I’ve been craving some of those lovely dumplings for quite a while, on Dinings menu there is veggie gyoza, with some greens and tofu ( is tofu another word for shit? ), but I wanted mine really good, shrimpy, maybe chickeny . My former Chief came up with a nice quick recipe, with stuffing of blitzed raw shrimps and same amount of minced pork, some lightly cooked and chopped cabbage, all this seasoned to taste plus some garlic and soy sauce, put into gyoza skins and stuck together like pierogi. Then pan fried with a touch of sesame oil and towards the end a good splash of water, lid on and about 3 mins to make sure that pork inside is cooked. Served with sweet chilli soy. Thoroughly enjoyable.

Since the last post a few things happened, most importantly my adventure with Dinings came to an end. I will be popping in there again to collect papers, tips and what not, grab a take out and I think take one more final cake for the guys, I feel I owe them for a nice send off.

I had no time to take this fact in, as right on Sunday afternoon Moka and Ivan came to visit, they left a few hours ago, I’ve done all the cleaning and laundry and can now post my soup. Florek and I are both experiencing a nasty flu, mine milder than his, lost of disgusting coughing going on, a basket with drugs next to the bed and so on. I thought a nice hot soup would be in order for my man, so I roasted off some tomatoes, red peppers, shallots and garlic, seasoned and topped with dried oregano, when roasted I threw it onto some chicken stock with half a chopped sweet potato for the texture and after about 20 minutes I blitzed it all into a nice soup. Must be said, that I used my new Bosch hand blender. I was treated by my Dinings colleagues to a 120 pound Divertimenti voucher, which I have spent on 2 decent knives, the said blender, a ceramic pizza baking plate and a microplane grater, recommended by Cathal. Topped my soup  with parsley and parmesan, served in a cup, as per request. It was lovely.

I am proud!! I spent a nice hour in the kitchen with Ludovico Einaudi’s music and my lemon sole, that I bought only because it was on offer, I wasn’t sure what I’d do with it at the time. I looked into GF website for some ideas, the sides are mine though. Skinning the sole was a bit tricky, but I reckon I’d done a decent job, seen it done a few times, so I managed. I made the crust by whizzing the breadcrumbs, parsley, chives and seasoning together, I covered my fillets with flour, egg and then the crust, quickly panfried them and served with sauteed potatoes and grilled courgettes, which I seasoned with a drop of soy sauce and sesame oil. Served with some lemon mayo and excellent Pinot Gris, which is still being enjoyed.

This evening we finally opened the bottle of Margaux, that was waiting for a while. We were planning to do it before Christmas, having received a particularly meaningful letter from Cheltenham, but there was no time before we went on holidays. Today I’m turning 26 again, so some good vino must have been drunk with the scallops. Last night I got some truffle soy dressing from The Chief, I was hoping to recreate Goemon’s scallops, but if one’s a amateur, one can only dream of cooking like Goemon.

Nevertheless, I panfried my scallops and topped them with crispy pancetta, sat them in the truffle dressing and served some asparagus as a side.

Florek liked the sauce so much, that he did what is normally impossible in Dinings….

🙂

My favourite  winter soup. It’s never just carrot and coriander, today I threw in a couple of sweet potatoes, some butternut squash and a chopped red onion, all sweated nicely before drowned in chicken stock and cooked till soft and easy to blitz. When creamy, thick and lovely, I season it well with ground coriander, salt and pepper and right before serving, a good amount of fresh, chopped coriander and a few parmesan shavings. A lovely, warm, crunchy bread- a must. Yum.

10 out of  10, slash triumph! 🙂

I’m really pleased with it. The recipe from the recent GF with lots of my personal touches. First, the chicken bollocks. I pulsed some chicken thigh meat in my tiny blender inherited from Colin, grated a carrot and chopped a large shallot. Seasoned it well, salt, pepper, soy sauce, good splash of sesame oil and baked in the hot oven for about 20 minutes on the baking parchment. Then I made teriyaki. I. MADE. TERIYAKI. From scratch. By myself. And it’s absolutely fucking lovely!!!!!

