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.

Friday night. Pizza.

Every time I make pizza I use a different recipe for the base. That’s in search for a perfect one. The search continues, as this evening I used Jamie Oliver’s recipe, taking into account some comments of the readers.

For the dough I used 500 g of strong bread flour, sieved with 0,5 tbsp of sugar and a good pinch of salt, 2 tbsp of olive oil and then mixed with 325 ml of  warm water with 7g of dry yeast dissolved. I worked my dough for a few minutes, then , as suggested by one of the readers, I chopped and mixed in some red chilli. I then left it wrapped in the blanket and left it for an hour, while I’ve done my ironing.

Once doubled in size, I’ve spread some tomato ketchup on top on a rolled out base, topped with lovely Oxford Blue cheese( I am going back for more tomorrow, it was so good!), fresh shallot, olives, tomatoes and oregano from the garden. Having baked it, I further topped it with parma ham, rocket, fresh basil and shaved parmesan.

We’ve managed to have pigged most of it, accompanied by some Chilean Cab-Sav.

Very, very good.

Sunday roast in Gretton.

We’re still enjoying discovering different places around Winchcombe. Today we set off to Broadway, been on the Tower, been to a nuclear bunker and drove down to Gretton, to The Royal Oak pub, recommended to Florek by someone at work. Behind the bar there was Ian, one of Lion’s customers and among guests Martin, Lion’s new head chef. It felt nearly cosy!

We both had roast, mine was lovely soft, succulent pork, with perfectly cooked parsnips and carrots and crispy spuds. Gravy not as sensational as in Prestbury,  but on the whole, with a nice half pint of Peroni, very, very nice.

 

Green Bruschetta.

The original idea was broad beans on a toasted bread, but broad beans are not yet in season, so I’ll wait, in the meantime though widely accessible garden peas  quickly cooked, then  a touch of garden mint, blitzed, but  not into a paste, I like it a bit chunky, well seasoned and placed on a pan fried French bread. Finished with shaved parmesan and a drizzle of olive oil. Filling, yummy, will be done again.

Coffee & Walnut cake.

The recipe comes from “Crumbs”, a free cool magazine delivered to the Lion once a month. I made it yesterday and took half to work, mainly for Matt, who said it was his favourite. And it was a good thing to do, as it sweetened the day at work a little, after another fit of a certain arse of a  manager.

Now, the recipe recommended baking 3 flat cakes, I made one and sliced it in half, worked just fine. I used 140 g of soft unsalted butter, 100 g of caster sugar, 40 g of brown sugar all into the silver bowl of the kitchen aid. 3 small eggs lightly beaten, which I added slowly into the mix, then about 40 ml of strong espresso coffee, spiked with a dash of kahlua, 140 g of self raising flour, 0,5 tsp of baking powder and finally 50 g of toasted, chopped walnuts. This baked nicely in 180 degrees for about 30 mins.

When done and cooled, I sliced it in half and drizzled over a mixture of more espresso coffee, sugar and water. Finally I made the butter cream. 100 g of unsalted butter, about 100 g of icing sugar, less than recommended and still I thought it was too much. I added yet more coffee and then some more, tasting all the time. I didn’t want to end up with a sickly cake.

Tops, the chopped, toasted walnuts.

Profiteroles.

In every place I work there is at least one dish that I take with me. Even in shitty ones, like Francesco’s, where I learned to make meatballs with fresh mint and make them this way ever since. Current place lacks a bit in terms of excitement, but profiteroles are on the menu and today Oluta has made profiteroles. I used the recipe from GF website, I found it easy and enjoyable.

For the choux pastry I used 50 g of butter, 2 tsp of sugar, which I melted with 150 ml of water and then took off the heat and added 75 g of strong flour, mixing vigorously. When it was getting off the sides of the pan easily, I transferred it to the kitchen aid and made it do the further work, slowly adding 2 beaten eggs. And when ready, with the help of a piping bag I got them ready to bake in 220 degrees for about 18-20 minutes.

When cooled, I filled them with whipped cream, done in my usual way, with some vanilla paste, icing sugar and a touch of lemon juice.

The chocolate sauce- 35 g of cocoa powder sifted into a bowl, about 100 ml of water with 100 g of sugar, when melted and boiling I added it to the cocoa and returned to the pan, mixing until smooth. I added a bit of butter, just to balance the cholesterol with the cream( ha!) and a touch of Kahlua, for coffee flavour.

