The weekly shop

Turns out the bank holiday weekend is going to be mostly about food and food shopping.

Yesterday we headed to the Anchor and Hope on The Cut for an early luncheon. Three courses later and we were sated and a little bit tipsy. One caution on this eatery, it’s not vegetarian friendly. I was eating veggie and there was really only one choice for starter and main: asparagus with melted butter to start with spiced lentils and goat’s curd cheese for main.

Both we’re tasty but certainly didn’t blow my socks off. The asparagus was a tiny bit watery and the first couple of bites of the lentils I thought I could taste stock powder.

My poppyseed cheesecake with caramelised orange segments, on the other hand, was amazing:

Light, rich, syrupy goodness. I’d go back just for that dessert.

The apple almond tart with creme anglais and prunes didn’t quite hit the spot however. It was nice but the cheesecake is where it’s at.

The boys had far more choice for meat dishes: pappardelle and beef shin; lamb with Asian sauce and asparagus. There was a kid leg for 4 to share which the table next to us had, firm hangover cure if you could afford to £68 it cost.

Service was lacking a little, but fast enough. Our bill came to £88 for 3 courses for 3 people with a round of pints (excluding tip).

After this meal we headed down to the South Bank to visit the Real Food Market. We were also there for the wine and cheese festival the previous weekend, where we had the experience of trying savoury macarons:

I’m not entirely convinced to be frank; two sweet macaron shells with a chunk of cheese in the middle. At £2 a mouthful too. I wasn’t itching to seek them out again.

Today we’ve been to the trusty Blackheath Market. A simple bus ride away from our flat in Stratford, we usually go there in pursuit of fish. Alas, today it was not meant to be! However we did get some lovely spoils:

Most excited about the goat’s curd and courgette flowers.

Here are some more pictures from the weekend thus far:

Adriano Zumbo – that is all

Today I plan on making my first attempt at macarons using Adriano Zumbo’s recipe from this book:

I was introduced to the sheer brilliance of Adriano when fostering an addiction to Australian Masterchef. Having since purchased the above, magical, brightly coloured book, I have flicked through and it’s an education.

There are a bewildering number of ingredients, I’ve not heard of nor do I know where to buy them.

Still, I feel a determination to attempt everything in the book. And today is the start; probably with the simplest recipe in the book.

Check back for a post on the success or failure of the macarons soon.

White wine, saffron and cardamom poached pears

We cooked this dessert at an Ottolenghi course at The Leith School of Food and Wine and it was cracking and easy as well. It rocks my world.

Ingredients:

• 4 firm pears, peeled and kept whole
• 700ml white wine or in other words one bottle
• 12 cardamon pods
• 150g caster sugar
• Pinch saffron
• 2 tbsps lemon juice
• Yogurt or creme fraiche to serve

Recipe:

1. Add the wine, caster sugar, cardamon, saffron and lemon juice to a saucepan. Dissolve sugar and simmer.
2. Have a circle of parchment paper cut out just a little bit bigger than the circumference of the saucepan. We crumpled the paper and ran it under the tap, that’s what Ottolenghi told us to do and it works because you can push the paper down around the pears when they’re cooking.
3. When the liquid is simmering, add the pears (ensuring they are fully submerged – add a bit of water if they aren’t) and put the cartouche over the pears to help keep them under the liqueur.
4. Simmer the pears for 15 – 20 minutes or until you can push a butter knife easily into the flesh.
5. When the pears are cooked, remove and put into the dish you want to serve in. Keep the leftover liquid in the saucepan and start to reduce.
6. When it’s reduced by about a third – it’ll look noticeably thicker – it’s ready to use.

Serve the pear with a good helping of the liquid sauce and add a good dollop of creme fraiche or yogurt.

And these are the ones we made it with Ottolenghi

Wet garlic pasta with spinach sauce

We finally christened the pasta machine and now there’s no going back. Aside from a small mishap with over-cooking the egg yolk ravioli (and boiled yolks weren’t too bad) it’s been a successful endeavour.

