Pineapple Upside-Down Cale

This is long, long, LONG, before my generation, but absolutely delicious and pretty. A fantastic finish for such a fresh and different main.

Use pineapple slices in juice for this, as you can use it to loosen the batter instead of milk.

1)Butter a cake tin, make sure it's plain with no spring form or loose base, and dust with granulated sugar, then arrange tinned pineapple slices in the dish, mine took six. Halve some glace cherries, and arrange them cut side up in the pineapple ring holes, and between the gaps.

2)Beat 100g soft unsalted butter with 100g caster sugar until light and fluffy, then beat in 2 eggs and a tsp vanilla extract, one at a time with a teaspoon of flour to stop it curdling, until you reach a smooth batter. Fold in 100g self-raising flour until smooth, then loosen the batter with a bit of the pineapple juice from the tin. The easiest way to do this is with a simple, rubber spatula. 

3)Spread the mixture over the pineapples, and bake in a preheated 180 degree oven for about half an hour until it springs back when touched, and a skewer inserted in it comes out clean.

Breaking Roast Beef Tradition

I, believe it or not, do not always fancy a heavy DSL (delicious Sunday lunch) of roast potatoes, buttered boiled veg with some roast beef. It's very tasty, but lacks a little brightness. As a result, for today's Sunday lunch, I broke from tradition, and did a fairly Italian-inspired roasted creation, with griddled courgette and aubergine and a steamed cabbage, parsley and pine nut salad (please add this to your repertoire!).

As offbeat as the rest of this meal was, I couldn't give up Yorkshire pudding; that fluffy, eggy blandness is just essential. But I do this slightly unorthodox too, you'll see.

I am not doing separate recipes, just as they would all be too sparse separately, and this is the order it is most efficient to do things.

1)Make the Yorkshire Pudding batter so you can let it stand. Crack 4 eggs into a bowl, and whisk in 300ml milk. I've been doing batter this order for ages, on pancake morning I don't want to be whisking eggs into just flour and somehow dissolving the clump of dough on the whisk into milk. It also seems to make everything lighter. Add 250g plain flour, a good scrunch of pepper and salt, and whisk that until smooth. Then loosen the batter with another 300ml milk, and cover with clingfilm and leave to stand for a while.

2)Mix a bunch of rosemary, chopped and two bunches of thyme leaves with a teaspoon of English mustard and coarse salt and pepper, and rub all over your beef joint, scored on the top. Roast at 220 degrees for about 20 minutes, then lower the heat to about 180 and roast for about another hour, but cut into it to see how pink it is, to your liking. Remember it will cook further as it rests.

3)Thinly slice an aubergine and a courgette, I like slicing courgette diagonally to increase the surface area of each slice, and marinate it in some garlic oil, a good squeeze of lemon, and about 2 tsp of dried oregano. As delicious as these two vegetables are, they are quite dim in flavour, so let them soak up this Mediterranean marinade for a long time.

4)Now's a good time to take the beef out and wrap it in foil to rest for a while. 

5)After it's been resting for about half an hour, activity will steeply increase, so be preoared. Bring a pot of water to the boil to steam about a quarter of a head of savoy cabbage, and get the griddle really hot. Set the oven to the highest temperature in can get to, and put some fat in a roasting tin. You can use the beef dripping, but a hard vegetable fat like trex, or coconut oil is better as it has a good flavour and a much higher smoke point, so won't burn or smoke out the kitchen, which is good because griddling yields plenty of smoke, too.

6)Once the griddle is really hot, cook the slices of aubergine and courgette, for about 2 minutes a side, until they go soft but not soggy. Transfer to a plate but don't let them get very cool.

7)Steam the cabbage for about 4 minutes, until tender but not mushy, and arrange on a plate, drizzle with extra virgin olive oil, some torn parsley, and some toasted pine nuts. By toasted, I mean tossed in a dry pan until fragrant and golden.

8)Pour the Yorkshire pudding batter into the hot fat, and quickly shut the door and bake for about 15 minutes. If you've conquered it, it should puff up magnificently.

9)Boil the meat juices, plus any that collected in the foil, with a few knobs of butter and a good glug of marsala and some beef stock. I don't want a thick sauce gravy, so no flour here, just a kind of rich broth, so let this boil for a bit, before transferring into a jug and drizzling over your generous plate of everything.

Halo-Halo Party, Part 5, Leche Flan

This is another Filipino essential classic. The name 'flan' is quite misleading, it's actually a baked custard. A kind of gypo version of creme caramel, with condensed and evaporated milk instead of cream.  Try it, very easy, and very good.

1)Make a caramel by stirring 100g of sugar and 1 tbsp of water, then put it on the heat, and DO NOT stir, swirl the pan gently. Once it comes to the bubble, stick by the pan and observe vigilantly. You will notice that the syrup bubbles less violently, even though it's getting hotter. Once it starts to colour, be quite psychopathic,  and watch it burn from cheap gold to rich, dark amber, then take it off the heat and pour it into a regular cake pan. Before it sets, swirl it up the sides. Do yourself a favour and immediately soak the hot pan you cooked the caramel in or it will crystallise in the pan and you will never bring it back from petrification.

2)Whisk three eggs with a 397g can of condensed milk, and a little less of evaporated milk. Whisk with a flat whisk, not a balloon, if you have one, just until it combines, you don't want to airate it. Pass it through a sieve if tiny lumps are a major concern then pour on top of the caramel tin, in a roasting tin. Fill the roasting tin around the custard with boiling water, about 2.5 cm deep, then bake at 170 degrees for about 45 minutes. If it rises that's not an issue, it will deflate while it cools. 

