From Good Food, Jeremy Pang’s idea. Caught my attention straight away, especially as the buns were not done in 5 hours, but were advertised as “quick”. And indeed, from start to finish, in no particular rush I made us a nice dinner and the buns were declared “the best ever” by Iz. They were made with 200g of self raising flour plus 1,1/2 tsp of baking powder, 2 tbsps caster sugar, a good pinch of salt, all this into the bowl of kitchen aid. To this I added 100 ml of milk mixed with 1 tbsp of sunflower oil and 1tbsp of white wine vinegar, added to the dry ingredients and let the mixer do the work. Within 5-6 minutes there was a lovely, elastic dough ready to cut into 6 balls, which were then flattened into ovals and rolled until something like 0,5 cm thick. A bit of sunflower oil brushed all over the top of each, then folded in half and into the steamer for about 8 minutes, 3 buns at a time.

Now, the sticky chicken was tasty, but it was not a revelation. I thought it needed at least twice as much of the sticky sauce, I would also give it more heat next time. 4 boneless chicken thighs, lightly marinated in soy sauce and sesame oil, baked in the oven, but if they were bbq’d, that would have made a world of difference. That sticky sauce was a mixture of 3 tbsps of soy, 1 tbsp of harissa paste, 1 tsp of white wine vinegar and some sesame oil. It needed more flavour, far too tame!

Once all cooked and ready the buns were assembled with sliced japaneno, coriander, spring onions and sesame seeds, I had to used some hoisin sauce in mine to make it more moist.

4 out of 5, but buns were awesome.

It took me half a day to decide what to feed my family with this evening. There was a nice selection of veggies in the fridge, mostly spinach, that was going to end up in a spinach and ricotta lasagne. But I didn’t really fancy it, so I looked through internet quickly for ideas. And green gnocchi seemed like a smashing idea, we all love gnocchi in this house. I found a couple of recipes and ended up following my gut and experience. The result was a lovely supper, all finished, flushed down with some cab sav (yes, it is only Wednesday, but I wasn’t working hard in the kitchen for nearly 2 hours to have my gnocchi with water, right?!) and now kitchen’s all tidy, I have Girls Aloud on fairly loud and actually feel like dancing for the first time in ages. It must be the cab sav. 🙂

I loosely followed the recipe, so ended up with too much food. 800 g of potatoes is a bit too much. 300 g of flour is too much. 200 g of spinach is ok. I boiled the spuds in skins till soft, peeled them when still fairly hot, squeezed them through the ricer. Added spinach puree ( cooked down on butter with some mashed garlic and salt), then added flour, but kept checking the texture, I’m glad I did not whack the whole 300g in. Quickly shaped them, the water was on stand by. As soon as the gnocchi came to the surface, onto the sauce they went, then served with freshly grated parmesan and a drop of olive oil.

The sauce was my usual signature tomato sauce, half and half fresh tomatoes and passata, lovingly reduced. I keep saying to Florek, that the first thing I will cook when we’re back in Castelnuovo in August( Covid allowing) will be some wonderful sugo al pomodoro, with only fresh tomatoes. And fresh herbs. Mmm.

We’re still in lockdown, so the restaurants are closed, but at least all the schools reopen tomorrow. No hope for eating out until mid May though. Restaurants cope in different ways, take aways mostly, some go further than that, like Rick Stein. His places offer some carefully prepared boxes, containing ingredients for a starter, main and a dessert for two, plus simple instructions how to put it together. Florek ordered us one of these boxes and it arrived yesterday, beautifully packed.

For starters there were Cornish mussels, that somebody even cleaned before vacuum packing them, for the main an Indonesian curry, pavlova to finish with. A very pleasant bottle of French vermentino, 60 ml of which was to be used to prepare the mussels, I used more and then we drained it in the evening, all this pleasure for £55 plus DPD delivery.

Mussels were lovely, different to the creamy, garlicky ones I make, those were flavoured with confit onions and no cream was recommended. Nice, but I’m sticking with mariniere next time.

The curry was lovely too. Fish lovely and fresh, especially the seabass.

The bean salad for me could be skipped, especially as the side dressing was made with shrimp paste, a vile ingredient that does not agree with my palate since that awful nasi goreng I made once. Florek tried a little for the science, I smelled it and gave it a tiny taste before downing a glass of wine quickly. Yuk.

2 nice big meringues were provided, all I had to do was to whip the cream and fold it together with some passion fruit. And that was that.

Good stuff altogether, we might be trying a different menu some time soon.

I’ve come across it once or twice before, but having seen it in the Good Food mag recently I felt like doing it again, with all the attention and love it deserves. There’s always passata in my pantry, there’s always a chunk of parmesan, all the other stuff came from Sainsbury’s this morning. So having painted a chunk of my garden fence I’ve made us a chicken parmigiana for dinner. And it was very much enjoyed.

I started with a nice tomato sauce, a shallot, a couple of cup mushrooms, some passata, some dry oregano, lots of seasoning. While that was bubbling away I cut my chicken breasts into smaller pieces, bashed them flattish, seasoned, tossed in flour, then in egg, then in a breadcrumbs and parmesan mixture. Pan fried briefly, without worrying if it’s under- it was en route to the oven. Tomato sauce on the bottom of the dish, chicken, more sauce, some mozzarella and more parmesan, some fresh chopped cherry tomatoes. It baked for 20-25 minutes until the cheese began to brown up.

Served with crusty bread and some chianti, followed by some French cheeses. Austerity. 🙂

January is coming to an end, not fast enough for me. We’re still in lockdown, schools are still closed, we’re stuck at home, so one thing we can do is cook and bake and eat well. Yesterday a roasted cauliflower soup for lunch.

A small cauli, 2 shallots, a couple of garlic cloves, some cumin seeds, olive oil and salt and in the oven for 35-40 minutes, partially covered. I ended up adding more ground cumin later.

Roasted veggies were added into hot chicken stock, cooked for a few minutes, blitzed into a creamy goodness, seasoned and finished with a touch of double cream. On top some toasted sunflower seeds. Lovely, nutritious, wintery soup.

Today, fresh pasta. I wanted to have a go at making agnolotti, youtube videos made it look easy enough, mine were nowhere near as pretty. More practice is needed, the flavour however was there and we ended up with lovely dinner. The stuffing- roasted butternut squash, red onions, pine nuts, walnuts, parmesan. Fresh thyme. Florek made pasta, the sauce was a simple fresh tomato reduction, lots of olive oil and some more of that beautiful fresh thyme. Next time the pasta will be thinner and better looking.

From Rick Stein’s “French Odyssey”.

It was only the second time I attempted a steak tartare at home. Done it a few years ago to Mum’s instructions, but was seriously underwhelmed,then had a few good ones in Brasserie Blanc and in Cote, not to mention that sensational one Florek had in Paris a year ago, but now, in lockdown, with great butcher around the corner there was no excuse but to try again. Especially with a recipe.

So I bought 300 g of fillet steak, which Toby kindly minced for me. To go with it I used 1 tbsp of chopped capers, a finely chopped echalion shallot, ended up adding a bit more, 2 tbsps of chopped parsley, 1 tbsp of olive oil, a large chopped cornichon, some tabasco, a generous seasoning of sea salt and black pepper. What the recipe lacked and I added 2 tsps of was Dijon mustard, a must, in my opinion. Worked it all well, formed 2 portions and placed a fresh egg yolk on top. Seasoning was checked and double checked and still salt and pepper mills, as well as tabasco ended up on the table. With the tartare we had some delicious matchstick fries and polished a bottle of Spanish garnacha. Very good indeed.