Good Food Live

A couple of Sunday's ago, Jaimie and I went to the Good Food Live show. I had been at Olympia the day before at the Mind, Body & Soul fair in Olympia 2. I had my aura photographed, which I am exceedingly proud of.



After the excitment of the Saturday, Sunday was actually a bit of a let down. Where we expected a room full of loads of people 'celebrating' food, what we found instead was a pretty cynical collection of stalls from more well known food retailers who were incredibly stingy with the tastings. Toffee vodka was being handed out two-a-penny; it was pretty rank though. We were basically in a giant shop that we had paid the bargain price of £14.50 to get into. It seemed that if we weren't prepared to go and spend a tonne of money, there was not much point you being there. There were hardly any cooking demonstrations to speak of, and where there were they were advertising a product. When we fancied a frozen Jose Cuervo margarita (granted it was only 12pm so it was probably for the best) we were told unless we had perchased the special 'Good Food Live' glass and handy holder (ergh!) then we weren't allowed. Bit of a shame really.

Having said that, the best buy of the day came from the Co-Op who had reduced a load of their stuff to a pound. We got a tarte aux citron, some ravioli with gorgonzola and fig and a four seasons pizza all for a pound each. Well happy.

I did by some lovely granola and christmas porridge from the Muddy Cook (http://www.muddycookgourmet.co.uk) which was really nice, though arguably a bit overpriced.

Seeing as the following weekend we were at Broadway Market for nowt and ate much better, I'm not sure I'd go again.

The days have been decided!

My lovely assistant Donna has pulled the fate of 'Come Dine with Me' particpants out of the teapot. Watch, and all will be revealed.

Come Dine With Me - Peckham Edition

Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat, and it's time for a feed. Three intrepid teams from Peckham are about to embark on a culinary adventure. At this special time of year these faithful Peckham residents will reach to the Heavens, and wail "COME DINE WITH ME!"

And for those competing, here are the rules:



See you on after the 12th for a special video edition of Meat & Cheese.

Muffin Pride

Last Sunday Jaimie and I were incredibly bored so decided to make muffins. (this was after we'd made dinner, brocalli & stilton soup for the week, and greek salad for the fridge - the joy of no telly!) We'd been at Asda in the day and had picked up a small packet of raspberries for a knock-down 40 pence. The raspberries meant that we had nearly all the ingredients to make Nigella's Lemon-Raspberry muffins. (without the lemon though)

This is Nigella's recipe:

60g butter
200g plain flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
150g caster sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
juice & finely chopped zest of 1 lemon
approx 120ml milk
1 large egg
150g raspberries
12 bun muffin tray lined with paper cases

Preheat oven to 200c. Melt the butter & set aside to cool. Stir together in a large bowl, the flour, baking powder, bicarb, sugar, salt & zest. In a measuring jug, pour in the lemon juice, then enough milk to come up to the 200ml mark, then beat in the egg & butter. Pour into the dry ingredients & stir briefly, the batter should scarcely be combined. Fold in the raspberries, spoon the mixture into the muffin cases & bake for about 25 minutes. When cooked, the tops should spring back to your touch. Leave in the pan for 5 minutes to cool slightly, then sit them on a rack to cool for a further 10-15 minutes. Makes 12.

We didn't have any bicarbonate of soda, so we subsituted this for more baking powder. Or lemons, so we just went without.

Nigella claims this recipe makes 12, but I think that's a bit ambitious. We managed 8 out of this quantity of batter.

Here they are:



Lovely as these were, we thought that they need that little bit extra, a little lift. So we made Rosewater Butter Icing to crown them. This was really simple - just butter and icing sugar whisked together with 2tbsp of rosewater and 2tbsp of double cream. These were finally adorned with a little raspberry peak.





These little beauties filled me with such pride, I was literally nearly overwhelmed. Jaimie suggested we make some more, I didn't hesitate. Not one bit.

We'd used up all the raspberries, but had some 70% cocao chocolate in the fridge. Jaimie smashed this to pieces and we folded it into the same batter mix.



They came out like this:



I think they may have been a little overdone, but they were still lovely. My pride had been stoked no end.