And now for what you’re really here for:

(Enough for 3 dinners and leftovers for lunch)

For the pasta:

• Handful of the green stalks from a bunch of wet garlic (about 100g)
• 250g white pasta flour
• 2 eggs
• Tbsp olive oil
• Pinch salt

For the sauce:

• 300g spinach
• Little double cream or whatever cream you have to hand
• Lemon juice
• Vegetable stock

Instructions:

1. Blend the eggs, olive oil and green garlic stalks together. If you don’t have a blender, you could chop the garlic stalks really finely and whisk together – just make sure the garlic is almost minced.
2. Sieve the flour into a bowl and make a well in the middle, pour the egg/oil/garlic mixture into the middle and begin to work together until it starts to form a ball of dough.
3. Clear down a work surface so it’s clean enough to work from. Make sure it’s dry and then flour and turn the dough out.
4. Work the dough until smooth and springs back to the touch, cling film and leave in the fridge to rest for around 30 minutes.
5. After it’s rested, get it out of the fridge and let it return to room temperature. Set up your pasta machine and prepare for fun.
6. Either divide up the dough evenly, or just break off a chunk of dough at your whim and start to pass it through the machine set at the thickest setting.
7. Continue working through the machine reducing the thickness each time – we went to the second thinness setting on our machine.
8. Then we added the machine part for cutting the pasta in order to make the linguini. Pass the sheets of pasta through the cutter and flour and layout carefully so they don’t stick together. What we realised is that the wet garlic needs to be cut really fine, otherwise it’s hard to get it to cut cleanly through the machine.
9. Once you have enough for your meal, pop a pan of boiling water on the stove and cook the pasta in batches. It should only take around 3 minutes for the pasta to cook, keep an eye on and test to check your cooking time (it will depend on how thin you’ve rolled it).

Served with spinach cooked down in a little vegetable stock, onions with a sauce of 2 tbsp of double cream and seasoned with salt, pepper and a little lemon juice squeezed in for good measure.

Today we are mostly making a Mexican feast and drinking ale

On the menu tonight:

Marinaded chicken breasts
Homemade guacamole
Homemade tomato salsa
Grilled halloumi
Boiled and fried broad beans with sweet potato

All the above wrapped in tortilla wraps and served with sour cream, cheese and a lime on the side. And of course:

Mojitos!

Finishing, a little left-field with:

Mum’s baked Alaska.

In pictures so far:

We’re also drinking this:

Little Paris Kitchen book by Rachel Khoo

Look what I got today!!!

Reading at the Tap East pub in Stratford, because that’s what all the cool Londoners do of a weekend evening.
We have already made the amazing Croque Madam recipe from the TV show – perfect hangover food.

We can’t wait to get cooking from this one, review to follow!

Ginger Pig restaurant in Hove

We spent the afternoon attending a whisky tasting at the Hilton on Brighton sea front as part of the food festival.

After such a hearty start to the day we decided at least a three course meal was required. One of our party had previously been to the Ginger Pig and recommended it – straight away we booked a table and polished off our whiskeys from the tasting. The Peat Monster from Compass Box Whiskey was my favourite new whiskey from the event, just as an aside.

We got our table for 6:30pm and kicked off with bread on the table and before long the starters had arrived and we knew we were in for a treat.

I got started with the Crispy Polenta and mozzarella and a very tasty accompaniment of olives and anchovy. Suffice to say it didn’t stick around long. Highlights also were the duck heart salad and endives and the octopus carpaccio (the latter was unanimously the favourite starter of the group – we were all trying each other’s dishes).

Main up next – I went from the specials board and ordered bream with pea gnocchi. It was lovely – I love to get seafood when near the sea, it just seems right, and they executed this one perfectly. The braised rabbit with chickpeas and chorizo from the specials was good, and the teriyaki mullet was also lovely (but not as good as the bream which was definitely a winner).

Dessert, again off the specials board, was the chef’s take on a peanut butter sarnie. I think that’s all I need to say on that one.

Total for 4 of us with a selection of drinks (beers, cocktails and coffees) came to £44 per person including drinks. Would definitely do the £6 taxi ride from Brighton centre to do dinner there again.