3)Leave to cool completely before leaving it in the fridge over night, and turn out in the morning. Once the caramel melts again in the oven, it won't set again, so turning out is no difficulty.
4)Since this is the last part of my party series, this is where I explain how to make Halo-Halo. Arrange all the different elements in bowls on the table, and let people make their own.  Start with the beans and fruit, then leche flan, then jelly at the bottom of a sundae glass, then crushed ice, then top with a scoop of ube ice cream, then fill the whole glass with milk. Shovel and mix with a spoon while you eat. Have fun!

Halo-Halo Partly, Part 4, Ube Ice Cream

Right, now it's time to explain what Halo-Halo is: it's Filipino for 'mix-mix' and that's pretty much what you do, and it seems with anything you want. It includes a mixture of sweet red and white beans, coconut jelly, jack fruit and other fruits (I got all this from a raid of an Asian shop and it all came in one jar) plus jelly, Ube ice cream, leche flan, crushed ice (made by crushing bought ice in a food processor where it gives its unbearable, rattling shriek) and my personal addition of a maraschino cherry. Everything then conglomerates with the addition of milk (traditionally canned evaporated milk, but whole milk for me as that's not so disgusting). The most bizarre dessert I have ever made, but really, really good fun.
Ube is sweetened purple yam puree, and despite its deep purple colour, it has a remarkably mild flavour. It's sweet with a light note of almond and vanilla. Utterly delicious. When you make this at home it doesn't give the bright purple colour that you see in Jollibee Halo-Halo, it gives a nice, mild like its flavour light grey/lilac colour.
I bought this processed from a jar, that was concerning in two ways- 1, it had a label saying 'not applicable in the UK' and 2, we had to go and see a neighbour to get it open. Another concern of mine is that, sorrowfully, the best recipe I could find (and I'm sorry to say it escapes me now where I adapted this from- to whoever came up with it thank you) used cup measures, and since I have a cute Russian Doll Set of cup measures, I didn't bother to translate. They are fairly ill-designed though. I need to get one of those pretty silver sets with handles.
1)Combine 1 cup heavy cream, 1 cup whole milk, 1 1/2 cups whole milk, 3/4 cup really good canned coconut milk (Chaokoh if you can find it) and 1/3 cup each of brown and white sugar. Bring them all gently to the boil, then take it off the heat and whisk in 1 tbsp cornflour mixed with a little of the milk. Bring it back up to the heat, don't let it boil, stirring constantly until it thickens. Transfer it to a bowl of ice water and let it cool completely before continuing.
2)If you have an ice cream maker, refrigerate that mixture overnight, if you don't, continue here. Add about 12 oz of your ube, then mix it in with a hand blender or electric whisk, until the mixture thickens slightly and the ube is mixed in as thoroughly as possible. Strain the mixture.
3)If you're using the ice cream maker, mix in the ube, put it back in the fridge to get really cold, then make ice cream to the manufacturer's instructions.
4)If you don't, don't panic. Freeze the mixture, then let it thaw again, and mix it up in the processor until fluffy again, then repeat this a few times.

Halo-Halo Party, Part 3- Coconut Buns

I'm not gonna lie, these were vile. But worth mentioning for the learning opportunity and an excuse to finally buy a bamboo steamer ( although I will buy another from an Asian grocery, as this John Lewis one was bleached and inauthentic). This is Jamie Oliver, and it hasn't put me off him as he's great, but these were stodgy and doughy, likely the fault of my overcrowding. What you do is mix a can of coconut milk and then fill the can twice with self-raising flour (but plain with a teaspoon of baking powder for me) and mix it to a smooth dough, then steam for 10 minutes (I use a Chinese leaf to line each steamer to stop them sticking) until you have nice little dumpling things. Maybe for another time.

Halo-Halo Party, Part 2, Asian Slaw

I see nothing wrong with a crunchy, fresh coleslaw to serve with this. A bit school-dinner-ish true, but given the right Asian kick, this really works here. 

Making it about half an hour before you serve it to let the flavours develop is good, but don't make it much further in advance as it can go soggy.

If you can't find Chinese Leaf, don't worry, a savoy cabbage would work fantastically here too.

1)In a food processor (or by hand if you want a nervous breakdown) grate about three peeled carrots, quarter a head of Chinese leaf, and shred them until they are completely slaughtered.

2)Drain and roughly chop two cans of water chestnuts, and chop up three spring onions, a small bit of peeled ginger, and one deseeded green chilli.

3)Make a light dressing with about three tbsp mayonnaise, a reluctant squirt (half a tsp) of the vicious green wasabi paste, a teaspoon of sesame oil, and the juice of one lime. A little salt may be required. Mix it together and toss the vegetables in it until they are all slicked beautifully. Top with a few sliced chillies if you like.

