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.
Good Food, Room for improvement

Chilli garlic shrimps

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One of my favourites on Dinings menu. Goemon kindly gave me some chilli garlic paste and two other ingredients I always have in my cupboard, so I purchased some lovely shrimpages from Waitrose this morning and got to it. 3 measures of the paste, 2 of soy sauce and 1 of sesame oil, which I followed roughly for my marinade. maybe too roughly, as they turned out to be rather hot. I marinated them for nearly 4 hours, while busy gardening and then fried them on my griddling pan – those at work are char grilled, which makes them phenomenal. I served them with a nice veggie- fried rice, drizzled with sesame oil and finished off with fresh coriander. Florian, who is not massive on shrimps at all said it was  a great dish. Thumbs up.

Ps. Those at work are better. 🙂

Good Food

Sunday afternoon in the garden

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Ewa and Kris came over today to dine with us, so I slaved in the kitchen for the first time in a while. The weather was nice too, that’s why the dining table was taken outside again. The starter this evening was a cute little onion and cheese tart. I made a quick shortcrust pastry from flour, butter and water, blind baked it and then filled with spicy onion chutney, blue stilton and baked off. Served with rocket and parmesan salad. All the diners enjoyed it and there was nothing left.

The main- lamb shanks, this time done properly in red wine and chicken stock with veggies, in the oven for nearly 3 hours, nicely came off the bone  (speaking of which, Ewa’s dog enjoyed all the bones some hours later). I served it with mash mixed up with some fried leeks – Nick’s suggestion.

We finished off with lemon pannacotta. No stress here, but I’m taking the remaining one for The Chief to taste tomorrow. Bit nervous, but looking forward to some constructive criticism.

Dessert, Uncategorized

Krówka Cake

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I hardly ever have time to cook, bake and blog these days, such is the down side to having a cool job again. This afternoon though I thought I must make something nice and sweet. So I did. A krówka cake. There will be no recipe here today, as this is the cake made of half ready products, that Jana sent me once, knowing Florian’s affection for toffee.

So I made it and it’s lovely. Half of it will be taken to work tomorrow.

Good Food, Room for improvement

Triple cheese and onion soufflet tart.

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Sounds posher than it looks?… 🙂

Another one from the latest Good Food. The original recipe calls for goats cheese, which I’m not a massive fan of, but might actually give it a chance next time. The idea is awesome, but if the cheese was more flavoursome than the ricotta I used tonight, might be even better.

I blind baked the base of shortcrust pastry, which had an X-tra factor of some grated parmesan rolled into it. It made the kitchen smell lovely when it baked, as well as added crunch and flavour to the base. When baked, I spread some nice spicy onion chutney on the bottom and left it await the filling. The base of it is basically a nice thick bechamel, to which I added a tub of ricotta- nice and light but it lacked some chemistry I thought- a good handful of parmesan, some fresh chopped thyme leaves, some grated cheddar – no enough- and seasoned with nutmeg and pepper. Then in went 2 egg yolks, followed by 2 whipped egg whites. All mixed nicely, into the base, some parmesan and thyme on top and into the oven for 35 minutes in 200 degrees until nicely risen and brownish. Only after it baked I trimmed off the edges of the pastry.

I served it with a green salad with pancetta lardons and cherry tomatoes and the last bottle of Iona sauvignon blanc. It was nice and light. Loved the chutney’s contribution to the dish, but will experiment with different cheese next time.

 

Dessert

Little pistacchio delights.

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I saw these in the latest edition of Good Food and wanted to make them straight away. They reminded me of the little pistacchio financiers Gabby use to make in Ubon. She even gave me the recipe, but it included some mega posh pistacchio paste that could be obtained from confectioner’s shops, preferably in France, so I never made them. This recipe calls for no such nonsense, it’s nice and simple and the effect is nearly as good as Gabby’s. Hers were finer. 🙂

I melted 200 g of butter and let it cool slightly. The pistacchios were whizzed until fine, mixed with 85 g of ground almonds, same amount of plain flour and 200 g of icing sugar. I then added the melted butter and 5 egg whites that were slightly frothed with a fork. All nicely mixed together went into the piping bag – what a convenient and mess saving invention- and then into the silicone form especially obtained from TK Maxx for this purpose. I sprinkled the top with a bit of roughly chopped pistacchios as well, looks nice. They baked in 200 degrees for around 25 minutes each batch. I made about 30, we’re half way through them  and I’m glad they’re quite filling, cause I want to take a few to work tomorrow.

They’re lovely, soft in the middle and ever so slightly crunchy on top. Will definitely be made again!

 

Good Food

Karpatka.

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Mum is visiting, due to her birthday treat dinner in Dinings. In fact, Mum should be at home at the moment, if certain person hadn’t screwed up her return plane tickets. Certain person did, however , so certain person had to buy two return tickets last night and 200 quid later she could get over it. This afternoon, to make life sweeter, we made karpatka.

The two pastry bases needed to make it are similar to the classic choux pastry. Mum used a glass of water that she boiled and melted half a margarine in it, took it off the heat and added a glass of plain flour mixing vigorously. After it all cools down a  bit, 5 eggs are added, one after another, all worked in before the next one is added. The pastry is to be nice, smooth and shiny. A teaspoon of baking powder and the pastry is ready to be divided in two and baked for about 50 minutes each in 180 Celsius, if still moist inside, needs to go back in to dry out.

The filling is made by cooking budyn, a Polish simple powdered dessert similar to custard, made with milk. For our filling I prepared budyn according to the instructions on the packet PLUS a table spoon of plain flour, it has to be quite thick. When cooled, I blitzed it with half a margarine and some vanilla sugar.

The cake is finished off with a generous amount of icing sugar.

 

Dessert

Créme caramel

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That was the first recipe I saw in the new Good Food and planned on making it last week, but ran out of steam on Wednesday afternoon. Today though, having cleaned the house, done the laundry,  an enormous pile of ironing, cleaned up the garden and relaxed in it for half an hour with a glass of apple martini- there were no more excuses.

I started with the caramel, done it for the first time ever using an actual recipe, rather than chucking lots of sugar into the pan and hoping for it to work. 70 g of sugar plus 2tbsp of water got nicely melted on the pan and some bubbling and colour- changing later I had some lovely caramel, that I poured onto 4 ramekins and got to the custard.

I used 2 eggs and 1 egg yolk plus 50 g of sugar that got beaten up until nice and light and then I gradually poured 250 ml of hot milk while beating still. It needed straining, after which I added some Cointreau for extra flavour and some vanilla paste and finally poured onto the ramekins with caramel. I baked it in bain marie for 20 minutes in 130 Celsius, then cooled and chilled in the fridge for 4 hours.

Very happy with the texture, will be more generous with Cointreau next time.

Eaten out

Another taste of Dinings

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A couple of pictures from the food training session at work the other day.

Wagyu tataki, beef so tender it melts in the mouth, rare, chargrilled- which gives it slightly bitter, wonderful flavour on the edges. Served with ponzu sauce. Yuuuuum.

Chilli garlic shrimps, chargrilled again and marinated in chilli garlic paste, the coriander and sesame oil give the flavour another dimension. I couldn’t get enough!!!!

Dessert

Custard and strawberry treats.

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I felt like baking today, so I produced 4 little pastry cases ( recipe the same like in blueberry tartlets plus some ground almonds) , filled them with fresh custard, topped with strawberries and some jelly on top to keep them fresh and shiny. It was a lovely and light dessert, will put some more different berries next time. Nice.