Leftover marshmallows

Tonight I fulfilled a long-held ambition to make marshmallows.

The leftover meringue from the baked rhubarb and apple pie was simply put in a small, ceramic dish which had been greased and dusted with corn flour and icing sugar.

I set the oven to 170 degrees C and baked for 15 minutes. The mixture rose like a cake would and lightly browned on top.

As soon as it was out of the oven, I carefully cut into squares and left to cool a bit.

I popped some baking parchment on a wire rack and dusted it with corn flour and icing sugar and carefully eased the marshmallows out of the oven dish using a palette knife.

Then I generously dusted again with corn flour and icing sugar – turning the squares so they were fully coated.

I stored them in a lock-and-lock Tupperware container, lined with parchment. They taste delicious and would definitely benefit from being dipped in melted chocolate.

Brighton Food Festival 2012 – beer festival at Vin Du Pub

Last night we went to our first event of the Brighton Food Festival and it began with ale. We were in the function room of the Vin Du Pub flanked by a reasonable selection of ales, from brewers such as Beachy Head and Dark Star.

£5 entrance fee got us our tasting glass (effectively a standard pint glass just with the extra/vital 1/3 pint measurement marked on) and a taste of one of the beers or ciders of our choice.

I started off on the lower alcohol ales, getting a 1/3 pint of Beachy Head’s The Legless Rambler which went down a treat. Ty hit the cider to start (all the cider was 7% or more) which had a strong strawberry flavour – I moved onto that one for dessert.

The other notable quaff was the Dark Star Revelation – this rounded off our time at Vin Du Pub in favour of hitting a new pub. The consensus in the group was that, although beer festivals are a great showcase for breweries and beers, the condition is sometimes a bit off. Some beers in particular could have done with being a little colder.

So – thanks to a passionate local’s recommendation – we headed to The Cask just a couple of roads over. I think this pub had almost the same amount of beers available (certainly if you count the bottled beer) as the beer festival. Here I nursed a pint of Rabbit which was lovely – the gents hit the 10% ales and soon it was time to hit the sack.

There are plans to revisit The Cask, there are still so many things to try!

Baked apple and rhubarb meringue pie

Oh my! This dessert was a bit of an experiment and it worked beautifully.

4 sticks rhubarb
5 small apples
Healthy dose cinnamon powder
Soft brown sugar

6 egg yolks
360g caster sugar
30g liquid glucose (optional)
80ml water

The meringue recipe came from Eggs book by Michel Roux. You’ll need a sugar thermometer.

Combine the water, sugar and glucose in a saucepan and start to heat.

Separate the eggs and put in a mixing bowl and get your whisk ready.

Ensure you have a glass of water and pastry brush as you’ll need to brush down the sides of the pan to stop the sugar crystallising on the edges. We used a silicon pastry brush this time, last time we made meringue we used a normal brush and some of the brush hairs came off. Silicon worked much better this time.

Once it starts to bubble, put in the sugar thermometer and watch for t temperature to reach 110 degrees C.

At this point you can start beating the egg whites. Mix until they start to form stiff peeks. At this point one of us was on egg whites and one on sugar syrup.

Watch the sugar mixture carefully, as soon as it’s reached 121 degrees C remove from heat and allow the bubbles to subside (about 30 seconds) and then add slowly to the egg whites.

Once all the sugar mixture is combined, you’ll need to continue mixing on a low speed for 15 minutes until the meringue mixture is almost completely cooled.

And then it’s ready to spoon over whatever you fancy.

We baked the apples and rhubarb with 4 tbsps soft brown sugar, 2 tsps cinnamon and 3 tbsps water and baked at 150 degrees C for 40 minutes.

Then the meringue was spooned over the top and put under the grill until browned and golden on top. I watched this happen so it didn’t burn – approximately 4 minutes but it’ll depend on your grill so I recommend keeping a eye on it. Obviously if you have a blow torch you can skip the grill and just use that.

We had about half the meringue mix left and intend to use it for another dessert as it’ll keep in the fridge for 48 hours.