Halo-Halo Party, Part 1, Hoisin Pulled Pork

I am beginning to look forward to weekends mostly because of inviting friends around and cooking for them. I'm sure I've made this comparison before, but a meal, that gets rave reviews from my friends (say friends rather than 'guests'- the less formal the better) is as thrilling to me as getting full marks in a test- a luxury that has eluded me a lot recently.
Having pulled pork as a main is unoriginal, but since it's so easy and so unfailingly delicious that shouldn't bother you. Believe it or not, I dug out the old slow cooker that I (thinking I was being thrifty but really being gullible) bought at a car boot sale for this, an item I don't trust, especially since I recently made a chilli with it, the kind of dish I assume slow cookers were made for and it was vile- dense and dry and stodgy and over flavoured. Despite this, using it to slow cook a really fatty, tender cut of pork (shoulder here) in a sticky, sweet, Asian sauce really does work here.
This is the first thing you'd make on the day, but various items for the Halo-Halo would be what you'd need to make the night before.
1)Take about 4 pounds (serves 8) of pork shoulder, rind removed, and place it on top of a quick sauce made from a whole jar of hoisin sauce, with about 4 tbsp of schaosing rice wine put in the jar and shaken up. Add about a 4cm piece of ginger, chopped finely (finely enough that no-one will notice if you don't peel it) 4 cloves of garlic finely chopped too, and a large onion, roughly chunked on top of the pork, and toss everything, so it all gets slicked in the sauce.
2)Cook on high for 5 hours, or low for about 8.
3)Remove the pieces of pork (they will have likely broken up into smaller pieces by themselves by now) and use two forks to shred them up into fine shreds, then return it to the pot to keep warm, and re-coat it in the sauce.

Going 'Gastro-pub'- Prawn and Chorizo Linguine

It's difficult to think of a faster meal to produce on a night filled with frantic last-minute revision (biology and statistics controlled assessment, with level 0 preparation) and non-stop listening to 'Scissor Sisters' (2004) because it's the only album you can tolerate all the way through, than pasta. Always delivers, always easy, and always infinitely customisable; well, within reason.
The reason I've called this 'gastro-pub' fare, is because every pub that thinks they've gone all gourmet serves this. It's fair enough to them, the dish makes sense- prawns seem to work perfectly with linguine as they seem to build themselves a lovely nest in the thick pasta, and I infinitely prefer the meatier and more dense linguine over its anaemic cousin, spaghetti. However, I would usually be entirely deterred from cooking with chorizo, as it's so bleeding fashionable at the moment. It's like me making a meal with quinoa: unless it absolutely deserved a place, I certainly wouldn't be cooking with such a 'super food'. But chorizo really does work here, as the sweet, syrupy sauce needs a little chilli, a little bite. A sprinkle of chilli flakes would not be a bad thing either, just go with a light hand.
1)Boil some linguine, about 100g per person in a large pan of salted water, until al dente, about 11-12 minutes.
2)Meantime, fry about 100g thinly sliced chorizo until crispy, and bubble in about 3 tbsp of marsala, although a dry sherry would work too, just remember to cook it down for slightly longer.
3)Add one tin of chopped tomatoes, and swill the can about 1/3 way with water and add that, and a drizzle of balsamic vinegar and a pinch of sugar, to balance the tartness of tomatoes. Also add some bay leaves or a bouquet garni. Reduce for about 5 minutes.
4)Add some frozen RAW prawns, which you really should thaw first, but I won't tell if you won't. Frozen raw prawns aren't cheap, but they are much cheaper than fresh ones which you can't really freeze yourself, and don't even think of using ready cooked ones.
5)Before draining the linguine, take this one tip from me, if it's the only thing you ever take back from reading this rubbish blog. Reserve about 1/2 a cup of pasta water and add it to the the sauce, because the starch brings the sauce together, instead of being the bitty, watery mess it was before. A knob of butter helps a lot too. Toss the linguine in, and fork it through, taking all the time it needs. Leave to stand for a few minutes before topping with parsley and freshly grated parmesan.

Freezer Scavenge Berry Crumble

Being an Englishman, I have to have an awful lot of crumble recipes under my belt, and everyone has a little tip to make them better. This particular variation uses those immensely sour frozen mixed berries, and a very light, crunchy topping made even better with my newly-devised scientific strategy- quite often, crumble topping can be very sandy and claggy, and there are lots of ways to counter this, one being to make the topping by hand, not in a processor, and my new method is to add a tsp baking powder, and making the topping a bit clumpier with a splash of vinegar in water. The reaction of baking powder and vinegar makes it lighter, cruncher, crumblier, and somehow melts in your mouth to give a creamy texture. I make a crumble topping when I have a free moment to spare, say in the morning, and stash them in the freezer to make a crumble in a hurry. The fruits beneath are one of my favourites, given my porchant for tangy berries, and they give a lovely pool of glossy fruit juice that mixes divinely with custard. For a regular, everyday crumble, I recommend this over my chocolate pear version, but that one is still delicious, but I will have to apply this scientific topping to it.
1)Mix 150g plain flour, a pinch of salt and a tsp baking powder in a bowl, and cube in 75g soft unsalted butter; people say it should be ice cold, but it's an easier job and makes a more shortbread like crumble to have it soft. Rub it in, by lightly pressing the butter between the pads of your fingers, fluttering your fingers in a camp fashion as you do so. Stir in a handful of porridge oats, and a handful of demerara sugar, then quickly stir in a small tsp of water and white vinegar, giving it a gentle mix until you get a crumbly, dry dough.
2)Fill a pudding dish almost to the top with frozen berries, and stir in about 50g ground almonds and lots of vanilla sugar, as these berries are tart. Top with the crumble and bake at 180 degrees for 30 minutes, until very golden brown.

