italian '00' flour as regular flour makes a tough, badly textured and difficult to handle pasta.
• The general rule of thumb is about 1 egg to 100g of flour, but absorbency and humidity vary so don't incorporate all the flour at once.
• When rolling and kneading the pasta keep your hands clean and completely dry.
• Although you should keep everywhere well-dusted with flour, don't use too much, just enough to keep it from sticking.
• Use semolina to dust when drying pasta shapes before cooking.
• Try to keep your pasta as square and neat and as possible whilst rolling, if there are any too thin and messy edges, just cut them off.
• Never skip from a roller position, go up in ones gradually and repeat a thickness and dust with flour if it's not smooth.
• Tagliatelle should be rolled to about 7 or 8 thickness, spaghetti about 6, and ravioli or lasagne the finest position.
• Fine pasta shapes like spaghetti are best with oily or creamy sauces with few large chunks. A large exception is puttanesca, a sauce made from olives, anchovies, tomatoes and capers. Shapes like fusilli are also best with oily sauces like pesto. Chunkier sauces like ragu or bolognese should traditionally be served with flat shapes like tagliatelle. Chunky sauces are also good with conchiglie. 
• Don't put too much sauce with the pasta, about a small fist shape of sauce per plate is perfect.
• When cooking the pasta, keep it in well salted water. An Italian saying is to keep it as salty as the sea. Don't use oil ever. Cook it in a large pan where the pasta has a lot of space.
• Obviously, day to day life doesn't have enough time to make your own pasta, but don't think you can substitute homemade fresh with bought fresh. Dried egg-based pasta is the best kind to use day-to-day.
• Pasta that is soft but still a little bite is the perfect cook (al dente, literally, to the tooth)
• Use nice fresh free-range eggs if you can.
• Don't wash the machine by hand, just use a tea towell to brush the flour off.

1)Pour almost all of 300g of '00' flour on a work surface and make a well in the centre with tall but stable sides to hold the eggs.
2)Crack 3 eggs which you may want to beat lightly beforehand and a pinch of salt into the well. Don't worry if some egg leaks, just bring it back to the middle. Beat the eggs in the well and then slowly incorporate the flour.
3)When the eggs and flour have come together, clean your hands and surface. If the dough comes together and there's still excess flour, don't try to mix it in.
4)Knead the dough for about 5-10 minutes until smooth and quite stretchy, but not like bread. Its dough is very similar to short crust pastry.
5)Leave it to rest covered in cling film at room temperature although in the fridge it will last a few days.
6)Tear off chunks of dough about the size of oranges and flatten them so they can fit through the machine's widest setting. Put it through, fold it over in half, turn it and put it through the machine again. Repeat until it comes out smooth; about 6 times. Then, reduce the width one by one, keeping it as neat as possible, don't pull it as it will stretch and it can tear. If it rolls out less smooth, dust it with flour and repeat. Keep the rest of the dough covered with cling film so it doesn't dry out.
7)Hang the rolled out dough on the work surface on a dusted tea towell, with about 1/3 hanging over. Turn them over and swap so all of the dough has been hung off the side at some point. Leave for about 30 minutes until it goes drier and more leathery.
8)Dust each length of dough in semolina (don't use flour as it will go gluey when cooked) and pass through the cutter. If a few strands stick just gently ease them apart. Wrap the strands around your wrist to form a nest. Toss in more semolina.
9)Now you can cook them. Have a big pan of boiling salted water ready and toss the nests in. Cooking times for fresh pasta vary more, time them for about 4 minutes and then keep checking until they're cooked fully.
10)Drain and serve with a nice thick sauce and a light sprinkling of parmesan. Try the pasta on its own first just to taste the different flavour.