Very pleased with the result. Tasty, not sickly sweet. Will be done again.

The Trifle.

Took me ages to do this, I’ve been moving around the GF magazine all over the place, open on this recipe, yesterday, finally, I made it. I made two, one went to Ewa’s and in spite of having suffered a small incident in the car, it got there in one piece and was enjoyed.

Lots of work, lots of patience, lots of chilling in between the layers. I started by making the thin sponge, the recipe said to use the shop bought madeira, I thought I’d make my own. From the same recipe as always. When it was out of the fridge and cooling, I prepared the tins, lined them with cling film, generously, as smooth as I could, it later makes the whole thing look pretty and makes it easy to release from the tin holding its shape.

The cream layer: 200 ml of double cream heated up with 3tbsp of icing sugar and 3 tbsp of sherry or cherry liquer, in my case. When hot, 2 gelatine leaves go in and 100g of mascarpone, all this whipped together and poured into the tin to chill in the fridge.

The custard layer took 3 tbsp of custard powder, 2 tbsp of icing sugar  and 400 ml of milk, with 2 gelatine leaves added at the end. Onto the set cream layer. In the meantime the one that takes the longest to set- the raspberry jelly was prepared  according to packet instructions and left to cool.

On the custard layer I placed some defrosted raspberries and jelly on that. Long time later, the sponge went on top and I tightened the whole thing with  overflowing cling film on both sides. And left to cool overnight.

Before serving, I whipped yet more cream with some lemon juice and icing sugar, used a piping bag to finish the dessert off, after flipping it upside down and releasing from the cling film. The very final touch is some popping candy.

It’s sweet, rich and yummy. Looked like that…

 

29 Gloucester Street Sushi.

First home made sushi in a long, long time. 2 years, or maybe more. There was no need to make any, with the best sushi possible available to me as a weekly take out from Dinings, but now, with no Dinings as a workplace I had to make it myself. I did, with a decent result. I made my usual salmon and avocado rolls, spicy tuna ones, some shrimp, chive and creamy spicy sauce ones. We ate nearly everything. To accompany the sushi, we had a bottle of a brilliant Dog Point Sauvignon Blanc, that I first discovered in The Lion. Majestic store it, I found this afternoon and enthusiastically purchased 2 bottles.

Back to Raymond’s.

When one works 5 days a week serving food, one waits for Sunday and wants to go out,eat out and get some service. Which is what Oluta and Florek did today, they went to Cheltenham and re-visited Raymond Blanc’s place. His brasserie in London we remembered very fondly, so I booked us a table and off we went.

First impression- crap. We sat without drinks or attention for something like 15 minutes and then the guy caught my “what the fuck, mate?” look , apologised and showered us with attention from then onwards.

Food wise we both went for the steak tartare, we loved it first time, today we had a main course portion each. Fantastically seasoned, with lovely French bread to go with it, some French fries and a nice, fresh salad of avo, tomatoes, lettuce and creme fraiche. A glass of Medoc  completed the picture.

Definitely going back to Raymond’s at some point, the boy who overlooked us at the start though only got 3 quid tip. Too bad.

The Lion Tart.

I just loved the presentation of a similar tart that we serve in The Lion. So I used it as a second course on Florek’s birthday dinner menu( primi- my cream of celeriac and pancetta soup, secondi- the tart, dolci- vanilla creme brulee, still to be had).

I simply baked off a ring of puff pastry, which I topped with some red onion rings and cup mushrooms, all nicely fried with lots of black pepper. With some roasted vine tomatoes and then, after baked, with dressed rocket and parmesan salad and some chopped fried, pancetta, left from the soup. By the time I finished taking the photos of it, Florek, 33 today, was finishing it. 🙂

It went great with Amarone, a bottle of which I purchased from work as well.

 

Pear and cream for Ewa.

This was a success and was all eaten and enjoyed, just as I like. Nothing wasted. I made it for Ewa, who came over the other Sunday with her new squeeze, called Rich.

I started with making a fruit jelly to the packet instructions, as it takes forever to set and the timing is crucial here. The base was a simple sponge, Bozena’s recipe, usual, on that I sat some chopped pears, that I had previously cooked with some pear liquor and cinnamon. When the jelly was well chilled, I whipped the cream and added half of that jelly to it, which made it quite runny, carefully poured it onto the sponge and pears and left in the fridge to set. An hour or so later, when the remaining jelly was beginning to set, I topped the cake with it and left it in the fridge overnight. It was light and enjoyable.