Monthly Archives: October 2011

Good Food, Room for improvement

Chicken satay debut.

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Somebody made it on Masterchef recently and I immediately thought- I’m making it on Sunday. I asked around at work, as usual, before making something I haven’t made before. Cathal said he didn’t know, as ” he’s not fucking Dutch”, the Chief said he didn’t know, but would google it, Alex said peanut butter, coconut milk, chilli. Ah, Nick mentioned chicken stock and reducing it by half before adding peanut butter.

So I combined all those ideas and reduced the chicken stock, then added lots of peanut butter, some coconut cream, fresh chopped chilli, some brown sugar and kept on tasting and adding until I was happy with it. More chilli next time, I’m too shy with chillies most of the time.

Florek bought some nice boneless chicken thighs, which I put on skewers, together with some red pepper, onion and cup mushrooms. And grilled it. Served with curries rice and peas. Pleased! 🙂

Beverage

Espresso martini with my own, loving touch.

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I sat by my desk this afternoon, replying to emails and shopping online ( damn La Redoute!!!!) and felt like a nice cocktail. The clocks went back last night, so it got dark earlier, I wanted something strong, sweet and energising. We popped out to Waitrose to stock up on the spirits, got the Kalhua – (17 bloody pounds a bottle!!) and I produced espresso martinis.

Four measures of strong espresso coffee, 3 measures of vodka and Kalhua and 2 scoops of good vanilla ice cream, all shaken over ice and finished up with grated chocolate.  When I tasted it, it didn’t seem that strong, but beware- it gets to the head quickly.

 

 

 

Good Food

Truffle chips and extras.

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This meal was not perhaps hugely sophisticated or technically challenging, but we loved the flavours on the plate. Our favourite fillet steak, medium rare, with bearnaise sauce ( from the jar, yes).  The steak was accompanied by minted peas, not very fine, as I like the rough texture. The star of the show though- the chips. I was aiming at similar effect as Jamie Oliver’s Posh Chips, simply a generous few drops of truffle oil on the chips, once they’re roasted and then a sprinkle of parmesan. Loved it. With a glass of cold budweiser.

Dessert, Room for improvement

Spiced toffee apple cake.

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From the recent edition of Good Food Mag.

I tried it, I like it, will make it again tomorrow and take it to work, but with more ginger and more spices and maybe with some pecan nuts too, I think it would make it even more awesome.

200 g of dates were roughly chopped for this recipe and simmered with 200ml of milk, then pureed nicely and added to the  mixture of 250 g of soft butter, 4 eggs, 280 g of self raising flour, 200 g of brown sugar, 2 tsp pf vanilla paste, and a touch of baking powder to lift it up. All this was beaten up and poured out onto a baking tray lined with baking parchment. In the meantime I cored 3 apples, red apples, all for the looks, did not peel them, but sliced thinly and arranged in the cake mixture into rows.

Baked in 180 degrees for about 45 minutes, then finished off with maple syrup and icing sugar.  Pat on the back. 🙂

Dessert

Apple and almond pie.

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Hugh’s, from the latest Waitrose magazine, that is normally full of poncey crap, but this time I found a few useful things in there.

4 nice apples, cored and chopped and peeled, slowly cooked in a melted butter and sugar mixture, with some cinnamon, left to cool a bit.

For the pie itself I creamed 150 g of butter with 125 g of sugar, 2 whole eggs, and then 75 g and same amount of ground almonds. This mixture I put into a tin layered with baking parchment and the apples went on top, with all their juices. It stayed in the oven for nearly an hour, in 170 degrees. Finished off with icing sugar, like Sniezka on Jana’s photos.

Good Food

Pork schnitzels with bacon and leeks mash.

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Wednesday night dinner. Something nice to have while watching “Horrible Bosses” – awesome!!!- and to divert our attention from the broken boiler.  I bought a small pork fillet, cut into rings, flattened a bit and seasoned well, then covered in egg and breadcrumbs and pan fried with some chopped onions.  Served with the same lovely bacon and leeks mash, like last Sunday and green beans.  Nice and simple.