Lazy Dauphinoise Potatoes, or scalloped potatoes

This is a nice alternative to roast potatoes or mash for a traditional Sunday Lunch, or to accompany any midweek meat and two veg meal. I find it easier and more rewarding than boiling potatoes for a mash,  and that is simply because I take the revolutionary step of not peeling potatoes. It is because of this that I recommend using my favourite potato, red skin as the skin has a lighter flavour and more tender texture, not all dusty and chewy like regular potatoes. Cleaned and shiny baking potatoes or King Edward work well too. Just thinly slice them, boil them (in milk and vermouth and a touch of cream but nothing rich and heavy) and toss them into a pan to bake in the oven. It's not really dauphinoise, (Although it does fit the definion kf scalloped potatoes, and it's a charming name) as the whole objective of that dish is to slice the peeled potatoes translucently thin so they absorb the cream and milk and bake to form something you can cut and serve like lasagne. You'd need either machinery or ninja knife skills to produce it, and thus I recommend bypassing that extra effort and making this.
1)Slice 6 potatoes (I love red skin) fairly thinly, but not as thin as a true Dauphinoise, and gently poach in 300ml full-fat milk, with some ground pepper, salt, nutmeg, a pinch of mustard powder, 300ml cream to add thickness, but not a lot, and a glass of white wine, or just use half the amount of vermouth like I did, as I didn't have a bottle of white to open. Onion goes well here too, thinly slice 1 or 2 peeled white onions and cook them with the potatoes.
2)When they're slightly soft, but not crumbly, transfer to a large buttered dish.
3)Bake at 200 degrees for 30 minutes.

Passion Fruit and Ginger Eton Mess

The flavours and dash of booze in here make it not very childish, but I called it 'historically childish' as it is believed that Eton mess was invented by Eton school boys, who mashed up their neat little meringue nests filled with strawberries and cream to a mushy delight, much more delicious than the formal original.
Whatever, this tastes fab.
1)Whisk up about 400ml double cream with 1 tbsp icing sugar, two balls of finely chopped stem ginger in syrup, some splashes of trashy ginger wine to taste (or up the stem ginger and use brandy, rum or sweet sherry, or nothing at all, whatever you like), the seeds and juice of three passion fruit and whisk it until softly thick. I'm not athletic at all, and this thickened without strain by hand. Fold in about 6 crushed meringue nests, then serve in little bowls topped with more crushed meringue and passion fruit. I wish you were able to see the vibrant orange/yellow of this, and taste it through the picture, but my camera is terrible.

My Childish Cooking Saturday

I know I've been saying this a lot recently, and it's a lame excuse for my tumbleweed absence, but this week has been frantic and exhausting. It was my pantomime for GCSE drama, which considering it was an entire show made by an intimate group of 12, was particularly stressful and emotionally and physically draining. All was worth it however, for hearing the reaction from the crowd of me prancing on stage in a fairy costume.
As a result of this, my meals this week have consisted of chip shop's finest; delicious and effective, but I've been pouring my soul (the only time it comes out to play) into preparing food for so long now, my being craves it when it hasn't been satisfied.
Sometimes, it can be immensely relaxing to give up one's constant quest of acting grown up, and regress to being younger and less restricted. I'm too young for nostalgia, and even when I do come of age for it, I will know that our memories are all a bit of a lie, but a lie only as big as the one that tells us that we've emotionally matured. This was all too apparent today, so I decided to cook a meal of chicken nuggets, mouldy guts potatoes inspired by a joyous Halloween recipe ala Lawson and the historically childish dessert of Eton mess. Don't get me wrong, I know how obnoxious it sounds when someone too youthful goes all 'my life used to be so much easier', but I would only serve this in the right mood, and to people who share my occasional appreciation for the juvenile.
1)Start with the chicken nuggets that need a good marinade- I use my buttermilk marinade recipe, a very Southern America vibe, with two tubs of buttermilk, 1 tsp each paprika, thyme, pepper, salt and mustard, plus a few crushed garlic cloves and a squeezed lemon. Smoosh 4 chicken breasts cut into chunks and leave to marinade for a few hours, or overnight. This can be varied very easily- use whatever herbs and spices you like or you can forgo all of them and go very heavy on just English mustard, and if you don't have buttermilk, you can use regular milk but just use another lemon to get the milk really soured. While they marinate, put some potatoes to bake in a hot oven. Baking potatoes are traditional, but I love red skin ones. To bake them faster, pierce them morbidly through their middle with a metal skewer, which heats them up from the inside and bake them for about 40 minutes.
2)Coat the chicken in some breadcrumbs. Japanese panko are undeniably the best, just toss in some salt, pepper, grated parmesan haphazardly and roughly toss the chicken pieces until coated. Make your own breadcrumbs by using some good stale bread or flatbread staled yourself in a very low oven and chucking them in the processor or use a new idea I've acquired and toss the pieces in some good quality savoury cheese for crackers either chucked in the processor or the more satisfying option of beating them to death in a freezer bag. At this point, the potatoes should be cooked, so take them out to be disembowelled, and throw the chicken in on a tray with them. Alternatively, fry the chicken in small batches in very hot vegetable oil for just a few minutes.
3)Cut each potato in half, and scoop out the flesh leaving the skin, and place it in a bowl , and add some cheap and cheerful mozzarella and a few tablespoons of very good quality (brutally so, the more you spend, the better the taste with this I'm afraid) jarred pesto. Mash it together, and then, (this is my fussy eater moment) swirl, not stir wholly, a few tablespoons of ketchup, mustard or tomato puree diluted slightly in. Refill the skins, add another squirt of blood or a streak of pus (ketchup and mustard respectively) and bake them in the oven until the mozzarella goes so elastic and gooey. Go for plastic, cheap mozzarella here, good buffalo stuff would be too runny and you want that big long elastic band of goo to ooze from each potato.
4)I served this with a simple romaine salad, which I lazily made by tearing up some romaine lettuce, chucking it on a plate with some parsley leaves and chopped spring onions, then dressing it there and then, heeding to the Italian saying of using a generous person to add the oil (rapeseed here), a wise person to add the salt, a stingy person to add the vinegar which was the fabulous white wine variety  (my most fitting job), and a patient soul to toss it.

