Good Food

Beef tataki.

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A couple of days ago I had a chance to taste a deconstructed wagyu tataki at work. Deconstructed by Alex, who took the shallot and chives topping and made it into his own tomato and parsley salsa, plus some balsamic, which gave the dish another depth. I got some ponzu last night and made my own version this evening, not with wagyu, but with fillet. My salsa lacked parsley, but was replaced by shiso leaf instead, my new favourite flavour at work ( the spicy salmon roll is now served with kizami wasabi and shiso on the outside, I can’t get enough!). Alongside the tomatoes and shallots  I also added a bit of garlic and seasoned it with shichimi pepper.

My fillet was cooked rare, as usual for this kind of stuff, rested and then thinly sliced. Topped with the salsa and finished off with ponzu. Loving the flavours.

Good Food, Room for improvement

Chicken satay debut.

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Somebody made it on Masterchef recently and I immediately thought- I’m making it on Sunday. I asked around at work, as usual, before making something I haven’t made before. Cathal said he didn’t know, as ” he’s not fucking Dutch”, the Chief said he didn’t know, but would google it, Alex said peanut butter, coconut milk, chilli. Ah, Nick mentioned chicken stock and reducing it by half before adding peanut butter.

So I combined all those ideas and reduced the chicken stock, then added lots of peanut butter, some coconut cream, fresh chopped chilli, some brown sugar and kept on tasting and adding until I was happy with it. More chilli next time, I’m too shy with chillies most of the time.

Florek bought some nice boneless chicken thighs, which I put on skewers, together with some red pepper, onion and cup mushrooms. And grilled it. Served with curries rice and peas. Pleased! 🙂

Beverage

Espresso martini with my own, loving touch.

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I sat by my desk this afternoon, replying to emails and shopping online ( damn La Redoute!!!!) and felt like a nice cocktail. The clocks went back last night, so it got dark earlier, I wanted something strong, sweet and energising. We popped out to Waitrose to stock up on the spirits, got the Kalhua – (17 bloody pounds a bottle!!) and I produced espresso martinis.

Four measures of strong espresso coffee, 3 measures of vodka and Kalhua and 2 scoops of good vanilla ice cream, all shaken over ice and finished up with grated chocolate.  When I tasted it, it didn’t seem that strong, but beware- it gets to the head quickly.

 

 

 

Good Food

Truffle chips and extras.

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This meal was not perhaps hugely sophisticated or technically challenging, but we loved the flavours on the plate. Our favourite fillet steak, medium rare, with bearnaise sauce ( from the jar, yes).  The steak was accompanied by minted peas, not very fine, as I like the rough texture. The star of the show though- the chips. I was aiming at similar effect as Jamie Oliver’s Posh Chips, simply a generous few drops of truffle oil on the chips, once they’re roasted and then a sprinkle of parmesan. Loved it. With a glass of cold budweiser.

Dessert, Room for improvement

Spiced toffee apple cake.

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From the recent edition of Good Food Mag.

I tried it, I like it, will make it again tomorrow and take it to work, but with more ginger and more spices and maybe with some pecan nuts too, I think it would make it even more awesome.

200 g of dates were roughly chopped for this recipe and simmered with 200ml of milk, then pureed nicely and added to the  mixture of 250 g of soft butter, 4 eggs, 280 g of self raising flour, 200 g of brown sugar, 2 tsp pf vanilla paste, and a touch of baking powder to lift it up. All this was beaten up and poured out onto a baking tray lined with baking parchment. In the meantime I cored 3 apples, red apples, all for the looks, did not peel them, but sliced thinly and arranged in the cake mixture into rows.

Baked in 180 degrees for about 45 minutes, then finished off with maple syrup and icing sugar.  Pat on the back. 🙂

Dessert

Apple and almond pie.

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Hugh’s, from the latest Waitrose magazine, that is normally full of poncey crap, but this time I found a few useful things in there.

4 nice apples, cored and chopped and peeled, slowly cooked in a melted butter and sugar mixture, with some cinnamon, left to cool a bit.

For the pie itself I creamed 150 g of butter with 125 g of sugar, 2 whole eggs, and then 75 g and same amount of ground almonds. This mixture I put into a tin layered with baking parchment and the apples went on top, with all their juices. It stayed in the oven for nearly an hour, in 170 degrees. Finished off with icing sugar, like Sniezka on Jana’s photos.

Good Food

Pork schnitzels with bacon and leeks mash.

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Wednesday night dinner. Something nice to have while watching “Horrible Bosses” – awesome!!!- and to divert our attention from the broken boiler.  I bought a small pork fillet, cut into rings, flattened a bit and seasoned well, then covered in egg and breadcrumbs and pan fried with some chopped onions.  Served with the same lovely bacon and leeks mash, like last Sunday and green beans.  Nice and simple.

Good Food

A lovely mid week dinner.

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I’ve  had a boeuf bourguignon in here already, so I won’t be going into details, it was made in my nice new casserole dish – needed a new one, as I’m very good at smashing them, but what was lovely, was the mash. I threw the boiled, mashed spuds into the pan of fried bacon and leeks, added some butter  for extra healthiness, plus some seasoning. Loved it. Deep, deep flavours.

Dessert

Caramelised pear fool.

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Inspired by a current series of Masterchef. I was just sitting and watching some telly boy making a rhubarb fool with biscuits, while my boeuf bourguignon was nearly done in the oven, my potatoes were nearly soft,   I was thinking – I need a dessert, it’s been a lovely, warm, sunny day off, we’ve had lunch at the river in Kingston, I need a nice finishing touch.

So I made some  nice, quick caramel, threw some chopped pears in, left them in for about 7 minutes and cooled them. I whipped the cream with icing sugar and vanilla paste, as usual, with a touch of lemon juice.  And layered  it all nicely, topped with toasted flaked almonds and some grated chocolate. Nice, very sweet, but nice.

Dessert

Berry Slump, determination paid off.

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I did make more Chinese tonight, nice beef stir fry, on the photo it looks too similar to the one I made last night, so will give it a miss, when it comes to blogging. I also baked a pear cake for dessert, simple recipe from Good Food, but the damn thing didn’t bake properly. It went to the bin, I got pissed off, thought for a minute and went back to the kitchen with a selection of vocabulary that helped me express the fact, that I wanted a dessert!! There were frozen berries, there was Ambrosia and all the other necessary ingredients, so a Berry Slump was made,  like in the original recipe, not with nectarines, with berries. Softened quickly in the pan with a splash of water and baked off under the mix of butter, self raising flour, sugar( all in the amount of 50 g), 2 eggs and vanilla paste, just as in the recipe months ago, lots of flaked almonds on top, 40 minutes in the medium hot oven. I ended up with a yummy sponge on a sour berries, with a lovely crunchy almonds on top. Simple, but lovely.

On the joys of cooking and eating