Last night in Aussie Masterchef someone made Thai beef salad. I thought about how appealing it sounded, looked it up and discovered I actually had everything I needed to make it, including a frozen piece of fillet. And lots of fresh herbs and even beansprouts! Simply had to make it. Best part of this dish for me was the sensational dressing, that I kept on licking while preparing dinner. I started with a juice of half a lime, a piece of fresh ginger, grated, a big clove of garlic, grated, 1 tbsp of brown sugar ( palm sugar in the recipe, don’t think I’ve ever seen it in my life), 1 tbsp of fish sauce, 2 tbsps of sesame oil, 1 tsp of soy sauce. Combined, let the sugar dissolve, then added a bit more lime juice, a bit more soy and fish sauce and a bit more sesame oil. And that did it for me.

Fillet was gently marinated in some fish sauce, soy, black pepper and sesame again, then quickly pan fried, rare, rested and then thinly sliced.

The salad itself was a lovely, crunchy, vibrant combination of beansprouts, cherry tomatoes, cucumber( seedless), shallot, a red chili, toasted peanuts and a good, generous amount of fresh coriander and mint. All this nicely tossed together, served with simple steamed rice. Glass of decent Burgundy. Yyyyyyuuuuuummmmm!!!!!

Finally. Finally I have the recipe I wanted for a while. Some time ago at Steve’s we had chicken skewers with satay sauce that blew me away, but it took forever to get the recipe out of him ( swapped for the blackcurrant cake recipe!). This was the second attempt. The first one, which I followed to the dot, with whole peanuts produced more of a satay paste than a sauce. It tasted good, but it wasn’t what I wanted. Having consulted Steve again and also youtube, I ditched the whole peanuts and went with smooth peanut butter. And I got what I wanted.

I started with the marinade for my chopped, skinless and boneless chicken thighs. Toasted and crushed coriander seeds, about 1 tbsp. 2 garlic cloves, 1/2 tsp of turmeric, which gave the chicken a lovely yellow colour, 2 tsps of sugar, 1/2 tsp of salt, 2 tbsps of soy sauce, 1 tbsp of sesame oil, juice of 1/2 a lime. There were also fennel seeds and some lemongrass which I left off due to not having any. 🙂

Chicken sat in this lovely marinade for most of the afternoon. The satay was a creative process of adding and tasting, thinking about it and trying to make it the way I liked. It took 2 small, chopped shallots, 1 clove of garlic, mashed, 1 green chili, chopped, but ended up adding more chili flakes later, as the heat was a bit too shy for my liking. 1 tsp of fish sauce, 2 tbsps of tamarind sauce, 100 ml of coconut milk- ended up adding more, twice, as the sauce was splitting slightly. 1 tsp of honey. Peanut butter, 3-4 tbsps, plus a little of the crunchy one for the texture.

Now, Steve’s chicken was far superior, as it was barbequed, so mine, from the oven really could not compete. But it was tasty, juicy and when dipped in that satay, delicious. Fresh coriander completed the picture. Once the lockdown is over and Mariusz comes over, I will be making more, I think it will wow him too.

Strange Easter it is. Just the three of us, no guests, stuck at home in spite of great weather- no eating out, no trips to the beach. All this courtesy of Covid 19, which put life on hold for everyone and we don’t know how much longer this state of things will go on for.

I’ve been spending a lot more on food for the last 3 weeks, we have a well supplied fridge and pantry; when I was still hoping that Mariusz would be here for Easter I decided to make this cold cheesecake that we loved when we lived together at home. Mum gave me the recipe, which I tweaked my way much to her disapproval again- last time I baked her “nut” cookies and dared to roast my walnuts before adding them, she nearly disowned me. 🙂 This time I decided to replace walnuts with hazelnuts, far superior flavour as far as I’m concerned. Mum raised her eyebrows, I still went with hazelnuts and had 2 slices of the cheesecake today. Not done with it yet!!!

Thing about this cheesecake is- one makes the cheese. 1 litre of milk, about 200 ml of soured cream well mixed with 2 whole eggs, vanilla sugar, caster sugar and vanilla essence all go into the pan and slowly get boiled till the curd kind of cheese begins to resurface. This takes about 30 minutes, then it needs to be drained off well, again, no rush there.

In the meantime a small sponge with 2 eggs gets baked, good idea to drizzle it with some booze ( I used Grand Marnier).

About 70-80 g of soft butter gets creamed with icing sugar, 4-5 tbsps, maybe more, must be tasted. This brand new curd cheese gets added spoon by spoon. Touch more vanilla. Nuts of one’s choice, quite a lot, very finely chopped, mine were already chopped and toasted. Raisins. Cranberries. Candied orange peel. Dried apricots, if there are any in the pantry. All this well combined, sweetened to taste, whacked onto the sponge, smoothed over. Canned peaches arranged on top, a jelly of one’s choice, to the fridge over night. Job done.