Cornish Clotted Cream Cake

Me and cake baking took a bit of a hiatus. I got frustrated with the perfect icing of the recipe's compared to my hideous job, and I didn't like following recipes. I learned very soon, however, that you cannot fiddle with a cake recipe. I didn't like not thinking for myself and being told what to do- it's the inner rebel inside me.
As a result, I took a slow, steady approach to rekindling our relationship (I used to make lovely cakes) and followed a recipe, but it's not an orthodox recipe, a low-key British classic that's not as obvious as a Victoria Sponge. The answer was found in a book I usually wholeheartedly distrust, The Great British Bake Off Book; I like the pair of Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry, you can always trust Mary Berry's cakes,  which was proven right here, but Hollywood's revolutionary bread baking strategies probably only work for him.
Now, my opinions of the cake- appearance wise, it's not perfect, having a crumbed edge and speckled top, which is obviously not the fault of the recipe, but I feel this is one of those wonderful cakes that looks more beautiful imperfectly, with a natural homemade look than a garish towering cake, loaded with make up. It sounds like a tiresome feminist point of view, but it's what I think. Something like a red velvet cake requires the pure white frosting for colour contrast against the deep red, but for this cake,  I saw no reason to obstruct the golden sponginess. Taste wise, the clotted cream didn't add anything to the taste- vanilla was the main flavour here, I think it's the texture it adds to. The crumb was tender and moist because of the cream, not dry as I feared. It was also very easy to make, even I had no trouble. For an everyday but still special, good English cake, this scored highly.
1)Preheat the oven to about 180 degrees, but this may need adjusting as ovens cook things on very different wavelengths. Grease a large deep, regular cake tin with butter or margarine, then cut out a cincle of greaseproof paper the same size as the basement of the tin, press it smoothly into the tin and grease that too. It's not only hard to but greasing up the sides increases the difficulty of turning it out cleanly.
2)Whisk up two large eggs with 225g of caster sugar and a teaspoon of vanilla bean paste- you could use extract but I love the black flecks. It's very important to have the eggs at room temperature, having them cold is a big no for baking. Whisk them for a good while on high speed until thick, pale and moussey. An obvious trail should come out of the batter that leaves a few seconds before melting into the mix when you lift the whisks off.
3)Put the mixer on the lowest speed so you don't knock out the air, and whisk in 225g clotted cream. There's no pulling the wool over anyone's eyes here, just like a glass of wine in a stew, the quality of the cream shows in the cake. Fortunately, here in England, our scones are so important we would be embarrassed to sell poor quality stuff. Lumps of the butter will be in the batter, but that's not a problem. Sieve in 200g plain flour, 2 tsp baking powder and a pinch of salt. The recipe called for self-raising flour, but I cannot tell you how much better it is to stock just plain flour and add your own raising agent. You can't make a sauce with rising flour, s/r flour loses its power easily, and for many recipes, you don't want that amount of rising power, for say brownies, you only need a tiny lift. In my book, plain and powder is a winner.
4)Using a rubber spatula, gently but thoroughly fold everything together. For me, the mixture was too thick, so I added a tbsp of milk to loosen the mix. After there are no lumps of flour left, pour the batter in the prepared tin and bake for about 50 minutes, but start checking after 30. You may need to turn the heat down  if the cake is browning too quickly.
5)A final flourish is a little light cream. Use creme fraiche or natural yoghurt, add a little vanilla bean paste and some syrup or icing sugar and dollop generously on the cake. This is not necessary however, the cake's moistness can hold its own.

My Mac and Cheese

It seems nowadays, that a TV chef can't earn their stripes until they come up with a perfect, glammed up version of macaroni cheese. It's as though they think we've never thought of putting onion and bacon in it? As a result, I haven't given this an ostentatious name like 'ultimate', I've just decided to call it my recipe, because this how I like to do it and it's an everyday regular here. Mac and cheese needs no more complication.

1)Put the macaroni on to cook. You want about 75g per person. Use a very large pan of water, brought to the boil before you salt it, and salt it generously like all good Italian pasta is. Make sure you stir the macaroni regularly whilst you cook it for 8-10 minutes, until al dente, although of course when baked in a cheese sauce they won't keep that texture. Before you drain it, remove about half a cup of starchy water for later.

2)Fry about 50g pancetta cubes or just chopped bacon with 3 chopped spring onions until cooked. Leave to cool.

