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.

Sashimi salad, down the memory lane…

The original sashimi salad I was hoping to come close to is one of Nobu’s signature dishes and is served with tuna.  Sadly, there was no tuna in the fish counter in My Favourite Shop today, so I went for salmon. I tried to prepare it the way the guys in Ubon did, the tataki style- well seasoned and quickly seared on all sides. The method says you should dip the fish in ice water to stop the cooking process, I didn’t and it still worked.

The dressing was my favourite back in Ubon. I found the recipe in the internet-

  • 3/4 cup of very finely chopped onion
  • 3 tbsp soy sauce
  • 3 tbsp rice vinegar
  • 2 tsp water
  • 1/2 tsp sugar
  • pinch sea salt/pinch black pepper
  • 1/4 tsp powdered mustard
  • 4 tsp grapeseed oil
  • 4 tsp sesame oil

All the ingredients are to be combined apart from the oils, which only go in once the salt has dissolved.

The salad itself is just fresh green leaves with some bean sprouts, the sliced fish placed all around and the generous amount of dressing poured all over. I served it with some veggie fried rice on the side. Florian’s plate was clean after a few minutes, which means it was good.  🙂 And pretty, thus 2 photos.

Jamaican ginger cake

Last weekend Alice served some lovely ginger cake with the tea. It came from one of the Suffolk farm shops, it was moist, sticky on top and oozing with ginger. I loved it.

At home I looked through the net, found a recipe that I thought would be closest to the one I wanted and made it last night. It is excellent, but I will double the amount of ginger next time.

  • 250 g butter
  • 275 g soft brown sugar
  • 4 eggs
  • AT LEAST  4 tbsp of fresh grated ginger
  • 1 tsp vanilla essence
  • 250 ml milk
  • 320g plain flour
  • 4tsp baking powder
  • 4tsp ground ginger
  • 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp salt

Oven 180 C/gas mark 4.

Prepare the cake tin, grease it and line with baking paper.

Sift all the powdered ingredients and flour.

Cream the butter and sugar, then add eggs one by one. Add ginger ( and some more ginger! ) and vanilla. Beat in all the powders and milk. Pour into the prepared tin. Bake for 40-45 minutes.

Gołąbki, Polish classic.

I’m still enjoying being ” in between jobs” and having time to cook things I normally enjoy only  at my Mum’s, as standing in the kitchen for 2 hours is not always appealing after a day’s work.

So today it’s gołąbki- pigeons, if you like. Lots of work, but very lovely meal at the end of it.

First the stuffing; plain boiled rice, minced pork- in equal amounts, dry and quickly boiled and then chopped porcini mushrooms, 2 handfuls of them I’d say and save the liquid, it will be used in the sauce. 2-3 chopped and fried shallots,  a clove of garlic and lots of seasoning, mixed together and that’s the stuffing.

Next it’s the cabbage leaves that need to be quickly softened in boiling water , otherwise they’d be difficult to fold.  The hard bit in the middle of each leaf has to be cut flat for the same reason.

To make a gołąbek, you spread a wilted leaf flat, place some stuffing in the middle, flatted it and wrap up tight. When all done, place gołąbki in a pan bedded with some spare cabbage leaves, some olive oil and that liquid from the mushrooms. That stops them catching on the surface of the pan. Ready little things, in the pan nice and tight and then covered and slowly cooked, about an hour, check for the liquid and top up if necessary.

Last thing to do is a nice and simple tomato sauce ( although there are people like Moka who only like them in mushroom sauce) , a shallot, some garlic, fresh herbs, passata, red wine if there’s any around- there always is.

And that’s it, a pile of washing up to do while gołąbki are cooking.

Spinach Canelloni

One of our favourites.  A dish that even my spinach hating father ate and liked. Shockin’!!!

For the stuffing I use a bag of fresh spinach, thrown on a melted butter with some crushed garlic, quickly wilted, on that the whole ricotta, one egg, a good handful of parmesan and lots of seasoning, not forgetting the nutmeg.

I never use the ready, dry canelloni to be stuffed, I use lasagne sheets, I find them easier to play with and softer. It’s good to soften the pasta sheets in hot water for a few minutes, they are easier to roll into canelloni. While that’s happening, quickly make the bechamel – as described in Lasagne post, again plenty of nutmeg.

I like to put some easy, basic tomato sauce on the bottom of my baking dish, the dish can be made with bechamel only, but I like the contrast, so extra 5 minutes work pays off. Some passata, a bit of oregano, nothing complicated, as long as there is tomato in there.

Rolled canelloni are placed on the tomato sauce, then baked under bechamel until slightly brown. Excellent dish for any vegetarian friends.

Fajitas

Yummy and damn easy, thanks to the convenient corn fajitas, ready, available to buy, they just have to heated up a little.

The stuffing for mine is normally chicken, thinly chopped, tossed in fajita spices ( normally on the same shelf as all other Mexican stuff) , quickly fried up with some peppers, onions or leeks, depending what’s in the fridge, mushrooms, tomatoes,  sweetcorn and finished off with fresh coriander, well seasoned, it’s got to have a kick.