See:



Happy as larry. I thought I'd treat Noe as I had (kind of) stood her up at the weekend. I think she was pleased, I gave her one of the extra special rosewater iced raspberry muffins.



We're off to the Good Food Live show at Earls Court on Sunday, so I presume there will be much to report on the subject.

Until then.

We ate Wales

Turns out this wasn't the last time I saw Mr Ed. Edward's parents (begrudingly I think) lent us their house in Pembrokeshire for the weekend. We were staying in a tiny village called Mathry. My boss Ben goes to the area on his hols and gave me some really good advice about shopping for food in the nearest town St David's. We found an amazing grocers called Peter's that stocked all sorts of local produce. Loads of varieties of apples:



Huge ugly, knobbled celariac, locally grown potatoes and parsnips, beetroot and shallots; tonnes of lovely stuff. It was all really cheap too. We ferreted around there for ages, and I think Edward nearly fainted with excitment when the girl behind the counter said that we got the canvas 'bag-for-life' free when we bought anything.

'Even these onions? I feel like I'm ripping you off', is in fact what he said. They're very nice though.



The plan was that we would all cook a meal, a veritable feast for eachother back at the house. It had the most amazing kitchen that was fully stocked with REALLY SHARP KNIVES (joy) and brilliant pans. So the menu was as follows:


Edward's French Onion Soup



This was the first time Ed had attempted this dish. It was lovely and he text me the recipe:

(serves 6)

chop eight onions and fry until brown, add two glasses of white wine and reduce by a third. Add two litres of water and beef stock and cook for 25 minutes.

This seems pretty short and sweet. He forgot to say that you also need a baguette which is cut diagonally into slices and placed over the top of the soup. Top this with loads of grated Gruyère cheese and pop under the grill to gratinate.


Laura's Roast Belly of Pork and Shallots with Celariac, Potato & Mustard Gratin dauphinoise



I got my belly of pork from the butchers in St David's and asked him to score the meat for me. I left the meat out to dry out a bit with salt rubbed into it's skin while we went for a walk for a couple of hours. When I got back I popped it into a pre-heated oven at 220 degrees for about 20 minutes, then reduced the heat to about 180 degrees and let it cook for another hour and a half. About 30 mins before the end I whacked in some pealed shallots around the roasting meat. About 3 per person.

A little aside about shallots - I read somewhere (sadly I can't remember where) that the best way to peel shallots is to soak them for 5 min in boiling water. Their skins come away super easy.
The crackling was probably the best I've ever made, and I think I described it as 'pork-air'. Yes.

But anyway, here is the recipe for my Celariac, Potato & Mustard Gratin dauphinoise. It's an adaptation of a Gary Rhodes recipe I found, I've added my own twists.

(serves 6)

25g butter, plus extra for greasing
500g floury potatoes, such as Maris Piper or King Edward
500g celeriac
1 large white onion, thinly sliced
1 garlic clove, crushed
568ml carton double cream
2 tbsp whole grain mustard
150g Chedder cheese
Seasoning

Gently fry the onion in some of the butter. Bring the cream to the boil, and add the crushed garlic, seasoning, 50g of the cheese and the mustard.



Thinly slice the potatos and celariac and layer them in a dish with the softened onions, making sure that the top and bottom layers are potato. Pour over the cream mixture ensuring that the celariac, onions and potatos are totally cover. Cover with the rest of the grated cheese.



Bake in a pre-heated oven at 180 degrees for approximately an hour and a half.

Jaimie's Strawberry and Mascapone Tart



Jaimie hasn't given me the recipe for his tart yet. But as soon as he does, I'm putting it up. He is the master of pastry.

Thanks to Ed's parents for letting us stay. It was brilliant.

Get your Côte, love.

As our good friend Edward was going back to university after spending the summer (essentially squatting) with us, we decided it would be a good idea to rebuff the student image and go out for a nice civilized dinner. Jaimie (m'fella) and I had gone to this place the day before my birthday on a Saturday afternoon; mainly to get out of the rain. But we were suitably impressed, so I suggested Côte as the venue for our soiree.