3)Begin the white sauce. It's a tedious but essential job to cook a great white sauce, and this is how I do it. Set a pan of about 1 1/2 pints of full fat milk, though you may need more later to heat so the sauce cooks faster later. To furtger infuse the taste, add a wedge of parmesan left over and stashed in the freezer once disembowelled of all its contents and some grated nutmeg or a blade of mace. Meanwhile, in a different pan, plonk about 75g or so (you don't need to be accurate here, just add different amounts until it has the right consistency) of butter in a pan. Add some flour a tbsp at a time, plus a teaspoon of English mustard powder to bring out the cheese, and mix it in, scraping around the corners until you have a fairly thin ointment, about American pancake battery thickness if that makes you any the wiser. Cook this mixture whilst keeping it moving, for a few minutes, before gradually adding the hot milk off the heat. It's very boring, but you have to add only a bit of milk at a time, stirring it in well each time. Once the consistency is much less thickened, about the consistency of a thin cake batter, you can add the rest of the milk and whisk it in. About 1 1/2 pints of milk should do it, but all you really need to look out for is that at this stage, it should be the consistency only a tiny bit thicker than the milk itself. Grate in plenty more nutmeg, and a good pinch of white pepper. Of course you can use black, but white pepper is better for sauces. Bring this to the boil very slowly so you cook off the flour and it goes smooth, and somehow more tender, stirring the whole time, and just before it boils the sauce will suddenly thicken. That's the annoying last-minuteness of sauces. With the heated milk I find this takes about 2-3 minutes.

4)To make a cheese sauce to cover veg or serve with fish, you would just use a handful or so of good strong cheddar so it's not as thick as this, but here, the key is using a variety of different cheeses in large quantities. I know it's not thrifty, but I usually use about 4 types: cheddar, mozzarella, brie and parmesan, being the essential here. I love a good blue cheese like dolcelatte, and I often use it here but it does give the sauce and ugly grey/green colour. Grate them all well, and if you're using a soft one like brie and mozzarella just chop them up, leaving the rind on the brie. There should he about 500g maybe of cheese altogether. Take the sauce off the heat, and mix in the cheeses until they melt. If you would like some extra bite, add some hot sauce and add some pickled jalapenos to the pancetta. And if you're going for peppy Mexico mac and cheese, consider including grated spicy Mexican cheese.

5)Mix everything together, plus the pasta cooking water you reserved earlier and place in a baking dish. Then give it a gratin with some breadcrumbs, or when I was younger I often used crushed bags of savoury crisps, and grated cheese. If you were wondering why my breadcrumbs are so orange, that's because of an abandoned recipe of Cheetos Schnitzel and I keep the leftover unnaturally orange in the freezer. Bake for about 30 minutes and serve with a light fresh salad.

Delicious Cottage Pie with hash Browns

We Brits don't do everything perfect, but one thing we can do are delicious comfort food meals. Toad in the hole, Roast beef with Yorkshire puddings, but today, I've gone with a delicious cottage pie.

There is nothing innovative about this recipe, at all, it's probably the way most of the country makes it. But that doesn't make it any less special. A fact (well I'm not sure about fact but theory) is that shepherd's pie obviously uses lamb because shepherds look after sheep, but cottage pie doesn't refer to the meat, which is usually beef, but the potatoes on the top which are sliced, boiled potatoes which makes it look like the roof of an old cottage. I can't be bothered to peel and slice a load of potatoes, so I used layered, frozen hash browns. 

You will notice that I have been very lax about the measurements in this recipe, and that's on purpose- cooking should be relaxed itself, you can compromise many ingredients, you could use ketchup or another sauce, different herbs, you don't have to use chopped tomatoes, you could keep it as just a gravy sauce, and you should never follow a recipe's seasoning and not adjust to taste (they don't know how salty you want it!); the exercise of cooking shouldn't be simply following a recipe to the letter, it should be about experimenting and learning the way you want to do things. Who am I to tell you to buy carrots if you don't have any in the house? You can really use whatever veg or flavours you want in this. The point at which this casual method becomes hard is in baking, where you have to be accurate, and if the sauce becomes too wet. If you add too much water or stock, and it becomes too runny, just simmer it with the lid off for longer, so it can reduce and get thicker. Another thickener can be cooking the mince with a few tablespoons of flour, but I personally don't like doing this much.

1)Chop up two large onions, peel and chop a few carrots and chop a few celery sticks and saute it all in a tbsp or so of oil with plenty of garlic. Let it really sweat down for about 10-20 minutes until everything is really really soft. After about 5 minutes, add some chopped chestnut mushrooms, just because I had them in the house. 

2)Whilst you cook the veg, brown a pack of beef mince, until fully cooked. You could also add some bacon lardons here, but my greatest tip of all time, one which I got from school cooking lessons, is to buy liver (lamb's is the best), it's dirt cheap, chop it really finely and cook it with the mince. It adds a meaty flavour and extra iron, and makes a small amount of mince go very far. You can do this with a ragu or lasagne or anything with mince. I read to add some anchovies here and let them melt into meat, but I tried that today and I don't think it made a difference. 

3)To your veg, season it well with salt and pepper, add about 2 tbsp tomato puree, Worcestershire sauce, a few tablespoons, dried herbs (I use thyme as it's lovely) a few rich beef stock pots or cubes, 2 cans of chopped tomatoes, swilling out the can with some water, and red wine. I love cooking with alcohol- it adds fantastic depth to a dish, but there are a few rules. You can't just keep white or red wine open to cook with, so what I do is freeze bags of the dregs in people's glasses or the last of the wine in the bottle no-one finishes which freezes like a slushie, but if you don't have that, you can keep a bottle of white vermouth open for white wine (dilute it slightly as it's more potent than wine) or marsala  (use the dry stuff) which doesn't have to be cooked down for as long for red wine. Really cook red wine down for a long time, then it goes into a magical flavour for the sauce. You could even use stout.

