All posts by Ola

I love eating. Even more than I love cooking. My Mum got this thing into me, being a working woman with two kids and still managing to put a two course dinner on the table for us every day. My meals are a lot simpler, I cook for two, with Florian being my most devoted fan and audience. There is nothing more rewarding than a nicely turned out meal. There is nothing more enjoyable that a great plate of food in a decent restaurant with a glass of great red in a nice company. Hence this blog, to share ideas and joy of good food. Bon Appetit.
Eaten out

Pasta Ripiena.

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When looking for a place in Bristol to dine for Florek’s birthday I came across this little place. Most people on tripadvisor gave it 5 stars, one even said – go and camp outside if you can’t get in, it’s that good! Initially I couldn’t get a table ( 3 weeks in advance), but I persevered and when called a week later checking for cancellations, I got lucky!

Tiny little place, Dinings kinda tiny. Rough on edges, on the same level with the small, open kitchen, we could see all the food prep, all of the action.

There was a sweet touch for Florek in terms of the menu-

We had focaccia to start, some prawns and arrancini to follow, then a plate of fantastic pasta for mains. Mine was stuffed with braised beef shin, had some smoked, thin cured meat lovingly wrapped around it.

It was super al dente, almost undercooked, but simple and fantastic.

The star of the evening for me was the pannacotta with pistachios and …olive oil. Phenomenal. So good I seriously considered a second one!

Miss Banks enjoyed some lemon and mint sorbet, really tart, but she finished it quite enthusiastically.

I can’t wait to go there again, when we fly from Bristol next time.

Good Food

Scottish wagyu burger.

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A few months ago in “Saturday Kitchen” Tom Kitchin was cooking a wagyu steak that did not come from Japan or Australia, it came from Scottish Highlands, where they know breed wagyu cattle.  Their website’s here :

https://www.wagyuhouse.co.uk/

I was initially put off by the prices, but having slept on it a few times I decided I’d love to order some burgers from them, as a birthday present for Florek.  I considered some steaks too, but at £15 per 100g of sirloin, ribeye or fillet, I only ordered the burgers.  They’ve arrived yesterday, 4 in a pack, 2 went to the freezer and 2 were devoured last night- with clear conscience, as on Florek’s actual birthday on Tuesday we’ll be dining in Pasta Ripiena in Bristol.

Easily the best burger I’ve ever cooked. Even while in the pan the smell was intense and promising great flavour. I tried to keep it simple, so that the burger was the star on the plate, so all we had on it was cheese, iceberg lettuce, some shallots and a slice of tomato. I held off any sauces, just toasted the brioche buns and made fresh fries from the oil.

Florek was very happy and agreed we’ll be ordering from Wagyu House again. 🙂

For the science

Pork cheeks.

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They seem like a trend  now, Masterchef contestants are cooking them,  Jason Atherton in Saturday Kitchen did too,  so it was time for me to make my way to the butcher’s and place the order.  I’m a big fan of ox cheeks, even managed to convince Florek to them, but my last night’s effort with pork cheeks was not a triumph, I must say.  They didn’t look the part  when I was preparing them, I’ve removed quite a lot of fat and sinew and them proceeded to braise them they way I would do ox cheeks, but for less than 2 hours, as the size was considerably smaller. While they were braising, I’ve made a side of roasted, grated beetroot and some dauphinoise and then when I tasted them shortly before serving- I quickly panfried 2 eggs for Florek, I knew he would not be enjoying pork cheeks. There were 2 or 3 pieces of beautifully tender meat that I ate and rather liked, but mostly I ended up with lots of fatty pork, the texture of which did not appeal to me at all. The sauce was lovely and rich and I saved it, but the pork went to the bin, sorry to say.

I’m glad I tried, for the science, but will not be running back to Toby’s for some more.

Baking

Blueberry macaroons.