Easter Sunday, nearly 18 years I’ve lived in this country and today, for the first time ever I’ve made Yorkshire puddings. WTF??!! Yes. I had some beef fillet, I had roast potatoes, roasted carrots, French beans, I had bearnaise, I had Malbec. Iz has mentioned yorkies on school menu a few times, then we had some frozen ones from Waitrose, today was the day to stop being silly. I used James Martin’s recipe, loved watching them raising in the oven, scored them 8 out of 10. Florek and Iz loved them, for me they could have been thinner and crispier, which will be seen to next time. So for 6 yorkies I used 2 small eggs, well whipped with 150 ml of milk, to this 100 g of plain flour and a pinch of salt. The batter rested in the fridge for over an hour. Then the yorkie dish Lisa gave me forever ago got preheated with the oil and filled a bit more than half way up. Baked in 200 degrees for about 25 minutes.

I’m hoping to get myself a deep fat fryer next month, so when life is back to normal, Waitrose fish counter reopens and I can get mussels again, we’ll have a feast. With French bread, French fries, mussels and pinot gris. This is the plan. Fingers crossed.

Looking at this photo I’m thinking “what a pretty little bowl!!”. Yes, I bought it in CoinCasa in Lucca, last summer. With the current coronavirus madness going on it’s looking unlikely we’ll go to Italy this year. Everyone’s staying home, schools are about to close, restaurants are doing it one by one. I had some grand plans for Florek’s 40th birthday, officially scraped them today. Or postponed them rather, no idea for how long.

Last Sunday together with Ewa we went to Lacock, a small place in Wiltshire, didn’t get to see much of it, as they weather sucked, but we had lunch in The Bell Inn. I’ve never had a better tartare sauce than there, with fish and chips. Creamy, light, not too sour, it was delicious. And yet I’ve never tried to make one! Never even made mayonnaise ffs! Today I dealt with this situation. My cute little kitchen aid mini food processor did most of the work, but it paved a nice, creamy way forward. I used a recipe I found online, from The Guardian if I’m not mistaken. As I tasted it and tasted it some more I ended up not quite following the recipe. My end product, alongside fish and chips this evening was a decent, 8 out of 10 sauce. It tasted better with the fish than on its own, unlike the one in Lacock, that I kept on licking long after I finished my fish.

So I started with 2 egg yolks( Charlie brought 27 eggs last night, seems his chickens have been panic laying!), 1 tbsp of dijon mustard ( ended up adding 1 more), a generous pinch of salt and then whizzed it till well combined, before I started slowly adding a mixture of olive oil and sunflower oil. In the future the olive oil will not be used for tartare, I don’t think I want to taste it. And I could this evening. So the recipe said 125 ml of each, I added maybe 180, before I decided it was thick enough. To loosen it I used some pickling water from the cornichons, 3 of which were finely chopped and added in, some capers, not too much, as I don’t really love them, some parsley and some chives. This recipe did not use any vinegar, I found it necessary and added about 2 screw tops of white wine vinegar, also a bit of sugar.

And that was that. It was enjoyed, even Iz tried some, intrigued by our comparing notes. To be continued! 🙂

Last night I came to the conclusion that I am hereby ready to cook it at home. I’ve had it eaten out lots and lots of times, managed to get Izzie to get to like it, now I thought, time to make it. Rick Stein was consulted, youtube was consulted, Waitrose was visited this morning- and will be visited again on a Friday as all fish is 20% off!

So the aim was to make a pot of moules the way I love them- with rich, creamy, herby and garlicky sauce to die for. My lovely enthusiastic child was helping me clean them before cooking, she was waiting impatiently for the lid to be lifted “have they opened yet mama?? have they??” and then my heart was just overflowed with love, when she was fishing up all the last orange bits in the sauce towards the end of the meal.

I took the advice of the French guy on youtube and started the whole process with a knob of butter. Then chopped shallots and 2 garlic cloves in. Bouquet garni in. After a few minutes a generous glass of Catena chardonnay in. Seasoned with salt and pepper. 3-4 minutes for the wine to lose the alcohol a bit. Moules in, lid on, 6 minutes. A good splash of double cream, lots of parsley, just the way I love it. Done. Waitrose baguette on the side, the remaining chardonnay in the glasses. Florek got salad Nicoise with some of fantastic tuna I got for him.

I absolutely loved my sauce. It delivered in every way, bay leaves stood out and the thyme, just perfect. It will be done again. Soon. 🙂

It didn’t take me very long to have a go at making these. I had the rice paper ordered from Amazon the next day we came back from Steve’s, Sainsbury’s delivered on Tuesday morning and brought all the other stuff I needed. The pork shoulder pieces were seasoned with jerk and sesame oil and left to marinade till next day. And last night I made the rolls.

