Monthly Archives: November 2010

Good Food

Chicken and leeks pie

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First time I tried this pie was at Ewa’s , the one person who hates cooking, cooks cause she has to, but a person whom I love cooking for!!!

It’s easy and lovely. Some chopped chicken gets fried up with chopped leeks,a small can of sweetcorn in, chicken stock, a touch of cream and seasoning ( easy, as there is stock in it already) and about 15-20 minutes on the stove. There was some lonely, sad looking piece of broccoli left in the fridge from Sunday, so I threw it in, it was great addition actually!

It gets transferred to the small casserole, covered with  a sheet of puff pastry, some egg yolk for the colour and mixed seeds on top, sesame seeds mostly. And in the oven until risen and golden, so roughly about 30 minutes.

Tonight served with freshly squeezed orange juice- good move with those vitamins, as Shirley was coming for a drink in the evening and we damaged 2 bottles of wine…..:-/

Good Food

Lamb shanks

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I’ve been made redundant nearly a month ago, but I’m still loving every single weekend off, when I can cook and do as  I please, stay in bed till 11 and not give a toss in general.

Sunday is all about nice food. Today it was lamb shanks. Got some nice ones from Waitrose, checked up recipes on the net, got the best out of all of them and got cracking. I browned my shanks first nicely, all over, then put them in the casserole with some fried shallots, celery and carrots – fried in the same pan and meat juices. Added some white wine ( next time it will be red, the gravy is nicer ), rosemary, chicken stock, enough to cover the meat, a bay leaf, some peppercorns and stuffed it all in the oven for 2,5 hours.

The meat was just as I wanted it to be, no knife was needed to get the meat off the bone, it was so soft it came off on a fork. I served it with steamed rice, some nice broccoli and an onion salad, that my Mum invented for lamb specifically- very complicated; chopped shallot or onion with lots of paprika, vegeta and pepper, a touch of olive oil. Done.

We popped in to Majestic and stocked up on wine, only there they have this nice Rioja Marques de la Concordia, the most awesome wine with red meat. We damaged a bottle to dinner tonight.

Next time, red wine and much more space in the stomach!

Made in Poland

Skubaniec

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The name of this cake I learned from my Mum has to do with the way most of it is prepared, the dough is pinched in a way and distributed all over the base, rather than rolled out or cut.

It’s simple; 1,5 tall glass of plain flour, half of a melted cooking margarine, 2 egg yolks, 2 tbsp of sugar and a bit of baking powder get all mixed into a soft dough, then divided in 3 equal parts. One goes into the freezer, second gets mixed with a tsp of cocoa and the third makes the cake’s base- rolled out on the bottom of a round tin.

The crucial ingredient of skubaniec is plum preserve, I use my Mum’s home made one, the good, good stuff that gets fried for hours until its thick and stuffed with lovely flavour. Can’t think of any better preserve to substitute it with, but don’t really have to, we’re going home in a month, will stock up!

Anyway, the base, the plum preserve, then the cocoa part of pastry gets pinched off all over the preserve, quite a lot of it, but you must be able to tell the layers apart. The next layer are walnuts, roughly chopped, onto the brown pastry. Then 2 egg whites whipped with some sugar, onto the walnuts,no need to make it very smooth, just plonk it onto the nuts roughly. And the last layer is the one from the freezer, pinched off the same way, all over the white layer.

Bake in 180 degrees for about 30-40 minutes. I’m eating it just as I’m writing and have to say, there could have been a thicker layer of the preserve, I used the remaining half of the jar I had, in future will be more generous. It is pretty though- is it not?….

Good Food

Seabassy dinner

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I felt like some nice fish for a change, I mean, nothing can replace a good steak, but from time to time something different. I looked at what Jamie The Chav Boy suggested and bought 2 sea bass fillets. I pan fried them quickly on a a bed of pancetta lardons, served with broccoli tossed in dressing made with soy sauce, sesame oil, olive oil, lime juice, sesame seeds and a chopped chilli.

I sat it on a bed of sweet potatoes with lots of coriander, remaining chilli and some soya sauce.

It was very pleasant with those crispy bits of pancetta and soya broccoli.

Dessert

Apple syllabub

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Here’s a light ( ish ) dessert that was a nice finish after pizza.

Some quickly fried apples with sugar and cinnamon, cooled.

Double cream whipped with a mixture of apple juice, a juice of freshly squeezed lemon, sugar and yet more cinnamon, some people like their cinnamon…. I whip it not too much, I want it quite runny, which makes the whole thing quite light. And then I layer apples with cream, apples and cream again, finish with apples and on the top some lightly toasted almond flakes.

Chill before serving.

Dessert

Walnut Torte for Ewa

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Ewuta is coming over today, so I thought something nice and sweet for the coffee perhaps…

I baked off the simple sponge- 2 eggs, separated, whites whipped up with half a glass of sugar, yolks added by the end, 2 tbsp of plain flour and 1 tbsp of potato flour with some baking powder added and folded in, then baked for about 30 mins.

The walnut creme is my Mum’s recipe; some ground walnuts just covered with boiling milk, chilled. In a separate dish about a 3/4 of a baking margarine, softened, 3 tbsp of icing sugar, a spoon of cocoa, some vanilla sugar – all this beaten up with an electric mixer, walnuts added one spoon full at a time.

The sponge is then cut in half, some of the creme spread in the middle, some on top and on the sides. Best to chill the whole thing for about 2 hours before serving.

Hope she likes it! 🙂

Dessert

Souffle third time lucky!

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Yessss!!!!

The whole weekend has been full of nice food, lovely ravioli last night, sushi tonight, after which we decided a dessert would be nice. I quickly looked up a chocolate souffle recipe and decided to try again, all there was to lose were 2 eggs and chocolate and more washing up, right?

For 2 souffles I used 2 egg whites, whipped up with 25 g of caster sugar, 50 g of quality chocolate, melted and one egg yolk mixed in- not too sure if that was the way, as the yolk seemed to have cooked in the chocolate, the texture was not incredible.

The oven temperature- strictly 150 celsius ( Florian looked to it), 25 minutes and not a single peek while they cooked. And they cooked beautifully, nothing was left in the ramekins!

Success!!! To be repeated with mango again! 🙂

Good Food

The best homemade pasta yet

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For the record, the food obsessed waitress is a waitress no more, as Rhubarb was closed down last week by BAA, due to the imminent refurbishment of Terminal 3. The former waitress has therefore a lot more time to spend in the kitchen and going through her cook books, she does not have to work weekends and has a lot more time to cook.

So tonight we thought- it’s been a while since we made some pasta. Florian did all the pasta work, Oluta has baked chopped pumpkin along with some shallots and 2 cloves of garlic and lots of olive oil. She then roughly mixed it with some crushed amaretti biscuits and parmesan, seasoned well and stuffed ravioli with it.

We served it with a simple tomato and basil sauce, which was great with the pasta sweet stuffing. We were truly proud of the results of our messy kitchen tonight.

I realize the presentation was not exactly a Masterchef kinda thing, but we didn’t care, as it tasted fantastic…..