What GF was suggesting did not convince me, so I googled it and used my common sense plus what I know from Ubon and Dinings, what it should look like, what it should taste like. I threw 5 tbsp of brown sugar onto the pan, 1/2 tsp of ground ginger, 1/4 cup of soy sauce, 1/2 cup of water, 2 tbsp of honey and warmed it up slowly, it had the wrong, muddy colour and was not thickening. I added a generous tbsp of corn flour mixed with 1/2 cup of water and after a good 10 minutes of  patient stirring I had a triumph. It was so good, that I poured myself a glass of martini to toast it, while chatting online with Agata.

I served with basmati rice, seasoned well and with lots of fresh coriander and some steamed pak choi, which I nearly forgot about….

Yeah. I’m a talent.:-)

This evening Oluta made quiche. Nothing amazing about it, apart from the fact that there was no shortcrust pastry at Waitrose. I wasn’t bothered, I did a quick research and opted out for Fucking Gordon’s recipe. And it was fantastic. 200 g of plain flour, 100 g of butter, 100ml of water is all it takes. I blitzed flour with cold butter until the texture was breadcrumbs-like, then added the water and worked it into a lovely pastry within a couple of minutes. It was then left in the fridge to rest. Afterwards, the usual story, blind baked, then filled with some red onion chutney on the bottom, fried pancetta with leeks and some peas, topped with a runny mixture of double cream, 2 eggs, grated cheese, nicely seasoned featuring nutmeg in large amount. And baked for about 25 minutes. It was a brilliant quiche, served with a green salad.

Next time I’ll buy shortcrust pastry, I’ll give myself a smack right afterwards.

First thought this morning when I woke up- Sunday at work, tick. Done. I convinced Florian to stay at home this morning as well and decided to make the one recipe from the most recent GF magazine, that really caught my attention. I did. The state of the kitchen says it all.

For banana pancakes I used 140 g of self raising flour, a tsp of baking powder, 3 tbsps of brown sugar, 120m l of milk, 25 g of melted butter, 2 eggs and a large mashed banana. The recipe recommends frying them on butter, I did  it with first 3, then switched to olive oil, as butter burns quickly. I grilled some bacon in the meantime, the nice, thin, American style bacon, that I can only get in Sainsbury’s, made us coffee and was ready to serve. With some maple syrup for a glossy finish.

I was hoping to make it look as good as some of the Masterchef stuff, it didn’t go THAT well, but it was a lovely, tasty dinner. I’d really like all the mess in the kitchen to clean itself now, but somehow doubt it will happen.

First, I roasted off some lovely winter veggies in the oven, I used a parsnip, some butternut squash, a beetroot and a few shallots, which I finished off with some truffle oil. It made a lovely side dish. Boneless chicken thighs I flattened and stuffed with chopped, cooked porcini mushrooms, rolled, seasoned and placed in the pot with my lovely sauce in the making. The sauce I made by frying some chopped shallots, adding mushroom stock and chicken stock cube. When the chicken cooked through, I finished the sauce by thickening it with some flour and cream, seasoned well and topped with fresh thyme. Served with creamy mustard mash.

Random thing I made this evening, I came across the recipe somewhere, but had to Olutafy it a bit, as the original called for bacon, raclette cheese and so on. I thought, no bacon is better for this dish than pancetta, instead of onion, leeks will do a much better job flavour wise, and as for the cheese, I think raclette belongs with raclette, I used Gruyere.

I peeled and chopped the spuds into small chunks, quick boiled them for about 5 minutes, then mixed with fried pancetta lardons and fried leeks, some double cream, a splash of Chablis, grated Gruyere and seasoned all to taste nicely. I baked it for about 30 mins under the foil, then removed it to crisp the top up a touch. Worked a treat. It wouldn’t be amazing on its own, so I made a nice green bean salad to go with it, but it would make  an evil side dish, I think. To a roast, for instance.