This branch of Côte is in Soho's Wardour St. I really wanted to talk about this restaurant as I think it is a great place to get something really decent to eat, and appears to have a consistant standard. It's not massively cheap, but neither is it frightenly expensive. It's pitched just about right to make you feel like you're doing something a little bit special without inducing shuddering and silent tears when the bill arrives. They have a pre-fixe menu which is really reasonable and features steak frites. It seems that Côte is the baby of the people who bought us Strada. The interior is nice, and not to 'chain-like' in it's appearance. It's informal, the staff are interested and polite, and the complementary filtered water in oldy-worldy bottles are a nice touch.

Anyway, we all went along to give our little Parky-pants a send off. I had a starter of Bayonne ham with celariac remoulade, followed by a ribeye steak frite with roquefort butter. Was delicious.



Sophie had rillettes and steak with bernaise. She seemed pretty pleased.



So, farewell Edward. We'll miss you. Come back soon.

Suck my duck.

Having never cooked a duck before, I enlisted the help of my mother (Marcie), my boss (Ben) and an expert (Delia). Above is a combined account of what they told me.

I followed these instructions closely. Here is the 'pricked' duck.



And the final result.



I served this canard delight with braised red cabbage and mustard mashed potatoes.

Laura's Braised Red Cabbage

(serves 4)

1 large red cabbage
250ml red wine
100ml red wine vinegar
4 tbsp red currant jelly
1 tbsp brown sugar
salt & pepper

Remove the outer leaves from the red cabbage, cut into four and finely slice. Place the red wine, red wine vinegar, red currant jelly and brown sugar into a saucepan and heat gently until the red current jelly is dissolved. Add the sliced cabbage and a season generously with the salt and pepper. Cover with a lid and cook on a medium heat for 30 minutes, stiring occasionally. After 30 minutes, remove the lid and raise the heat slightly and allow the cooking liquor to reduce. Stir for 15 minutes until the liquid is reduced and the cabbage is tender.

Thank you to E.M.I. Parkinson, Alexandra Walker and Aaron A. Angell for being the guinea pigs in my duck experiment. And sorry to Sophie for eating her bird.

Tonight, we roast.

This evening I am planning on roasting a duck. Said duck was purchased by my Mother Marcie for my sister, Sophie.


Unfortunately, Sophie is working every night. So there was nothing to do but to invite round some friends and eat it in her stead. I've never roasted a duck before so it should be interesting.

I'll be posting the results.

Laura's Working Lunch

I usually spend my days working at the lovely Wieden + Kennedy, an advertising agency situated in East London. Though some people may have an image of advertising types as ‘lovies-what-lunch’ the truth is nothing could be more wrong. I have spent the last few weeks talking about food with Noe, our fabulous creative, and since then we have been cooking and sharing our meals together (along with Miss Gail McClelland, sausage connoisseur).

Here we are:



Yesterday Noe cooked up a storm. Her Thai-inspired Sweet Potato soup was a triumph in rich, silky amber. Thick, warm and delicious topped with a tickling of fresh chopped coriander. Considering the weather has been so horrendous over the last week or two it provided a welcoming, warming treat to combat the sheeting rain.

Here we are finishing it off:



And the remnants are here:



Noe has been kind enough to regale me with the recipe. So here it is for you delectation. (though she insists its all about your taste and what you’ve got to hand. She had two limes for instance)

Noe’s Sweet Potato Soup

4 large (or 5/6 small) Sweet potatoes
Peanut Oil
1 tin of Coconut milk
2 cloves of garlic
1 deseeded fresh chili
2 Red onions diced
2 limes, juice and zest
Chicken stock (Noe made her own with chicken carcass, a generous amount of ginger, fennel tops, leek and lemon thyme covered with water and left to simmer for approx. 3hours)
Fresh coriander


Fry the onions and garlic in the peanut oil until soft. Add the sweet potato which has been cut into chunks and continue to sweat over the heat. When the potato has softened cover the lot with chicken stock. Leave to simmer for 20 minutes until the sweet potato is cooked through.
Leave to cool. When it mixture has cooled slightly add the coconut milk, lime juice zest, and fresh chili. Blend the whole mixture together.
To serve cover with fresh chopped corriander.

Marvelous.

Nothing would be more tiresome than eating and drinking if God had not made them a pleasure as well as a necessity.

So said Voltaire. The pleasure of eating, in fact everything that surrounds food is something of a wonder for Laura.