4)Simmer your sauce with the mince for a good hour, longer is better, over low heat, then take the lid off and cook it for another 10 minutes to let it reduce.
5)Pour the sauce into a large baking dish, and top with frozen hash browns, some grated cheese and bake at 180 degrees for about half an hour, you're really looking to get the hash browns fully cooked and piping hot. Serve right away, or leave it uncooked for the next day, it tastes a lot better.

Cinnamon Calamari

I was quite disappointed with the fact that the title reads alliteration, but it doesn't when you say it. However, the fact that this meal tastes fabulous as a starter, or in my case today, a VERY light main (almost embarrassingly so for the 4 of us), makes up for it.
I added a pinch of cinnamon to the semolina and cornflour coating, and it does add a lovely depth. It doesn't hit you over the head with it, just warms the end of the palette. Most recipes call for a batter coating, but that's unnecessary work and mess, just a light coating of seasoned cornflour and crunchy semolina do it for me. Do yourself a favour also by getting baby squid- they're so much more easy to prepare and don't have quite a strong fishy flavour and stay gorgeously tender after their brief cooking. If you have daunting memories of calamari with the texture of chewing gum, this is the one to go for.
1)Warm about 250ml flavourless vegetable oil in a large frying pan. I don't go for full on deep-fat frying; today I was pretty far down the tired scale so a hefty pan of spluttering oil that takes ages to come to temperature, no. A shallow amount of oil is just fine.
2)Chop your baby squid into about cm rings, and just squeeze the tentacles out.
3)Combine about 50g of semolina (polenta would work well here too) with 50g cornflour plus a teaspoon of cinnamon,  1/2 teaspoon paprika and a pinch of salt. Combine them then coat the squid in it.
4)Your oil is ready when a cube of bread dropped in goes brown in under 20 seconds, but it shouldn't burn. Drop the squid in in small batches, recipes will often say a minute each side, but I was confident with these little pieces being cooked in 30 seconds without turning at all. Turn them out, salt more to taste and blot the excess oil with kitchen paper.
5)Prepare a quick garlic mayonnaise by very simply combining 100g mayonnaise (or use half mayo half creme fraiche or sour cream) with about 1 clove of crushed garlic. You don't need much more due to raw garlic's fire. A rule in dipiping sauces is to stir in one bowl and serve in another. It makes a big difference. Dust with a little more cinnamon and serve with the calamari and a few pieces of orange. Much nicer than fresh lemon. Add a gherkin and you're set for the perfect meal.

Peanut butter and maple coleslaw with crispy bacon

Yeh I don't have a clue about Canadian food, all I do know is that maple syrup is a Canadian icon, and after binge-watching buzzfeed, I know that our ham-like bacon in England is known as Canadian bacon over there. Any excuse to give coleslaw an alliterating, funky name.
Coleslaw is something I'd so much prefer to make than some steamed vegetables. It seems so much less tiring and more fun to prepare veg to grate in the food processor raw than chop them up and just put them over boiling water. I also say it's healthier, but I rather cancel that out with the rich dressing and bacon.
If you don't have a food processor this will be a lot more work but it's certainly worth it. If you do have one, I hope you feel the same slight fright but mega satisfaction of shoving vegetables into the processor and watching them be completely massacred. The reason I find it scary is that once, ages ago, I made a coleslaw and used a knife to push the veg through, but the tip of it snapped off and I never found it in the pile of obliterated greenery.
Which is what I would have left this post at if I hadn't discovered, nearly 4 months later, how well peanut butter goes in the dressing. Seems to add to the ever-vaguer Canada/America theme. I use Reese's which is so delicious I buy it off the Internet in larger, and cheaper quantities in shops. Use whatever brand you like, but I do feel it should be smooth.
1)The amount of veg is really up to you, as is what type of veg you use, although cabbage and carrots are musts really. I use about half a head of sweetheart cabbage rather than a white one, just because I prefer the taste but any except red really would be fine, plus 3 large peeled carrots or 4 small and 3 sticks of celery, all finely grated in the processor. I also chop up about 3 spring onions finely- if you use onion I would really recommend a red one or spring one as a raw white one is far too strong.
2)Chop about 6-7 rashers of bacon into bits- I do this irresponsibly with a mezzaluna (moon shaped cutting tool) and throw them into an oiled pan and let them get really crispy.
3)Prepare the dressing- dressing is one of those things where there's not much point in giving measurements, as you taste it and add different amounts if you feel it needs it, but as a guide, use about 5 heaped tbsp mayonnaise, 1 of maple syrup, 1 of cider or white wine vinegar, 2 of smooth peanut butter a pinch of salt, the bacon fat, and some pepper. Mix it all together, taste if you want more vinegar or salt or syrup, and toss it into the salad, getting all the vegetables nicely slicked. You may not need all the dressing, because you don't want them to be too bogged down with dressing, you want the crunch and taste of the vegetables too.

