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October 5, 2006

Filed under: Uncategorized — ros @ 1:03 pm

truffles

Aren’t they pretty? It’s all Garrett’s fault that I bought them. I went to buy some to look up the ingredients for him and then they were on a 3 for 2 offer. It would be rude NOT to buy them!

This collection of chocolates comes from Hotel Chocolat. There were three packs: rose petal truffles (light pink),  kir royal truffles (dark pink) and a selection of random alchoholic ones. In the end I decided I could take or leave the kir royal ones but the others are AMAZING!

Hotel Chocolat has branches all around England. If you happen to pass one, go in and try. You won’t be disappointed. Even if you don’t try, go in anyway, look around and drool at the beautifully designed goodies. Everything in there is so pretty! 

October 4, 2006

Filed under: Uncategorized — ros @ 4:26 pm

Inviting all food bloggers 

Lea at Copperpots has tagged me to join this rather interesting project started by Angelika in Vienna. It asks this question.

WHICH MENU WOULD YOU SERVE BLOGGING FRIENDS FOR A WELCOME DINNER UPON THEIR FIRST VISIT TO YOUR HOME ?

This is a bit of a tough one for me since I hardly ever need to do more than one course. Dinner parties aren’t really commonplace amongst London students. In particular, I don’t generally make dessert, but there is one I made for a Valentine’s day meal many years ago that I kept doing again and again.

So here is my menu. I’ve made it quite autumnal since it’s getting pretty god-damn cold out there, but I never really stick to using local seasonal produce. The things at Borough Market are a bit too exciting for that. This is a mix of things I’ve done before and things I’d like to do. Of course, offal and alternative meat have made an appearance.

A Warming Menu for my Food Blogging Friends

Oxtail Consomme 
*
Chicken Liver and Brandy Pate with Apple Chutney and Melba Toast 
*
Rare Fillet of Kangaroo with a Red Wine and Bitter Chocolate Sauce, Served With Dauphinoise Potatoes and Braised Red Cabbage
*
Cherry and Almond Cheesecake
*
Coffee/Irish Coffee/Something From My Spirit Selection

I think I’d have a white bordeaux with the pate and a nice sangiovese with the main course. I have no idea what wine goes with cherry cheesecake! Any suggestions? I always have Sauternes around if I can’t think of anything else.

I think I will tag Garret, Rob, Cid and Mace at Vanilla Garlic to host the next virtual dinner party and Julia and Rob from A Slice of Cherry Pie. Also Franka at Can Cook, Must Cook if she’s around. It seems she hasn’t posted in a while. :(

October 3, 2006

Filed under: Uncategorized — ros @ 3:25 pm

Kidneys, rice, salad, wine 

Kidneys are great for making cheap and tasty meals. Some people are freaked out by them but I think they’re missing out in a big way. At about 40p per portion (200g), I can’t think of any food that is better value for money and is easy to find.

I think kidneys go best with an accompaniment that has a bit of a ‘kick’. So last night, looking through my cupboards I came up with a sauce made of cream, English mustard, worcestershire sauce and brandy with a bit of pepper.

kidneys with brandy sauce

I think I’d suggest that, if you want to try something similar, you use a nicer brandy than I did. I had very cheap stuff which seemed to lose it’s flavour quite easily during cooking, so I ended up needing to use a lot.

The end result was lovely. The msutard and brandy went really well with the kidneys and the cream mellowed the sauce by just the right amount. I served it with some Italian easy cook rice I’d picked up since the shops were out of long grain. I’m not sure if I’d had it before. It had a nice texture and was pretty good with the kidney dish.

And the best thing about kidneys is scaring the girly-girls who have issues with eating things that are obviously from animals. You know the type who’ll eat meat but only when its ground up and covered in breadcumbs?  It appears that Chrissy falls into this category. There was a lot of horrified noise when she walked into the kitchen and saw me cutting them up.

I thought it was hilarious. :twisted:

Here is the  kidneys with a creamy brandy and mustard sauce recipe.

Filed under: Uncategorized — ros @ 2:44 pm

Chonese meal 

I think that sometimes I go a little over the top with my cooking. This has a tendency to happen a lot on Sunday nights when there isn’t that much else to do, even in London.

This cooking marathon happened spontaneously. We were going to have a Chinese take-away but they all shut too early or were too far away. Also most of them are rubbish compared to home made fresh food.

So I decided that I’d make chinese instead. In the fridge there was a fillet steak and salmon and so we had….

Sesame beef fillet with mushroom and asparagus

sesame beef fillet with asparagus and mushroom and….

salmon with spring onion and ginger. No MSG in sight. All of this was served up with some egg fried rice.

Well, I say no MSG but I suppose I can’t vouch for the prawn crackers. These come from Sharwoods and a really a lot of fun to make. They start off being tiny little transparent discs that puff up into prawn crackers when you drop them in hot oil. It kept me amused for good 15 minutes!

prawn crackers

The beef was my favourite bit of the meal. I love the flavour of fried sesame seeds. Sweet, nutty and almost floral. Chestnut mushrooms have so much flavour and are just perfect for these dishes.

I rubbed salt on the salmon skin, grilled it and made the sauce separately with vegetable stock, ginger and five spice. It would have been better if I’d had time to marinate it but there isn’t much room for marinades in spontaneous cooking.

Hopefully there’ll be recipes soon but I’ve got such a huge backlog of posts to get through now I might struggle!

October 2, 2006

Filed under: Uncategorized — ros @ 1:40 pm

This new flat of mine has a rather pretty kitchen. Unfortunately whoever designed it  was thinking more about aesthetics than the practicalities of a three-bedroom flat. For a start the amount of cupboard space is deceptively small. It looks like there’s loads until you realise that three cupboards are “dummies” used to hide the washing mashine, fridge and plumbing.

Also I use the term fridge loosely. “Shoebox” would be more appropriate. There’s barely enough room to leave food for an anorexic midget in there, let alone two well built 20-something year old lads and an experimental cook like myself. It’ll be interesting if anyone’s other half wants to visit regularly too.

In addition to all of this there were several appliances that apparently ‘came with the flat’ but were nowhere to be found. We’re missing a microwave (no big deal), a kettle (more of a problem) and a toaster (an absolute f*cking nuisance). It also took me the best part of an hour to find the switch for the cooker.

On the plus side, the electric cooker here seems to be a bit more reliable than the one in halls. Maybe I’m just getting used to these things but there have certainly been fewer accidents.

Anyhow, for the first two nights, I was in on my own as my flatmates hadn’t quite made it to London. I took the opportunity to make a big mess in the kitchen. :D So on Friday night it was calves liver with port and sage served with pesto mashed potato.

I think I prefer marsala with calves liver but this was still tasty.

On Saturday I managed to get my hands on some angel hair pasta, something I’d been trying and failing to find for a long time. I eventually came across it in the large Sainsbury in Chiswick. This may have replaced linguine as my favourite pasta shape!

Angel hair spaghetti with prawns and asparagus

I thought delicate flavours would suit this pasta so I coated it in a cream and white wine sauce and then layered it with king prawns and asparagus cooked in garlic. Very nice indeed!

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