There were burgers on the menu this evening, not a single onion ring in the freezer though. Good Food website had a few suggestions. I picked a simple recipe with 2 ingredients, 150 g of self raising flour and 180 ml of sparkling water.  The comments were very useful in this case, somebody suggested using lager instead of water and lots of seasoning. I had the last bottle of Birra Morretti in the fridge from last weekend, which came useful.  Simple recipe that worked a treat. Lovely, crispy rings, I think I’ll cut them thicker next time though.

Jose Pizzaro was a guest in the recent Saturday Kitchen and made a plate of food that made me squeak just looking at it. I played it back on iPlayer, took notes, ordered stuff from Ocado and tried to recreate it this evening. I used a different fish, Jose’ s was rainbow trout, I went for seabass.

First, a simple tomato sauce was made, a clove of garlic, a shallot, canned tomatoes, seasoning, all this bubbled away while I made some parsley oil ( yummy invention!), stuck a bag of Scottish mussels in the microwave, fried up some cooking chorizo slices and finally pan fried my seabass.

The mussels are really quite delicious, especially at Brasserie Blanc, with French fries or crusty bread. I’ve never cooked them at home before, but those were the simple ones and tasted surprisingly well. I have one more bag left, need to do them justice tomorrow.

So, the chorizo went into the tomato sauce, alongside peeled mussels and a touch of their juices. Seabass on top, parsley oil. Crusty bread. Nice, different, but not mind blowing.

Last night we had some pork belly, marinated char siu style, rested, roasted, all as it should be, served with coleslaw and brioche buns. Although the flavours were lovely,  I was pouring mint tea into myself afterwards thinking how heavy and fatty that meal was. And I’m pretty sure it will be a while before I cook it again. So this evening my frozen scallops came out and it couldn’t be more different  to last night. They sat on pea puree, just seasoned and pan fried, topped with chorizo crust and some mash with spring onions on the side. A cold glass of chenin blanc.  Doesn’t get much better than that!

I get the best food ideas when I can’t sleep. That was the case last night, Florian has a nasty cold and snores like crazy.  I knew that Ocado was coming in the morning, bringing a piece of prime salmon loin, the intention  was to wrap it into sushi.  But I thought I could try and bring back a bit of magic of the old days; one of the most awesome plates in Dinings is seabass carpaccio with truffles. I served my salmon quite thickly sliced. Made ponzu ( equal quantities of soy sauce, lemon juice and rice vinegar). Spooned out some of my remaining truffle salsa bought in Lucca. Had no chives, so a little spring onions had to do. A drizzle of truffle oil at the end. I attempted ponzu jelly too,  but added too little gelatine and it didn’t work out. Next time I’ll double it. Might even open the jar with my 2 Lucca truffles, still hidden in the pantry.  It will certainly be done again.

A while ago, while having a glass ( or 2) of wine with Lisa, I munched on some delicious chorizo she quickly panfried and served with bread and cheese.  So when I saw a recipe from GF for a risotto that featured cooking chorizo, I had to try it.  The one I bought at Food Fanatics this afternoon was fairly spicy, but along with  the rice and sweet peas, washed down by French sav blanc and good chicken stock – made us a delicious supper.  Went well with Argentinian Malbec too.  A 4 star bowl of risotto.

In spite of having a good recipe for waffles that always works, I tried a different one yesterday, one with fresh yeast and sparkling mineral water.  Initially I wasn’t blown away, but Florian loved them , said they were lovely and light and that he preferred them to the other ones. There is only 1 tbsp of sugar in this recipe, I did not serve the waffles with whipped cream, as they made our lunch, but I think they will work, when we have them with everything we like. This time it was just berries and maple syrup.

About 180 ml of sparkling water, 210 ml warm milk ( some poured away to prepare the yeast, 6 g, later added back). Some vanilla extract, 2 egg yolks, 1 tbsp of sugar, a sprinkle of salt.  All this made a nice batter, to which I added 270 g of plain flour and 90 of melted butter. While all this sat and proved for about 15 minutes, I whipped the egg whites and added in, then again about 20 minutes resting. And into the waffle maker, as usual. Good waffles, worth the effort.

I had a similar dish for lunch in Italy last month, I thought it was nice, tame, tasty, but I thought I could make it better.  I think I did this evening, what can still improve it would be home grown zucchini, which I intend to cook with next summer.

I grated 2 courgettes, pan fried them with half a red onion, half a tbsp of chili flakes, seasoned with some stock, salt and pepper and a touch of tomato puree.  Made bechamel usual way and layered the dish with the courgettes, topped with grated parmesan and baked for about 25 minutes in 180 degrees. We both liked it a lot, a glass of Romanian pinot noir sealed the deal.

I was thinking about making this while buying truffles in Lucca.  Had great expectations, maybe too great, as we had style over substance for dinner last night. It was tasty, satisfying, but as I packed the sauce with minced porcini mushrooms I found it very difficult to make it look appetizing.  There is never a problem when a duvet of bechamel covers pasta, but here I struggled….

The filling was much like the ravioli last time, a good combination of ricotta, parmesan, minced porcini, truffle paste, cooked, riced potato for texture and seasoning. All wrapped into a fresh pasta made by Florek and baked under the sauce; fried shallot, a couple of chestnut mushrooms, yet more porcini, more truffles, mushroom stock thickened with flour and a splash of cream. Tasty, like I said, but not eye catching! Quite heavy too, I found my liver calling me names at about 10 pm….:-)

Ocado delivers our weekly shopping on Tuesdays, so this evening the fridge is quite empty, but clean in anticipation for the goods arriving tomorrow. What to make for supper was an issue only for a few minutes, as soon as I found some arborio rice in the pantry, I knew there would be risotto. Also, there was some of that Argentinian pinot grigio left in the fridge from Saturday, perfect amount to make the risotto. Simple, as usual. Finely chopped onion fried on olive oil, arborio in and after a minute or so bit by bit- chicken stock and wine and like that till the rice was nicely cooked. I added 4 fried cup mushrooms, a handful or porcini and a good dollop of Crema Tarfuffata, before finishing with grated parmesan- in and out, as well as a few drops of truffle oil. Dieting Florek did have seconds, for the first time in 2 weeks. Thumbs up.