Smoky American Marinade

Marinating did prove a very good strategy to get ahead when you don't want to do much more than throw something in an oven after school. Although I still really want to cook when I get home, some after school GCSE or music thing really saps a lot of my energy. And I have to go back to that exhausting routine tomorrow, although I am grateful for being busy. After all the jobs are done, I do want to gently potter around the kitchen marinating some meat, and it gets so much flavour and tenderising into it, with no work.
In this recipe, I tried to evoke the feeling of a good, North American smoky barbecue, although I've never experienced one. The marinade would really work with anything, ribs, chicken drumsticks, I used pork belly today, and the only thing you need to do is get them smooshed in the marinade, leave them overnight, give them a blast for 10 minutes in a really hot oven, the hottest it can go, then reduce the heat to about 170 and leave them until they're cooked. You could add some brown sugar to the remaining marinade and baste it on the minute for the last 10 minutes to make them really sticky, but my pork belly today was charred and caramelly enough.
1)All I'm going to tell you do to now is throw some ingredients together; I know they look pretty random, but there is an underlying theme here- all of these ingredients have a lovely, smoky flavour. Combine 4 tbsp of dark rum with the juice of two lemons, throwing the husks in too, then add 4 tablespoons of maple syrup, 2 tsp cumin, and another 2 of  ground coriander as they always have to go together, 2 more of smoked paprika, 4 tbsp soy sauce plus 1 dark soy sauce and coarse black pepper, and a crumbled cinnamon stick. Place the meat in the marinade and leave it overnight.

Perfect Potato Wedges

Now, I hate it when TV chefs try to reinvent favourites and claim they've come up with the ultimate way to do it (Heston Blumenthal mince pies anyone?). Although it may not be the case in a restaurant kitchen, at home, the way the family makes and eats it is the way that works for them, so chefs intrusively stating that you've been doing it wrong all this time, is quite invasive and rude. Therefore, although I've mislead you with the title, this is not perfection if you prefer the way you might do wedges, I'm just saying the crispiness and flavour of these wedges, the method of which my neighbour gave me (admittedly I haven't mastered it as well as she has) is delicious and the way I will always do them in the future.
1)Chop about 3 large potatoes per person (scrub them if they have soil and chop of any sprouts) into wedges, then pat dry them really well with a paper towel.
2)Place them in a bowl and add a generous amount of pepper, salt (sea salt flakes are best) and paprika and a very stingy drizzle of olive oil, you just want to gently slick them.
3)In a large, shallow baking dish drizzle some more olive oil, and place it in a hot oven- 220 for a few minutes, then take it out, tip the potatoes in making sure they have plenty of space apart (you may need to use 2 trays) then place them back in the oven for 20-30 minutes.

Buttermilk Marinated Chicken

Somehow, just the name of this dish feels comforting to me. Two very homely, somehow old-fashioned words butter and milk and then of course the family favourite of chicken, make this a very warming, hearty meal. However, one less comforting thing is that buttermilk itself is fairly outdated, so is a little expensive, but should be in most supermarkets. If you can't get it, just thin out some natural yoghurt with milk.
Marinating is something I wouldn't usually do- it seems a bit pointless and I'm a huge last-minute-larry, but given how tender and flavoursome today's chicken was and how easy the meal therefore became, I've decided to integrate it into my everyday repertoire.
1)In a large dish, combine about 750g buttermilk with 1 tsp paprika, 1 tsp dried thyme (you could use any dried herb you want) a good tbsp salt and coarse pepper, 1 tsp dijon mustard, 1 tbsp vegetable oil, the juice of 1 lemon, and throw the husk in afterwards and 4 peeled garlic cloves, broken by crushing them with the side of the knife and pressing with the heel of the hand. Coat and smoosh 12 chicken pieces- I recommend skin on, bone in chicken thighs and drumsticks, although you could spatchcock a whole chicken. Let it marinade overnight in the fridge.
2)Take the chicken pieces out, and place them in an oiled roasting tin. Throw the pieces of garlic in with them.
3)Roast them at 220 first, for about 10 minutes, then slowly roast them at 180 for about 40 minutes. Remove excess liquid with a turkey baster or by tipping out into the sink periodically whilst they're baking. To check if they're cooked through pierce the biggest thigh with a skewer and the juices should run off clear.

Deep fried Halloumi on an Asian dressed salad

I wanted to leave 2015 on a culinary bang, so I invested my mind on a feast of Halloumi,  cocktail sausages, all sorts.
But then I lost my money.
So instead I had to use the £2.44 left on my card to try and get a feast, so had to be especially thrifty with some reduced veg and some greens left in the bottom of people's fridges.
Here's what I came up with.
1)Finely slice some beetroot into rounds- I used a food processor which scares me a little,  partly because the beetroot makes it look like you've shoved someone's hand in the machine, and once I broke a knife in it and never found the tip in the pile of grated veg, but nevertheless it did slice the beetroot perfectly. Do the same with some carrots, but use a vegetable peeler. Coat the vegetables (in separate bowls) in about a cup of rice vinegar, half a cup of sugar, quarter of a cup of light soy sauce and some lemon zest strips and a few star anise. Leave to pickle for a few hours, or overnight.
2)Prepare a bed of greens, like watercress, lettuce or preferably something with some bite like chicory and celery. That's what I could find anyway. Layer on your beetroot and carrot, to get nice layers of colour.
3)Prepare the dressing, but remember to only dress it until the last minute. Mix together about 4 tbsp of regular groundnut oil, a tablespoon or so of rice vinegar, the same of light soy sauce, and a rounded teaspoon  of gochuchang, the Korean chilli paste which has been etching to be used again. Any chilli form will do though.
4)Prepare a sort of production line of flour, beaten egg and panko, although you could use regular breadcrumbs but panko do give a lovely crisp and light coating. Coat slices of Halloumi in flour, then egg and then panko, then a large pan of heated regular vegetable oil, and fry them for just a few seconds each side, until they go nice and golden. Dry in kitchen paper before placing them on their bed of dressed salad. If you preferred or don't have enough time, just use plain, ungreased griddled halloumi.