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I bought some particularly delicious blueberries this morning in M&S. They taste a little like the wild blueberries available in Poland in late summer. I’ve baked a spontaneous batch of macaroons and they turned out perfect, not a single one cracked, stuck, had a boob, nothing, 3 trays of great macaroons. I filled them with a simple combination of whipped cream with blueberry puree, good splash of lemon juice really brought it together. Each macaroon has a blueberry in the middle, sitting in the nest of whipped cream. I’m really chuffed with these, so chuffed I sent a photo to Dorota from mojewypieki.com and I’m also giving 6 of them to the lovely people who deliver fresh farm eggs to us for the last couple of weeks. Brawo ja! 🙂

Good Food

Duck. From A to Stock.

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Ocado delivers my shopping on Tuesday mornings. I already had 2 duck legs on order, then watched Masterchef, where a dude cooked a duck breast, the look of which made me grab my laptop immediately and edit my order.  2 duck breasts cost £9, 2 legs £4.50. The whole duck, just under 1,5 kg was on offer at £6.70. I hesitated for a few minutes, as I’ve never taken apart a bird and I’d hate to make a mess of it. But there’s youtube.com, so I watched 2 videos of how to do that and ordered the bird.

I have to say that butchering the duck was not as difficult as I thought it would be and it made me feel like I’ve just learned a new skill, saved some money and ended up with both breasts, legs and extras as well. My mum often makes soups on turkey/chicken wings, so I saved mine and froze them for that purpose, then decided to use the carcass to make some duck stock. Another 2 minute video helped with that- never done my own stock before. I whacked the carcass in the hot oven for 25 minutes till browned.

When cooled a little,  it went in  the pot together with a shallot, some green celery, carrots, bay leaves, peppercorns, a few porcini mushrooms and cooked nice and slowly for over 3 hours.

Strained, it now cools in the fridge and will be used for sauces, especially to accompany duck legs.

I then went on to reward my good housekeeping by dining on a pan fried duck breast with fabulous daphinoise potatoes and green beans, washed down with a large glass of Argentinian malbec.  Yum.

Baking

Lime and mango drizzle.

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Shelina Permalloo’s recipe from Good Food mag.  Beautiful on the picture, even though I had no dried mango to pile up on top. I had 2 relatively ripe mangos on the windowsill and enough limes, so I baked it last night. Florek reckons it’s better the next day, I rather liked it warm after dinner last night too.

Easy. 150 g of caster sugar creamed with 150 g unsalted butter till fluffy and pale. Zest of 2 limes in.  3 whole eggs, one by one. 150 g of self raising flour. About 200 g of fresh mango, chopped in small pieces. All this into a baking tin and into a 180 degrees hot oven for about 45-50 minutes.  While it baked, a juice of 2 limes previously zested was made into a drizzling syrup, alongside 75 g of sugar, gently heated up until sugar dissolved. Right after the cake came out, I punctured it with a skewer all over and poured the syrup on top with a little help of a pastry brush.  Finally a touch of icing sugar.

I do like the limey flavour, but I was thinking a bit of custard, last night, while it was eaten slightly warm would make it a very lovely dessert. Will keep in mind for 2 loads of guests due to come over later this month.

Good Food

Scallops with wasabi mayo.

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We’re off to dine in Roka Charlotte St in 2 months time with Steve and Christina, I can’t wait. Had a good look at their menu and I think I’ll go for their set menu at £90, which might just take me to food heaven by the look of it! One of the several dishes on that menu are scallop skewers with wasabi mayo. I had some frozen scallops, so last night was the time to see what kind of combination it is. Obviously that was me executing it,  a certain Masaki Sugisaki was contacted in order not to cock things up.  Mayo and wasabi mixed did not taste particularly exciting,  Masaki suggested either salt or soy sauce, I added a bit of both and ended up with lovely creamy finish to my simply panfried scallops. As it was an evening meal , I made some panfried potatoes with chorizo, shallot and lots of spring onions too.  A glass of Gruner Veltliner completed the picture. 🙂

Dessert

Mango and peach charlotte.

