Eggless tiramisu with a twist.

The idea is Jamie Oliver’s. Nice and quick and eggless. And with no coffee. So perhaps the only common thing with tiramisu is mascarpone, that I mixed with some milk, a tea spoon of vanilla paste ( what an awesome invention!) and some icing sugar. It went onto the biscuits soaked in… orange juice. Jamie recommends orange juice as well as some limoncello, that I happen to dislike, it reminds me of washing up liquid.

On top the cheese I put some raspberries and lots of chocolate flakes to disguise the taste of January raspberries. And some icing sugar on top.

The first dessert ever to be served in the dishes I got from my Mum for Christmas.

Baked caramelised bananas.

Last weekend on a random visit to Tk Maxx with Moka I bought 2 iron dishes, heavy, nice ones, wasn’t quite sure what for, but I bought them. This evening I though I’d have a great use for them, I could make the dessert that used to make us drool over the table in Zizzi’s in Canary Wharf, where we used to spend our breaks ( and money).

It took me 5 minutes to place sliced bananas in the dishes, pour over them a mixture of honey, lemon juice, cinnamon and brown sugar, dot them with butter and bake off for about 12 minutes. Next time though I will take my time and make proper caramel for them. Those in Zizzi used to be served with delicious pistachio ice cream, I didn’t have pistachio, I had coffee ice cream. I served it hot, with slightly melting ice cream on top.

Yum.

Berry brulee tartlet

I had a few friends over for dinner on Monday night and got an unexpected present from Nikosia, ” The Art of Pastry” cookbook. Really nice present, I hope it will genuinely get me off my arse and make my own pastry more often. I did tonight.

From 125g flour,20g ground almonds, 15g icing sugar, 75g buter, an egg yolk and a bit of cold water I made a pastry and blind baked it for about 15 minutes, trimmed when it cooled and patted myself on the back. 🙂

THE CUSTARD WORKED AS WELL!!!!! 2 egg yolks,150 ml fat milk,25g of icing sugar and some vanilla paste, as well as a tea spoon of…potato flour ( didn’t have any cornstarch as the recipe required). I’ve beaten the eggs with sugar, vanilla and flour and then poured very warm milk while still beating it, then transferred back into the pan and heated up slowly until it thickened. Patted myself on the back again, jumped twice and left it to cool.

I filled my tartlets with some berries, which I first defrosted and heated up with some honey, topped it up with custard and chilled for 3 hours. The book recommends caramelising the icing sugar on top right before serving, but icing sugar doesn’t really do the magic like caster sugar…! Not to worry, 2 more tartlets in the fridge.

My first ever panna cotta from scratch- DONE.

As much as I’m still pissed off with Ramsay, had to put it in the title, cause I used his recipe. Simple recipe from Good Food, none of the ” reduced fat yoghurt” nonsense, just 300ml of double cream, 75 ml whole milk, 100g of sugar- a bit less I think, Florek reckons it’s just as sweet as it should be and- gelatine. If leaves, about 1,5 leaf, if sachettes, I dissolved one and used half of it. Consistency was perfect.

Gelatine dissolves first, left to await its turn, cream, milk, sugar with a good spoon of vanilla paste slowly brought to simmer. When cooled a little, I added gelatine and poured it all into my cool, new silicone thingies that are meant for baking muffins, but I want them for panna cotta.

It took them about 3 hours to set in the fridge.

The compote- Oluta happened to have  a bag of frozen raspberries in the fridge, so she chucked it in the pan with a bit of water and honey and simmered for 10 minutes. That simple. That beautiful.

Venison

Ken took us out last night, we went to the place we’ve been to before and I remembered it from its awesome creme brulee. Pub grub, said Alice, but I thought it was much more than that. Tonight I tried venison for the first time ever. LOVED IT! It was a grilled steak, served with roasted parsnips and carrots, some dauphinoise spuds and jus, very rich, but not overpowering. Gamey, tasty, tons of flavour. Lost my venison virginity.

I am definitely a fan.

Kluski z mięskiem

One of my most favourite dishes of all times. I make them at home sometimes, but at Mum’s they taste like heaven.

The stuffing is made of beef, chicken or turkey’s meat, boiled for hours, preferably when broth was made the day before.  The meat is finely minced together with any veg or mushrooms from the broth, and seasoned.

The dough is made the same way as for kluski śląskie, the only difference is the flour, plain flour this time.  To remind; boiled potatoes squeezed through the ricer, one egg and the amount of plain flour equal to the quarter of the amount of potatoes. Worked quickly, it doesn’t like to wait around.

Unhealthy as it is, it’s served with fried słoninka. Yum!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Beef tartar

A dish that celebrates  great beef. The one on the picture is done by my Mum, all the credit goes to her. Her choice of meat would be fillet, best one can obtain. It’s finely minced, seasoned with salt and pepper, some paprika and olive oil and worked by hand for a few minutes to make the meat smooth and shiny.

Mum then forms the meat in portions, to make it look good, makes a small hole in each and puts a raw egg yolk in the middle, for everyone to mix in by themselves. The egg has to be fresh and lovely as well, as it will not be cooked. Last thing to do is chop some white onions finely, some mushrooms marinated in vinegar and some pickled cucumber, prepared same way.

It’s good to put some salt and pepper on the table, as well some Delikat or other liquid sauce to improve the taste if somebody prefers it more salty.

Some cold vodka goes great with it.

Zapiekanka

This is so unsophisticated, that it’s not even funny. Zapiekanki can be made out of many things, it’s a good way of using left over veg and stuff from the fridge. In my experience it tastes best in Poland, at Mum and Dad’s allotment, baked over the fire in an old pan.

For me the perfect zapiekanka must have 2 key ingredients; potatoes and bacon. Tonight I used potatoes, one sweet potato, some carrots, a parsnip, boiled it all and left to cool. I pan fried some pancetta cubes along with some cup mushrooms and a large red onion, as well as one sad looking pak choi ( and it does not have much to do with the fact that we’re going on holidays in 2 days and need to empty the fridge).

Cooled veggies get chopped and layered in the baking dish with the fried stuff, some grated cheese, spring onions, some dried herbs and seasoning. A drizzle of olive oil and into the oven for about 30 minutes, just to give it all a crunch and melt the cheese nicely.

Warning- it’s very filling. Lovely, simple winter supper.

Ps. It’s snowing again, BIG, good luck to Heathrow…..

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.

On the joys of cooking and eating