Fresh guacamole is a must; 2 ripe avos ( if not ripe, don’t bother, they won’t taste of much), a garlic clove, some lemon juice, olive oil, salt, pepper and paprika, all blitzed. Takes all 3 minutes. I could never understand why people buy ready guacamole.

Oh, and some freshly grated cheddar is a nice touch ! 🙂

Chicken and leeks pie

First time I tried this pie was at Ewa’s , the one person who hates cooking, cooks cause she has to, but a person whom I love cooking for!!!

It’s easy and lovely. Some chopped chicken gets fried up with chopped leeks,a small can of sweetcorn in, chicken stock, a touch of cream and seasoning ( easy, as there is stock in it already) and about 15-20 minutes on the stove. There was some lonely, sad looking piece of broccoli left in the fridge from Sunday, so I threw it in, it was great addition actually!

It gets transferred to the small casserole, covered with  a sheet of puff pastry, some egg yolk for the colour and mixed seeds on top, sesame seeds mostly. And in the oven until risen and golden, so roughly about 30 minutes.

Tonight served with freshly squeezed orange juice- good move with those vitamins, as Shirley was coming for a drink in the evening and we damaged 2 bottles of wine…..:-/

Lamb shanks

I’ve been made redundant nearly a month ago, but I’m still loving every single weekend off, when I can cook and do as  I please, stay in bed till 11 and not give a toss in general.

Sunday is all about nice food. Today it was lamb shanks. Got some nice ones from Waitrose, checked up recipes on the net, got the best out of all of them and got cracking. I browned my shanks first nicely, all over, then put them in the casserole with some fried shallots, celery and carrots – fried in the same pan and meat juices. Added some white wine ( next time it will be red, the gravy is nicer ), rosemary, chicken stock, enough to cover the meat, a bay leaf, some peppercorns and stuffed it all in the oven for 2,5 hours.

The meat was just as I wanted it to be, no knife was needed to get the meat off the bone, it was so soft it came off on a fork. I served it with steamed rice, some nice broccoli and an onion salad, that my Mum invented for lamb specifically- very complicated; chopped shallot or onion with lots of paprika, vegeta and pepper, a touch of olive oil. Done.

We popped in to Majestic and stocked up on wine, only there they have this nice Rioja Marques de la Concordia, the most awesome wine with red meat. We damaged a bottle to dinner tonight.

Next time, red wine and much more space in the stomach!

Skubaniec

The name of this cake I learned from my Mum has to do with the way most of it is prepared, the dough is pinched in a way and distributed all over the base, rather than rolled out or cut.

It’s simple; 1,5 tall glass of plain flour, half of a melted cooking margarine, 2 egg yolks, 2 tbsp of sugar and a bit of baking powder get all mixed into a soft dough, then divided in 3 equal parts. One goes into the freezer, second gets mixed with a tsp of cocoa and the third makes the cake’s base- rolled out on the bottom of a round tin.

The crucial ingredient of skubaniec is plum preserve, I use my Mum’s home made one, the good, good stuff that gets fried for hours until its thick and stuffed with lovely flavour. Can’t think of any better preserve to substitute it with, but don’t really have to, we’re going home in a month, will stock up!

Anyway, the base, the plum preserve, then the cocoa part of pastry gets pinched off all over the preserve, quite a lot of it, but you must be able to tell the layers apart. The next layer are walnuts, roughly chopped, onto the brown pastry. Then 2 egg whites whipped with some sugar, onto the walnuts,no need to make it very smooth, just plonk it onto the nuts roughly. And the last layer is the one from the freezer, pinched off the same way, all over the white layer.

Bake in 180 degrees for about 30-40 minutes. I’m eating it just as I’m writing and have to say, there could have been a thicker layer of the preserve, I used the remaining half of the jar I had, in future will be more generous. It is pretty though- is it not?….

Seabassy dinner

I felt like some nice fish for a change, I mean, nothing can replace a good steak, but from time to time something different. I looked at what Jamie The Chav Boy suggested and bought 2 sea bass fillets. I pan fried them quickly on a a bed of pancetta lardons, served with broccoli tossed in dressing made with soy sauce, sesame oil, olive oil, lime juice, sesame seeds and a chopped chilli.

I sat it on a bed of sweet potatoes with lots of coriander, remaining chilli and some soya sauce.

It was very pleasant with those crispy bits of pancetta and soya broccoli.

Apple syllabub

Here’s a light ( ish ) dessert that was a nice finish after pizza.

Some quickly fried apples with sugar and cinnamon, cooled.

Double cream whipped with a mixture of apple juice, a juice of freshly squeezed lemon, sugar and yet more cinnamon, some people like their cinnamon…. I whip it not too much, I want it quite runny, which makes the whole thing quite light. And then I layer apples with cream, apples and cream again, finish with apples and on the top some lightly toasted almond flakes.

Chill before serving.