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I needed a cake for a double birthday I threw yesterday for Mariusz (46) and Ewa (43). I chose the charlottle from mojewypieki.com just by looking at it, never made one before, never tasted it. It was fun to make,  not too complicated, but I still changed a few things, having read the reviews.

I baked my usual sponge with 2 eggs, sliced it in half horizontally and then started building the cake with the tiramisu kind biscuits, having to “shave” the last one to fit it in perfectly, sponge nr 1 neatly on the bottom. And still a little bit of the mango mousse escaped, but nothing that couldn’t be tidied up.

For the mango layer I used a small can of mango puree, the 450 g one, roughly 270 ml of double cream and 4,5 gelatine leaves. I skipped the orange juice and zest, but next time I’ll use less cream, it wasn’t mango enough for me. On top of it went the sponge number 2. To the fridge to set for an hour. On that some whipped cream and mascarpone,lightly sweetened, half and half, to which I added a few tbsps of the orange jelly that was waiting to go on top. On the creamy layer I arranged some thinly sliced canned peaches, a few bits of cherries in kirsch ( pomegranate seeds would have been better but I didn’t fancy buying the whole fruit to use a few seeds), then jelly and the whole thing rested in the fridge overnight.

It came out of the tin without any problems, a ribbon was added for extra touch too.

My only complaint would be that the biscuits did not soak up any of the filling and were quite dry, Macy enjoyed then, while we ate the inside.  🙂

Baking

Maple and hazelnut shortbread.

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So many things have been cooked and baked for the last 2 months, but not many deserved to be blogged about, these cookies though have to be here, the smell in the kitchen is intoxicating!

I’ve been looking for a recipe for maple cookies that would at least resemble those that Florek brought from Canada a couple of times.  Last week I pulled some recipe from the web and made half a portion, they were mediocre and turned hard within a few hours, most ended up in the bin. So I thought I’d try my regular shortbread recipe, add a splash of maple syrup and a handful of nuts and see what happens.  For about 25 small round cookies I used 110 g of plain flour, 90 g of soft butter, 40 g of sugar- less than normally, as maple syrup followed, 50 ml of it, as well as 50 g of chopped hazelnuts. Rolled into a handsome sausage with cling film and chilled for over an hour and then sliced and baked in 180 degrees for about 13 minutes.

These hardened as well as the other ones last week, but they taste of roasted nuts, butter and maple syrup. Good, but the recipe hunt  for awesome maple cookies is not over.

Good Food

A tasty run up to Christmas.

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We’ve visited 2 local pubs recently, where food disappointed us on both occasions.  Hollow Bottom used to be our favourite place to eat not so long ago, now we were told “they’ve changed everything”, so no more San Miguel on tap, for instance, but the food was the real issue. I’ve eaten braised red cabbage there 2 years ago that blew me away. This time it did too- in a bad way.  I could only taste one thing- vinegar.

And just a week ago we went for a Sunday roast to The Slaughters Inn.  More expensive place, higher expectations. As mediocre as it gets, it turned out and cabbage- sour with vinegar.  Very annoying, I can’t imagine how can someone call himself a chef, put a piece of turd like this on a plate, send it off and expect people to happily pay.

My Christmas menu is almost ready and there will be braised red cabbage on it. Today I’ve made it according to a recipe I found in Good Food, one of the old special festive editions. As it sat in the oven, two duck legs on the stove, the house filled up with fabulous smell. Great recipe, did the veg the justice it deserves;

Shredded cabbage, quite finely, plus a large red onion fried on butter till soft. In. 200 ml of port. A juice and a zest of 1 orange. Some cinnamon. 2 tbsps of brown sugar. A generous handful of chopped prunes.  To the oven, covered, for nearly 2 hours in 140 degrees. Half way through the cooking everything gets a good stir and back in for the second half.

Once it cooled a little and I had a proper taste I decided it was a treat. Buttery, quite sweet, orange comes through nicely. Saved some for the ox cheeks I’ll be making for Steve and Christina this weekend. Thumbs up.