What Steve gave us was very fresh, clean flavours, healthy tasting almost, mine were a bit more…mine. First of all I wanted the pork to have a bit more punch, so in spite of 24 hours in the marinade I still seasoned them with shichimi and only then I was satisfied. Also, the mint in my garden turned out to be very disappointing after the winter, so I used only coriander, but lots of it. My wraps were filled with pork, shrimps, bean sprouts, green lettuce, some julienne carrots and courgette and coriander. We both had about 6 each, which made us a nice, light supper. I’m now thinking I’d try filling them with some shredded duck leg meat. Mmmmm. Watch this space! 🙂

Steve and Christina invited us back to their lovely place in Surrey and treated us to a great evening, once again. We’ve eaten very well indeed, I’ve picked up a few things that I will be trying next week and already placed the order with Amazon for some spring roll wraps.

The wraps were Steve’s first course and they were my favourite thing last night. They were filled with some lovely fresh prawns, some thinly sliced, marinated pork, which was quickly pan fried on a dry pan- Steve reckoned all the fat he needed was in the pork and managed to make them taste almost charred, best pork in a long time. There were beansprouts in there, also pan fried on a dry pan, some crunchy greens and herbs- coriander, basil and mint. The wraps, soft, fresh and exciting, all served with sweet chili sauce, I can’t stop thinking about them!!

Then we had a green, vibrant, healthy kale salad from Christina, crunchy, delicious, loaded with fresh prawns, nutty dressing, delicious, but a bit too much, as the main event, Pad Thai that I was so looking forward- I could hardly fit in.

Very exciting main course, again- fresh, slightly sweet, but also spicy, if I ever had a better Pad Thai, I don’t remember.

There was an ocean of wine, a plate of cheeses, but also a wild card- some pork belly, that landed on the table at 11pm and we only managed a piece each.

Phenomenal evening, now I’m going to see if I can reproduce those wraps, or maybe make them more my own?

Florek has been a fan, since he discovered it in Cote last year. Last night I was making 3 different courses for 3 of us, but as it was Sunday, storm Ciara was going mental outside, I had time and I felt like being in the kitchen. So having defrosted 2 lovely tuna fillets I looked up the salad, trying to do it justice, which was fairly tricky, as I myself am not a big fan of it. Gordon Ramsay’s recipe appealed to me for a few reasons, I went with it and Florek announced the dish was excellent, all but the cooking of tuna on my crappy griddle pan let it down a bit.

Started with the dressing; pestle and mortar was used to mash a couple of fresh olives, 2 anchovy fillets, a garlic clove and olive oil together into a paste, then lemon juice and a splash of balsamic vinegar. This was a surprisingly nice outcome. I cooked a few potatoes and French beans, cooled them, same with 2 fresh eggs. Gordon’s suggestion that I particularly liked was browning off the spuds before serving and same with cherry tomatoes- just a few minutes on until they blistered. I skipped the capers, dressed the green salad, arranged the hard boiled eggs and spuds on the plate and finally the tuna. Florek’s enthusiastic and asking for more. 🙂

Having watched all the Aussie Masterchef I felt we needed to make some fresh pasta again, as we don’t use our pasta machine often enough. I started shortly after breakfast yesterday, by roasting off some chopped butternut squash, carrot, a piece of sweet potato, red onion, a couple of cloves of garlic. Seasoned, drizzled with olive oil, it burnt black, while I was busy giving Tesla a clean. 🙂

Chucked the first batch and roasted off the second one. Once roasted and cooled, I blitzed the veggies with some toasted pine nuts and parmesan, it needed just a touch of seasoning and that was that.

Florek made fresh pasta with the help of very eager Izzie, I stuffed it and made into tortellini. Once cooked for a couple of minutes, the pasta went straight into the simple tomato and basil sauce waiting on the stove. We enjoyed it with some garlic baguette and wine. You can’t beat home made pasta! 🙂

I binge watch the first edition of Australian Masterchef on Amazon Prime. Much fresher edition than the one on the BBC, nicer format, funnier, more interesting. No Gregg Wallace. Yesterday the contestants watched a masterclass on how to make a fabulous mashed potatoes. I had time, I had potatoes, I had dinner to make for my family, I thought- alwite, let’s see if it’s worth the effort. First of all, the potatoes were baked in the oven, not boiled, the way I do it. Once baked,still hot, they were mashed through a drum sieve, which is not a gadget I own at the moment, I do have a nice ricer though, which makes a great job too. Which doesn’t mean I won’t ever get myself a sieve like that. 🙂 Also, new to me, but very effective is the use of balloon whisk. So the baked spuds once squeezed through the ricer go into a sauce pan, some hot milk on the side added bit by bit, alongside salted butter. Lots of salted butter. And whisked!!! Hard work that, but boy, once well seasoned that mash was top dollar. For me, a good mash is the sort that makes me stand by the stove and munch on it, while everything else can wait. And I just have one more taste. And one more. And then just a lick.

I had some meatballs from Ikea, which I baked on a bed of mixed roasted veggies. Plus Aussie mash. The child raised both her thumbs up. 🙂